The Truth About Lorin Jones

by Alison Lurie

  “Okay.” Mac smiled. “Have it your way. Like a beer?”

  “I thought, maybe a white wine spritzer,” Polly yelled, aware that she’d already had nearly half a bottle of Soave at the guest house.

  “I wouldn’t advise that here.” Mac grinned. “Take it from me, only the beer’s worth drinking; unless you go for the hard stuff.”

  “I’ll stick to beer.”

  “What?”

  “Beer,” Polly screamed, thinking that in this clamor it wasn’t going to be easy to bring up the subject of Hugh Cameron’s present whereabouts.

  “Right.”

  Almost before she could catch her breath a bottle had appeared before Mac and a bottle and glass before her; sexual stereotyping, evidently. She poured the beer, resolving to drink it as slowly as possible: she’d need to keep her head in case Mac did turn out to be a psychopathic rapist. Maybe what she should do right now was make some excuse to leave the table, call Lee, and tell her she was in the Sagebrush Lounge with Mac — Mac who?

  “Say.” Polly made an effort to breathe normally. “What’s your name, besides Mac?”

  “Huh?” Under the pounding beat of the music she heard a fractional hesitation, which she put down to Mac’s reluctance to, as he would probably put it, get involved. “MacFlecknoe. Richard MacFlecknoe. Like the poet. But we’re not related, far as I know. And you?”

  “Polly Alter.” The music had crashed to a romping halt, and her name sounded out abashingly loud. “Well, Paula really,” she said, moderating her voice. “Only nobody I can stand ever calls me that.”

  “Then I’ll make sure not to.” Mac smiled slowly. “Hey. You know that guy you wanted to interview?”

  “Hugh Cameron. Yes, of course.”

  “I found out he’s in Italy for the winter.”

  “Italy?” It came out almost as a wail.

  “Yep. In Florence. I’ve got the address for you, right here.” He held out a scrap of folded paper.

  “Oh, thanks.” Polly tried to look grateful, but it wasn’t easy. She had neither the time nor the money to follow Hugh Cameron to Italy, and even if she did there was no guarantee he’d agree to talk to her. All she could do now was get whatever information she could from Mac. Maybe he could give her the names of some of Cameron’s friends in Key West, people who, if she was lucky, had been here when Lorin Jones was alive.

  “Like to dance?” The music had started again, just as loud but to a slower beat.

  “All right,” she agreed.

  But as Mac led the way onto the floor, Polly realized that the other couples had stopped jigging and shaking en face, and were now clasped together in swaying pairs. Uneasily, she allowed him to put his arms around her, and placed her hand on his shoulder. It was years since she’d danced the two-step with anyone — by the time she got to college it was already out of fashion.

  The tune was simple, soupy, a childlike whine of lost love spun over a slow pounding beat. Mac held her at a polite distance at first, but soon he began to gather her closer. Annoying, presumptuous, but it was easier to move in sync this way, swaying together, almost soothing. She only liked it because it had been so long since she’d held anyone ... But this was a man, and a complete stranger. She should pull back, so as not to give him any ideas.

  But she didn’t pull back. You can’t afford to get him miffed, you’ve got to remember your research, she told herself, easing her arm farther along Mac’s shoulder, feeling his muscles move under the cloth. First things first.

  “That man whose address you gave me,” she murmured. “Hugh Cameron.”

  “Mh.” Mac looked down at her.

  “D’you know him well?”

  He swung her around, then spoke. “Not all that well, no.”

  “I understand he’s a real basta —, I mean, kind of a difficult person.”

  “Oh yeah? He hasn’t treated me too badly.” Mac took a firmer grip on Polly, bending their joined hands behind her back and pulling her so close that the whole length of his body was pressed against hers.

  Taking a long breath, trying not to notice this, Polly plowed on. “You’ve been working for him quite a while?”

  “Huh?”

  “Cameron, I mean.”

  “Mh.”

  She waited, but he said no more. But the beat of the lowbrow music continued, they moved smoothly together. Polly felt herself blurring, loosening, becoming sensually addled, as if she’d been soaking too long in a hot bath. She gave herself a hard mental shake and tried again, speaking now in a sleepy murmur that matched the music. “So have you been in Key West a long time?”

