Come on, Lew. What do I do? What do I say? How do I change things?
But the silence from on high was deafening.
There had to be a way to reconnect. But Polly knew, with a sinking feeling, that she wasn't going to find it tonight. Not when she'd already undermined the little confidence Sara seemed to have in her.
She smiled sadly. "Good night, dear."
Sara shut the door.
Sloan had spent all day making love with Lily Bascombe in a cave in some cliffs above a windswept sea.
Just he and Lily—and fifty or so other people with cameras, lights, sound equipment—and opinions.
Sloan did what he was told. Lily lay back and, he presumed, thought of Sam Keane, her husband. Sloan thought of Polly.
In his adolescent fantasies, he'd often made love with Polly. In his fantasies Lew had conveniently disappeared, Polly was his, and the glory of her golden freckled skin, soft curves and hidden secrets was his to explore.
There wasn't any dialogue in the scene they were shooting, only sighs and moans and unintelligible whispered endearments.
Convenient because it gave him the chance to fantasize again. Of course there were millions of men in the world whose fantasy it was to make love to Lily Bascombe. They would give their eyeteeth to be where Sloan was now, to do what Sloan was pretending to do now.
Because, in fact, the woman he was making love to in his mind wasn't Lily, but Polly.
What was she like now?
He supposed she'd changed. Just as he wasn't a gangly pup with big feet and no coordination anymore, she probably wasn't the slender lissome beauty she'd been at seventeen. Of course he remembered her pregnant. But he doubted she looked like that, either.
Still, she'd had four kids, Gus had told him.
Four!
And the oldest would be in college now, older than Polly had been when he'd known her. It boggled his mind.
But even when he thought of her as a middle-aged mother, he found that he was eager to see her again. Partly because she didn't want to see him. She'd been tart, dismissive almost.
People had, in general, stopped being tart and dismissive to him several years ago.
But Polly treated him with about the same disdain she had shown for his gawky, fourteen-year-old former self. It was a novelty. It sparked his interest.
It whetted his appetite and made him want to call her again.
He could ask if the interview people had contacted her. He wondered if she'd been tart and dismissive with them. He wondered, if they asked her, what she'd say about him. Surely not that he'd been spying on her and Lew in the barn! At least he hoped not!
Once he got done making love with Lily Bascombe, he'd call and find out. He was looking forward to telling her he'd done an interview at lunchtime with Andrea Antonelli for Incite, one of the funkiest weekly entertainment mags. And he'd taken considerable pleasure in mentioning the auction in Elmer.
Andrea had been delighted—and fascinated. She'd wanted to come out and cover it—after all, she flew to the ends of the earth for a good interview, she often said. But she was scheduled to cover the Sundance Festival and then had to fly directly to Paris.
She had, however, offered to mention it to Schuyler Van Duersen, Incite's owner-publisher. "I bet Sky would get a kick out of sending someone out to Elmer."
She and Sloan had shared a laugh at the very idea.
Incite was so unabashedly urban that every week it came with a list of the best spots to get mugged. Its reporters wore sandals with socks, and if they wrote the word horse, it was a given that they were writing about either heroin or basketball.
Sloan could just imagine what Polly would say if an Incite reporter turned up in Elmer. He spent the day looking forward to telling her.
But it was past two on Saturday morning when he finally called. He'd waited until then so there was less chance of having to deal with the kids or the sister or the grandmother.
He didn't want her distracted. He didn't stop to analyze why. He just knew he wanted her attention—all of it.
It was quieter and more intimate this way—just the two of them. And he could lie in bed while they talked—and pretend she was here with him.
He punched in the number on his cell phone and waited. Finally, on the third ring, she picked it up.
"Hello?" It was Polly, he was sure.
"Guess who's coming to Elmer?" He grinned and waited for one of her quick, sassy replies, eager to tell her about Incite.
"I don't care," she said tonelessly. There was a click. A silence. A dial tone. She'd hung up!
The phone rang again a minute later.
Polly had known it would. Just as she knew who would be on the other end of the line.
She didn't want to answer it. She didn't want to talk to anyone, least of all to a single man with no cares or family responsibilities, a man who couldn't possibly understand the mess that was her life.
But if she didn't answer it, Sloan would think she was running away from him again and she didn't want that, either. She picked it up and said briskly, "Who's coming to Elmer?"
"What's wrong?" Sloan countered.
"Nothing's wrong! Who's coming?"
"You don't care who's coming," he said flatly.
Polly sighed. She tucked her feet under her and leaned back against the pillows on her bed. "No, I don't," she admitted. "But since I'll have to deal with them, anyway, you might as well tell me."
"Later. After you tell me what's wrong."
Why did he have to get nosey now? Irritably she shoved a hand through her hair.
"It has nothing to do with you. The world, you might be surprised to know, doesn't revolve around you."
As she said the words, Polly realized how rude they were. It wasn't his fault she'd screwed up. "I'm sorry," she said wearily. "It's my fault. I just … blew it this evening. I forgot my daughter."
"Forgot…?"
"Never mind." She shut her eyes. Weariness washed over her. The exhilaration of the evening had well and truly evaporated. She was left with nothing more than a sense of failure—and responsibility. "Who's coming? What do I have to do?"
