In each of your lives, we'd be willing to bet there's someone who thinks that he or she is much better friends with you than you think you are with him or her. The acquaintance you only hang out with so you'll get invited to their fabulous house in Montauk one weekend in the summer, for example, or that short guy you always see out at bars who is always so shiny. Well, for Al Roker, that friend is Charlene Marshall, wife of Anthony Marshall, the man who is currently in court accused of ripping off his mother, Brooke Astor. In front of reporters in the courthouse yesterday, the pair greeted one another. "We're good friends!" crowed Marshall to reporters, hugging and kissing the beloved Today show weatherman. Then she tottered off on her sensible flats to the room where her elderly husband was awaiting trial, and where his lawyers would later argue that $115,000 a year and a $2 million Upper East Side apartment wouldn't be enough money for her to survive on were he to die.

The minute she was out of earshot, Roker turned to the reporters and hissed: "We're not good friends. I just know them. I see them from time to time at church." Presumably he texted her shortly after and said, "C U in NE Harbor this summer? Big Al calls the big guest room!"

LIVE ON $3M? Hah! [NYP]