Fancy Pants

Chapter 8

Dallie was the first to admit that he didn't always treat women well. Part of it was him, but part of it was them, too. He liked down-home women, good-time women, low-down women. He liked women he could drink with, women who could tell dirty jokes without lowering their voices, who'd boom out that old punch line right across the sweating beer pitchers, wadded-up cocktail napkins, and Waylon Jennings on the jukebox-never wasting a moment's thought on how some blue-haired club lady in the next town might be listening in. He liked women who didn't fuss around with tears and arguments because he was spending all his time hitting a couple hundred balls with his three-wood at the driving range instead of taking them to a restaurant that served snails. He liked women, in fact, who were pretty much like men. Except beautiful. Because, most of all, Dailie liked beautiful women. Not phony fashion-model beautiful, with all that makeup and those bony boys' bodies that gave him the creeps, but sexy beautiful. He liked breasts and hips, eyes that laughed and teeth that sparkled, lips that parted wide. He liked women he could love and leave. That's the way he was, and that's what made him pretty much turn mean on every woman he had ever cared about. But Francesca Day was going to be the exception. She made him turn mean just by being there.

"Is that a filling station?" Skeet asked, sounding happy for the first time in miles.

Francesca peered ahead and breathed a silent prayer of thanksgiving as Dallie slowed the car. Not that she'd actually believed that story about the liquor store holdup, but she had to be careful. They pulled up in front of a ramshackle wooden building with flaking paint and a hand-lettered "Live Bate" sign leaning against a rusted pump. A cloud of dust drifted in through the car window as the tires crunched on the gravel. Francesca felt as if she'd been traveling for aeons; she was perishing of thirst, dying of starvation, and she had to use the lavatory.

"End of the line," Dallie said, turning off the ignition. "There'll be a phone inside. You can call one of your friends from there."

"Oh, I'm not going to call a friend," she replied, extracting a small calfskin handbag from her cosmetic case. "I'm calling a taxi to take me to the airport in Gulfport."

A loud groan emanated from the back. Dallie slumped down in his seat and tipped his hat forward over his eyes.

"Is something wrong?" she inquired.

"I don't even know where to start," Dallie muttered.

"Don't say a word," Skeet announced. "Just let her out, slip the Riviera into gear, and drive away. The guy pumping gas can handle it. I mean it, Dallie. Only a fool sets out to make a double bogey on purpose."

"What's wrong?" Francesca asked, beginning to feel alarmed.

Dallie tilted the brim of his cap back with his thumb. "For starters, Gulfport is about two hours behind you. We're in Louisiana now, halfway to New Orleans. If you wanted to go to Gulfport, why were you walking west instead of east?"

"How was I supposed to know I was walking west?" she replied indignantly.

Dallie slammed the heels of his hands against the steering wheel. "Because the goddamn sun was setting in front of your eyes, that's how!"

"Oh." She thought for a moment. There was no reason for her to panic; she would simply find another way. "Doesn't New Orleans have an airport? I can fly from there."

"How do you intend to get there? And if you mention a taxi again, I swear to God I'll throw both pieces of that Louie Vee-tawn right over into the scrub pine! You're out in the middle of nowhere, lady, don't you understand that? There aren't any taxicabs out here! This is backwoods Louisiana, not Paris, France!"

She sat up more stiffly and bit down on the inside of her lip. "I see," she said slowly. "Well, perhaps I could pay you to take me the rest of the way." She glanced down at her handbag, worry furrowing her brow. How much cash did she have left? She'd better call Nicholas right away so he could have money waiting for her in New Orleans.

Skeet pushed open the door and stepped out. "I'm gonna get me a bottle of Dr Pepper while you sort this out, Dallie. But I'm tellin' you one thing-if she's still in this car when I get back, you can find somebody else to haul your Spauldings around on Monday morning." The door slammed shut.

"What an impossible man," Francesca said with a sniff. She looked sideways at Dallie. He wouldn't really leave her, would he, just because that horrid sidekick of his didn't like her? She turned to him, her tone placating. "Just let me make a telephone call. It won't take a minute."

She extricated herself from the car as gracefully as she could and, hoops swaying, walked inside the ramshackle building. Opening her handbag, she took out her wallet and quickly counted her money. It didn't take long. Something uncomfortable slithered along the base of her spine. She only had eighteen dollars left… eighteen dollars between herself and starvation.

