Alison Lurie - The Truth About Lorin Jones

Polly halted, prepared to give him a freezing look. But the guy’s tone was anonymous; probably he didn’t remember seeing her before. Very likely he routinely stared and whistled at any female that came within range. She moved forward again through the crowd.

“Thanks, honey.” He counted out change for a customer and handed over a plastic sack, then turned back to Polly. “Here. This’ll look real good on you.” From the pile of T-shirts he pulled out a rose-red one speckled in a white paint-drip design like an early Pollock.

“I don’t know —” Actually the shirt wasn’t half-bad. “How much is it?”

Revivals Construction gave her a sidelong smile. “For you, four dollars.”

Polly studied the cloth for flaws. “The one you just sold was six-fifty.”

“Yep. The uglier they are, the more they cost. ... Sure, it’s washable.” (This was to another customer.) “You can put it into the machine if you want. It’s up to you.”

“All right,” Polly decided, digging into her tote bag.

“I saw you before this afternoon,” she added as she paid. “Over on Frances Street.”

“Yeah.” He half smiled. “I saw you too.”

“I wanted to ask you something,” Polly persisted, a little discomfited.

“Sure. ... They’re all natural fabric, one hundred percent cotton, pure vegetable dyes, okay?... All right, ask me.”

“You were working on a house.”

“I was... What? Six-fifty each, like the sign says, two for twelve.” Three oversize teenagers in shorts had shoved their way through the crowd. “Extra-large, right over here. ... Listen,” he added to Polly. “This is a madhouse. Why don’t you meet me for a drink after sunset? Say in half an hour. ... Sure, we’ve got children’s sizes, wait a sec. They’re in a box underneath here somewhere. ... Okay?”

“Okay,” Polly agreed.

“Billie’s on Front Street. Out back in the garden, it’s quieter. You got that? ... Right. Here you are, don’t grab, please: kiddie sizes two, four, six, eight. If you don’t want that one, don’t throw it at me, just put it back on the table, okay? Jesus... So I’ll see you later.”

Around Polly as she turned to go there was a change in the crowd; a rise and focusing of sound, a movement away from the stalls and the performers toward the sea. Caught in a layer of smoky vapor, the sticky raspberry sun balanced on the shimmering horizon, then began to flatten and dissolve. There was a hush, then an increasing patter of applause; finally even a few cheers. Polly didn’t join in. The ceremony seemed to her not, as Phil had put it, “kind of cute,” but phony and self-indulgent. Even before the applause had slackened she had begun to make her way back through the crowd toward Duval Street.

12

THE GARDEN OF BILLIE’S bar was hedged and overhung by lush, loose-leaved tropical plants, and by strings of colored Christmas-tree bulbs just beginning to spark the lilac twilight. On a low platform under a shredding palm a man in a cowboy shirt was strumming a guitar and wailing a sad country-Western song into a microphone.

Polly chose one of the scabby white-painted metal tables near the shrubbery and far enough from the music to make conversation possible.

“Can I get you something?” a long-haired waitress asked, balancing her tray on her skinny hip.

“No, thanks. I’m waiting for someone.” Polly was thirsty; but if she ordered before he came, Revivals Construction would think her either rude or an alcoholic or both.

Around her the tables were beginning to fill; it was nearly half-past six. Maybe Revivals Construction wasn’t coming; maybe he’d decided he didn’t want to see her again after all. Polly felt cross, restless, and — very irrationally, because why should she give a damn — rejected. She picked at the blistered white paint of the table, and stared at the laughing and drinking tourists around her.

“Hi!” Revivals called, waving from the entrance to the garden.

“Hi,” Polly called back. As she watched him dodge, with considerable speed and grace, between the crowded tables, she admitted to herself that he was what most women would consider a very attractive man; tall, broad-shouldered and narrow-hipped, with a lot of light hair and a face almost cubist in its assemblage of elegant angles and planes.

“Sorry I’m late.” He yanked out the chair next to hers, smiling unapologetically.

“That’s all right,” Polly said.

“Never again. I’m through with those damn T-shirts.”

“You’re quitting your business?”

“Huh? Oh, no. That’s not my business; I was just minding the stall for a friend. This place okay by you?”

“Oh, sure.” Polly sat back a little. It was clear from Revivals Construction’s easy triangular smile and the way he had dragged his chair closer to hers across the gravel that he thought he’d picked her up — or, worse, that she’d picked him up. She could disabuse him of this idea, but then he might get huffy and uncooperative.

“Like the music?”

“Oh, sure,” Polly repeated, though she hadn’t been paying attention.

“That guy used to be a star up in Nashville.”

“Really?”

“Had three record albums. He’s damn good. But nobody here’s even listening to him, if you notice,” He shook his head. “Stupid bastards.”

“That’s too bad.”

“Yeah. But that’s tourists for you.” Revivals Construction shrugged, then half smiled. “Present company excepted, of course.” He set his elbow on the table and leaned toward Polly. His arm, bare almost to the shoulder under the rolled sleeve of his dark green T-shirt, was also cubist in design, its blocks of muscle and bone outlined in veined ridges. “So how’d you like the sunset?”

“Well.” Polly hesitated, but there was no point in not saying what she thought. Revivals, thank God, wasn’t somebody she had to interview, and had no connection with the New York art world or with Lorin Jones. “It really wasn’t all that great, you know. I was surprised anybody applauded.”

“Yes. But they always do. The tourists assume it’s a show put on for their benefit.”

“That’s what I thought too,” she said, surprised.

“They believe that the sun bows down before them. Literally.” He grinned and touched her wrist. “So what’re you drinking?”

“I guess I’ll have a beer,” Polly said, aware of an instinctive reaction in her arm and thinking that she’d better clarify the situation fast. “What I wanted to ask you —” she began.

“Just a sec.” He waved to the waitress. “Two Millers. Okay?”

“Sure.” But maybe what she ought to do was play along until she found out what the hell had happened to Hugh Cameron, who still didn’t answer his phone.

“By the way, the name’s Mac.”

“I’m Polly,” she responded, thinking that in her childhood first names had been a sign of intimacy. Now, when waiters and flight attendants introduced themselves as Jack and Jill, their meaning was reversed.

“Nice to meet you.” Mac held out his hand. The strength and duration of his grip clearly suggested that he had, as Jeanne would put it, designs on her person. “So, how long are you in Key West for?”

“I’m not certain. Three or four days, maybe.”

“Aw, too bad. I was hoping you were down for the whole season.” He grinned meaningly.

“No.” Polly smiled back almost against her will, feeling a once-familiar rush of consciousness. Five years ago she would have enjoyed sitting in a tropical garden, flirting with a good-looking guy; she knew better now.

“Having a good time so far?”

“So-so.” Polly told the truth automatically, then realized that it sounded like a line; and that was how Mac responded to it: