They sat looking at each other without speaking.
“What’s the matter?”
“Me? Oh, I’m fine.” She took a sip of the red wine and looked around desperately.
Like hell, he thought. He paused for a moment, as if marshaling his thoughts.
“Well, I just checked my watch and it’s definitely wine o’clock.”
He laughed at his own pleasantry. She stifled a desire to turn and flee. There was a strained silence; all she could hear was the pounding of her heart, the clinking of glasses. Feeling the blush mount in her cheeks, she looked down quickly.
“I never seem to say the right thing, do I?” He put the question with deceptive casualness. She swallowed a mouthful slowly.
“This wine is really drinking beautifully.”
“Oh, for God’s sake!” snarled Dyson. “I sometimes wonder whether you really and truly love me, I shit you not. What am I doing wrong?”
She paused, at a loss for words. The door opened softly, and the living dead slowly ambled forward, with one leg dragging behind. Ginny glanced at her watch.
Source: New Oxford American Dictionary
- A minor poet (He wrote under a pseudonym. We met through the lonely hearts ads.)
- A mediocre actor (Camera-shy. Shockingly bad manners.)
- The man who lodged in the room next door (A conveniently situated hotel. I didn’t have the heart to tell him.)
- A former Washington DJ whose handle was “Fat Daddy” (A man who, by his own admission, fell in love easily. We soon ran out of gas.)
- A retired teacher (Painful.)
- A topiary gardener (Dullsville.)
- The Honorable Richard Morris, Esquire, chief justice of the supreme court of our state (No comment.)
- A brilliant young mathematician (A state secret. He kept shtum about the fact that he was sent down for fraud; then he faked his own death.)
- A manlike creature (The effects of too much drink. I was feeling low.)
- A lady chef (I just knew it was something I wanted to do. I was living in Cairo then.)
- A double agent who betrayed some four hundred British and French agents to the Germans (Unbelievable or not, it happened. Listening devices were found in his private office. The man was wanted in a dozen countries but was as slippery as an eel.)
- An army officer of fairly high rank (We were both awfully busy; he liked his steak rare. Honestly, that’s all I can recall.)
- A highly esteemed scholar (We were lucky enough to walk by the lions’ enclosure at feeding time, when he said he “didn’t care about life, so why should he fear death?” A profoundly disturbing experience.)
Sources: New Oxford American Dictionary, Collins English Dictionary