“You don’t usually want me to meet your boyfriends,” Hannah reminded her.
“This one’s special,” Ruth said.
“So special that you haven’t slept with him.”
“He can beat me at squash,” Ruth added feebly.
“So can your father, and how old is he?”
“Seventy-seven,” Ruth said. “You know how old my father is.”
“Jesus, is he really? He doesn’t look it,” Hannah said.
“I am talking about Allan Albright, not my father,” Ruth said angrily. “Allan Albright is only fifty-four. He loves me, he wants to marry me, and I think I would be happy living with him.”
“Did you say you loved him?” Hannah asked. “I didn’t hear you say that.”
“I didn’t say that,” Ruth admitted. “I don’t know that. I don’t know how to tell,” she added.
“If you can’t tell, you don’t love him,” Hannah said. “And I thought he had the reputation of . . . uh, he was quite a ladies’ man, wasn’t he?”
“Yes, he was, ” Ruth said slowly. “He told me that himself, and that he’s changed.”
“Uh-oh,” Hannah said. “Do men change?”
“Do we ?” Ruth asked.
“You want to, don’t you?” Hannah said.
“I’m tired of bad boyfriends,” Ruth confessed.
“You sure can pick them,” Hannah told her. “But I thought you picked them because you knew they were bad. I thought you picked them because you knew they’d go away. Sometimes even before you told them to.”
“You’ve picked some bad boyfriends, too,” Ruth said.
“Sure, all the time,” Hannah admitted. “But I’ve also picked some good ones—they just don’t stay around.”
“I think Allan will stay around,” Ruth said.
“Sure he will,” Hannah told her. “So you’re worried if you’ll stay around—is that it?”
“Yes,” Ruth finally confessed. “That’s it.”
“I want to meet him,” Hannah said. “I’ll tell you if you’ll stay around. I’ll know the minute I meet him.”
And now she’s stood me up! Ruth thought. She thumped her copy of the novel shut; she held the book against her breasts. She felt like bursting into tears, she was so angry with Hannah, but she saw how she had startled the horny stagehand by her sudden gesture; she enjoyed his look of alarm.
“The audience can hear you backstage,” the sly boy whispered to her. He had a supercilious smile.
Ruth’s response was not spontaneous; almost everything she said was deliberate. “In case you’ve been wondering,” Ruth whispered to the stagehand, “they’re thirty-four D.”
“What?” the boy whispered.
He’s too dumb to get it, Ruth decided. Besides, the audience had broken into a resounding applause. Without hearing what Eddie had said, Ruth understood that Eddie had finally finished.
She paused onstage, to shake his hand, before approaching the podium. Eddie, confused, walked backstage instead of to his reserved seat in the audience; once backstage, he was too embarrassed to go to his seat. He looked helplessly at the unfriendly stagehand, who was not about to offer Eddie his stool.
Ruth waited out the applause. She picked up her empty water glass and immediately put it down. Oh, God, I drank her water! Eddie realized.