man she'd thought.
She wouldn't allow herself to ask if he might turn out to be the kind of man she wanted him to be. She wouldn't allow herself to want anything when it came to Ron Egan. He was much too dangerous.
"I can't answer for sure," she said. "I guess I'd give up the shelter, but I'd make sure it stayed open."
"You don't sound very sure. Not a very good recommendation for your feelings about the importance of family."
"It's hard to be convincing about a hypothetical situation."
"You don't think it could still happen?"
Did she? She had become very cynical about men. Most who were too rich were playboys. Those that were too poor were fortune hunters or were so ambitious they felt work and success were more important than family. If she did marry, it would have to be to a man who had the same or very similar values to her own.
Did she think she would find him? She didn't know. Her last dates hadn't encouraged her to be optimistic. She'd enjoyed her time with Ron more than time spent with any man she'd dated in years, and he was the opposite of everything she wanted. At least that's how it had seemed at first, and she was inclined to stick with her first impression, especially since Ron's charm and sexual pull on her were affecting her judgment.
"I believe I'll get married," she said, "and not because I'm so desperate I have to lower my standards."
"Who said you were desperate? I bet you didn't like that very much."
"Would you?"
"I've been desperate and survived, so it wouldn't bother me. You never have. I think it might scare you."
"It made me mad." At first. She'd started to feel afraid later. Was she being too rigid in her standards, too demanding in her expectations? Was she overestimating her own value?
"I expect it did. Who said it?"
"A very successful attorney who thought my family connections were just what he needed to turn his law career into a political success. He decided I'd be a perfect political hostess." She didn't know why she was telling Ron all of this. She hadn't told anyone, not even her sister.
"He was right. He just wasn't smart enough to see you didn't want to be judged on your suitability for his career plans. The right man would want to marry you even if you were exactly the wrong kind of wife for him."
"I wouldn't want anybody to marry me if I was wrong for him."
"You know what I meant."
She did, and she was surprised he would say something like that.
"You didn't expect me to say that, did you?"
She wished the interior of the limousine wasn't so well lit. Nothing in his words or his tone of voice implied it, but she could tell he was disappointed in her.
"No, I didn't, but I should have."
She could tell her answer, or her honesty, caught him by surprise.
"Why?"
"I didn't stop to realize you'd probably been treated like that many times by people who didn't consider you in their class but were willing to work with you because you could be useful to them."
"It's happened a few times, but I was using them just as much as they were using me."
She didn't know if he really believed what he said, but he would never have held on to that rusty trailer if slights and snobbish treatment weren't important to him. He wanted to remember what it felt like to be powerless, to be treated like a nobody, to be passed over for people who were much less capable.
"I never thought of it like that," she said. "I guess we all use people."
"The trick is to be fair about it. Now, I want to hear those questions. You've stalled long enough."
"There's no point. Half of them don't apply to you, or I already know the answers."
"Such as?"
"Have you been married before and how many times? How did your last relationship end? Have you ever gotten a woman pregnant? Do you have any children? How often do you call your mother? You can't answer that because she died years ago."
"I'd probably call her every couple of weeks."
Right in the middle of the acceptable range. "How often do you clean your own bathroom? But that doesn't apply either because you have a maid."
"I didn't always?"
"Okay how often did you clean your bathroom when you were in college?"
"I didn't. I lived in a dorm. And we had a communal bathroom."
"At Harvard and Yale?"
"I was a scholarship