“Do you like Brahms? I go for popular music myself. Preferably the sort of thing they wrote back in the 1930s. Something you can dance to, something you know the words to. Corny, they used to call it. Remember ‘Sunny Side of the Street,’ and ‘Just the Way You Look Tonight’.”
Larry winced again. He said, “Look, I admit, I don't go for concerts either but it doesn't hurt you to—”
“I know,” she said sweetly. “It doesn't hurt for a bright young bureaucrat to be seen at concerts.”
“How about Dixieland?” he said. “It's all the thing now.”
“I like corn. Besides, my wardrobe is all out of style. Paris, London, and Rome just got in a huddle a couple of weeks ago and antiquated everything I own. You wouldn't want to be seen with a girl a few weeks out of date, would you?”
“Oh, now, LaVerne, get off my back.” He thought about it. “Look, you must have something you could wear.”
“Get out of here, you vacant minded conformist! I like Mort Lenny, he makes me laugh; I hate vodka martinis, they give me sour stomach; I don't like the current women's styles, nor the men's either.” LaVerne spun back to her auto-typer and began to dictate into it.
Larry glared down at her. “All right. O.K. What do you like?”
She snapped back irrationally, “I like what I like.”
He laughed at her in ridicule.