"Just a reporter," Sloan said after a moment. "No big deal. It might not happen. Don't worry about it. Is your daughter okay?" He actually sounded concerned, as if he cared.
Polly huddled under her quilt. "Yes. She's … annoyed. Angry. At me. Which is understandable, considering." She paused, realizing she sounded whiny and sad. She made herself sit up straight. "It'll be okay," she said firmly. "We'll sort it out."
Somehow. Someday. She hoped. "Anything I can do?"
"Adopt her?" Polly said, a glimmer of her usual wry humor surfacing.
Sloan sputtered.
She laughed faintly. "Is this what they call dead air?" she asked.
Sloan laughed, too. "Something like that."
"Don't worry," she assured him. "I wouldn't do that to you. We may have our moments, but I wouldn't give her up. She's mine, for better or worse."
"Good." He sounded relieved, though whether it was because she didn't mean it about adopting Sara or because she was sounding less pitiful, Polly didn't know.
She didn't want to sound pitiful. She didn't want him feeling sorry for her. It was bad enough that for a few minutes she'd felt sorry for herself. Deliberately she changed the subject.
"You should see the town hall," she told him. "We decorated tonight."
"Decorated?"
"Indeed. At the suggestion of Astrid the Efficient."
"Haven't met Astrid."
"Lucky you. Anyway, we've got hearts and cowboys everywhere. Also photos of the ranch and of the kids who lived with Maddie and Ward. Brenna McCall hung the painting she's going to be auctioning off. And Charlie Seeks Elk contributed a whole bunch of mounted photos. And right up front there's a banner that says ELMER LOVES SLOAN in big red letters."
"That'll be good for my image."
"I thought so," Polly said feeling marginally more c
heerful. "There was some discussion about the wording, actually. We might change it."
"I'd be obliged," he said drily.
"I'll mention it to Jenny. She and the fourth- and fifth-grade boys did it. It's enormous. Takes up most of the wall above the stage."
"Sounds ominous."
"It just shows how much people appreciate what you're doing by coming back. It's very kind of you."
"I hope you think so in a week."
Polly did, too, but she wasn't saying so. "I'm sure it will be fine."
"I hope so." There was a pause and she expected he'd say goodbye. Instead he said, "Polly? If I can do anything to help, call me. I mean it."
And the oddest thing was he really sounded as if he did.
* * *
Chapter 9
« ^ »
After Friday night's disaster, Polly started making lists.
She had a list for each film crew as it arrived. She had a list for each of her children. She made a list of items to be auctioned, of volunteers willing to help out, of who was bringing what to the potluck after the auction, of what needed to be done every day before, and finally she made a list to keep track of the lists she was making.
She got a chalkboard from the hardware store and hung it in the kitchen. Everyone was assigned a column and instructed to note whether they were in or out—and if out, when they were returning—and with whom.
Sara, who had regained a little of her sense of humor by the following morning, stared at it and laughed.
"You actually think anyone is going to do that?"
"You will." Polly knew that much. "And I will."
Celie said irritably, "I'm here or at Artie's. I never go anywhere else!"
Polly thought there were a lot of other places Celie could go if she would just get out of her rut. But since starting an argument didn't seem like a good idea right now, she only said, "Then write down your schedule so we know."
"You only have to look." Celie grumbled. "If I'm not here, I'm there. See? Simple."
Polly saw. It was simple. It was the way she herself had run her life for the past thirty-seven years. But she'd also managed to forget Sara on Friday night, and she wasn't going to forget anything again. There was also such a thing as setting a good example.
"Humor me," she said to her sister and gave her a look she hoped Celie remembered from childhood, the one she used to use when she meant, Do this or I will break your favorite doll in little tiny pieces.
Celie said, "I'll just write down my schedule."
Polly smiled. It was nice to be remembered.
The kids wrote down their schedules, too. Artemis: play practice. Daisy: helping with horses at Joneses'. Jack: goofing off.
Polly wished she could goof off.
She'd assumed she would be able to point the film crews in the direction of Maddie's, show off the newly decorated town hall, give them a sound byte or two and get back to her life.
"Me and Harry Hyena," she muttered Sunday night.
They were like ants, she told her mother later about the film crews. "They're everywhere."
They were—at Maddie's ranch, in the town hall, on the main street. They poked their heads in every door that opened. They talked to anyone who moved. They shot cowboys playing pool in the Dew Drop and they borrowed a bunch of kids, stuck them in a classroom and filmed the local school. Worst of all, in Polly's estimation, they never left her alone. They asked about her life, her family, her job, and about Elmer. She couldn't imagine why they wanted to know.
"Background," they said.
She tried to be polite, cordial, small-town hospitable. They asked her about Sloan.
"I didn't know him really," she said. "He's much younger than I am."
She longed to say, Go away and bother someone else. Why were they so interested in her?
Sloan knew why.
There were some people the camera loved, some people who were so vibrant, so alive, whose charm and spontaneity was so contagious that you couldn't get enough of them. Some people said that about him.
But he knew it was true about Polly McMaster.