The receiver was sticky with dirt, but she paid no attention as she snatched it from its cradle and dialed 0. When she was finally connected with an overseas operator, she gave Nicholas's number and reversed the charges. While she waited for the call to go through, she tried to distract herself from her growing uneasiness by watching Dallie get out of the car and wander over to the owner of the place, who was loading some old tires into the back of a dilapidated truck and regarding all of them with interest. What a waste, she thought, her eyes straying back to Dallie-putting a face like that on an ignorant hillbilly.

Nicholas's houseboy finally answered, but her hopes of rescue were short-lived as he refused the call, announcing that his employer was out of town for several weeks. She stared at the receiver and then placed another call, this one to Cissy Kavendish. Cissy answered, but she was no more inclined to accept the call than Nicholas's houseboy. That awful bitch! Francesca fumed as the line went dead.

Beginning to feel genuinely frightened, she mentally ran through her list of acquaintances only to realize that she hadn't been on the best of terms with even her most loyal admirers in the last few months. The only other person who might lend her money was David Graves, who was away in Africa somewhere shooting a picture. Gritting her teeth, she placed a third collect call, this one to Miranda Gwynwyck. Somewhat to her surprise, the call was accepted.

"Francesca, how nice to hear from you, even though it's after midnight and I was sound asleep. How's your film career coming? Is Lloyd treating you well?"

Francesca could almost hear her purring, and she clenched the receiver more tightly. "Everything's super, Miranda; I can't thank you enough-but I seem to have a small emergency, and I need to get in touch with Nicky. Give me his number, will you?"

"Sorry, darling, but he's incommunicado at the moment with an old friend-a glorious blond mathematician who adores him."

"I don't believe you."

"Francesca, even Nicky has his limits, and I do believe you finally reached them. But give me your number and I'll have him return your call when he gets back in two weeks so he can tell you himself."

"Two weeks won't do! I have to talk to him now."

"Why?"

'That's private," she snapped.

"Sorry, I can't help."

"Don't do this, Miranda! I absolutely must-" The line went dead just as the owner of the service station walked in the door and flipped the dial on a greasy white plastic radio. The voice of Diana Ross suddenly filled Francesca's ears, asking her if she knew where she was going to. "Oh, God…" she murmured.

And then she looked up to see Dallie walking around the front of the car toward the driver's side.

"Wait!" She dropped the receiver and raced out the door, her heart banging against her ribs, terrified

that he would drive off and leave her.

He stopped where he was and leaned back against the hood, crossing his arms over his chest. "Don't

tell me," he said. "Nobody was home."

"Well, yes… no. You see, Nicky, my fiance-"

"Never mind." He pulled off his cap by the brim and shoved his hand through his hair. "I'll drop you

off at the airport. Only you have to promise that you won't talk on the way."

She bristled, but before she had time to reply, he jerked his thumb toward the passenger door. "Hop in. Skeet wanted to stretch his legs, so we'll pick him up down the road."

She had to use the toilet before she went anywhere, and she would die if she didn't change her clothes.

"I need a few minutes," she said. "I'm sure you won't mind waiting." Since she wasn't sure of any such thing, she turned the full force of her charm on him-green cat's eyes, soft mouth, a small, helpless hand on his arm.

The hand was a mistake. He looked down at it as if she'd put a snake there. "I got to tell you, Francie-there's something about the way you go about doing things that pretty much rubs me the wrong way."

She snatched away her hand. "Don't call me that! My name is Francesca. And don't imagine I'm exactly enamored with you, either."

"I don't imagine you're exactly enamored with anybody except yourself." He pulled a piece of bubble gum from his shirt pocket. "And Mr. Vee-tawn, of course."

She gave him her most withering glare, went to the back door of the car, and pulled it open to extract her suitcase, because absolutely nothing-not abysmal poverty, Miranda's betrayal, or Dallie Beaudine's insolence-was going to make her stay in her torturous pink outfit a moment longer.

He slowly unwrapped his piece of bubble gum as he watched her struggling with the suitcase. "If you

turn it on its side there, Francie, I think it'll be easier to get out."