  “Yeah, I guess you’d say so.”

  “Really — how long?”

  “I d’know. Nineteen, twenty years, off and on.”

  “Then you could have met Lorin Jones yourself.” Mac, swinging Polly deftly around, did not reply. “The artist I’m writing about.”

  “Mh?”

  “Did you ever know her?”

  “Nope.” Mac was resting his head against Polly’s now; as he spoke his hot breath fluttered her hair. “Can’t say I did.”

  Bad luck again, Polly thought; but another part of her, which was sick to death of Lorin Jones, breathed thank God. What it wanted now, what it needed, was to forget Jones for a while, to stop questioning and prying, to move to the simple thump and twang of the country band and murmur almost meaningless remarks.

  “I always liked this old tune.”

  “Yeah, it’s nice.”

  But she could not disguise from herself that all the time, under their slow, banal exchange, another far more lively conversation was going on. Mac’s body and hers, like two good-looking oversexed morons, were speaking to each other; and she could hear clearly what they were saying, over and over again:

  Hey, you want to?

  Aw, sure.

  When?

  — Anytime.

  I don’t do that anymore, she said to the moron that was her body; but it didn’t hear her.

  The band repeated the last chorus and went into a crescendo. Holding her close, Mac did an expert dip, and came up again as the song ended.

  “I like the way you dance,” he said, moving back but keeping one arm around her.

  “Thanks.” Polly didn’t return the compliment. What she had to do now, she thought fuzzily as the music started up again, was get out of here before anything else could happen.

  “Do you clog?”

  “What?”

  Mac gestured at the dance floor. Most of the couples had left, but those that remained were beginning to stamp and wheel and gallop around in tandem, like children playing horses.

  “Oh, no.”

  “It’s easier than it looks, y’know. I’ll teach you sometime.” He steered her back toward their table. “Like another beer?”

  Polly nodded, then instantly regretted this. Well, you don’t have to drink it, she told herself as he held up two fingers to the waitress.

  “Hey, Polly.” Mac leaned toward her and half shouted over the cantering dancers. “You married?”

  Polly shook her head. “I was once.”

  “Yeah? So was I.” He smiled. “Didn’t work out, hm?”

  “No.”

  “Me neither. It was a bust from the wedding night, only I got stubborn and stuck it out for three years.”

  “With me it was all right for a while, but then my husband insisted on moving to Denver.”

  “And what was wrong with Denver?”

  “Nothing. Only I couldn’t get a job there.” Why am I telling him all this, Polly thought, listening to her own voice, which sounded like someone else’s. Because he doesn’t matter, that’s why, she answered. They were confiding in each other, yes, but only with the anonymous frankness of strangers who find themselves on the same bus or plane and know they won’t meet again.

  “Uh-huh. Kids?”

  “I’ve got a son, he’s fourteen. But he’s with his father now, for this school term. Till Christmas.”


  “Rough, huh.”

  “Yes,” Polly agreed, wondering how Mac knew this — it must have been her tone of voice. “Yes, I really miss him.”

  “You’re lucky, though. What I miss, it’s the kids I never had.”

  “You could still —”

  Mac shook his head, looking away, then slowly turned back. “I can’t find the right woman,” he seemed to say, but since he didn’t raise his voice this time it was hard to tell. The music was louder, the couples stomped and tramped faster; it made Polly dizzy to look at them. What she ought to do, she ought to say she had to get back, as soon as he finished his beer, because she wasn’t going to drink hers — Except, she noticed, she already had.

  The band paused for breath, then started another slow number, a wailing song about lost love.

  “Let’s dance,” Mac said, rising.

  This time Polly didn’t try to make conversation. She allowed herself to fall at once into a warm drifting blur, to lean against Mac, move with him. Because it didn’t matter, as soon as the music ended she’d go home. But now — now —

  “Hey,” Mac whispered presently, his mouth against her face. “You know that place you’re staying? That Artemis Lodge.”

  “Mm.”

  “Artemis, you know who she was?”

