"She wants you, you know."
"I know."
I was driving us home in sparse traffic along the well-lighted El Camino Real.
"Her father likes you, too."
"I couldn't tell for sure."
She turned sideways in her seat to face me and laid a hand on my knee. "The old man is up against it, the most rigid imaginable deadline. He doesn't want to leave his daughter adrift with no one to protect her. Maybe he expected to hook you up with his daughter before he goes. I think he was disappointed to find out about me."
"As much as I like her, I'm not going to give up my life with you for her sake."
"What was it they used to say about opportunity? It knocks but once? Gloria's a beautiful woman, she shares your interests, and she'll soon be independently wealthy. Most of all, you won't even have strain yourself to win her. She wants you. It would be wrong of me to stand in the way of that."
"I'm in love with you!"
"Barry, nothing's changed, and it can't change. I'll always be eighteen years older than you. I've been completely selfish with you. My only plan was to teach you the kind of sex I like, and then keep you as my sex toy for a couple of years. Surely you must have realized that by now. After that, I'll send you off to find someone else and I'll search for a man my own age to live out my life with. But it seems to me now we should move the schedule up."
"If you were only taking advantage of me, why don't I feel like...?" I drew a sudden, sharp breath. My chest constricted. I couldn't catch my breath and the lights of the street swam in front of my eyes.
Is this what a heart attack felt like? A heart attack at nineteen was rare but not unheard of. A cold sweat broke out on my forehead. The dashboard gauges blurred. I sought the first place to turn off the road, the parking lot of a bank, and bounced the car over the ramp, dragging a rear wheel over the curb. With the car parked near a lamp standard,. I arched my back to try to ease my breathing. It didn't help.
RoseAnn shook my shoulder and her voice rose in alarm. "Barry, what's the matter?"
I breathed in great whoops, unable to get enough air. I tried to speak, but no words came. Instead, I burst out crying, in loud, terrible sobs. I bawled like a child as RoseAnn took me in her arms and held me to the soft dark silk that covered her breast. My tears dripped and my nose ran onto the expensive fabric, but I couldn't stop. I was humiliated by the awful outburst, but RoseAnn said nothing. She only hummed in my ear and stroked my hair until my wailing dissipated into occasional sobs and hiccups.
"I'm sorry," I whispered into her cleavage. "Maybe I'm not (hiccup) so grown up after all."
I felt her tears on my forehead. "Barry, I do love you. Honestly. All that talk of finding another woman for you sounded so cynical, but it's the only real option we have. At some point, even love has to make way for reality."
I said nothing. I was comfortable, cuddled against her breast. I wanted to stay like this, and wished we were back at the apartment. We couldn't stay parked in front of an empty bank for long, not this late at night.