For almost twenty years he'd been carrying around a memory of a willowy golden girl. A stunning girl—especially in her nakedness—to his adolescent mind.
But the young Polly didn't hold a candle to the woman she'd become.
Polly McMaster, whose TV appearances on both morning segments had been spliced into footage of his own interviews last week, was a gorgeous animated woman with thick springy autumn-rust hair, a smattering of golden freckles and a dynamite smile.
Sloan, who had been curious enough to have the tapes flown in, had been anxiously awaiting them all day, and was still nervous when he shut himself in his room to watch them. It was nerve-racking to wonder how time had treated Polly McMaster. He'd prepared himself for disappointment.
He felt as if he'd been punched in the gut.
He couldn't take his eyes off her.
He watched the whole piece all the way through, then promptly ran it back and watched it again. And again.
He must have watched each of them a dozen times. Or more.
Now and then he stopped it and just looked his fill. Time had treated Polly very well indeed.
"Who is this woman?" the voice-over asked as the camera zeroed in on her.
It was snowing in Elmer, and Polly was bundled up in a bright-purple down jacket, her glorious hair bouncing and tangling in the wind as she put out the flag in front of the post office, then went back in and began sorting the mail.
"And why does she hold the fate of Hollywood's most sought-after hero in her hands?" the voice continued.
It was titillating, of course. That was their job—to make Polly's task appealing. But they didn't need to work at it.
Polly sold herself.
The woman was golden. Bright. Funny. Charming and self-effacing at the same time as she showed the correspondent around tiny Elmer.
Sloan felt a hint of nostalgia as they did a quick tour of Main Street
, of the welding shop, the hardware store and grocery. They showed the schools where Polly's kids went, where he had finished eighth grade. They showed one of her daughters acting in a play and her son feeding a hutch full of rabbits.
"Elmer," the voice over said, "the heart of America."
And the camera pulled back and showed the town tucked up against the foothills of the Bridgers, colored rose by the early-morning sun on the fields of winter snow. Then the camera moved in again. It cut from the grocery to the welding shop, from the school to the church, from Celie's spa to the tiny library to Gilliam's hardware store. It showed kids and cowboys, old people and young.
Then the clip cut to Polly telling the features correspondent, "It may not seem like much to outsiders, but we have everything we need right here."
The features correspondent who, Sloan happened to know, couldn't live without a deli and a dry cleaner in the next block, didn't argue.
She just smiled and chirped, "And next Sunday you're going to have America's heart throb, too."
That led into thirty seconds' footage on Maddie's ranch, on the foster children she and Ward had raised, with a panning view of a sea of young faces in photos—apparently the ones Polly had said were hung in the town hall.
And then the camera slowed and stopped on one scowling dark-haired adolescent.
"The man being auctioned off this Sunday," the correspondent said.
And then they cut to his own interview.
"Tell us about that," his interviewer had prompted.
And Sloan had done. He'd been personable, charming, said all the right things about Maddie, about the ranch, about Elmer. Then they'd asked him about Polly.
"I'm looking forward to seeing her again," he'd said with a grin.
He hadn't realized just how much.
The TV crews were supposed to come, film and leave. They did.
But then the spots aired, and Polly realized that there would be one mor
e day of excitement with some local buzz and commentary. With luck they would also get a few more bidders come Sunday.
But once that was past, she figured she could just get back to work and that things, however hectic they might become right before the auction, would still be more or less normal.
She and Harry Hyena. Oh-for-three.
Things didn't settle down after the shows aired. On the contrary, the world—discovering Elmer—went nuts.
The phone began to ring off the hook. Within minutes after the first spot had been aired, the show's booker was on the phone to Polly wanting more.
"I've told you everything I know about the auction," she protested.
But it wasn't just the auction he was interested in.
"The American people want to know more," he told her. "More about you, about your family, about what it's like growing up in this marvelous little Montana town. We want to do a full prime-time feature!"
"About Elmer?"
At first Polly thought it was Sloan Gallagher disguising his voice and putting one over on her. It turned out she was oh-for-four.
She learned quickly that after the first spot, the network's phone lines had been jammed and their e-mail system overflowing.
"Well, of course," she said. "It's Sloan Gallagher. What do I you expect?"
But it wasn't only Sloan. They wanted to know all about Maddie and the ranch, about what it was like to have foster kids, about how she, Polly, as a single mother coped with her children and her job and her mayoral duties and her multigenerational household. They all wanted to be just like her.
"You're America's heroine," he told her enthusiastically.
"Oh, good God," said Polly.
Life, instead of settling down, got worse.
By Tuesday afternoon Polly was getting calls from metropolitan dailies on both coasts, from entertainment magazines, from news weeklies and cable television shows. Reporters called constantly. Newspapers sent feature writers. Magazines sent stringers and freelancers and photographers.
They wanted all of Polly's life story. They wanted to know the history of Elmer in twenty-five words or less. They wanted to talk to Maddie, to Will Jones, to "real live cowboys," to Joyce who'd thought of the auction, to Sloan's boyhood friend, Gus Holt.
The Great Montana Cowboy Auction Page 11