Fancy Pants

Chapter 22

He pressed himself flat against the wall, the switchblade clenched in his fist, his thumb next to the button. He didn't want to kill. He found no pleasure in drawing human blood, especially female blood, but the time always came when such a thing was necessary. Tilting his head to the side, he heard the sound he'd been waiting for, the soft ding of the elevator doors opening. Once the woman stepped out, her footsteps would be absorbed by the thick melon-colored carpet that covered the hallway in the expensive Manhattan co-op building, so he began to count softly to himself, every muscle in his body tense, ready

to spring into action.

He brushed the pad of his thumb over the button of his switchblade, not hard enough to trigger it, but merely to reassure himself. The city was a jungle to him, and he was a jungle cat-a strong, silent predator who did what he had to.

No one remembered the name he had been born with- time and brutality had erased it. Now the world knew him only as Lasher.

Lasher the Great.

He kept counting, having already calculated the time it would take her to reach the turn in the hallway where he had flattened himself against the subdued paisley wallpaper. And then he caught the faint scent of her perfume. He poised himself to spring. She was beautiful, famous… and soon she would be dead!

He sprang forward with a mighty roar as the call for blood raged in his head.

She screamed and stumbled backwards, dropping her purse. He flicked the button on his switchblade

with one hand and, looking up at her, pushed his glasses back up on the bridge of his nose with the other. "You're dead meat, China Colt!" Lasher the Great sneered

"And you're dead ass, Theodore Day!" Holly Grace Beaudine leaned over to swat the seat of his camouflage pants with the palm of her hand, then clutched her chest through her down jacket. "Honest

to God, Teddy, the next time you do that to me I'm going to take a switch to you."

Teddy, whose I.Q. had been measured in the vicinity of one hundred and seventy by the child study

team at his former school in a fashionable suburb of Los Angeles, didn't believe her for a minute. But

just to be on the safe side, he gave her a hug, not actually something he minded, since he loved Holly Grace almost as much as he loved his mother.

"Your show was great last night, Holly Grace. I loved the way you used those numbchucks. Will you teach me?" Every Tuesday night he was allowed to stay up and watch "China Colt," even though his mother thought it was too violent for an impressionable nine-year-old kid like himself. "Look at my

new switchblade, Holly Grace. Mom bought it for me in Chinatown last week."

Holly Grace took it from his hand, inspected it, and then ran the end through the auburn hair that hung straight and fine over his pale forehead. "Looks more like a switchcomb to me, buddy boy."

Teddy gave her a disgusted look and reclaimed his weapon. He pushed the black plastic frames of his glasses back up on his nose and messed up the bangs she had just straightened. "Come see my room.

My new spaceship wallpaper is up." Without looking back, he took off down the hallway, sneakers

flying, canteen banging against his side, Rambo T-shirt tucked into his camouflage pants, which were tightly belted high above his waist, just the way he liked them.

Holly Grace looked after him and smiled. God, she loved that little boy. He had helped fill that awful Danny-ache she had thought she would never lose. But now as she watched him disappear, another ache nagged at her. It was December of 1986. Two months before, she had turned thirty-eight. How had she ever let herself get to be thirty-eight without having another child?

As she bent to pick up the purse she'd dropped, she found herself remembering the hellish Fourth of July when Teddy had been born. The air conditioning hadn't been working at the county hospital and the labor room where they put Francesca already contained five screaming, sweating women. Francesca lay on the narrow bed, her face as pale as death, her skin damp with sweat, and silently endured the contractions that racked her small body. It was her silent suffering that eventually got to Holly Grace-the quiet dignity of her endurance. Right then Holly Grace made up her mind to stand by Francesca. No woman should have a baby by herself, especially one who was so determined not to ask for help.

