But she knew she could tell him things, at the very least.“That girl you were paired up with. It was really cool how you were with her.”
“Not sure that was really a question. Though it was a lot gentler than I’d imagined.”
“What were you imagining, exactly? Me demanding all the intimate details of your life?”
“Something like that.” He paused, in a way that reminded her of the smile he’d given at the very beginning. That same sense of measuring something out, followed by well-considered words. “It usually goes that way.”
“Not with me. I can’t even ask you how you got so good at guarding yourself.”
“Oh, I don’t know. That seemed like a pretty skillful way to bring it up.”
She tried not to grin, at those words. And failed, completely.“Yeah I was pretty proud of myself for that. Seemed more like the real me.”
“I take it the real you was good at talking to total strangers.”
“The real me wasamazingat talking to strangers.”
“And now you think that ability’s gone.”
“Iknowit has. I mean, just check out this stilted conversation.”
She spread her hands, as if to demonstrate.
But he wasn’t biting. “The last thing I’d call this is stilted. In fact, for me, this is practically the Algonquin Round Table.”
“So, full of angry depressed people bitching at each other.”
Something happened with his face then—a twitch of his cheek, a hint of curl at the corner of his mouth. But whatever it was, he tamped it down as soon as it began. He kept his expression neutral, and his words even.“I meant in terms of the amount of talking going on.”
“So, usually you just grunt something noncommittal and cut out.”
“Even the word grunting is a little generous for what I prefer to do.”
“Well, you don’t seem to be doing to be doing so badly here.”
He regarded her steadily, then.The way people do when they try to work out if you’re lying, her mind said—butshe couldn’t tell if that was true or not. His eyes were too black, his face too impassive.
And when he spoke, he still seemed so casual.“Yeah, I think that’s all on you. Nothing to do with me.”
“So if I was a different person, you’d be silent now?”
“Probably. At the very least, I’d be grunting noncommittally.”
“Guess I haven’t lost it as hard as I thought.”
“I’d say you haven’t lost it at all,” he said, after which she tried to respond right away. But as a gushingthank youwas the only thing that came to mind, she found herself struggling. It was a full minute before she managed to speak, after which there was only one thing to say.
“And then, an ironic silence fell.”
“I don’t think that really counted as a silence.”
“No? What would you call it then?”
“A comfortable pause.”
“I wouldn’t have called it comfortable.”
“Oh believe me, in my world, that was comfortable.”
