“I like the way you dance,” he said, moving back but keeping one arm around her.
“Thanks.” Polly didn’t return the compliment. What she had to do now, she thought fuzzily as the music started up again, was get out of here before anything else could happen.
“Do you clog?”
“What?”
Mac gestured at the dance floor. Most of the couples had left, but those that remained were beginning to stamp and wheel and gallop around in tandem, like children playing horses.
“Oh, no.”
“It’s easier than it looks, y’know. I’ll teach you sometime.” He steered her back toward their table. “Like another beer?”
Polly nodded, then instantly regretted this. Well, you don’t have to drink it, she told herself as he held up two fingers to the waitress.
“Hey, Polly.” Mac leaned toward her and half shouted over the cantering dancers. “You married?”
Polly shook her head. “I was once.”
“Yeah? So was I.” He smiled. “Didn’t work out, hm?”
“No.”
“Me neither. It was a bust from the wedding night, only I got stubborn and stuck it out for three years.”
“With me it was all right for a while, but then my husband insisted on moving to Denver.”
“And what was wrong with Denver?”
“Nothing. Only I couldn’t get a job there.” Why am I telling him all this, Polly thought, listening to her own voice, which sounded like someone else’s. Because he doesn’t matter, that’s why, she answered. They were confiding in each other, yes, but only with the anonymous frankness of strangers who find themselves on the same bus or plane and know they won’t meet again.
“Uh-huh. Kids?”
“I’ve got a son, he’s fourteen. But he’s with his father now, for this school term. Till Christmas.”
“Rough, huh.”
“Yes,” Polly agreed, wondering how Mac knew this — it must have been her tone of voice. “Yes, I really miss him.”
“You’re lucky, though. What I miss, it’s the kids I never had.”
“You could still —”
Mac shook his head, looking away, then slowly turned back. “I can’t find the right woman,” he seemed to say, but since he didn’t raise his voice this time it was hard to tell. The music was louder, the couples stomped and tramped faster; it made Polly dizzy to look at them. What she ought to do, she ought to say she had to get back, as soon as he finished his beer, because she wasn’t going to drink hers — Except, she noticed, she already had.
The band paused for breath, then started another slow number, a wailing song about lost love.
“Let’s dance,” Mac said, rising.
This time Polly didn’t try to make conversation. She allowed herself to fall at once into a warm drifting blur, to lean against Mac, move with him. Because it didn’t matter, as soon as the music ended she’d go home. But now — now —
“Hey,” Mac whispered presently, his mouth against her face. “You know that place you’re staying? That Artemis Lodge.”
“Mm.”
“Artemis, you know who she was?”
“I think she was some kind of Greek goddess,” Polly said.
“Right. A jealous virgin. She turned her best friend into a bear on account of she’d slept with Zeus.”
“Really?”
“I’m not as illiterate as you might think.”
“Mm.” Polly recalled something Ron or Phil had said, that many of the permanent residents of Key West were middle-class dropouts, ex-hippies now managing restaurants or galleries, or running charter boats — or, why not, repairing houses for a living. “Nice people, most of them,” Phil, or Ron, had declared.
“Anyhow,” Mac said. “That place of yours. It’s a lesbian guest house; at least that’s what I hear.”
Polly swallowed; then, damning herself for her hesitation, said, “Yes, I know. I’m a lesbian.”
“Yeah?” Mac laughed. “You could have fooled me.” He circled with the music, holding her even closer. It was clear that he didn’t believe her; or if he did believe her, didn’t care.
“So how’s it going, your research?” he asked as they returned to the table.
“Oh, okay. Well, not all that great lately. Coming down here wasn’t much use.”
“Not much use, huh?” Mac said, with a grin. “Sorry to hear that.”
“I didn’t mean — It’s just —” What is the matter with me, the beer, Polly thought. “I mean, I came all the way to Key West, and spent all that money, and now I can’t locate Hugh Cameron or anybody who knew him or Lorin Jones, and I can’t even get into his house.”
“Get into the house? What good would that do, if he’s not there?”
“I want to see if he still has any of Lorin Jones’s paintings. The museum where I work put on a show a couple of years ago in New York, and I wrote to ask if he had anything we could borrow, but he never answered.”
“Ah.” Mac rotated his empty glass.
“Maybe you’ve noticed, if you’ve ever been in the house.”
“Noticed what?”
“If there were any pictures. Oil paintings, they’d be, or maybe watercolors.”
“Pictures.” Mac appeared to be thinking. “I don’t remember, really. I guess I never paid much attention. Like another beer?”
“Oh no, no thanks. I’ve got to get back.” Polly looked at her watch. “The manager at the guest house said she was going to call the police if I wasn’t home by twelve.”
“She did?”
“She’s afraid you might be a psychotic rapist,” Polly heard herself say, or rather lie.
“She never even saw me,” Mac protested.
“I know.”
“She probably thinks all men are rapists.” He laughed.
“I guess she might.” Polly mentally kicked herself for playing along, for misquoting and misrepresenting Lee.
“Personally, I’ve always liked cooperation when I make love.” Mac turned toward Polly. Something looked at her out of his eyes; she tried to look away, didn’t quite make it. “Okay, shall we go?”
Abruptly the smoky, pulsing sensual blur of the Sagebrush Lounge was replaced by the warm, silent night outside. Polly felt a tense, twanging apprehension — or was it expectancy? — as Mac drove along a dark side street, taking her — where?
“So you’re gay, huh?” he said abruptly. “Since when?”
“I’ve been living with a woman for two months,” Polly told him, accurately but deceptively, and realizing that even this didn’t sound like much. Or maybe it did, for Mac had just swung onto a broad, well-lit boulevard, edged on one side with movie theaters and drive-ins and motels, and on the other with a row of blowing palms and the dark choppy waters of the bay. “That is, I was living with her,” she added, unwilling to suggest that she was two-timing someone.
“You mean you aren’t anymore,” he said, or asked.
“No, not exactly,” she admitted.
“Ah.” They had turned onto a street that Polly recognized as not far from Artemis Lodge. There seemed to be nothing more to say, so she said nothing. It’s over, I’m safe; I won’t see him again, she thought, and was furious at herself for not being relieved.
“Listen, I’ve got an idea,” Mac said as he pulled up outside the guest house. “What if I was to get — I mean, I think maybe I could get the key to Hugh Cameron’s house, from the rental agent.”
“Oh, could you?” Polly gasped.
“Sure. Well, probably. I could tell them I had to check the bathroom pipes or something. Then you could meet me there tomorrow after I finish work and look for those paintings.”
“That’d be really great.” In her enthusiasm, Polly put a hand on his arm. “If it’s not too much trouble —”
“No. A pleasure.” Mac covered her hand with his. “So I’ll see you over there, say about four?”