Fancy Pants

Chapter 14

Naomi Jaffe Tanaka had to restrain herself from jumping up from her desk and dancing a jig as she set down her telephone. She'd found her! After an incredible amount of work, she'd finally found her Sassy Girl! Quickly she called in her secretary and dictated a list of instructions.

"Don't try to contact her; I want to approach her in person. Just double-check my information to make certain it's right."

Her secretary looked up from her steno pad. "You don't think she'll turn you down, do you?"

"I hardly think so. Not for the kind of money we're offering." But for all her confidence, Naomi was a natural worrier, and she knew she wouldn't relax until she had a signature on the dotted line of an ironclad contract. "I want to fly out as quickly as possible. Let me know as soon as the arrangements are set."

After her secretary left her office, Naomi hesitated for a moment and then dialed the number of her apartment. The phone rang again and again, but she refused to hang up. He was there; her luck wasn't good enough to make him magically disappear. She should never have agreed to let him stay in her apartment. If anyone at BS &R found out- "Answer, dammit."

The line clicked. "Saul's Whorehouse and Crematorium. Lionel speaking."

"Can't you just say hello like a normal person?" she snapped. Why was she putting herself through this? The police wanted Gerry for questioning, but he had received a tip that they planned to frame him on trumped-up charges of drug dealing, so he refused to go in to talk to them. Gerry didn't even smoke grass anymore, let alone deal in drugs, and she hadn't had the heart to turn him back out on the street. She also retained enough of her old distrust of the police to be unwilling to submit him to the unpredictability of the legal system.

"Talk to me nice or I'll hang up," he said.

"Terrific," she retorted. "If I get really nasty, does that mean you'll move out?"

"You got a letter from Save the Children thanking you for your contribution. Fifty lousy bucks."

"Dammit, you have no business reading my mail."

"Trying to buy your way into heaven, sis?"

Naomi refused to jump to his bait. There was a moment of silence, and then he made a grudging apology. "Sorry. I'm so bored I can't stand myself."

"Did you look over that information on law school I left out for you?" she asked casually.

"Aw, shit, don't start this again."

"Gerry…"

"I'm not selling out!"

"Just think about it, Gerry. Going to law school isn't selling out. You could do more good by working inside the system-"

"Knock it off, okay, Naomi? We've got a world out there that's ready to blow itself up. Adding another lawyer to the system isn't going to change a thing."

Despite his vehement protests, she sensed that the idea of going to law school wasn't as distasteful to him as he pretended. But she knew he needed time to think it over, so she didn't press him. "Look, Gerry, I have to go out of town for a few days. Do me a favor and try to be gone when I get back."

"Where are you going?"

She looked down at the memo pad on her desk and smiled to herself. In twenty-four hours, the Sassy

Girl would be signed, sealed, and delivered. "I'm going to a place called Wynette, Texas," she said.

Clad in jeans, sandals, and one of Miss Sybil's brightly colored cotton blouses, Francesca sat next to Dallie in a honky-tonk called the Roustabout. After nearly three weeks in Wynette, she had lost count

of the number of evenings they had spent at the town's favorite night spot. Despite the raucous country band, the cloud of low-hanging smoke, and the tacky orange and black Halloween crepe paper hanging from the bar, she had discovered she actually liked the place.

Everyone in Wynette knew the town's most famous golfer, so the two of them always entered the honky-tonk to a chorus of "Hey, Dallie's" ringing out over the Naugahyde stools and the twang of the steel guitars. But tonight, for the first time, there had been a few "Hey, Francie's" thrown in, pleasing her inordinately.

One of the Roustabout's female patrons pushed her witch's mask to the top of her head and planted a boisterous kiss on Skeet's cheek. "Skeet, you old bear, I'm going to get you to the altar yet."

He chuckled. "You're too young for me, Eunice. I couldn't keep up with you."

"You said a mouthful there, honey." Eunice let out a shriek of laughter and then went off with a friend who was unwisely dressed in a harem costume that left her chubby midriff bare.

