The Polka Dot Nude (14 page)

I went to the parking lot, but his car was locked, so I had to stand and wait while he paid the bill, which I was supposed to pay. I’d reimburse him, and give him the ten bucks he’d paid the wino, too. It was a good ten minutes before he sauntered out, trying to look nonchalant, with one hand in his pocket. We didn’t exchange a word as he unlocked the car and got in. He opened my door from the inside and I let myself in. His pop-up manners were reserved for more accommodating dates.

He inserted the key, turned it, and a rough, grinding sound resonated in the car. My temper improved slightly to see he wasn’t as cool as he pretended. He’d flooded the engine. He tried again, and the grinding turned to a coughing chug.

“Better wait till you and the engine simmer down,” I suggested.

He turned the key again immediately, stomping on the gas pedal all the time. This time there was no sound but a light clinking, as of expanded metal parts shrinking. Without a word, Brad got out, lifted the hood, and looked at the perfectly invisible engine. He soon came to my door and said, “I’ll have to call a service station. Do you want to go back inside to wait?”

“I’m fine here, thanks.”

He stalked back into the restaurant. The pleasure of his discomfort was mitigated by my own. I lit a cigarette, and before I butted it, he was back.

“They’re not open till morning,” he announced. “Luckily, they have some empty rooms.”

“Looks like you aren’t the only one who struck out tonight.” I followed him back to the restaurant, my mind alive with plans to get home alone. As I chased him to the steps I called, “I want to pay for our dinner.”

“Keep it. You can pay for your own room,” he answered, in a perfectly bored voice.

He held the door for me to enter, and led the way to the registration desk. I found myself asking for a room, almost before I had time to think about it.

CHAPTER 10

I wasn’t calm enough to realize I’d been rash till the bedroom door was closed behind me. Then I asked myself why I hadn’t had the sense to find out about a bus, or a taxi if necessary, to get home. It wouldn’t have cost as much as this room. But as I
was
registered, with my credit card number already on record, I looked around to see where I’d be spending a sleepless night.

The room was small and cute, in the cloying way a room in a Walt Disney animated film is cute—chintz curtains, pine furniture with little heart cutouts, Norman Rockwell reproductions on the wall. The oversized, satin-draped bed in the corner looked like a lady of pleasure wandered in from a foreign film. I went to the window to draw the drapes, and heard a knock on the door. Brad!

“Who is it?” I called.

“Charles Manson,” Brad called. I bit back a reluctant smile and went to the door. “Is everything all right?” he asked.

Since he looked suitably repentant, I decided to let him in. I cast a withering glance around the room and said, “Couldn’t be better. I was just wondering if I wouldn’t be in Goldilocks’ way.”

“You have it all to yourself, Snow White.”

“You’re confusing your fairy tales.”

Brad was holding a newspaper. He handed it to me and said, “I found this in my room. There’s a long article about Rosalie in it. Quite a bit of trivial detail about her movies—I thought you might like to see it.”

“Thanks.” I accepted his peace offering. It was much too early to go to bed, and I wouldn’t be able to sleep in a strange place anyway. Brad and I exchanged an uncertain look.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

I shrugged magnanimously. “Cars break down.”

“I mean about my untimely suggestion. I’ll pay for your room, of course.”

“Forget it. Oh, and I want to pay you for the dinner.” I went for my purse. Brad took it from my hand and threw it on the bed. “I’m paying for my own room at least,” I insisted.

“We’ll make a deal. You can pay for your room if you let me stay awhile and keep you company.”

I gave him a long, head-shaking look. “You’re shameless, you know that. Sit down if you want to, but sit on your hands.”

“It’s my tongue that should be manacled. Please don’t ask why I suggested it. I don’t even know. Force of habit, I guess. Yes, it
is
a revealing statement,” he continued, apparently reading my mind. “And not true either.”

“Lying can become a habit. Let’s just forget it.”

“I felt I should say something about it. It was a mistake.”

“A tactical error,” I modified, and pulled out the desk chair to sit down.

“Well, everybody does it. It’s permitted nowadays.”

“It isn’t compulsory. You make a thing permissible, and next year it’s a duty. If they made euthanasia legal, every soul over seventy would feel guilty for not eliminating himself. I refuse to feel guilty for not consenting.”