She clamped her teeth together to keep from calling him every vile name in her vocabulary and jerked

on the suitcase, putting a long scratch in the leather as it banged into the door handle. I'll kill him, she thought, dragging the suitcase toward a rusted blue and white rest room sign. I'll kill him and then I'll stomp on his corpse. Grasping a chipped white porcelain knob that hung loose from its plate, she pushed on the door, but it refused to budge. She tried two more times before it finally swung inward, squealing

on its hinges. And then she gulped.

The room was terrible. Dirty water lay in the recesses of the broken floor tiles revealed by a dim bare light bulb hanging from the ceiling by a cord. The toilet was encrusted with filth, its lid had disappeared, and the seat was broken in half. As she stood looking at the noisome room, the tears that had been threatening all day finally broke loose. She was hungry and thirsty, she had to use the toilet, she didn't have any money, and she wanted to go home. Dropping the suitcase outside in the dirt, she sat down on it and began to cry. How could this be happening to her? She was one of the ten most beautiful women in Great Britain!

A pair of cowboy boots appeared in the dust at her side. She began crying harder, burying her face in her hands and releasing great gulping sobs that seemed to come all the way from her toes. The boots took a few steps to the side, then tapped impatiently in the dirt.

"This kickup gonna take much longer, Francie? I want to fetch Skeet before the 'gators get him."

"I went out with the Prince of Wales," she said with a sob, finally looking up at him. "He fell in love with me!"

"Uh-huh. Well, they say there's a lot of inbreeding-"

"I could have been queen!" The word was a wail as tears dripped off her cheeks and onto her breasts. "He adored me, everybody knew it. We went to balls and the opera-"

He squinted against the fading sun. "Do you think you could sorta skip through this part and get to the point?"

"I have to go to the loo!" she cried, pointing a shaky finger toward the rusty blue and white sign.

He left her side and then reappeared a moment later. "I see what you mean." Digging two rumpled tissues from his pocket, he let them flutter down into her lap. "I think you'll be safer out back behind the building."

She looked down at the tissues and then up at him and began sobbing again.

He took several chomps on his gum. "That domestic mascara of yours sure is falling down on the job."

Leaping up from the suitcase, tissues dropping to the ground, she shouted at him, "You think all this is amusing, don't you? You find it hysterically funny that I'm trapped in this awful dress and I can't go

home and Nicky's gone off with some dreadful mathematician Miranda says is glorious-"

"Uh-huh." Her suitcase fell forward under the pressure of Dallie's boot toe. Before Francesca had a chance to protest, he had knelt down and flipped open the catches. "This is a god-awful mess," he said when he saw the chaos inside. "You got any jeans in here?"

"Under the Zandra Rhodes."

"What's a zanderoads? Never mind, I found the jeans. How about a T-shirt? You wear T-shirts, Francie?"

"There's a blouse," she sniffed. "Greige with cocoa trim-a Halston. And a Hermes belt with an art deco buckle. And my Bottega Veneta sandals."

He propped one arm across his knee and looked up at her. "You're startin' to push me again, aren't you, darlin'?"

Dashing away her tears with the back of her hand, she stared down at him, not having the faintest idea what he was talking about. He sighed and got back up. "Maybe you'd better find what you want yourself. I'll amble back to the car and wait for you. And try not to take too long. Old Skeet's already gonna be hotter than a Texas tamale."

As he turned to walk away, she sniffed and bit on her lip. "Mr. Beaudine?" He turned. She dug her fingernails into her palms. "Would it be possible-" Gracious, this was humiliating! "That is to say, perhaps you might- Actually, I seem to-" What was wrong with her? How had an ignorant hillbilly managed to intimidate her so badly that she couldn't seem to form the simplest sentence?

"Spit it out, honey. I got my heart set on findin' a cure for cancer before the decade's over, or at least having a cold Lone Star and a chili dog by the time Landry's boys hit the Astroturf for the division championship."

"Stop it!" She stamped her foot in the dirt. "Just stop it! I don't have any idea what you're talking about, and even a blind idiot could see that I can't possibly get out of this dress by myself, and if you ask me,

the person who talks too much around here is you!"

He grinned, and she suddenly forgot her misery under the force of that devastating smile, crinkling the corners of his mouth and eyes. His amusement seemed to come from a place deep inside, and as she watched him she had the absurd feeling that an entire world of funniness had somehow managed to pass her by. The idea made her feel more out of sorts than ever. "Hurry up, will you?" she snapped. "I can barely breathe."

