The One In My Heart

“How rich?” asked Daff. “When Evangeline’s done with you, can I use you for a sugar daddy?”


“Sorry, Daff, that’s not on the questionnaire,” decreed Carolyn. “Now, Bennett, have you performed oral sex on our Evangeline?”

“Yes.”

“Has she returned the favor?”

“No.”

“Make the boy work, E,” said Lara. “Good for you.”

I could probably fry an egg on my face. “That’s right, grasshopper. Watch and learn.”

Carolyn continued. “What is Evangeline’s favorite position?”

Hoist on the petard of another one of my questions.

“She likes them all.”

This had Daff whistling. “Oh, E. We never knew ya.”

“Sorry for being undiscriminating,” I said.

Bennett touched a strand of my hair. “It’s okay, sweetheart. I like you horny.”

Carolyn and Lara hooted. Daff shook her head. “Wow, so you really are having sex again, E. Blows my mind.”

“Okay.” Carolyn resumed her most brisk tone. “We’re almost done with the questionnaire. Bennett, where did you first meet Evangeline?”

“At a sex party in Greenwich Village.”

What the hell? “That is not true!” I protested.

He had a dirty gleam in his eyes. “Prove it. Next question.”

“When did you fall in love with her?”

“It was love at first sight.”

“Wait,” said Lara. “First sight of her vagina at medical school, or first sight of her in person?”

“In person.”

“At the sex party?”

“Central Park. Last June. We wouldn’t meet at the sex party for another seven weeks.”

It was just like him to mix together enough likely-seeming tidbits with complete nonsense, so that I couldn’t tell how much was truth and how much bullshit.

“The penultimate question: Do you have your engagement ring all picked out?”

Another one of my inane contributions.

“Yes.”

“Last one: When’s the wedding?”

“August.”

“Why August?” asked Lara.

“‘Cause she’ll have passed tenure review and I’ll have finished with my fellowship. And we can have a nice long honeymoon before her schedule goes crazy again in September.”

I eyed him up and down. “Talk about perfect timing.”

He rubbed my arm through my sleeve. “Didn’t I say I’ll take care of everything, sweetheart?”

“Okay, lovebirds, flirt on your own time,” said Carolyn. “Now we have to tally up the score.”

There were scores?

“What kind of scores can a man get around here?” asked Bennett, vastly amused.

I had to give it to him: He was game and unflappable. A pretty high bar had been set for future victims of the Annual Boyfriend Roundup.

“Well, it starts at ‘He’s just using you.’ And then there’s ‘Okay, but not great.’ After that, it’s ‘I’d bang him too.’ Above that, ‘A real keeper.’ And if you score any higher than that—”

“It’s been a while. I can’t remember everything,” said Daff. “You can score higher than ‘A real keeper’?”

“Uh-hmm.” Carolyn looked straight at my fake boyfriend. “You scored higher than a hundred percent. According to our scoring table, that means you’re an actor from an off-Broadway show, and this is a gig for you.”


BENNETT WAS WASTED IN MEDICINE: No actor from a show, off-Broadway or on, could have played a better boyfriend. My friends clearly found him something of a unicorn, but he was a fun unicorn, and two hours passed in no time at all as we chatted and laughed.

“So what color bridesmaid dresses for your wedding, E?” asked a tipsy Carolyn from the back of the cab. “I have—I shit you not—thirteen of them, and they cover the entire visible light spectrum.”

“We’re doing a hipster ugly-bridesmaid-dress wedding,” said Bennett. “Come in the one you hate the most.”

“Oh, God. I hate all of mine,” muttered Daff, who was drunker.

“Another delivery run for you,” I said to Lara, always the still-sober one at the end of the night.

She blew me a kiss. “I’ll get them home.”

As their cab drove away, I turned to Bennett. “A Greenwich Village sex party? Really?”

He was unrepentant. “Better than ‘I found her wandering the back lanes of Cos Cob and promptly took advantage of her.’”

Our cab pulled up. We got in. Bennett told the driver, “Park and Seventy-third.”

A frisson of excitement shot through me. “Why are we going to your place?”

“Ten minutes ago you said you were hungry. I have ravioli.”

The garish blue-green light from the TV screen installed between the two front seats shouldn’t have been flattering on anyone, yet the contours of his face were as beautifully lit as if a photographer’s assistant had been holding a reflector a few feet away. “I can have a snack at home.”

“But I don’t want you to go home yet.”

It was warm in the cab. He pulled off his ascot and my eyes were immediately riveted to that small vee of skin exposed by the opening of his shirt. “Then why didn’t you say so?”