Free The Polka Dot Nude by Joan Smith Page A

doorjamb. He wore a curious, confused look that turned to wariness when he got a look at me. “Is something the matter?” he asked.
    “What could possibly be the matter? I’m fine. I’ll be very busy. As you know, I’m writing an authorized biography of Rosalie Hart. I didn’t bring along the other diary you asked for. In fact, I’d like you to return the pages you cut out of the previous one—you remember, the pages dealing with Rosalie’s pregnancy. You’ll have to make do with what you’ve already read, and that active imagination of yours. But then you wouldn’t want to wreck your book with too many facts, Mr. Mason.”
    He advanced slowly into the room. In his hand he held a wooden spoon, and he wore an apron with a picture of a smiling chef on it. He looked bewildered. “Could you run that by me again in slow motion?” he asked, blinking.
    “Run it out your ear. I know who you are, and I know what you’re up to, and I want you to know I think you’re disgusting and vile.”
    “Are we talking frozen dinners here?” he asked. “Listen, I really am a great chef. I made those dinners myself. I just took them out of my freezer at home . . ."
    “I’m not talking about your lousy dinners! It’s the reason for them we’re discussing.”
    “Hey, no strings attached!”
    I was panting so hard I could hardly talk, but I couldn’t keep quiet either. “Look, I know you don’t really like me. If a three-legged, bearded lady had had those diaries, you’d have been in there, wooing her with your frozen boeuf bourguignon and your Château de Snob. You must think I’m an idiot.”
    “Just unhinged,” he smiled uneasily, and came closer, reaching for my arm. “Come and sit down. I’ll pour you . . ."
    I twitched away. “Alcohol isn’t going to work either. And if you were counting on continued access to my research for your book, you can forget that too. I suggest you pack up your fancy car and trot your Madrid chair and your Cuisinart back to whatever rock you crawled out from under.”
    “That’s ‘Barcelona chair.’ Listen, if you think I’m using Rosalie’s diaries for a book or something, you’ve got it all wrong. That seems to be the gist of your tirade.”
    “Part of it, not the gist. The gist is that the masquerade is over, Mr. Mason.”
    “Mr. Mason?” he repeated dumbly.
    “As in Hume, pornographer, sleazebag Mason. You can call Ms. Vicki at Belton and tell her you struck out. You’ll have to move your ass and actually do some work yourself. You should be good at digging up dirt by now, you son of a bitch.”
    He actually had the nerve to smile! “Ah.—you swear when you’re mad. That’s good. Relieves the tension. But I don’t understand what you’re mad about. Did I have a visitor while I was out? Did some phone call get misrouted to you? Where’d you get these crazy ideas?”
    “Vicki didn’t phone, or arrive in person. Funny you should think she had, when you claim to be ignorant.”
    “I am ignorant! Innocent! What I’m trying to find out is what put this bee in your bonnet.”
    “I had a revelation. A prelapsarian revelation.”
    "Sounds painful.” He gave me a doubtful look.
    “Bullshit!” I shouted in exasperation, and stormed out, clutching at my slipping sarong.
    Just as I reached my door, Brad opened his and called after me: “Does this mean you’re breaking our date tonight?”
    “You figure it out, Professor.”
    A little later, as soon as he had got the frozen food into the oven, Brad opened his windows to let the fumes of spaghetti Caruso waft gently toward my door. I closed it. Actually the very thought of eating anything’s liver turns my stomach, so it was no lure.
    The confrontation cleared the air, and my head. I’d done the right thing to have it out. I went determinedly back to work and pounded the typewriter till my head ached. The adrenaline was flowing. Words magically strung themselves together into sentences, sentences into paragraphs,