"Turn around, Francie. Undressing women is one of my particular talents. Even better than my bunker shot."

"You're not undressing me," she sputtered, as she turned her back to him. "Don't make it sound so sordid."

His hands paused on the hooks at the back of her dress. "What exactly would you call it?"

"Performing a helpful function."

"Sort of like a maid?" The row of hooks began to ease open.

"Rather like that, yes." She had the uneasy feeling that she'd just taken another giant step in the wrong direction. She heard a short, vaguely malevolent chuckle that confirmed her fears.

"Something about you is sort of growin' on me, Francie. It's not often life gives you the opportunity to meet living history."

"Living history?"

"Sure. French Revolution, old Marie Antoinette. All that let-them-eat-cake stuff."

"What," she asked, as the last of the hooks fell open, "would someone like you know about Marie Antoinette?"

"Until a little over an hour ago," he replied, "not much."

They picked Skeet up about two miles down the road, and as Dallie had predicted, he wasn't happy. Francesca found herself banished to the back seat, where she sipped from a bottle of something called Yahoo chocolate soda, which she'd taken from the Styrofoam cooler without waiting for an invitation. She drank and brooded, remaining silent, as requested, all the way into New Orleans. She wondered what Dallie would say if he knew that she didn't have a plane ticket, but she refused even to consider telling him the truth. Picking at the corner of the Yahoo label with her thumbnail, she contemplated the fact that she didn't have a mother, money, a home, or a fiance. All she had left was a small remnant of pride, and she desperately wanted the chance to wave it at least once before the day was over. For some reason, pride was becoming increasingly important to her when it came to Dallie Beaudine.

If only he weren't so impossibly gorgeous, and so obviously unimpressed with her. It was infuriating… and irresistible. She had never walked away from a challenge where a man was concerned, and it grated on her to be forced to walk away from this one. Common sense told her she had bigger problems to worry about, but something more visceral said that if she couldn't manage to attract the admiration of Dallie Beaudine she would have lost one more chunk of herself.

As she finished her chocolate soda, she figured out how to get the money she needed for her ticket home. Of course! The idea was so absurdly simple that she should have thought of it right away. She looked over at her suitcase and frowned at the scratch on the side. That suitcase had cost something like eighteen hundred pounds when she'd bought it less than a year before. Flipping open her cosmetic case, she riffled through the contents looking for a cake of eye shadow approximately the same butternut shade as the leather. When she found it, she unscrewed the lid and gently dabbed at the scratch. It was still faintly visible when she was done, but she felt satisfied that only a close inspection would reveal the flaw.

With that problem out of the way and the first airport sign in sight, she returned her thoughts to Dallie Beaudine, trying to understand his attitude toward her. The whole problem-the only reason everything was going so badly between them-was that she looked so awful. This had temporarily thrown him into the superior position. She let her eyelids drift shut and played out a fantasy in her mind in which she would appear before him well rested, hair freshly arranged in shining chestnut curls, makeup impeccable, clothes wonderful. She would have him on his knees in seconds.

The current argument, in what seemed to be an ongoing series between Dallie and that horrid companion of his, distracted her from her reverie.

"I don't see why you're so hell-bent on making Baton Rouge tonight," Skeet complained. "We've got all day tomorrow to get to Lake Charles in time for your round Monday morning. What difference does an extra hour make?"

"The difference is I don't want to spend any more time driving on Sunday than I have to."

"I'll drive. It's only an extra hour, and there's that real nice motel where we stayed last year. Don't you have a dog or something to check on there?"

"Since when did you give a damn about any of my dogs?"

"A cute little mutt with a black spot over one eye, wasn't it? Had some kind of a bad leg."

"That was in Vicksburg."

"You sure?"

"Of course I'm sure. Listen, Skeet, if you want to spend tonight in New Orleans so you can go over to the Blue Choctaw and see that red-haired waitress, why don't you just come out and say it instead of beating around the bush like this, going on about dogs and bad legs like some kind of goddamn hypocrite."

"I didn't say anything about a red-haired waitress or wanting to go to the Blue Choctaw."

"Yeah. Well, I'm not going with you. That place is an invitation to a fight, especially on Saturday night. The women all look like mud wrestlers and the men are worse. I damn near busted a rib the last time I went there, and I've had enough aggravation for one day."

