Alison Lurie - The Truth About Lorin Jones

“The hell I did!” Mac said, angry for the first time since Polly had met him. “I didn’t take Lorin’s money; I wasn’t brought up like that. I got a job here as a gardener, and I started applying to colleges for teaching gigs.”

“And Lorin? What did she do?” Polly asked, suppressing an impulse to apologize.

“She stayed home and painted.” Mac shrugged.

She painted, while you dug and weeded, and I typed catalogues, Polly thought, her sympathy veering further around toward Mac. “And how long did that go on?”

“I don’t know. Six months, nine months. Then I landed a job up in northern New York State as a visiting lecturer.”

“And did Lorin go with you?”

“No. She figured it was too much trouble to move all her equipment back and forth, and it was only for eight months anyhow.” Mac shook his head slowly. “But it was a bad eight months for me.”

Selfish and cold and inconsiderate, Polly thought. It was going to be really easy to write a negative account of Lorin Jones’s life; much easier than writing a positive one.

“So then you came back to Key West and worked as a gardener again?”

“Yes; and anything else that came along. Carpentry, roofing, repairs, painting houses.”

“And you didn’t mind that,” Polly said, trying not to make it a question.

“It was okay. The trouble was, I didn’t get much writing done. A lot of days I was just too wiped out after work; especially in the summers.” Mac grinned, narrowing his green eyes.

“I see.” Lorin ruined your life as an artist, just as she ruined mine, Polly thought. But wasn’t Mac leaving something out? “I expect Lorin did the cooking and cleaning though, didn’t she?” she added, trying to keep her tone neutral. “Or don’t you consider that work?”

“Don’t give me that feminist glare.” Mac grinned. “Sure, it’s work. Hard work. I should know, because Lorin wouldn’t cook or clean. I found that out as soon as we got to Iowa. She claimed she didn’t know how, and somehow she couldn’t learn. Of course she was brought up with live-in help, and Garrett always had a daily cleaning lady for her. When she was alone on the Cape she just piled the dishes in the sink and waited for the woman to come. She ate crazy things anyhow, mostly fruit and yogurt and soup and crackers. If I wanted a real meal I had to cook it myself. I tried to make her do the dishes sometimes, but it wasn’t any use. She’d forget, or else she’d leave food burned on the pans or break something, you know?” Mac laughed.

“Mm.” Polly had heard of this ploy; according to feminist rhetoric, it was known as “klutzing out,” and was always employed by men.

“See, what you have to understand is, the only thing that really counted for Lorin was her painting. Nothing else had any importance for her.”

“You make her sound rather selfish,” Polly said, trying it out.

“Selfish, I d’know.” Mac shook his head. “She was always handing out money to beggars and street performers. And she’d give you her last scoop of raspberry sherbet if you looked at it hopefully.” He smiled, gazing past Polly. “But she was the most self-centered person I’ve ever known.”

“Self-centered?”

“Mmh. You didn’t notice it at first, because Lorin didn’t give a damn about money or possessions or being the center of attention. All she wanted was to be left alone to paint. But if anyone got in the way of that, it was too bad for them.”

Yes, that sounds right, Polly thought. “But it must have been different with you, because she was in love,” she suggested.

“I was in love with her. I never said she was in love with me.” Mac shook his head slowly, as if disagreeing with some invisible person.

“You really think Lorin didn’t love you?” Polly asked, surprised.

“Not the way I loved her. But it wasn’t personal exactly. She just couldn’t care much for anybody or anything, not compared with her paintings. Not even sex.”

“She didn’t like making love?” Polly said, suppressing even with you.

Mac looked past her, through the scaffolding of what might one day be a bedroom. “Oh, she liked it all right sometimes. But it was a private thing with her. She never said anything, she just kind of went away into another world. I’m not complaining, though at the time —” He frowned. “I never knew how lucky I was till I had to cope with my wife, and her Guide to Married Love and Four Stages of Arousal.” He laughed crossly. “I never had to ask Lorin afterward if it had been all right for her. The only trouble was, when she was really into painting she just tuned out.”

“You mean she tuned out sex.”

“Yes, that too. For days sometimes. I used to get mad and swear that the next time she felt like it I’d say too bad, nothing doing, I was working on a poem.”

“And did you, ever?”

“Well, I tried it a couple times. But Lorin always got around me. She was so beautiful, for one thing. Her eyes and her mouth and her hands and all that long glossy dark-brown hair, that always looked a little wet even when it wasn’t. She could charm the seabirds from the air and the tuna out of the Gulf. And by God, she knew it.”

Lorin Jones hurt you worse than she hurt me, Polly thought, looking at the strong jutting lines of Mac’s averted profile, the cropped curl of piebald hair behind his ear. Never mind. I’ll fix you, she told Lorin in her head. I’ll tell everyone how you lived off men, how you sacrificed people to your ambition. They’ll hear of your selfishness, your slyness, your spitefulness.

“You think she turned on her charm deliberately,” she suggested.

“Yes. With me she did, anyhow. Lorin wanted to be sure of me, see; she wanted to be certain I’d always be there, in case she needed something. Once that was settled, she’d leave, without going out of the house, if you know what I mean.”

“Mm.” You’re still angry at her, Polly thought. And no wonder. “How come you never got married?” she added.

“I don’t know. I guess partly it was because Garrett dragged his feet so long over the divorce. When it finally came through, though, I asked her to marry me.

“And what did she say?”

“She said, ‘No. Why should I?’ I couldn’t think of any reason, by that time.” Mac shrugged. “Excuse me.”

Again he rose and loped across the raw floorboards to answer the phone. This time, though, Polly didn’t make any notes. She sat staring through the nearest skeleton wall without registering it. I see through you now, you cold bitch, she thought. You had a man like this, and you didn’t even love him.

“Right,” Mac said into the phone on an up note.

“Thanks. ... Hey, it looks like we’ve got a delivery for Monday,” he called.

“Oh, good,” she murmured, her mind elsewhere.

“How’re you doing?” he said softly, standing close, looking down at her.

“Okay, I guess.” Polly gave him a quick uneasy smile. You ought to go now, you know what could happen if you don’t, she told herself. “Well, thanks for all the information.” She stood up, holding on to the back of the folding chair, since for some reason her legs felt weak.

Slowly, Mac moved even nearer. “You know, I was in a hell of a panic all day,” he said, putting one hand on her bare arm just below the shoulder.

“A panic?” Polly willed herself to take a step back, but couldn’t.

“Yeah. I was scared you wouldn’t come.” He took hold of Polly’s other arm and pulled her to him.

Wait a moment, for God’s sake, she told herself. You said you weren’t going to do this again, didn’t you?

But it seemed, after all, that she was.

“Why you?” Mac asked presently, raising himself on one elbow to look down at Polly as she lay on his rumpled sleeping bag and air mattress. “That’s what I want to know.”