The Polka Dot Nude (6 page)

“You’re not afraid of a little cold water, are you?” He laughed. “A big girl like you.”

“Big girl” ranks second only to correcting my grammar in insults. I’m not a big girl, I’m a tall woman. “Maybe it’s not too cold for a big boy like you,” I said, and got the beer.

He didn’t seem to mind being insulted. “Come down to the dock and keep me company anyway. I’ve got to go home and change first.”

I took four beers in a pail with ice down to the dock, and was comfortably sagging in the deck chair when Brad arrived. I thought he’d look like this in bathing trunks: a golden, muscled, tapering torso; the chest not overly hirsute, but with a good masculine path of hair. Great legs, long and straight. I also suspected he’d wear white to optimize his tan. If I half closed my eyes, I could imagine it was last summer, and I was looking at Garth. I opened my eyes, and noticed Brad was making a close scrutiny of my own white body. At least he wasn’t scowling. Far from it. To lighten the mood, I tucked my tongue under my bottom lip and let out a wolf whistle. “You must pump iron,” I complimented.

“No way, it deforms the pecs and glutes. I jog, play racquetball, ski, swim. Actually swimming is the perfect exercise,” he said over his shoulder as he took a pose at the end of the wooden dock, trapezoids rippling. For the next twenty minutes, all I saw of him was his head turning to the side to breathe, and his arms knifing smoothly through the water. He swam to a distant island, then turned around and swam back, without resting. Pretty good for a man his age. Was that why he worked out so hard, to retain his boyish figure? Vain creature.

He wasn’t breathing so very hard when he climbed out. “Show off,” I said, in a desultory, unimpressed voice, and opened another bottle of beer. “Here, you’ve earned this.”

He stretched out on the dock. “How’s the work going?” he asked. "I haven’t seen you out all day.” When he lay down, the heaving of his chest was more noticeable. He sounded quite winded too.

“I’m in high gear, and may have to go into overdrive. I have competition. Belton—the big paperback people—are putting out a hack job on Rosalie. A guy named Hume Mason specializes in this sort of thing.”

“I’ve heard of him. He’s done quite a few, hasn’t he?”

“About half a dozen, I guess.”

“I liked his one on Dean Mathers, the rock star who OD‘d a couple of years ago. He caught the flashy, sleazy life-style very well,” Brad said, and turned his face to the sun.

“Flash and sleaze—he’d be good at that. He’s kind of a specialist in it.”

“That’s unprofessional, Audrey, cutting up the competition. What’s the matter, jealous?” he teased.

"Jealous of that creep! You’ve got to be kidding. He’s just exploiting Rosalie, making a quick buck on her death.”

When he turned his head and looked at me, his smile wore a jeering edge. “I seem to remember you regretted she couldn’t have timed her death more conveniently.”

“That’s different. I’m doing an authorized biography. I got the facts from the horse’s mouth, not gossip from old scandal sheets.”

“You got the facts she was willing to dole out. Mason’s book will be less biased.”

The fact that he had closed his eyes again annoyed me. If you’re going to have an argument, the least your enemy can do is look at you. “I’m surprised a high-brow professor like you has ever read anything by Mason,” I retorted. “But then I guess you have pretty catholic tastes. Eliot and Gantry—from the sublime to the ridiculous.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say Eliot’s ridiculous,” he said, in a drawling voice.

“He’s a pedantic bore, and you know perfectly well I meant Gantry is ridiculous.”

“You tried his book, did you?”

“No.”

“But you could tell by the naked woman on the cover it wasn’t any good. I think you should have a swim, Audrey. We’ll blame your lousy mood on overwork.”

I was in a lousy mood all right, and in a way it was overwork that caused it, but the only reason I was overworked was Hume Mason. I let the air clear for a few minutes before saying anything. “I wonder when Rosalie’s funeral will be. I hope it’s on TV. I want to see how she’s dispatched. It’ll likely be a huge, Hollywood-style funeral.”

“It’s the day after tomorrow. I didn’t hear what kind of a do’s in progress. I heard it on my car radio when I went into town to buy a fishing rod today. I stopped for a hamburger on the way home, since I’m going fishing tonight. Want to come?”

I had skimped on lunch in anticipation of another feast. If there’s anything more boring than drowning worms, I don’t know what it can be. “I don’t think so. I have a bunch of letters I’m matching up with one of Rosalie’s diaries, trying to get a few facts straightened out. I’ll pass.”

