She tried for an ironic smile. “I’m a little fuzzy,” she said.

“I’m not surprised.”

“Oh?”

“You were hitting the Cosmos pretty good. I had the feeling, you know, that you might be in a blackout.”

“Really? What did I do?”

“Nothing they’d throw you in jail for.”

“Well, that’s a relief.”

“You didn’t stagger or slur your words, and you were able to form complete sentences. Grammatical ones, too.”

“The nuns would be proud of me.”

“I’m sure they would. Except…”

“Except they wouldn’t like to see me waking up in a strange bed.”

“I’m not sure how liberal they’re getting these days,” he said. “That wasn’t what I was going to say.”

“Oh.”

“You didn’t know where you were, did you? When you opened your eyes.”

“Not right away.”

“Do you know now?”

“Well, sure,” she said. “I’m here. With you.”

“Do you know where ‘here’ is? Or who I am?”

Should she make something up? Or would the truth be easier?

“I don’t remember getting in a car,” she said, “and I do remember walking, so my guess is we’re in Riverdale.”

“But it’s a guess.”

“Well, couldn’t we call it an educated guess? Or at least an informed one?”

“Either way,” he said, “it’s right. We walked here, and we’re in Riverdale.”

“So I got that one right. But why wouldn’t the nuns be proud of me?”

“Forget the nuns, okay?”

“They’re forgotten.”

“Look, I don’t want to get preachy. And it’s none of my business. But if you’re drinking enough to leave big gaps in your memory, well, how do you know who you’re going home with?”

Whom, she thought. The nuns wouldn’t be proud of you, buster.

She said, “It worked out all right, didn’t it? I mean, you’re an okay guy. So I guess my judgment was in good enough shape when we hooked up.”