Joseph Kanon - Los Alamos

The band played a few foxtrots and even one faltering lindy, but they were lining up another square dance when Connolly got his drink. Warm from the liquor, he stood against the wall not far from the punch bowl, trying to catch a breeze from the open doors at the end of the room. The vanished Mills had reappeared on the dance floor, linking arms with an attractive young girl and dancing with surprising ease. She was looking up at him as if, his prediction right, she wanted to marry him. Next to her a formally dressed, swarthy man with luxuriant eyebrows scowled in concentration. Connolly became fixated on the eyebrows; they arched over the man’s eyes like dormers, tufts spilling out on top and then running off in unexpected corkscrews on the side. His partner, a pleasant-looking woman in a print dress and sensible shoes, never looked at him but stared straight ahead, a smile fixed on her face. Connolly began making up stories for them. Given another drink, he could do this all night.

“Lovely, isn’t it?” she said. “Norman bloody Rockwell.”

The scorn in the voice seemed so strong it must have been designed to provoke. If she had been a man, he would have heard the scrappy challenge of someone looking to pick a fight, but she was looking straight ahead, not really talking to him at all. Her voice was English, throaty and full-bodied with drink. She was dressed in riding boots and jodhpurs topped with a white blouse, and he thought she was the first woman he’d ever seen who looked right in them. The trousers seemed to bend and follow the lines of her slim hips, not expand them. Her clothes were dusty, as if she had really come in from riding, not dressed up in costume for the party. Her hair was piled up on her head like a factory worker’s, minus the kerchief. She wore glasses and, as far as he could tell, no makeup at all, but her carelessness, her indifference to what anyone thought, had the effect of drawing him to the features that mattered-her luxurious skin, the tight lines of her body. And there was the voice. As he looked at her, she swayed slightly, and he guessed the sharp insolence had come from too much drink. But the voice, he sensed, would never slur. It would never flutter or pipe or somehow go wrong. It would get more and more controlled, not belligerent but impatient, as if things had become so clear she couldn’t understand why they weren’t clear to everyone else.

“You don’t like square dancing,” he said, not knowing what else to say.

She looked at him for the first time. “Do you?”

“Not much.”

“Well, then, have a drink and let’s start again. Not much of a line, was it? Square dancing. You might as well have Morris dancers bouncing up and down with their bloody bells.”

“You’re English,” he said.

“Christ, that’s not much better,” she said and laughed. “Of course I’m English. So what? And yes, I come here often. Too often, really. No, we haven’t met before. And yes, I like the pictures but I’m not sure I want to go sometime. And-well, what else? What else do you say to break the ice? I like to hear all the lines.”

“Is that what I’m doing? Breaking the ice?”

“Aren’t you?”

“No.”

“Well, perhaps you’re not,” she said, drinking. “Sorry. I get confused. So you’re not. Would you like to?”

“Yes.”

She smiled. “Thanks, but better not. I’m a happily married woman.”

“Well, that’s disappointing. And I was just getting to know you.”

“Better not do that either. I’m mad, bad, and the other thing-what was it? Ask anybody. You’re new. Who are you, anyway?”

“Michael Connolly,” he said, offering his hand. “And not dangerous to know.” He caught her expression. “The other thing,” he explained.

“Oh. Says you. Everybody’s dangerous, once you get to know them.” She looked at her glass, as if what she had said had just slipped out and she needed a minute to think it over.

“Not here,” he said, nodding to the dance. “Looks pretty wholesome to me.”

She laughed and stared at the dancers. “Yes, isn’t it just? Your typical all-American city. We ought to be in the bloody Saturday Evening Post. We’ve got everything you could possibly want. Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, chess club, baseball, Little Theater group-quite a little treat they are, by the way-and the victory garden ladies, and—” She stopped. “Sorry. I’m ranting again, aren’t I? I’m supposed to watch myself. Anyway, we’re a hive of activity here. Something for everyone, to help pass the time. Well, for the ladies, that is.”

“And what do you do?”

“You mean when I’m not running up quilts and making jam and not asking any questions? Not much. They encourage the wives to do some sort of job. Afraid we’ll go starkers, probably. A lot of us work in the admin offices or teach, but I’m not allowed to do that-no aliens, please. Americans only in the school.”

“But so many of the children must be—”

“Foreign. Yes, funny, isn’t it? I suppose it’s our values or something. Such as they are. Awfully corrupting, I don’t doubt. And so the days fly by. Actually, I don’t mind. I don’t want to teach in their bloody school anyway. What I do want, though, is another drink,” she said, pouring one from the punch bowl. “Oh, don’t worry, I’m not a lush. I’d hold it better if I were. You needn’t look like that, I know I’m tight. I’m not a bit proud of it, if that makes you feel any better.”

“I don’t care. It’s your head in the morning.”

“It’s my head now, if you want to know the truth. God, I hate getting tight. I knew I would, too. These little town hall meetings always bring out the worst.”

“You’re doing all right.”

“Oh, we’re all doing all right. Considering what we’re doing here. What do you do, anyway? Or am I not supposed to ask? My husband works with Bethe-I shouldn’t even say that, should I? — and that’s all I bloody know. You can imagine what it does for dinner conversation.”

“I’m with the security office.”

She looked up at him as if someone had shaken her by the shoulders. “Oh.” She put down her drink. “You might have told me. You’ll think I’m always like this.”

“Don’t worry,” he said, “I’m not on duty.”

“There’s no such thing. The enemy never sleeps. Or so they say.” But her voice had lost its bite.

“That’s just something we put around to keep you on your toes. Your secret’s safe with me. I don’t know Bethe and I can’t stand Little Theater either. I don’t even know your name. You keep not telling it to me, remember?”

“Oh God, he’s going to be nice. Please don’t do that. I particularly wanted not to be nice tonight. Emma Pawlowski.” She noted his surprise. “Nee Harris, as they say in the Tatler.”

“Why particularly tonight?”

“I don’t know. Bad day or something. Let’s just leave it at that. Oh, the hell with it,” she said, picking up the drink and tossing it back.

“Do you really dislike it here so much?”

“Actually, I love it here. The place, I mean. I just hate all the Andy Hardy business,” she said, pointing to the party.

“Why come, then?”

“Daniel wouldn’t miss it. I can’t think why. Maybe he thinks it’s part of the citizenship course. Like the bloody Founding Fathers.”

He smiled at her. “You’re feeling better again.”

“Actually, I feel like hell.” And in fact she looked pale, her skin shining with sweat. “Let me have a cigarette, will you, and I’ll just toddle along home before I say anything indiscreet. We’ll save that for next time.”

“I hope so,” he said, lighting her cigarette.

She coughed a little as she blew the smoke out. “I didn’t mean anything by that,” she said.