For the rest of the afternoon and into the evening, Holly Grace wiped Francesca's skin with damp, cool cloths. She held her hand and refused to leave her when they wheeled her into the delivery room. Finally, on that endless Fourth of July just before midnight, Theodore Day was born. The two women had gazed at his small, wrinkled form and then smiled at each other. At that moment, a bond of love and friendship had been formed that had lasted for nearly ten years.

Holly Grace's respect for Francesca had slowly grown over those years until she couldn't think of a person she admired more. For a woman who had started life with more than her fair share of character defects, Francesca had accomplished everything she'd set out to do. She had worked her way from AM radio to local television, gradually moving from smaller markets into bigger ones until she made it to Los Angeles, where her morning television program had eventually caught the attention of the network. Now she was the star of the New York-based "Francesca Today," a Wednesday night talk and interview show that had been chomping up the Nielsens for the past two years.

It hadn't taken viewers long to fall in love with Francesca's offbeat interviewing style, which, as far as Holly Grace could figure out, was based almost entirely on her complete lack of interest in anything resembling journalistic detachment. Despite her startling beauty and the remnants of her British accent, she somehow managed to remind viewers of themselves. The others-Barbara Walters, Phil Donahue, even Oprah Winfrey-were always in control. Francesca, like millions of her fellow Americans, hardly ever was. She just leaped into the fray and tried her best to hang on, resulting in the most spontaneous television interview show Americans had seen in years.

Teddy's voice rang out from the apartment. "Hurry, Holly Grace!"

"I'm coming, I'm coming." As Holly Grace began walking toward Francesca's co-op apartment, her thoughts drifted back through the years to Teddy's six-month birthday, when she had flown to Dallas where Francesca had just taken a job at one of the city's radio stations. Although they had talked on the phone, it was the first time the two women had seen each other since Teddy's birth. Francesca greeted Holly Grace at her new apartment with a squeal of welcome accompanied by a loud smacking kiss on the cheek. Then she had proudly placed a wiggling bundle in Holly Grace's arms. When Holly Grace had looked down at the baby's solemn little face, any doubts that might have been lurking in her subconscious about Teddy's parentage evaporated. Not even in her wildest imagination could she believe her gorgeous husband had anything to do with the child in her arms. Teddy was adorable, and Holly Grace had instantly loved him with all her heart, but he was just about the ugliest baby she'd ever seen. He was certainly nothing at all like Danny. Whoever had fathered this homely little critter, it couldn't have been Dallie Beaudine.

As the years passed, age had improved Teddy's looks somewhat. His head was well shaped, but a fraction too large for his body. He had auburn hair, wispy-fine and straight as a board, eyebrows and eyelashes so pale they were almost invisible, and cheekbones that he couldn't seem to grow into. Sometimes when he turned his head a certain way, Holly Grace thought she caught a glimpse of how his face would look as a man-strong, distinctive, not unattractive. But until he grew into that face, not even his own mother ever made the mistake of bragging about Teddy's good looks.

"Come on, Holly Grace!" Teddy's head popped back out the paneled white doorway. "Get the lead out!"

"I'll get your lead out," she growled, but she walked the rest of the way more quickly. As she entered the foyer, she shrugged out of her down jacket and adjusted the sleeves of a snowy white sweat suit, the legs of which were stuffed into a pair of Italian boots hand tooled with bronze leather flowers. Her trademark blond hair fell well past her shoulders, its color now highlighted with pale silvery streaks. She was wearing a trace of sable brown mascara and a dab of blusher, but little other makeup. She regarded the fine lines that had begun to form at the corners of her eyes as character-building. Besides, it was her day off and she didn't have the patience.

