"Do you like it gooey or hard?" I ask Allie.

She says gooey, so I put her cheese sandwich next to mine in the toaster oven.

Andy is watering plants. He asks me to leave him some bread.

Allie asks him what he's doing today.

"Oh, I don't know," Andy says, "I guess I'll go to the office."

I look at Allie, and she raises her eyebrows.

I say, "Andy, do you want to come with us to the beach?"

"Yeah," he says. "if you two don't mind."

I make Andy a sandwich. Hard.

By the time we get down to the beach, the gooey cheese is hard. Allie and I give our sandwiches to Andy, and we go to the Popsicle stand.

Allie orders a Push-Up and I get a Rocket.

I tell Allie I hate women who can't go anywhere without their boyfriends, but today doesn't count because she asked Andy what he was doing.

Allie says, "I think of him as an extension of you -- when he's with us, he doesn't say enough interesting things to count as a third person."

"Oh," I say, and I don't know if this is good or bad, and I don't have time to mull it over because the red is dripping onto the white and the blue is dripping onto my hand, and Andy is waiting for us back at the sand.