Francesca smiled. Although Dallie had been in a surly mood all evening, she was having fun. Most of the Roustabout's patrons were wearing their standard outfits of jeans and Stetsons, but a few wore Halloween costumes and all the bartenders had on glasses with rubber noses.

"Over here, Dallie!" one of the women called out. "We're going to bob for apples in a bucket of draft."

Dallie slammed the front legs of his chair down to the floor, grabbed Francesca's arm, and muttered, "Christ, that's all I need. Quit talking, dammit. I want to dance."

She hadn't been talking, but his expression was so grim that she didn't bother pointing that out. She just got up and followed him. As he dragged her across the floor toward the jukebox, she found herself remembering the first night he'd brought her to the Roustabout. Had it only been three weeks ago?

Her memories of the Blue Choctaw had still been fresh that night, and she was nervous. Dallie had dragged her onto the dance floor and, over her protests, insisted on teaching her the Texas two-step and the Cotton-Eyed Joe. After twenty minutes, her face had felt flushed and her skin had been damp. She had wanted nothing more than to escape to the rest room and repair the damage. "I've danced enough, Dallie," she had told him.

He had steered her toward the center of the wooden dance floor. "We're just warming up."

"I'm quite warm enough, thank you."

"Yeah? Well, I'm not."

The tempo of the music had picked up and Dallie's hold on her waist had tightened. She had begun to hear Chloe's voice taunting her over the country music, telling her that no one would love her if she

didn't look beautiful, and she had felt the first flutters of uneasiness spread out inside her. "I don't want

to dance anymore," she had insisted, trying to pull away.

"Well, that's just too bad, because I do." Dallie had snatched up his bottle of Pearl as they passed by

their table. Without losing a beat, he had taken a drink, then pressed the bottle to her lips and tilted it up.

"I don't-" She had swallowed and choked as beer splashed into her mouth. He had raised the bottle to his own mouth again and emptied it. Sweaty tendrils had clung to her cheeks and beer had run down her chin. "I'm going to leave you," she had threatened, her voice rising. "I'm going to walk off this floor and out of your life forever if you don't let me go right now."

He had paid no attention. He had held on to her damp hands and pressed her body up against his.

"I want to sit down!" she had demanded.

"I don't really care what you want." He had moved his hands high up under her arms, right where the perspiration had soaked through her blouse.

"Please, Dallie," she had cried, mortified.

"Just shut your mouth and move your feet."

She had continued to plead with him, but he ignored her. Her lipstick had disappeared, her underarms

had become a public disgrace, and she had felt absolutely certain that she was going to cry.

Just then, right in the middle of the dance floor, Dallie had stopped moving. He had looked down at her, dipped his head, and kissed her full on her beery mouth. "Damn, you're pretty," he had whispered.

She remembered those gentle words now as he pulled her none too gently through the orange and black paper streamers toward the jukebox. After three weeks of posturing, posing, and trying to work miracles with dime store cosmetics, she had only once wrung a compliment about her appearance out of him-and that had been when she looked terrible.

He bumped into two men on his way to the jukebox and didn't bother to apologize. What was the matter with him tonight? Francesca wondered. Why was he acting so surly? The band had taken a break, and he dug into the pocket of his jeans for a quarter. A chorus of groans rang out along with a few catcalls.

"Don't let him do it, Francie," Curtis Molloy called out.

She tossed him a mischievous smile over her shoulder. "Sorry, luv, but he's bigger than I am. Besides, he gets dreadfully ornery if I argue with him." The combination of her British accent with their lingo made them laugh, as she'd known it would.

Dallie punched the same two buttons he'd been punching all night whenever the band stopped playing, then set his bottle of beer on top of the jukebox. "I haven't heard Curtis blabber so much in years," he told Francesca. "You really got him going. Even the women are starting to like you." His words sounded more grudging than pleased.

She ignored his bad mood as the rock tune began to play. "What about you?" she asked saucily. "Do you like me, too?"

He moved his athlete's body to the first chords of "Born to Run," dancing to Springsteen's music as gracefully as he did the Texas two-step. "Of course I like you," he scowled.

"I'm not so much of an alley cat that I'd still be sleeping with you if I didn't like you a whole lot better than I used to. Damn, I love this song."

