Free Taxi to Paris by Ruth Gogoll Page B

me this evening that didn't fit her usual pattern, she had still seemed prepared to go through with her regular routine. In any case, she looked at me like my reaction had caught her completely off guard.
    "Would you rather I stayed like I am?"
    Not that again! This was, in part, where our difficulties were coming from. The other part came from me, I knew that. Our sensibilities just didn't seem to fit together. That made communication very difficult.
    She was wearing a summer dream of crepe de chine that went beautifully with her - as I now knew - grey eyes, a dress that really only worked on women over six feet tall. I'd envied women of her height since grade school. Regardless, whether she took it off or kept it on, what she put on instead or didn't - that couldn't be my decision. Not at this moment, anyway. "You haven't been listening to me," I remarked.
    "Yes I have." She was visibly unsettled, even though she was trying to control herself. "But you're not exactly making it easy."
    "That's not the point." I'd finally found a plane on which mutual understanding seemed possible. "I'd rather things were different, believe me."
    "What do you want, then?" She seemed very irritated now, maybe even a bit overtired, despite the not-so-late hour. Who knew what kind of week she'd had? Perhaps it had been more stressful than I could imagine in my wildest dreams. I softened my tone a bit. Then I remembered what kind of activities would have caused that potential stress, and my kindly manner disappeared again.
    "That's a good question, and one I've asked myself often. If I knew the answer, I probably wouldn't be here." Why should I make things easier for her than she was for me?
    She went over to the sofa and dropped her purse. Then she pulled off the light summer gloves she'd been wearing and threw them after it. While she did that, she turned halfway toward me and watched me out of the corner of her eye. It looked like a scene from a film.
    "Good," she said, sitting on the sofa and crossing her legs. "What now?"
    "I would like to have a conversation with you," I said, so naturally as though I'd never intended anything else.
    "Conversation." A swarm of overfed ravens at which one tossed a single grain could not have seemed more contemptuous.
    "Is that so unusual?" Her reaction had unsettled me yet again. She questioned everything I took for granted. The idea that people would talk to each other before sleeping together, for example. But I didn't really want to show her how much she unsettled me. So I waited for her answer.
    She didn't answer right away. "Somewhat," she said at last.
    "Which brings us back to the topic at hand," I retorted rather cheerfully. I never knew I had this much talent for acting. Actually, I felt miserable. She'd put up such a solid wall around herself, there wasn't even a crack through which I might catch another glimpse of the real her.
    Her forehead wrinkled. "The topic at hand?"
    "Mm-hmm. You found this entire date to be unusual from the beginning. And me too, apparently. From time to time." This couldn't go on so doggedly for much longer. She would exhaust me before I even saw a light at the end of the tunnel.
    "That's true. From time to time." She smiled so suggestively, the Mona Lisa would've looked like a grinning nun next to her.
    "Why do you think I asked you out?"
    "My god," she sighed, annoyed. "Not that again!"
    "Yes, that again! That's the crux of the matter." I didn't let up. "So, what do you think?"
    She sighed again. "What do you want to hear?" Her bored tone indicated that she would tell me anything I wanted to hear if I would just drop this subject.
    "Something convincing," I said. "Something true."
    "Christ!" Now she was almost laughing, if sarcastically. "And you have no other wish?" She leaned toward me a bit. "A wish I could fulfill for you?" She took on a seductive tone.
    "You're just trying to distract me," I answered uneasily. I noticed that her method worked on me immediately,