It was a week before my wedding and I was sitting in the break room guiltily eating a chocolate bar.  I knew I shouldn’t be eating it, but I was nervous and when I’m nervous or upset I eat chocolate.

Taking a sip of my cola I looked up to see Lee walking in.  Pouring himself a cup of coffee from the machine he wandered over to my table and sat down with a sigh. 

“What’s up Lee?”  I thought he looked tired.

“Amanda’s morning sickness is now all day sickness.  She’s exhausted and losing weight instead of gaining.”  His worry about his wife and partner was written all over his face.

“That can’t be good.  What does her doctor say?”

“That she’ll be over it in a couple of weeks and then she’ll start feeling better.” 

He was silent for a while, just staring into his coffee.  Then he looked up at me, or rather he looked through me and started talking.  At first I couldn’t follow him, he mentioned something about ten letters and Paul Barnes and ‘not exactly’.  After a few minutes I couldn’t take it any more.

“Lee.”  He didn’t seem to hear me at first, so I tried again, a little louder this time. “Lee!”  He finally stopped talking and stared at me, with an almost dumbfounded expression.  “Lee, you’ve been living with Amanda for too long.  That was a ramble worthy only of her.  What are you talking about?  What do ten letters have to do with the Wizard?”

“I’m sorry Francine.  But a while ago I realized that almost every important event in my life had been accompanied by a phrase made up of just ten letters.  Case in point, Paul Barnes and Wizard of Oz.”

“Yeah, that really was a turning point in your career.”

Lee nodded.  “The biggest little phrase that made the most fundamental change in my life was Amanda King.”

My eyes widened when I realized how many letters Amanda had in her name.  “Oh my God, Lee, you’re right.” Then I mentally calculated the letters in both Paul’s name and the source of Lee’s codename, and my eyes grew even wider. “Ten little letters, who’d have thought?”

I started thinking back over my own life as I sipped at my soda.  I realized that the most important thing in my life was made up of ten letters as well.  He wasn’t a thing though.  He was a real life, gorgeous, hunk of manhood.  And he was all mine.

“Lee, I just realized something.”  Lee looked up and raised his eyebrows at me. “Tony Nelson is ten letters...”  I could feel the smile on my face and I could see it mirrored on Lee’s.

“You see Francine, we’re a lot alike in so many different ways.”

End