“It won’t be necessary,” Mary said, “if we stop seeing each other. Or if you go get some professional help.”
His mustache arced down and his eyes flashed anger. He drew a deep breath, containing his aggravation. “It’s nothing I can’t handle myself!”
“You haven’t so far.”
“That’s so far, right?”
She sighed. “Right, Jake.” How he wanted to be tough, to kill the parts of himself that felt.
The weekend early news had gone full circle and was rerunning on TV. Mary had been barely conscious of it, but now a name snagged her attention: “Danielle Verlane.”
A severe woman in a tailored suit was co-anchoring the news this morning. She led into a repetition of the tape Mary had watched earlier, Rene Verlane being interviewed in his New Orleans home, seated on his sofa and looking handsome and suave and deeply touched by tragedy, wearing his grief like a true Southern gentleman. He again expressed his opinion that his wife’s murder might have had something to do with the world of ballroom dancing, since on the night of her death she’d been last seen doing a tango with a man in a New Orleans night spot. Not many men, he pointed out, knew how to tango. This tape ran several seconds longer than the last version Mary had seen. She watched as Verlane barely repressed his outrage at how the police and some of the media were suggesting Danielle was somehow to blame for her own murder.
“See what your dancing can get you?” Jake said, his injured gray eyes fixed on the screen.
Mary knew he was only partly joking. They’d talked about her dancing before. Jake thought it was a stupid pastime and refused to join her in it, but he accepted her absences when she spent time at the studio. She’d tried to explain why she danced, but either he couldn’t understand or she couldn’t find the right words. It was her fault, she supposed, because she’d never completely explained even to herself why she so desperately needed to dance.
“None of my business, Mary, but I know how much those lessons cost.”
“Cost doesn’t have anything to do with-”
“So whadda we have here? Art?” For some reason he was angry. “You’re no twenty-year-old Ginger Rogers. You’re a thirty-five-year-old yuppie career woman, am I right?”
“You’re right if you wanna be, Jake. You get outa bed right every morning, and you go to bed that way at night.”
He grinned and shook his head hopelessly. “Hey, I went and got you mad again. Got myself mad. I’m sorry, babe, I really am.”
She knew he was, but she didn’t want to acknowledge it. “I have to leave for work, Jake.”
“Huh? It’s Saturday.”
“I’m working extra hours. Besides, weekends are the biggest days in real estate.”
“You’re really serious? You’re going to work?”
“That’s why I’m up and dressed, Jake.”
“You never worked before on Saturday.”
“Sure I have.”
“Not very often.”
“Well, I need the money.”
“For what? Something to do with dancing, I bet.”
“You’d win that bet.”
He thought about that, then shrugged. “Well, if it makes you happy it’s okay with me.”
“That’s indulgent of you, Jake.”
He glanced again at the TV: a commercial for dog food now, edited so beagle pups appeared to be dancing in unison. The New Orleans murder hadn’t been a big story, so it had played toward the end of the broadcast.
“You oughta remember what happened to that guy’s wife, Mary. I mean, in a way it was her fault, out dancing with strange characters. You take a big chance, doing something crazy like that.”
“She didn’t murder herself, Jake.” The pups began to sing.
“You wanna play games and run back and forth across the street blindfolded, eventually you’re gonna get hit by a car. It’ll be the driver’s fault, but then again it won’t be. It’ll be your fault for tempting fate. That was the game she was playing, tempting fate.”
“She went where men knew how to dance,” Mary said. “That’s not tempting fate, it’s wanting to tango.”
“Her husband shouldn’t have let her go. So in a way it’s kinda his fault, too.”
“He obviously didn’t know where she was. Or maybe he knew and didn’t care. I mean, for God’s sake, she was only dancing.”
“And now she’s only dead.”
Mary picked up her purse. “I gotta get outa here, Jake.”
He put on his hurt-little-boy expression, ludicrous on such a big man. “Mary, I worked till past midnight, and I been up all night.”
“So go home and go to bed. I’ve gotta leave.”
“Hey, I’m exhausted. Why can’t I catch some winks here?” Hint of a smile. “I mean, it’s not like I’m a stranger to the bed.”
“Jake-”
“I’ll be gone way before you get home, Mary. I promise. So what’ll it hurt? If I try to drive now, I’m so beat I’m liable to fall asleep at the wheel and plow into some kid on his way to school.”
“Not on Saturday, Jake.”
“So maybe he’s going to school to earn extra credit, the way you’re going to work to earn an extra couple of bucks.”
It was impossible to argue with him. And he looked immovable, all 220 pounds of him. But she didn’t want him here, in her bed again. Didn’t want to make that concession, turn that corner.
Then she saw again the horrible thing on her car last night, and the knife marks on her door. There might be some advantages to having Jake in the apartment while she was away. Anyone watching the place might assume he was still living there, or that he might turn up at any time. She thought, Better than a doberman.
She said, “All right, Jake. Just this once. I’m only working till one o’clock, and I expect you to be gone when I get back.”
“Hey, Mary, didn’t I promise?”
“You’ve promised before and broken your word.”
“I know,” he said miserably. He peeled off his shirt and turned his broad back on her, swaggering toward the bedroom. The shirt had been plastered to his flesh. He was sweating heavily despite the coolness of the apartment. He raked his fingers through his dark hair. “Don’t work too hard, Mary,” he called over his shoulder.
She wouldn’t. The office was only her first stop, and she planned on spending a little over an hour there to get her desk in order. Then it was on to Romance Studio for an extra lesson with Mel.
She said, “Thanks for the rose,” and closed the door behind her.
12
After her lesson with Mel, Mary had gone window shopping, then had lunch at one of the mall’s food courts. She’d wandered around and killed time until three o’clock before returning home.
There was no sound in the apartment; the air was thick and still. She placed her dance shoes on the coffee table, then removed her street shoes, leaving them lying on their sides like casualties on the carpet. In her stockinged feet, she crept down the hall and peered into her bedroom.
The bed was empty. Jake was gone.
Mary puffed out her cheeks and exhaled in relief. Or at least she told herself she was relieved. She walked to the bed and smoothed the sheet, fluffed the pillow, and brushed a dark hair away.
Standing back with her fists on her hips, she looked around. There were Jake’s socks wadded on the floor near her dresser, as if he needed to leave something of himself behind to mark his territory. Mary went to the socks
