It was too late by then—they had already ordered boquilla black bass—but Mary wondered suddenly if there hadn’t been altogether too much pussyfooting with this half-child, half-woman. She said directly, “Jenny, if you’ve met someone at the motel why didn’t you say so, for heaven’s sake, and we could have stayed there for dinner? I thought we ought to leave on principle, but my principles are easily bent in a good cause.”
For the first time, Jenny looked so flustered that her eyelashes seemed in danger of getting tangled. “Oh, no. I hate that too, drumming up business for the bar,” she said, and then, selecting a tostado, “What do I do with this?”
Change of subject. Mary indicated a small bowl of chili. “You dip it in that,” she said,“but cautiously. I have a friend who mistook it for vegetable soup two years ago, and people still ask him why he’s crying.” Jenny did as advised and winced only a little, perhaps because her mind was on something else. She lifted her gaze to Mary in open curiosity. “Speaking of meeting people, how come—I mean, you’re so attractive—you aren’t engaged or anything? Oh,” she said to herself in rebuke, “that is rude.”
Mary was entertained at the “or anything.”
“No, it isn’t. I’m twenty-six, and I was engaged, about a year ago. We decided to call it off by mutual consent.” Jenny, having introduced a subject which might be regarded as somewhat personal, appeared to have lost interest; her glance was absorbed in something else.
“He thought he ought to have his ring back,” continued Mary in exactly the same tone, “but I fooled him by swallowing it. Heated words were exchanged, I’m sorry to say.”
Jenny heard none of this. “Well, you have an admirer now,” she said. “Behind and to your left, sitting by himself under that mirror with all the decorations. He hasn’t taken his eyes off you since he came in.” Their dinner arrived as she was speaking, wheeled up on a cart, the bass boned and served with the flourishes usually associated with crepes suzette. Mary turned her head to thank the waiter and ask for two Carta Blancas, and in the same motion let her gaze rove a casual few degrees.
And removed it at once from the man seated alone at a table against the wall, because holding his regard, very light in a tanned face, was like holding on to one end of a rubber band stretched to snapping point. Mary said distractedly to Jenny, “There’s tartar sauce, but try the bass with just lime first,” and realized too late that there were a lot of calories in tartar sauce.
“Who is he?” asked Jenny, contriving a hiss as she picked up a wedge of lime. “Someone you know, or a visiting wolf?”
“I have no idea. You can eat the salad in places like this, the lettuce comes from El Paso,” said Mary earnestly—why was it that all natural conversation fell dead at moments like this?—while she went on feeling that steady contemplation on the back of her head.
Or . . . ? For the first time she became aware of a length of mirror half-dividing the dining room into two sections and holding her own small but clear reflection: slightly peaked brows, a touch of sunburn on her cheekbones, hair almost as gold, in this light, as the heishi earrings sewing an occasional sparkling stitch on the air. In the rear distance, the perfectly stilled sleeve and shoulder of a dark coat.
Mary did not glance at the mirror again, because if the man behind her shifted his chair slightly she would find him in it too. She talked determinedly to Jenny, asking about distant and half-forgotten relatives and realizing resentfully that she was scarcely even enjoying the black bass, which was sweet and delicate, or experiencing any triumph over the fact that Jenny liked and drank the Mexican beer—for which she proceeded to compensate by ignoring her baked potato and refusing dessert.
True to his calling, the waiter who had asked twice if everything was satisfactory presented the check and vanished, apparently forever. Rather than remain in her spotlit position, Mary put down bills that left him far too big a tip. Their progress toward the door took them necessarily past the table for two against the wall, and the man there came to his feet as they approached.
“My name is Daniel Brennan,” he said, offering his hand to Mary, “and if you caught me staring it’s because I’m always surprised to see another Santa Fe face down here.” He seemed to be visited briefly by doubt. “You are Mary Vane, aren’t you? Someone introduced us at an affair at the La Fonda—Willie Wilkinson, I think.”
Mary corrected her last name politely and introduced Jenny. If only he had come over to their table and said that earlier, she thought.
“I think they’ve gone out to search for a boat to catch my shrimp,” said Brennan. “Won’t you—” he cast a glance around for another chair “—sit down and have a cordial?”
Up close, his gaze wasn’t formidable at all but merely an extremely light gray. “Thank you, but we have to be getting back,” said Mary, and was asked inevitably where they were staying. Told the Casa de Flores, Brennan said, “I’m meeting a friend there tomorrow, a business colleague really, so perhaps I’ll see you again?”
It seemed an actual question rather than the usual automatic courtesy, and Mary said yes, perhaps, and added a goodnight. Outside in the half-dark—this part of the city contained a kind of exhaled light at all hours, as if the pale shop-fronts around the huge plaza had stored up some of the fierce white sun—it struck her as odd that after his introduction to her Daniel Brennan hadn’t so much as glanced at Jenny again. Delicacy, because in her sleeveless teal-blue dress she
