“Do you, now?” I turned to the window and watched all the pretty lights dance by. “You didn’t tell me you nearly slept with her, back in Los Angeles.”
His body was heavy and still next to mine. “No, I didn’t. I’m not in the habit of revealing women’s secrets, Vivian. I figured if she wanted you to know the details, she’d tell you herself.”
“Convenient for you.”
“Twist it how you like. It was Margaux I was trying to protect, not myself. I don’t kiss and tell.”
How many glasses had I drunk after Mums pitched Doctor Paul in my direction? Enough to make it stop hurting for a minute or two. But the hurting had started up again, and now here I was, drunk as could be, right smack next to the source of my hurt, because he had to go back to the hospital and I lived a few blocks away, and it was perfect, Vivian, perfect! A kiss on each cheek from Mums, a chuck on the arm from Dad, and off we went. If only the pretty lights would stop dancing like that. “All right. If you like. But it does put a new spin on things.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, you went to bed with her.”
“I didn’t go to bed with her. All right, I was going to, we’d had a fun evening, she was sending out all the signals. Maybe I had a little too much to drink, maybe she did. It was a warm evening. It just . . . it started happening. She took the lead. I had no idea she was a virgin. I stopped when she told me.” His voice was flatter than flat.
“So she said. Very gentlemanly of you.”
“What the hell does that mean? It didn’t happen, Vivian. I didn’t let it happen. I don’t take advantage of drunk virgins.”
“Salisbury.” I shook my head. “Tell me something. Without naming names. Without giving numbers. Is this something you do a lot?”
“What, sex?” At the instant he said the word sex, God flicked his fingers, the taxi lurched sideways, and I spilled into Doctor Paul’s lap.
Lady Luck, she had me by the oysters tonight.
I picked myself up with drunken dignity. “It’s all easy for you, isn’t it? They fall for you, you sleep with them. You put on your honorable act, but you’re really not, are you? You take what’s offered.”
“All right, I’m no innocent. That has nothing to do with us.”
“Yes, it does.” I was trying to find my logic here, so bear with me. “It has to do with sincerity.”
“You doubt my sincerity with you?”
“Well, yes. You lied about what happened with Gogo—”
“I didn’t lie about it. I just didn’t tell you about it. It was private, for God’s sake, it was Margaux’s business. I didn’t tell a soul. And anyway, the whole thing should show you that I’m capable of controlling myself. We were drunk, she was ready to go, and I stopped it. I don’t know if you know much about men, Vivian, but that’s not easy to do. Especially when the lady’s that willing.” His voice wasn’t flat anymore. It rose and fell and stabbed at me.
“Well, I don’t know if you know much about women, Casanova, but as far as Gogo’s concerned, you might as well have finished what you started.”
“But I didn’t!”
“I mean as far as she’s concerned. She was naked on that bed with you. She gave it all up to you. And you made her think you were doing the honorable thing by not taking the prize.”
“I was. A cad would have kept on going regardless.”
“Well, she thought the opposite. She thought you were so overwhelmed by her innocence, you were saving it for the wedding night.”
Finally, a goddamned red light. The taxi slammed to a halt. Twenty-third Street. The radio was scratching urgently about a murder in the West Side, a street gang thing. Oddly, the pretty lights didn’t stop twirling. The taxi seemed to be still moving, even though it had demonstrably stopped.
“Nothing to say to that, have you?”
“I’m sorry she misunderstood. I was damned if I did and damned if I didn’t, I guess. Probably I shouldn’t have gone in the room with her to begin with, but I did, I made that mistake, and I’m sorry. The point is, it’s the past. It’s what I was before I met you.”
I shook my head, side to side, against the sticky leather seat of the taxi. “It’s not in the past. You can’t just say, well, none of that matters anymore because I’m in love.”
“Listen to you, Vivian. For God’s sake. Have I made a single peep about the men you’ve been with before me? We’re just the same. We’re not lily-white. I understood that, I didn’t give a damn, I didn’t need to ask. I understood you.”
I lifted my heavy head. “If you had, Doctor Paul, if you’d asked even once, you’d have known that I slept with one man. One. That professor, three years ago.”
The taxi thrust forward again. Doctor Paul grabbed the door handle.
“Is that so.”
“That’s so.”
“Why?”