The living room of Francesca's apartment had pale yellow walls, peach moldings, and an exquisite Heriz rug accented in navy. With its English country garden touches of cotton chintz and silk damask, the room was exactly the kind of tastefully elegant and outrageously expensive showplace House and Garden loved to feature on its glossy pages, except that Francesca refused to raise a child in a showcase and had, quite casually, sabotaged some of her decorator's best work. The Hubert Robert landscape over the Italian marble fireplace had given way to an elaborately framed crayon rendering of a bright red dinosaur (Theodore Day, circa 1981). A seventeenth-century Italian chest had been moved several feet off center to make room for Teddy's favorite orange vinyl beanbag chair, while the chest itself bore the Mickey Mouse telephone Teddy and Holly Grace had bought as a present for Francesca on her thirty-first birthday.

Holly Grace stepped inside, dropped her purse on a copy of The New York Times, and waved to Consuelo, the Spanish woman who took wonderful care of Teddy but left all the dishes for Francesca to wash up when she came home. As she turned away from Consuelo, Holly Grace noticed a girl curled up on the sofa engrossed in a magazine. The girl was sixteen or seventeen with badly bleached hair and a faded bruise on her cheek. Holly Grace stopped in her tracks and then rounded on Teddy with a vehement whisper, "Your mother did it again, didn't she?"

"Mom said to tell you not to scare her."

"This is what I get for going to California for three weeks." Holly Grace grabbed Teddy by the arm and pulled him back to his bedroom out of earshot. As soon as she had shut the door, she exclaimed in frustration, "Dammit, I thought you were going to talk to her? I can't believe she did this again."

Teddy walked over to the shoe box that held his stamp collection and fiddled with the lid. "Her name's Debbie, and she's pretty nice. But the welfare department finally found a foster home for her, so she's leaving in a few days."

"Teddy, that girl's a hooker. She probably has needle tracks in her arm." He began puffing his cheeks in and out, a habit he had when he didn't want to talk about something. Holly Grace groaned in frustration. "Look, honey, why didn't you call me in L.A. right away? I know you're only nine years old, but that genius I.Q. of yours has some responsibilities attached to it, and one of them is to try to keep your mother at least partially in touch with the world of reality. You know she doesn't have an ounce of common sense where this sort of thing is concerned-bedding down runaways, tangling with pimps. She leads with her heart instead of her head."

"I like Debbie," Teddy said stubbornly.

"You liked that Jennifer character, too, and she stole fifty bucks from your Pinocchio bank before she split."

"She left me a note telling me she'd pay it back, and she was the only one who ever took anything."

Holly Grace saw that she was fighting a losing battle. "You should at least have called me."

Teddy picked up the lid of his stamp collection box and put it over his head, decisively ending the conversation. Holly Grace sighed. Sometimes Teddy was sensible, and sometimes he acted just like Francesca.

Half an hour later, she and Teddy were inching their way through the traffic-snarled streets toward Greenwich Village. As Holly Grace stopped for a light, she thought about the beefy forward on the New York Rangers she was meeting for dinner that night. She was certain he would be terrific in bed, but the fact that she couldn't take advantage of it depressed her. AIDS really pissed her off. Just when women had finally gotten themselves as sexually liberated as men, this awful disease had to come along and stop all the fun. She used to enjoy her one-night stands. She would put her lover through all his best tricks and then kick him out before he had a chance to expect her to make breakfast for him. Whoever said sex with a stranger was demeaning had to be somebody who liked to cook breakfast. Resolutely, she pushed aside the stubborn image of a dark-haired man whose breakfast she had very much liked cooking. That affair had been temporary insanity on her part-a disastrous case of rampaging hormones blinding her judgment.

Holly Grace leaned on the horn as the light changed and a moron in a Dodge Daytona cut in front of her, barely missing the fender of her newest Mercedes. It seemed to her that AIDS had affected everybody with any sense. Even her ex-husband had been sexually monogamous for the past year. She frowned, still upset with him. She certainly didn't have anything against monogamy these days, but unfortunately Dallie was practicing it with someone named Bambi.

"Holly Grace?" Teddy said, looking over at her from the soft depths of the passenger seat. "Do you think it's right for a teacher to flunk a kid just because maybe that kid doesn't do a dumb science project for his gifted class like he's supposed to?"