We finished our beer with no further bickering. While I scrambled two eggs and burned some toast, I saw Brad go over to Simcoe’s dock with his fishing rod. As twilight fell, the cottage seemed dull and dark and lonely, so I went out to watch the sun set on the river. Before I’d been there two minutes, Mr. Simcoe came pattering over for a chat.

“Not fishing, eh?" he asked, snapping his suspenders.

“No, I don’t care for it.”

“Don’t worry. He won’t stay out long.”

“I’m not worried,” I said, swift to imagine a slur on my magnetic powers.

“You ought to give him a good talking-to. You have to work all day and he goes out fishing at night. That’s no way for a fellow to behave with his girl friend.”

I laughed at his romanticism. But Brad and I were probably his major entertainment for the summer, and to fashion a love affair between us would amuse him endlessly. It seemed a shame to disillusion him. “We’re just friends,” I said.

He laughed merrily. “You don’t fool me. I’ve had a few chats with Mr. O’Malley.”

“What did be say?” I asked, startled.

“Nothing but compliments.”

What innocent remark had Simcoe revised into a grand passion? I wondered if he planned to hang around and pester me till I went inside. His wife soon came to the door and called him. “Phone, Eddie,” she said, but their windows were wide open, and the phone hadn’t rung. I think the woman was actually jealous. I soon went inside, and passed the evening reading my research and watching TV for any new items on Rosalie. I also kept an eye out the window for Brad’s return. I didn’t see him come back, but around nine, I noticed there was a light on in his cottage. The curtains were closely drawn, but little strips of light seeped through around the edges. He’d probably just left the lights on when he left. It stayed bright so late I hadn’t noticed it before. Simcoe’s boat wasn’t back, but unless Brad O’Malley was already in that cottage at nine, he didn’t get back till after twelve. That was when I finally dozed off to sleep. Did men fish from six till twelve? Lord, how boring.

The combination of the early sunrise and the flimsy curtains usually got me up around seven-thirty in the morning. I was just coming out of the shower when someone knocked at the front door. I pulled my terry dressing gown tightly around me, bundled my wet hair up in a towel turban, and opened the door a crack. Nobody but Simcoe would be gauche enough to call before eight o’clock. Except Brad O’Malley.

“Hi,” Brad said with a bright smile. He looked vigorously awake. Freshly shaved, he was wearing a matched set of fawn shirt and cords. “I saw your bedroom light go on, and came to invite you to breakfast, since I didn’t feed you last night.”

“You sure know the way to a person’s heart.”

His eyes roamed over my turbaned head, the dressing gown, pulled taut across my chest, and the bare legs issuing beneath it. “You too. You do strange and wonderful things to that coat. That turban really suits you, Audrey. You look—regal,” he said, fishing around for the right word. “Like Queen Nefertiti. It’s the high cheekbones that do it."

“I’m not used to heady compliments so early in the morning. What do you serve a queen for breakfast—fish?”

“I didn’t have any luck.”

“After staying out so late, you came back empty-handed?”

“I’m sorry I bothered going.” His steaming eyes suggested what alternative occupation would have been more enjoyable. “Come over as soon as you can.”

He left, and I scrambled into my work clothes—a shirt and jeans—but I scavenged around till I found a pair of sandals to replace the open-toed moccasins. Delicious aromas filled the cottage when I went in. There was bacon sizzling, coffee perking, some tantalizing yeasty smell mingling with it.

I went to the kitchen door and said, “Can I help?”

He was just pouring some eggs into an omelette pan. “You can give those mushrooms a stir,” he said.

While he finished the omelette, I buttered English muffins and poured coffee. We had a perfectly congenial breakfast, unmarred by bickering. Expansive from this royal treatment, I complimented him as we cleared the table.

“That was a feast. You’re going to make some woman a great wife one day.”

“The line forms to the right.”

“I bet it does. How come you’re not afraid to cook and clean, and do all those un-macho things?”

“Cooking isn’t un-macho. The great chefs of the world are mostly men. Both men and women have male and female hormones,” he said.

There were such things as bisexuals. This talk of mixed hormones almost sounded like a hint. “Did you have a sex-change operation or something?” I joked.

