“You look terribly young,” she said.
“I’m not.”
“About twenty-five?”
“Older than that.”
“Not much older.”
I didn’t answer that one.
“You work for someone?”
“I did for a while. Now I have a half interest in the business. Could we talk about something else for a change? New Orleans? Politics? Your love life, perhaps?”
She looked at me searchingly and with no trace of a smile. “What about my love life?”
I said, “I gave you a choice of several subjects to talk about. You didn’t get touchy about any one except your love life. Are you trying to cover up something? And that is what’s known as a counteroffensive.”