Stone Barrington 06-11

given the night off, and Callie, after preparing dinner for them, had gone to work in her new office in the main house. Stone had seen little of her since Thad and Liz had decided to get married on short notice; there didn’t seem to be enough hours in the day for her to get her work done.
    “Gee, it’s kind of nice here, just you and me,” Dino said. “We never get to have dinner alone anymore.”
    “Oh, shut up,” Stone said. “You’re worse than a wife.”
    “That’s something only a bachelor could say,” Dino replied.
    “You know, Dino, I’ve been thinking about marriage.”
    “Oh, no,” Dino groaned. “Not again.”
    “What kind of crack is that?”
    “Stone, every time you start thinking about marriage, you get into terrible trouble.”
    “Nonsense,” Stone snorted.
    “Stone, when you were thinking about marrying Arrington, look what happened: She married somebody else, and you got involved with this flake Allison—excuse me, Liz. And look at all the trouble that came out of that.”
    “Well, that time, yes.”
    “Then there was the English girl—what was her name?”
    “Sarah.”
    “You sure?”
    “I’m sure.”
    “That didn’t go so good, either, right?”
    “Not so good.”
    “And then you actually married Dolce—well, sort of, and against all the advice I could muster. And now she’s out there stalking you with a gun, and frankly, I wouldn’t give you good odds on making it back to New York without taking along some excess baggage in the form of lead in your liver. Now, I ask you, what happens when you start thinking about marriage?”
    “All right, I get into trouble,” Stone said gloomily.
    “Stone, you’re my friend, and I love you, and that’s why I can say this to you: You’re not cut out to be married. Never in my life have I known anybody who was less cut out to be married. Marriage is very, very hard, and believe me, you’re not tough enough to handle it.”
    “Callie is an awfully nice girl,” Stone said mistily.
    “I’ll grant you that.”
    “I think it would be nice to be married to her.”
    “I’ll even grant you that, up to a point. As far as I can see, the only thing wrong with Callie is that you’re thinking about marrying her.”
    “What, you think I’m the kiss of death, or something?”
    “I didn’t say that, you did.”
    “The sex is wonderful.”
    “I’m glad to hear it,” Dino said. “Let me tell you something somebody told me when I was young and single. This was a man who had been married three times. He said to me, ‘Dino, tell you what you do: When you get married, you keep a piece of chalk in your bedside table drawer, and every time you make love to your wife, you take out the chalk and make a hash mark on the wall. Then, after you’ve been married for a year, throw away the chalk and keep an eraser in your bedside drawer, and every time you make love, take out the eraser and erase a hash mark.’”
    “What was his point?” Stone asked.
    “His point was this: ‘It’ll take you ten years to erase all the hash marks.’”
    Stone laughed in spite of himself.
    “So, pal, my point is, if you’re going to get married, you’d better have something going on in the relationship besides sex.”
    “I knew that,” Stone said.
    “No, you didn’t,” Dino sighed. “You still don’t.”
    “No, I do, I really do.”
    “Tell me this,” Dino said. “What makes you think she’d marry you?”
    “Well …”
    “You think all she’s looking for is a great lay? Not that you’re all that great.”
    “I could offer her a pretty good life,” Stone said.
    “Yeah, sure. You’re traipsing all over the country, doing this very strange but oddly entertaining work. You think she’s going to like that? You going to take her along when you have to drop everything and go to Podunk, Somewhere?”
    “Why not?”
    “Because women get rooted in their homes. I guarantee you, a month after you’re married, you’re going to find that your house has been totally redecorated.”
    “I like the way my house is decorated,” Stone said. “I did it myself.”
    “Yeah, but Callie doesn’t like it.”
    “She hasn’t even seen it.”
    “You think that matters? She doesn’t like it because you decorated it, dumbo. She won’t think of it as her home until she’s changed all the wallpaper and carpets and had a big garage sale and sold everything you love most in the house.”
    “You really know how to make marriage attractive,