"I didn't know you drank," I blurted. Stupid! Stupid words, stupid
beginning. It wasn't what I should have said, the important thing, the
crucial core of the outrage I so needed and resisted pressing open
before another. I could say no more after that blunder.
Heat suffused my neck, my eyes. My ears rang.
There might have been a slight pause before she said, "Usually I don't."
Silence.
"Only now and then, on special occasions, like tonight." She wasn't
speaking to explain herself to me, but to keep words there between us.
She was keeping a very new and fragile construction alive.