Brad sat on the edge of the bed and took out his cigarettes. “My room has a sofa,” he mentioned. “If you want to watch TV or something . . ."

My chair was hard, and it would be easier to bolt from his room, should the need arise, than to expel him from mine. “Okay.”

We went to his room, which was a larger version of mine, with a mini sitting room at the end of it. “The brochure calls it colonial decor,” he explained, looking around. “It’s sweet enough to give you a cavity if you stayed longer than twenty-four hours.”

“I was just wondering how anyone, even the most confirmed lecher, could choose a place like this to . . ."

“Maybe they turn the lights out. All rooms are black in the dark. Shall I order some beer?”

“Sure, why not.”

I fiddled with the TV while he made the call. It was reruns, but by the time the beer came, the news was on and we settled in to listen.

“Do you get a feeling of déjà vu watching this?” I asked. “For as long as I can remember, I’ve been watching people starve and be shot.”

“Turn it off if you want,” he suggested. “The trouble with TV is, it trivializes everything. Wars, famine, love . . .“ He slid a wary eye my way. I controlled my smile, as I was curious to see how he was going to make an ass of himself this time. “We’re all consumers. Things—and people too—are here to be used. Fast cars to be driven, Coke to be drunk, and beautiful women to be . . .”

“That’s ingenious, Brad. A lousy excuse isn’t necessarily better than none.”

He looked offended. “I’m looking for the
reason,
not an excuse. I knew you weren’t like a lot of the other women I meet. I didn’t want to look like an idiot in front of you. But when you agreed to come here . . ."

“Strangely enough, I thought a dinner invitation meant dinner. It’s Pavlov you should be blaming. A motel, a woman—bingo, sex.”

“I’m salivating already. But I’m glad you’re—different.”

“More adult,” I reminded him.

“‘Better,’ I was going to say.”

“Try ‘smarter.’ I recognize the introduction of a new line.”

“Why are you so suspicious?” he demanded. “I’m trying to be nice, to apologize and flatter—
compliment
you.”

“With unblushing effrontery! You’re trying to get me into bed, Brad, and I wouldn’t go now if I wanted to.”

“For your information, Audrey, I’m no longer in the mood. I wouldn’t go if you begged me.”

“So there,” I added for him. After a brief silence, I said, “I might as well go back to my own room."

“You might as well if you only came here in the hope of being seduced.” I tightened my muscles to flounce up and out, till I saw the laughter in his eyes. “Relax, Audrey. I’m not after your bod—tonight. The appendage can take only so much verbal abuse, then it goes on strike. It’s becoming conditioned to retire into quiescence at the very sound of your voice."

“A wise appendage.”

“A little sensitive to abuse, like me.”

“I was sure you’d both be used to it by now.”

“Let’s go for a walk,” he said, tacitly admitting defeat.

We walked down to the river and sat on a bench, looking across the water. A large ghostly galleon of a ship drifted by out in the channel, dodging a few of the thousand islands that dotted the expanse of black water. To the west, the lights of the Thousand Island Bridge to Canada formed a necklace around the river’s throat. Overhead, the moon looked distant, white, and eerie. It was pretty enough to melt an iceberg, or a cold woman. We should have come here first and let things develop more naturally. Here I sat by the romantic river with a beautiful hunk of a man who was honor-bound, if he had any honor, not to molest me.

“Kind of like being at a golf course with no balls,” he said, looking hopefully at me.
“Golf
balls, I mean,” he added hastily, when my lips stirred.

“And a quiescent club,” I smiled.

“That’s what
you
think. Would you mind very much if I kissed you?”

“What, sully these virginal lips?” I looped my arms around his neck.

With a sigh of infinite satisfaction, he pulled me into his arms and kissed me. It was a very accomplished kiss, warm and satisfying and stirring springlike sensations of awakening as he nibbled my lips apart and invaded with his tongue. I liked the close, bearish feel of his arms protecting me from the cool breeze. Knowing that he wanted more than a kiss lent an edge to things, too.

“We should have come here first,” I said, running my fingers over his neck. A neck was such a vulnerable thing, soft and warm.

