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Forces I was so in love with Jack I couldn't see straight. I had hoped that Polly didn't know it, but she wasn't one of those simple-minded saints. One Wednesday I was sitting with her — the patio doors were open and that heavenly air was bringing in the smell of Jack's roses and just a hint of the ocean off on the horizon. I was telling her about the square-dancing maneuvers: not the dos-a-dos, but the wiles of the widows. Those girls will do anything to get attention. I described how Matty Waterhouse, brazenly pretending she had a blister, held onto Jack's arm and leaned over and showed her bosom to all and sundry while she took off her shoe. Maybe I embroidered the tale a bit — 1 do like to tell an amusing story and besides, Matty, who dolls herself up like the Mother of Frankenstein's Bride, used to make me ragged with jealousy. I remember how Polly laughed, carefully, as if it might hurt her. Then she looked straight at me. Her blue eyes were so bright those last weeks — I never knew whether it was from the pain or the pain-killers. "I'm sorry she was holding onto Jack when she did it, Grace," she said. "That must have irked you, feeling about him the way you do." Well. Though I knew Polly loved me like a sister, it was hard to know just how to answer that. I blushed until my eyes watered, and finally said something like "I just can't stand it when some birdbrain like Matty goes after him." "Grace," she said, "I want to say this." Her face took on that lit-up look, like a shell with the sun on it, that made me certain she was leaving us. "I'm glad you love Jack. It comforts me to think of the two of you . . . together." She was too tactful, you see, to say "after I'm dead," or even "when I'm gone." She wouldn't call attention to herself like that. Nevertheless, I was so flustered I blurted out, "But Jack doesn't think of me that way!" I don't know, really, whether I was defending his virtue or complaining. But it was true: although I have always attracted my share of compliments, he never gave me a look that wasn't on the up-and-up. "Oh, don't be modest," she said. Like many saints, she was lukewarm on the conventional virtues. "Jack's preoccupied now," she went on. She looked down at her thin little hands. She even pushed a sleeve up to look at her wrist, which was like a bone. "But he thinks the world of you. You'll be a great comfort to him. I like to think of that." <<| 1
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