“Why?” I asked. I can’t help it. Crying women make me uncomfortable; I felt clumsy and stupid.
“Because,” she said. A typical Sally answer.
My steak sandwich came. I asked her if she was hungry. She shook her head. I asked for another Scotch, a double.
“I want one too,” she said.
“Two double Scotches,” I said.
The waitress went away.
“Why’d he hit you?” I asked again.
“I just want to die,” she said.
She continued crying, and normally I would have lost my appetite. But the truth is, I was starving, so I ate and watched her cry. The drinks came and she gulped hers like it was soda and made a face, then insisted on another.
“Maybe you better not.”
“You shut up,” she said.
I shut up, mostly out of pure astonishment. Sally never said anything like that in her life. The astonishment got greater when the next thing I felt was her hand on my knee.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean that.” Her hand was there, rubbing. Rubbing...
“It’s okay,” I said.
“I’m not a bad girl.”
“No, no,” I said. “Of course not.” I could hardly think about anything except the hand on my knee.
“Charlie thinks I’m bad,” she said.
“You’re not bad.”
“No, I’m not bad.” Her hand moved up my leg. “I was always nice to you,” she said.
“Yes, Sally.”
Now here’s a funny thing. It should have been very exciting, but it wasn’t. It was uncomfortable and a little freaky, and you know,dangerous. I mean, I kept expecting Charles Mann to come bursting into the dining room, and there I was with Sally and her hand on my knee.
The other problem was that Sally was acting like a different person, somebody who I didn’t know at all, and it was strange to find out that somebody you thought you had pegged is something else entirely.
Her hand was still rubbing.
“Sally,” I said, “you must be pretty upset.”
“You’re so nice to me,” she said.
“Sally,” I said, and I sort of croaked, because her hand was getting up there. I didn’t want to squirm away, but I had to do something. I ended up spilling my drink by accident. It really was an accident. She moved away while I mopped up the mess.
“Gee,” she said, sniffling.
By now she was on her next double Scotch, and she was slurring her speech. I thought,This is all happening so fast. It seemed like five minutes ago I was sitting alone in the place, and suddenly Sally was drunk and all over me.
“Kiss me,” she said, leaning in close. “Kiss me.”
“Sally...”