He took my other hand and held it against his mouth, kissing it. “I’m not really a lech, Audrey. If you don’t come on to most women today, they think you’re gay. It puts a strain on a guy, you know. Damned if you don’t, and once in a rare and wonderful while, damned if you do.”

“I hope you don’t get the idea I’m frigid or something. When a man comes on so strong, taking for granted you can’t wait to admire his etchings, it gets my back up.”

“Don’t apologize. I acted like a jerk.”

“Jerks are more persistent. They don’t warm up such delicious frozen dinners either. Did you really cook them yourself, back home?”

“In a manner of speaking, I did. Pierre was with me, but I did half the work. I don’t want you to think I was just interested in your body, Audrey. I like being with you, talking with you, if you can call what we do talking. I think we’d make a fairly decent team.”

I looked him in the eye, trying to read, if possible, what the word “team” denoted to him. “Me such a great cook, and you with your insatiable appetite—for food, I mean.” He smiled.

“I never eat anything else but.”

We kissed again, and again. For a long time we sat on the bench, smooching like high school kids, each waiting for the other to suggest the next step, each too stubborn to be the one to give in. I was curious to see if he’d try to get into my room when we went back inside, and didn’t know whether I was glad or sorry that he didn’t even try; but I knew I was surprised. His mischievous smile told me he knew it, too.

I slept fairly well in a strange bed, but woke early in the morning. Since it was too early to get up, I just lay there and thought about Brad. He could be charming when he wasn’t trying to make out. I thought he could be charming when he succeeded, too. If he hadn’t tried so hard, he would have succeeded before now. A man should be told a thing like that—in a discreet way, of course.

I was up, showered, dressed, and considering going to the dining room alone when the tap came at my door.

“Good morning.” Brad smiled. “It’s a beautiful day out there. It’s too bad you have to work, but I guess you want to get back to your book.”

“I have to, want it or not.”

“What do you want for breakfast?”

“Bacon and eggs’ll be fine.”

“Good. I doubt if they have any apples and rye bread.” He looked as if he might kiss me before we left, but he didn’t.

There was a different waitress in the dining room in the morning. The new one’s name was Georgie. She didn’t look like a Georgie—more like a Bo or a Loni. She knew Brad by name too, and talked when she brought our food.

“Did you find that Simcoe cottage you were looking for last time you were here, Mr. O’Malley?”

“Yes, I also rented it.”

“I don’t know why you didn’t stay here. Are the Simcoe cottages nice?”

“Not particularly,” he said, with feeling.

“Mr. Abrams has rented all his places now. The last one went yesterday. What was the big attraction down the river, that you decided against Abrams’ cottage?” she asked.

He gave a quick, self-conscious look at me, and I perked up my ears for his answer. “The fishing’s good down that way,” he said briefly.

“We have the best fishing in this part of the river,” Georgie objected. “A guy caught a twenty-pound muskie yesterday. You didn’t mention anything about fishing.”

“Would you please get me some—ketchup,” he said quickly.

Georgie wriggled off.
“Ketchup—something new for the gobbling gourmet,” I mentioned. “What
was
the big attraction at Simcoe’s place, Brad?”

“It’s a bit busy here, with the boat tours and tennis. I wanted privacy.” He poured cream in his coffee and looked around the restaurant, trying for an air of ease.

A boat tour took people away, and the tennis courts were hardly enough attraction to inundate the place with tourists. If he’d wanted total isolation, he wouldn’t have been banging at my door every half hour. Simcoe’s place was a dump, while the cottages here were charming, in their own Walt Disney way.

My icy stare was waiting for him when he finished looking around the restaurant. “You went to Simcoe’s place because you knew
I
was there,” I said firmly, not allowing any hint of a question to mar it.

“I didn’t know you were there till after I moved in.”

“I think you did. I’m not suggesting it was my charms that lured you hither. It was my research, and you
are
Hume Mason!”

“Don’t be ridiculous! I told you I wasn’t.” He tried to take refuge in anger, but his heart wasn’t in it. Guilt made him soft.

Georgie came back and banged the ketchup bottle on the table. As soon as she left, I resumed my attack. “Why were you asking around for Simcoe’s place, if not to find me? It’s not famous, certainly not the kind of a place a would-be jet-setter like you would seek out for its prestige, so why?”