"This doesn't exactly sound like a theoretical question," Holly Grace replied dryly.

"What's that mean?"

"It means you should have done your science project."

"This one was dumb." Teddy scowled. "Why would anybody want to go around killing a bunch of bugs and sticking them to a board with pins? Don't you think that's dumb?"

Holly Grace was beginning to get the drift. Despite Teddy's penchant for war games and filling every sheet of drawing paper he put his hands on with pictures of guns and knives, most of them dripping blood, the child was a pacifist at heart. She had once seen him carry a spider down seventeen floors in

the elevator so he could release it on the street. "Did you talk to your mother about this?"

"Yeah. She called my gifted teacher to ask if I could draw the bugs instead of killing them, but when

Miss Pearson said no, they ended up getting in an argument and Miss Pearson hung up. Mom doesn't

like Miss Pearson. She thinks she puts too much pressure on us kids. Finally Mom said she'd kill the

bugs for me."

Holly Grace rolled her eyes at the idea of Francesca killing anything. If any bugs had to be killed, she

had a pretty strong notion who would end up doing the job. "That seems to solve your problem, then, doesn't it?"

Teddy looked over at her, a picture of offended dignity. "What kind of jerk do you think I am? What difference would it make to the bugs whether I killed them or she did? They'd still be dead because of me."

Holly Grace looked over at him and smiled. She loved this kid-she really did.

Naomi Jaffe Tanaka Perlman's quaint little mews house was set on a small cobbled Greenwich Village street that held one of New York's few surviving bishop's-crook lampposts. A tangle of winter-bare wisteria vines clung to the green shutters and white-painted brick of the house, which Naomi had purchased with some of the profits from the ad agency she'd started four years ago. She lived there with her second husband, Benjamin R. Perlman, a professor of political science at Columbia. As far as Holly Grace could see, the two of them had a marital match made in left-wing heaven. They gave money to every goosey cause that came their way, held cocktail parties for people who wanted to bust up the CIA, and worked in a soup kitchen once a week for relaxation. Still, Holly Grace had to admit that Naomi had never seemed more content. Naomi had told her that, for the first time in her life, she felt as if all the parts of herself had come together.

Naomi led them into her cozy living room, waddling more than Holly Grace thought necessary, since she was only five months pregnant. Holly Grace hated the gnawing envy that ate away at her every time she looked at Naomi's waddle, but she couldn't seem to help it, even though Naomi had been her good friend ever since their Sassy days. But every time she looked at Naomi, she couldn't help thinking that if she didn't have a baby soon, she would lose her chance forever.

"… so she's going to fail me in science," Teddy concluded from the kitchen, where he and Naomi had gone for refreshments.

"But that's barbaric," Naomi replied. The blender whirred for a few moments and then shut off. "… think you should petition. This has to be a violation of your civil rights. I'm going to talk to Ben."

"That's all right," Teddy said. "I think Mom got me into enough trouble with my teacher as it is."

Moments later, they emerged from the kitchen, Teddy with a bottle of natural fruit soda in his hand and Naomi holding out a strawberry daiquiri to Holly Grace. "Did you hear about that bizarre insect assassination project at Teddy's school?" she asked. "If I were Francesca, I'd sue. I really would."

Holly Grace took a sip of her daiquiri. "I think Francesca might have a few more important things on

her mind right now."

Naomi smiled, then glanced toward Teddy, who was disappearing into the bedroom to get Ben's chess set. "Do you think she'll do it?" she whispered.

"It's hard to say. When you see Francesca rolling around the floor in her jeans and giggling with Teddy like a fool, it seems pretty impossible. But when somebody upsets her, and she gets that snooty look on her face, you just know a few of her ancestors had to have had blue blood, and then you've got to think that it's a real possibility."