She had hoped for a somewhat more romantic declaration, but with Dallie she'd learned to settle for what she could get. She also didn't share his enthusiasm for the song he kept playing on the jukebox. Although she couldn't understand all of the lyrics, she gathered that the part about tramps like us who were born to run might be what Dallie liked so much about the song. The sentiment didn't fit well with her own vision of domestic bliss, so she shut out the lyrics and concentrated on the music, matching her body movements to Dallie's as she was learning to do so well in their own deep night bedroom dance. He looked into her eyes and she looked into his, and the music swept up around them. She felt as if some kind of invisible lock had snapped them together, and then the mood was broken as her stomach gave one of its queer pitches.

She wasn't pregnant, she told herself. She couldn't be. Her doctor had told her very clearly that she couldn't get pregnant until she started having her menstrual periods again. But her recent nausea had worried her enough that the day before at the library she'd looked through a Planned Parenthood pamphlet on pregnancy when Miss Sybil wasn't watching. To her dismay, she had read the exact opposite and she found herself desperately counting back to that first night she and Dallie had made love. It had been almost a month ago exactly.

They danced again and then went back to their table, the palm of his hand cupped over the small of her back. She enjoyed his touch, the sensation of a woman being protected by the man who cared about her. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if she actually was pregnant, she thought as she sat down at the table. Dailie wasn't the kind of man who would slip her a few hundred dollars and drive her to the local abortionist. Not that she had any desire to have a baby, but she was beginning to learn that everything had a price. Maybe pregnancy would make him commit himself to her, and once he made that commitment everything would be wonderful. She would encourage him to stop drinking so much and apply himself more. He would begin to win tournaments and make enough money so they could buy a house in a city somewhere. It wouldn't be the sort of fashionable international life she'd envisioned for herself, but she didn't need all that running about anymore, and she knew she would be happy as long as Dallie loved her. They would travel together, and he would take care of her, and everything would be perfect.

But the picture wouldn't quite crystallize in her mind, so she took a sip from her bottle of Lone Star.

A woman's voice with a drawl as lazy as a Texas Indian summer penetrated her thoughts. "Hey, Dallie," the voice said softly, "make any birdies for me?"

Francesca sensed the change in him, an alertness that hadn't been there a moment before, and she lifted her head.

Standing next to their table and gazing down at him with mischievous blue eyes stood the most beautiful woman Francesca had ever seen. Dallie jumped up with a soft exclamation and enveloped her in his arms. Francesca had the sensation of time frozen in place as the two dazzling blond creatures pressed their heads together, beautiful American thoroughbreds in home-grown denim and worn cowboy boots, superhumans who suddenly made her feel incredibly small and ordinary. The woman wore a Stetson pushed back on a cloud of blond hair that fell in sexy disarray to her shoulders, and she'd left three buttons on her plaid shirt unfastened to reveal more than a little of the impressive swell of her breasts. A wide leather belt encircled her small waist, and tight jeans fit her hips so closely they made a V at her crotch before clinging in a smooth line down a nearly endless expanse of long, trim leg.

The woman looked into Dallie's eyes and said something so quietly only Francesca overheard. "You didn't think I'd leave you alone for Halloween, did you, baby?" she whispered.

The fear that had seemed like a cold fist clutching Francesca's heart abruptly eased as she realized how much alike they looked. Of course… she shouldn't have been so startled. Of course they looked alike. This woman could only be Dallie's sister, the elusive Holly Grace.

A moment later, he confirmed her identity. Releasing the tall blond goddess, he turned to Francesca. "Holly Grace, this is Francesca Day. Francie, I'd like you to meet Holly Grace Beaudine."

"How do you do?" Francesca extended her hand and smiled warmly. "I would have recognized you as Dallie's sister anywhere; you two look so much alike."

Holly Grace pulled the brim of the Stetson forward a bit on her head and studied Francesca with clear blue eyes. "Sorry to disappoint you, honey, but I'm not Dallie's sister."

Francesca regarded her quizzically.

"I'm Dallie's wife."