“Why ask me that?” She turned away from him and he could sense she was about to swing her legs to the floor.
“Don’t,” he said, stopping her. He pulled her arm, trying to guide her gently back to lying down.
She turned her head. “Isn’t it early –or late? Which is it? What time is it? –to start that again?”
“I wasn’t starting anything. Please!” He tugged her back into place. She acquiesced.
They lay there. She reached for her coffee. “Now what? I mean, since we’re playing questions.”
“Now? As in this moment? I can get us more coffee. I can ask if you’d like something else—a plum, maybe?”
“A plum? A plum?” She laughed a little. “No. I do not want a plum. Have I ever wanted a plum?” She laughed again, cruelly, he thought. “Coffee would be good.” She reached for her mug. “Mine is cold.”
He leveled his eyes at her.
“I know what you’re thinking!” She laughed. “That that’s not the only thing that’s cold around here!”
“Mind reader, right?” He picked up their mugs, encouraged by the shift to lightness.
“Okay,” he said, returning. “How about this question: Do you want to take a drive today—it looks sunny out—maybe to Napa? I’d be pretty there. You like it.”
She sat up and reached for the coffee, stared at him. “My god, you’re serious,” she said. “You really are trying.”
“Of course I am.”
She looked out the window, at the opening between the heavy drapes, to the bright morning. “It is pretty there.”
He felt encouraged. “We could have lunch outside someplace!”
She was quiet.
“Well?”
“I’m thinking—you’d be asking me this and that. Am I serious? What do I really care about? What’s the meaning of life.”
He cringed. “I would not.”
She said nothing, drinking her coffee.
“C’mon. Once in a while I want to get to know you, your values—
“Stop! Stop at the word ‘values.’ It’s obvious I don’t have any. Or don’t have the kind you want. Stop asking me those kinds of questions. I’ll go to Napa. I like you. But: just stop.”
He said nothing.
She said nothing.
He got up. “Let’s not go for a drive. Are you done with this mug?” He started out of the room, then turned. “For Chrissake. What should I have asked you?”