"I told you to leave her with the guy at the filling station, but you wouldn't listen to me. You never listen to me. Just like last Thursday. I told you that shot from the rough was a hundred thirty-five yards; I'd paced it off, and I told you, but you ignored me and picked up that eight-iron just like I hadn't said a word."

"Just be quiet about it, will you? I told you right then I was wrong, and I told you the next day that I was wrong, and I been telling you twice a day ever since, so shut up!"

"That's a rookie's trick, Dallie, not trusting your caddy for the yardage. Sometimes I think you're deliberately trying to lose tournaments."

"Francie?" Dallie said over his shoulder. "You got any more of those fascinating stories about mascara you want to tell me right now?"

"Sorry," she said sweetly. "I'm all out. Besides, I'm not supposed to chat. Remember?"

"Too late anyway, I guess," Dallie sighed, pulling up to the airport's main terminal. With the ignition still running, he got out of the car and came around to open her door. "Well, Francie, I can't say it hasn't been interesting." After she stepped out, he reached into the back seat, removed her cases, and set them next to her on the sidewalk. "Good luck with your fiance and the prince and all those other high rollers you run around with."

"Thank you," she said stiffly.

He took a couple of quick chews on his bubble gum and grinned. "Good luck with those vampires, too."

She met his amused gaze with icy dignity. "Good-bye, Mr. Beaudine."

"Good-bye, Miss Francie Pants."

He'd gotten the last word on her. She stood on the pavement in front of the terminal and faced the undeniable fact that the gorgeous hillbilly had scored the final point in a game she'd invented. An illiterate-probably illegitimate- backwoods bumpkin had outwitted, outtalked, and out-scored the incomparable Francesca Serritella Day.

What was left of her spirit staged a full-scale rebellion, and she gazed up at him with eyes that spoke volumes in the history of banned literature. "It's too bad we didn't meet under different circumstances." Her pouty mouth curled into a wicked smile. "I'm absolutely certain we'd have tons in common."

And then she stood on tiptoe, curled into his chest, and lifted her arms until they encircled his neck,

never for a moment letting her gaze drop from his. She tilted up her perfect face and offered up her soft mouth like a jeweled chalice. Gently drawing his head down with the palms of her hands, she placed her lips over his and then slowly parted them so that Dallie Beaudine could take a long, unforgettable drink.

He didn't even hesitate. He jumped right in just as if he'd been there before, bringing with him all the expertise he'd gained over the years to meet and mingle with all of hers. Their kiss was perfect-hot and sexy-two pros doing what they did best, a tingler right down to the toes. They were both too experienced to bump teeth or mash noses or do any of those other awkward things less practiced men and women are apt to do. The Mistress of Seduction had met the Master, and to Francesca the experience was as close to perfect as anything she'd ever felt, complete with goose bumps and a lovely weakness in her knees, a spectacularly perfect kiss made even more perfect by the knowledge that she didn't have to give a moment's thought to the awkward aftermath of having implicitly promised something she had no intention of delivering.

The pressure of the kiss eased, and she slid the tip of her tongue along his bottom lip. Then she slowly pulled away. "Good-bye, Dallie," she said softly, her cat's eyes slanting up at him with a mischievous glitter. "Look me up the next time you're in Cap Ferret."

Just before she turned away, she had the pleasure of seeing a slightly bemused expression take over his gorgeous face.

"I should be used to it by now," Skeet was saying as Dallie climbed back behind the wheel. "I should be used to it, but I'm not. They just fall all over you. Rich ones, poor ones, ugly ones, fancy ones. Don't make no difference. It's like they're all a bunch of homing pigeons circling in to roost. You got lipstick

on you."

Dallie wiped the back of his hand over his mouth and then looked down at the pale smear. "Definitely imported," he muttered.

From just inside the door of the terminal, Francesca watched the Buick pull away and suppressed an absurd pang of regret. As soon as the car was out of sight, she picked up her cases and walked back outside until she came to a taxi stand with a single yellow cab. The driver got out and loaded her cases into the trunk while she settled in the back. As he got behind the wheel, he turned to her. "Where to, ma'am?"

"I know it's late," she said, "but do you think you could find a resale shop that's still open?"

"Resale shop?"

"Yes. Someplace that buys designer labels… and a really extraordinary suitcase."