  “I think she was some kind of Greek goddess,” Polly said.

  “Right. A jealous virgin. She turned her best friend into a bear on account of she’d slept with Zeus.”

  “Really?”

  “I’m not as illiterate as you might think.”

  “Mm.” Polly recalled something Ron or Phil had said, that many of the permanent residents of Key West were middle-class dropouts, ex-hippies now managing restaurants or galleries, or running charter boats — or, why not, repairing houses for a living. “Nice people, most of them,” Phil, or Ron, had declared.

  “Anyhow,” Mac said. “That place of yours. It’s a lesbian guest house; at least that’s what I hear.”

  Polly swallowed; then, damning herself for her hesitation, said, “Yes, I know. I’m a lesbian.”

  “Yeah?” Mac laughed. “You could have fooled me.” He circled with the music, holding her even closer. It was clear that he didn’t believe her; or if he did believe her, didn’t care.

  “So how’s it going, your research?” he asked as they returned to the table.

  “Oh, okay. Well, not all that great lately. Coming down here wasn’t much use.”

  “Not much use, huh?” Mac said, with a grin. “Sorry to hear that.”

  “I didn’t mean — It’s just —” What is the matter with me, the beer, Polly thought. “I mean, I came all the way to Key West, and spent all that money, and now I can’t locate Hugh Cameron or anybody who knew him or Lorin Jones, and I can’t even get into his house.”

  “Get into the house? What good would that do, if he’s not there?”

  “I want to see if he still has any of Lorin Jones’s paintings. The museum where I work put on a show a couple of years ago in New York, and I wrote to ask if he had anything we could borrow, but he never answered.”

  “Ah.” Mac rotated his empty glass.

  “Maybe you’ve noticed, if you’ve ever been in the house.”

  “Noticed what?”

  “If there were any pictures. Oil paintings, they’d be, or maybe watercolors.”

  “Pictures.” Mac appeared to be thinking. “I don’t remember, really. I guess I never paid much attention. Like another beer?”

  “Oh no, no thanks. I’ve got to get back.” Polly looked at her watch. “The manager at the guest house said she was going to call the police if I wasn’t home by twelve.”

  “She did?”

  “She’s afraid you might be a psychotic rapist,” Polly heard herself say, or rather lie.

  “She never even saw me,” Mac protested.

  “I know.”

  “She probably thinks all men are rapists.” He laughed.

  “I guess she might.” Polly mentally kicked herself for playing along, for misquoting and misrepresenting Lee.

  “Personally, I’ve always liked cooperation when I make love.” Mac turned toward Polly. Something looked at her out of his eyes; she tried to look away, didn’t quite make it. “Okay, shall we go?”

  Abruptly the smoky, pulsing sensual blur of the Sagebrush Lounge was replaced by the warm, silent night outside. Polly felt a tense, twanging apprehension — or was it expectancy? — as Mac drove along a dark side street, taking her — where?

  “So you’re gay, huh?” he said abruptly. “Since when?”

  “I’ve been living with a woman for two months,” Polly told him, accurately but deceptively, and realizing that even this didn’t sound like much. Or maybe it did, for Mac had just swung onto a broad, well-lit boulevard, edged on one side with movie theaters and drive-ins and motels, and on the other with a row of blowing palms and the dark choppy waters of the bay. “That is, I was living with her,” she added, unwilling to suggest that she was two-timing someone.

  “You mean you aren’t anymore,” he said, or asked.

  “No, not exactly,” she admitted.

  “Ah.” They had turned onto a street that Polly recognized as not far from Artemis Lodge. There seemed to be nothing more to say, so she said nothing. It’s over, I’m safe; I won’t see him again, she thought, and was furious at herself for not being relieved.

  “Listen, I’ve got an idea,” Mac said as he pulled up outside the guest house. “What if I was to get — I mean, I think maybe I could get the key to Hugh Cameron’s house, from the rental agent.”

  “Oh, could you?” Polly gasped.

  “Sure. Well, probably. I could tell them I had to check the bathroom pipes or something. Then you could meet me there tomorrow after I finish work and look for those paintings.”

