"If I ask you something else, will you really promise to give me an honest answer?"

I was getting tired of Ariel's questions. In fact, I was already at the point where just being around Ariel made me sick. The only reason I asked her to join me in the first place was some deep seeded sense of obligation I felt towards her -- some sense that I was still professional bound to do what I can for her. I didn't even open my eyes in response to Ariel's interrogatory; by then I was accustomed to the routine. Ariel always preceded the question that she really wanted to ask with that annoying prayer for honesty. Maybe what made it so annoying was that she never waited for a response between questions. I just sat there across the table from her with my eyes closed, fantasizing that I was alone, trying to listen to Phil's trio play Straight, No Chaser. This time, Ariel waited longer than usual before posing her second question: "Do you think that I'm pretty?"

The trap was sprung. My eyes shot open to focus upon Ariel's quivering face, her expression pathetic with longing. How could I possibly answer without offending? How could I maintain some modicum of honesty and still stem the flow of water already beginning to well in the corners of each of her eyes? If only there was something -- anything which I found attractive in Ariel; if she wasn't so lost and misled, or so filthy rich, or so overweight, or so Jewish; if only she was a more talented soprano -- but there was nothing, absolutely nothing.