'How about if you're cheating on her?' she said.
'I wouldn't do that,' I said.
'Have you ever?'
'Yes.'
'But you won't again.'
'No.'
'She ever cheat on you?'
'She has.'
'But she won't again.'
'No.'
Cecile smiled without any real humor.
'Isn't that what they all say?'
'It is,' I said.
I sipped some scotch. Rain ran down the window, the streets gleamed. The scotch was excellent.
'You're not going to argue with me?'
'About what they all say?'
'Yes.'
'No,' I said.
Cecile studied me for a time.
'You're more like him than I thought,' she said.
'Hawk?'
She nodded.
'I have never heard him defend himself or explain himself,' she said. 'He's just fucking in there, inside himself, entirely fucking sufficient.'
There was nothing much to say to that. Cecile drank the rest of her cosmopolitan.
'And except for being white, I think you are just goddamned fucking like him,' she said.
'No,' I said. 'I'm not.'
She was studying my face like it was the Rosetta stone.
'Susan,' she said. 'You need Susan.'
'I do.'
'Well, he doesn't need me.'
'I don't know if he does or not,' I said. 'But not wanting to see you now doesn't prove it either way.'
'If he doesn't need me now, when will he?'
'Maybe need is not requisite to love.'
'It seems to be for you,' she said.
'Maybe that would be my weakness,' I said.
'Maybe it's not a weakness,' she said.
'Maybe an infinite number of angels,' I said, 'can balance on the point of a needle.'
She nodded. The waiter brought her another drink.
'We are getting a little abstract,' she said.
'I don't know if he loves you,' I said. 'And I don't know if you love him. And I don't know if you'll stroll into the sunset together, or should or want to. But as long as you know Hawk, he will be what he is. He's what he is now, except hurt.'
'And being hurt is not part of what he is?' she said.
I grinned.
'It is, at least, an aberration,' I said.
'So if I'm to be with him, I have to take him for what he is?'
'Yes.'
'He won't change.'
'No.'
'And just what is he?' Cecile said.