  “That’d be really great.” In her enthusiasm, Polly put a hand on his arm. “If it’s not too much trouble —”

  “No. A pleasure.” Mac covered her hand with his. “So I’ll see you over there, say about four?”

  “Great,” Polly repeated. She started to slide away across the seat of the truck, but he didn’t remove his hand; instead, he tightened his grip. “Well, hey, thanks for the drink.”

  “Hey, you’re welcome.” Mac turned full toward her. He kissed her hard but very briefly, releasing her before she had time to react. “See you at four tomorrow,” he repeated as she scrambled down out of the cab.

  The pickup truck roared off, and Polly, in what her mother would have called a State, stood on the porch of Artemis Lodge. The door was locked, and only one ruby-chambered electric lantern burned in the hall. Either Lee was out, or she’d already gone to bed. Polly let herself in and climbed the stairs to her room.

  What are you so upset about? she asked herself. Your luck’s turned. Tomorrow you’re going to see Cameron’s place, and who knows what you might find there? Pictures, drawings — letters and notes even, if Mac doesn’t stop you —

  Or, let’s put it this way, another voice said. You’re going to meet a man you hardly know in a town you hardly know, in an empty house, where there probably aren’t any paintings anyhow, because probably that was just his way of getting you there, and doing what he wants to you.

  And what you want, said another treacherous voice.

  The room felt hot and close and crowded; Polly shoved up the sash of the window, but the breeze that blundered in, sticky with the odors of tropical flowers and auto exhaust and tidewrack, was even more insidious and oppressive. Sex, it whispered.

  All right, you feel something, the first voice shrilled in Polly’s ear as she paced the narrow strip of straw matting between the bed and the open window. But that’s just because you haven’t made it with anyone in nearly a month; naturally you’re susceptible. It doesn’t mean you have to fall into bed with whoever comes along, especially not with a man.

  All right, you’ll be alone with Mac. But if he makes what your mother would call an indecen
t suggestion, all you have to do is say no; he’s not going to jump you. If you can’t control yourself, if you have to sleep with someone, Polly told herself, it doesn’t have to be Mac. There’s Lee, for instance — a generous and warmhearted (if rather scatty) woman, who likes you and is right downstairs in the guest house.

  Polly fixed the image of Lee in her mind; mentally she removed Lee’s flowered muumuu and contemplated her low full leathery breasts, her thick waist, her sturdy brown Polynesian hips; her bushy black armpits, the probable black bush below. ... But she felt less than nothing. Lee wasn’t what she wanted; what she wanted —

  It was her old ignorant desire for the Romantic Hero, recurring like some persistent tropical weed. Over the last two years this rank growth had been, she’d thought, thoroughly rooted up, and the earth where it once flourished raked hard, trampled down. But now, in the steamy, unnatural climate of Key West, the weed had sprouted again.

  It was an addiction, really, like Jeanne’s addiction to cigarettes. There ought to be an organization for it, Heterosexuals Anonymous, it could be called, and when the uncontrollable urge came over you, you’d telephone their hotline and some nice woman would talk to you till you felt better. Jeanne had said she’d been through everything, trying to stop smoking: group meetings and individual therapy and hypnosis and clove cigarettes and nicotine gum, changing to a brand she disliked, tapering off gradually, going cold turkey. Eventually she’d realized that she was becoming obsessed with smoking-or-not-smoking; and that this obsession was crowding out the whole rest of her life. She couldn’t concentrate on anything else properly; she couldn’t finish an article, or give a decent lecture, she couldn’t enjoy seeing her friends or going to a film or having a good meal or sometimes even making love with Betsy, because she kept thinking about cigarettes. So finally she decided, the hell with the whole thing. It was a lot easier, Jeanne said, just to have a smoke when she wanted one and then forget about it.

  Is that how Polly ought to treat her own addiction? Should she just sleep with Mac once — assuming that was what he had in mind — and get it out of her system? Right now, she not only found him attractive, she liked him. But probably it wasn’t really affection she felt, just disguised sexual need, aggravated by the climate. And probably it was only a matter of time before he’d do or say some ugly chauvinist thing, and then she wouldn’t have to care about him.