presumably her, who the angst-ridden protagonist struggles to be worthy of. Nice, but hardly subtle or interesting. Which said more about his lack of curiosity than it did about her. She couldn't remember the last time he'd asked her about her desires and dreams and fears. She hadn't said anything at the time, reading the last couple of stories, but he actually wasn't very good with female characters.
While Kyle was out getting cigarettes, George Brasso called to accept. “But I'd rather be having an intimate dinner with you,” he said.
“I'm not sure Kyle would like that.”
“Does that mean you told him about us?”
“To tell you the truth, I forgot about us until just this minute,” she said. They'd been classmates at Yale and they'd had a fling their first year in the city.
“You've never told him?”
“A girl needs a few secrets,” she said.
“I couldn't agree more.”
She heard the elevator. “I've gotta go. Kyle's back.”
“Call me.”
Sabrina went out to make a cup of tea, and Kyle was in the kitchen, flipping through the mail. While she stood at the counter, waiting for the water to boil, he came up behind her and wrapped one arm around her waist, groping her breast with his free hand.
“What say we take a little break?” he said.
“From what?” For some reason, she wasn't really in the mood. But as he stroked her breast, she relented. “Okay,” she said, turning off the kettle and walking back to the bedroom.
“Wow,” he said when they'd finished. She was almost surprised to hear his voice, so absorbed had she been in her own orgasm. She felt a little guilty, realizing she'd been thinking about George. They'd never really had any resolution to an affair that had lasted only a few months before George went off to Paris for Newsweek. Was she keeping her options open? George had, upon his return to New York, become a mutual friend, but somehow she'd neglected to tell Kyle about their history. Then again, she wondered why he'd never asked. She'd always been afraid the sexual tension between her and George was conspicuous, but Kyle had never once commented on it, which suddenly seemed incredibly weird. Was he that unperceptive, or did he just not care?
Two hours later she found herself increasingly irritable as she waited for him to leave for his weekly department meeting. She had a lot of party-related calls to make. With each passing minute she became more agitated. Finally she went out to see what he was doing. As nonchalantly as she could, she asked about the meeting.
“Postponed,” he said cheerfully. “Haddon and Maselli are sick.”
The next day, Sabrina had to fly to D.C. She worried herself sick about the phone, then decided it was better to say something than to have Kyle pick up her phone or turn up the volume on the answering machine.
“Listen,” she said, “I've ordered this birthday present and somebody might be calling about it. That's why I turned down the volume on the machine.”
“You don't have to get me anything,” he said.
Which struck her as a silly thing to say.
“Of course I do. And you sure as hell better get me something for mine. Now promise me you'll stay away from the phone.”
“Cross my heart and hope to die.”
The next evening, the night before the party, they stayed home and watched Le Mépris, Godard's adaptation of the Moravia novel. Kyle was in a Moravia phase.
“Do you ever get jealous?” she asked, lying on the couch with her legs in his lap.
He shrugged. “Not really. I trust you.”
“I trust you, too,” she said. “But I wouldn't want you sharing a villa in Capri with Brigitte Bardot.”
“Don't worry,” he said. “She must be in her seventies by now.”
“Wouldn't you be worried if I were on an island with some hunky guy?”
“Probably,” he said.
In the end, Kyle was surprised. He was expecting dinner à deux, tickled that the restaurant was named after a Henry James novel. When everyone jumped up from behind the banquettes, he was flabbergasted.
“You really didn't have any idea, did you?” she said.
“Not a clue,” he said before happily throwing himself into the scrum of his friends, many of whom had originally been her friends.
Brom, the owner, materialized at her side with a drink. “Ketel One and tonic,” he said.
“You remembered.”
“It's part of the job.”
“So I'm just another Ketel and tonic to you.”
“I wouldn't say that.”
This wasn't like her, this silly flirtatious banter. But he was cute. When they were finally seated, he leaned