The One In My Heart

Bennett sat down between Lara and me. “I am proud of you, sweetheart. But how come you’ve never told me you were such an earthy type? I didn’t know you were into vintners and artisans.”


Until he’d mentioned it I hadn’t realized the influence of the Vermont farmer on my selection of fantasy boyfriends. I looked him over—no, still no trace.

Daff, our resident redhead, rushed up in a slinky green sequined dress, still putting on her dangle earrings. “Lara, you sneak. You did get lucky at the wedding, and you didn’t even say anything about it.”

“I didn’t bring him,” said Lara.

Daff turned to Carolyn. “Did your parents finally get off their asses and fix you up?”

“No, they’re still very much on their asses and ignoring my sell-by date like it’s the Mayan apocalypse.”

Daff scanned the scrumptious man who had taken the trouble to come in black-tie, even if he’d done away with the literal black tie. “Did you wander in off the street and sit down at a table full of beautiful women?”

“No,” said Bennett, glancing at me with a cheeky smile. “I was bribed with hours and hours of sex.”

Daff’s eyes bulged. “Seriously, E. You brought this one?”

I shrugged. “I went out to the wilds of Manhattan and bagged him all by myself.”

My fake boyfriend extended his hand. “I’m Bennett. Nice to meet you, Davina.”

Daff shook his hand, still goggle-eyed. She pulled up a chair and squeezed in next to Carolyn. Carolyn draped an arm over her. “I know what you’re thinking, Daff. He’s an escort E hired for the evening.”

“Right?” said Lara. “Evangeline, we thought you donated your vagina to science ages ago.”

“That’s how I first saw her vagina,” said Bennett. “I was still in medical school, on the West Coast. And her vagina was so unforgettable that I tracked her down across the country—and here I am.”

I decided I might as well go along for the ride. “It’s true. And if a man shows up at your door, saying, ‘Hi, Dr. Canterbury, I’ve brought your vagina back,’ it’s only polite to invite him in and have him help you test out whether said vagina still works after all these years.”

Lara all but spit her drink into her napkin. Daff and Carolyn leaned on each other, cracking up.

A server came by and took orders from the latecomers; then Carolyn was all business. “Lara, did you bring the questionnaire? We have to put him through the questionnaire.”

“Oh, yes,” seconded Daff. “Release the questionnaire.”

“What is this Kraken of a questionnaire?” asked Bennett.

Carolyn cackled. “Ask your girlfriend. It was her brainchild.”

Last year, at our usual all-female Boyfriend Roundup, I’d not only suggested that we come up with a list of questions with which to torment our eventual victim, but contributed a large share. It seemed a foregone conclusion that somebody would reel in a sucker someday; I’d just never imagined I’d be that someone.

In fact, I’d forgotten about the questionnaire altogether.

As had everyone else, apparently. Nobody could even remember what we’d done with the questions we’d come up with. I breathed a sigh of relief—from what I could vaguely recall, some of those questions had been highly personal.

“Yes!” cried Carolyn triumphantly. “I knew I had it. I typed it into this list-making app on my phone and it’s still there.”

I pulled a face.

“Now I see what I’m in for,” murmured Bennett.

Carolyn literally rubbed her hands together before she picked up her phone again. “Okay, here goes. What’s your full name?”

“Bennett Oliver Stuart Somerset.”

“What do you do for a living?”

“I’m a cardiothoracic surgeon.”

“Where were you born?”

“Ten blocks from here.”

Phew. Maybe I’d misremembered. The questions were all right.

“How old were you when you lost your virginity?”

Nope, not mistaken after all.

“Sixteen.”

“What’s the most number of times you’ve had sex in a twenty-four-hour period?”

Oh, God. That was one of my questions.

“Seven.”

“Jesus,” said Daff.

“There might have been some kind of drug cocktail involved,” Bennett told her gleefully. “And multiple women.”

And a yacht in Saint-Tropez, no doubt.

For some reason, all the women around the table stared at me as if I were responsible for Bennett’s excessive fucking.

“Come on,” I said. “Did you really think the ultimate good girl would hook up with someone who wasn’t a freak?”

Daff accepted her drink from the server. “I guess there’s that.”

“Okay, back to the questionnaire,” ordered Carolyn. “What do you think of anal sex?”

Daff promptly choked on the first sip of her drink: The question had been one of her contributions.

“Depends on the anus,” said Bennett.

“Good answer,” said Carolyn. “Have you ever been married?”

“No.”

“Incarcerated?”

“No.”

“Are you paying for all our drinks tonight?”

“Yes.”

“Are you rich?”

“Yes.”