“Nope, I was born with my masculine appendage. Do you know what an appendage is, Audrey?”

“Sure. According to Webster, it’s an adjunct to something larger or more important.”

“Did you memorize the whole dictionary?”

“Appendage is a word that crops up in publishing.”

“And sex. Being a man is just an adjunct to being a person. Persons have to eat, and some persons like to cook, too. They like nice houses, and when they outgrow the notion that only half the persons are allowed an interest in those things, they express that interest. The tail has stopped wagging the dog.”

“An apt analogy.” I grinned. He hit my rump with a spoon. “I guess it makes sense.” I didn’t say, but was aware that it took guts to act openly on his philosophy. “So you just do what you want—within the law, I mean?”

“The law’s a crock.”

“A cobweb that catches gnats, and lets the bumble bees fly right through.”

“My law is not to hurt anybody.”

“That’s not
your
law. It’s the Golden Rule. ‘Do unto others . . ."

“I’ve been trying. Don’t you have any desire to do unto me?” He gave me a meaningful smile and said, “It wouldn’t hurt you a bit to be nice to me, Audrey.”

He was joking, but when I looked at him, our eyes held. I watched while his smile turned to a hopeful question. His arms reached for me. “The tail’s beginning to wag the dog,” he warned, as he pulled me into his arms, but slowly, giving me time to stop him if I wanted to.

It was a strange kiss—a gentle, tentative touching, then he pulled back and gazed at me uncertainly. When I tightened my arms around him, he stiffened for a noticeable minute before he crushed me against him and attacked vigorously. It was a small victory; I had made him stop and think, and something had overcome whatever reluctance that thinking had caused. After a long, bruising kiss, I pulled away.

He tilted his head and asked, “What brought that on?”

“I just felt like it.”

“We must have breakfast together more often.”

I could tell the instant the mood changed. The friendly intimacy was invaded by a gleam of the old leaping instinct. “Do you feel you know me well enough now to . . ."

“Not that well.” I stepped back.

“This isn’t the Victorian age, Audrey!”

“I really have to get to work.”

“Is it something I said?”

“No."

“Something I didn’t say—like ‘I love you.'”

“I really have to go.”

“You’re running away.”

“I’m only running next door.”

“We’ll have dinner together tonight,” he called after me.

“I don’t know . . . Don’t put it like that. It sounds like a bribe.”

“No strings attached! Honest.”

“We’ll see,” I said, and fled from the kitchen. As I went through the living room, my eye caught something pink on the sofa table. It was a book.
Love’s Last Longing,
it was called, and the name of the author was Rosalie Wildewood. There are books we admire, like
Pride and Prejudice,
and there are books we love, like
Gone with the Wind.
Anything by Rosalie Wildewood was a book beloved by me, and several million other red-blooded women, who had our fantasies graphically depicted in purple prose. We were saved from shame by the healthy dollops of history Rosalie provided.
Love’s Last Longing
was her latest release. I picked it up and frowned at it, while Brad came trotting after me.

“What on earth are you doing with this?” I asked him.

“You recommended her. Idle curiosity. I just wanted to see what appeals to you.”

He’d have a pretty weird idea of that if he were to judge by this book. At least I was assuming it would follow the pattern of Rosalie’s other books. “Just bear in mind, what I read isn’t necessarily what I enjoy doing.”

“It’s what you’d enjoy if you could let yourself go,” he tempted.

“Maybe, but where would I find a pirate and a sea captain to do it with?”

“It’s an emperor, and a prince.”

“Oh, I haven’t read this one. How’d you like it?”

“I’m just beginning. It seems lively, if contrived and overly dramatic.”

“Kind of a female’s version of Madison Gantry, would you say?”

“Something like that,” he admitted. “Would you like to have it?”

“You’re not finished.”

“I picked up the latest Gantry too. Wildewood isn’t really my style.”

“You talked me into it,” I said, and slipped it into my purse. “Funny—Rosalie Wildewood chose the same first name as Rosalie Hart. Of course it’s fraught with romance.”

“Audrey is beginning to sound like a wildly romantic name to me.”

“Does Dane suggest anything? Other than the canine association, I mean? The Danes were fierce, you know.”

“Blue cheese?” he said, and hunched his shoulders.

Funny an English professor hadn’t said
Hamlet.
I went home and put
Love’s Last Longing
in the bedroom, away from temptation.