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metamorphosis from downy-haired cherubs to sullen, swaggering boys and noodle-brained, giggling girls.
It was no good reminding myself that CM and I had once been among those noodle brains, and had turned out reasonably well. The whole motherhood scenario just wasn’t something that sounded even remotely interesting.
I set down my glass. The unasked question hung in the air. I shrugged lightly.
“Quite honestly, I’ve never given it a lot of thought.”
His expression most closely resembled one of relief.
But I think the thing that clinched the deal as far as I was concerned was his attitude toward sex. I never felt as if I was being maneuvered or rushed. Ever since I’d finally managed to lose my virginity with Sylvie’s cousin Gilles just days before coming home from France, I’d found sex to be a hit-and-miss proposition—mostly miss. I always enjoyed the preliminaries a lot more than the culmination, and I’d about decided that was probably just the way it was, although I’d heard some of my friends go on like it was something special.
I’d also found out how completely it could ruin a relationship, because once you’d slept with a guy, he expected that every date would end in bed. If that wasn’t your destination of choice, you spent the whole evening trying to think of a way to decline gracefully. There were the inevitable discussions about whether to do it or not, accompanied by all the reasons. Sometimes you’d try being “just friends” but that never worked once the magic line had been crossed, and you ended up not seeing him again, never mind that you might enjoy his company.
I was reluctant to even start down that road, and David seemed to sense that. Maybe even to understand it. I allowed myself to think that he might be different.
Still, I couldn’t imagine that this was serious. It was an odd, though not unpleasant, sensation for me, going places with a man who turned every woman’s head. Sometimes when I’d look up into his smile, I’d have an impulse to turn around, as if the real object of that smile were standing behind me. Assuming that it would end, if not next week, then the week after that, I tried not to care too much and, failing that, at least not to show it. That became more and more difficult as fall turned to winter.
David continued to be thoughtful, attentive, and a perfect gentleman. The relationship hummed along, but didn’t seem to be humming along toward anything specific. I came full circle and began to worry about why he wasn’t trying to sleep with me. He was a great kisser, butit never went beyond that. Then one night he took me to dinner at Beau Rivage, a wildly romantic little restaurant clinging to the edge of a cliff in Malibu. We drank champagne and stared out at the black velvet ocean, dotted with occasional twinkles of light from passing boats and the lacy white froth of waves under the moon. The steady stream of conversation we’d kept up for the past six weeks seemed to have abruptly run dry.
Afterward, his black T-Bird cruised slowly down the dark Pacific Coast Highway; he turned off the radio and absentmindedly opened his window, even though it was early December and the wind was wet and cold. It was late and there were so few cars on the road that the breakers roared in the quiet. He drove silently, focused on the curves that loomed ahead, while I huddled into my jacket, certain beyond all doubt that this was the end. He’d just taken me to this wonderful place to soften the blow. Now he was going to tell me it was over.
We pulled up the suicidally precarious drive of his little house in the Hollywood Hills. When he pulled the key from the ignition, I turned my face to the window, making no move to get out of the car.
“Just tell me.”
He said, “Let’s go inside. It’s cold out here.”
“You’re the one who had the damn window down. Just tell me.”
“Tell you …?”
“Don’t be a wimp, just say it. Then you can take me home.”
“What are