Rome-Mance

"I'm doing a ride and walk tour also. They let us off here for our lunch break. Wait, your tour guide isn't named Sergio is it?'

"Yes, Sergio is his name, hold on." Jennifer reached into her purse and pulled out a badge with her first name and the tour group number four seven three printed on it. She held it up for John to see. John looked down at the badge clipped onto his shirt. It had the same tour number printed under his name. They both started to laugh. "That's too funny, what a small world. I don't remember seeing you on the bus but it was very full. I was sitting in the left rear of the bus.

"I'm sitting in the left front of the bus. Did Michael send you out to sightsee today too?"

"Yeah, but I'm grateful to be able to visit Rome at all. I can't tell you the amount of begging it took to convince him to let me come with you guys. I'm amazed he said yes to me coming. As it was, I had to come out on a later flight than you two. How's your business trip going so far?"

"Great. I'm here to provide technical support for Michael. He's the one doing all the business wheeling and dealing."

"Tell me about it. That's all he ever does, even when we're home he's always on the phone or going to a meeting somewhere. I keep telling him I need a small dog to keep me company at night. He takes a lot of trips that take him out of town for one to two days. It's a very large house, and it gets very lonely when he's gone."

Suddenly both fell silent, neither one knowing what to say next to the other. Finally John spoke up, "Thanks again for the great dinner last week. I'm not used to real home cooked meals that was incredible. Where did you learn to cook that good, did you go to a cooking school?"

"My Mom was a great cook. She always wanted to teach me but I wasn't interested at the time, I thought I would learn later from her. By the time I got around to wanting to learn, my mother had been diagnosed with stage four Cancer and died a short time later. I started to care a bit too late about learning to cook from her I guess. I've learned to cook in memory of her."

"Oh Jennifer, I'm so sorry to hear about your loss. That's tough. I know what it means to lose a parent. Both of my parents died in a car crash a few years back. I really miss them. Is your Dad still alive?"