Naomi eased down in front of the coffee table, folding her legs so she looked like a pregnant Buddha. "I'm opposed to monarchy on principle, but I have to admit that Princess Francesca Serritella Day Brancuzi has a terrific ring."

Teddy returned with the chess set and began setting it up on the coffee table. "Concentrate this time, Naomi. You're almost as easy to beat as Mom."

Suddenly they all jumped as three sharp bangs sounded at the front door. "Oh, dear," Naomi said, glancing apprehensively toward Holly Grace. "I only know one person who knocks like that."

"Don't you dare let him in while I'm here!" Holly Grace jerked forward, splashing strawberry daiquiri down the front of her white sweat suit.

"Gerry!" Teddy shrieked, racing for the door.

"Don't open it," Holly Grace called out, jumping up. "No, Teddy!"

But it was too late. Not enough men passed through Teddy Day's life for him to give up a chance to be with any one of them. Before Holly Grace could stop him, he had flung open the door.

"Hey, Teddy!" Gerry Jaffe called out, offering the palms of his hands. "What's happenin', my man?"

Teddy slapped him ten. "Hey, Gerry! I haven't seen you in a couple of weeks. Where have you been?"

"In court, kiddo, defending some people who did a little damage to the Shoreham nuclear power plant."

"Did you win?"

"You might say that it was a draw."

Gerry never regretted the decision he'd reached in Mexico ten years before to come back to the United States, face the New York City cops and their trumped-up drug charge, and then, after his name was cleared, go on to law school. One by one, he had watched the leaders of the Movement change direction-Eldridge Cleaver's soul no longer on ice but dedicated to Jesus, Jerry Rubin sucking up to capitalism, Bobby Seale peddling barbecue sauce. Abbie Hoffman was still around, but he was caught up in environmental causes, which left it up to Gerry Jaffe, the last of the sixties radicals, to draw the attention of the world away from stainless-steel pasta machines and designer pizzas and back to the possibility of nuclear winter. With all his heart, Gerry believed that the future rested on his shoulders,

and the heavier the weight of responsibility, the more he played the clown.

After giving Naomi a smack on the lips, he leaned down to speak directly to her belly. "Listen up, kid,

this is Uncle Gerry talking. The world sucks. Stay in there as long as you can."

Teddy thought this was hysterically funny and began to roll on the floor, shrieking with laughter. This action brought him the attention of all the adults, so he laughed louder, until he ceased being cute and became merely annoying. Naomi believed in letting children express themselves, so she didn't reprimand him, and Holly Grace, who didn't believe any such thing, was too distracted by the sight of Gerry's impressive shoulders straining the seams of his worn leather bomber jacket to call Teddy to task.

In 1980, not long after Gerry had passed the New York Bar exam, he had given up his Afro, but he still wore his hair long in the back so that the dark curls, now lightly threaded with gray, fell over his collar. Beneath his leather jacket, he was wearing his normal work attire-baggy khaki trousers and a cotton fatigue sweater. A No Nukes button graced the jacket collar. His mouth was as full and sensuous as ever, his nose as bold, and his zealot's eyes still black and burning. That exact pair of eyes had done in Holly Grace Beaudine a year ago when she and Gerry had found themselves shoved into a corner together at one of Naomi's parties.

Holly Grace still had a hard time explaining to herself what it was about Gerry Jaffe that had made her fall in love with him. It certainly hadn't been his politics. She honestly believed in the importance of a strong military defense for the United States, a position that drove him wild. They had raging political arguments, which generally ended in some of the most incredible lovemaking she had experienced in years. Gerry, who had few inhibitions in public, had even fewer in the bedroom.

But her attraction to him was more than sexual. For one thing, he was as physically active as she. During the three months of their affair they had taken skydiving lessons together, gone mountain climbing, and even tried hang gliding. Being with him was like living in a never-ending adventure. She loved the excitement he engendered around him. She loved his passion and his zeal, the zest with which he ate his food, his uninhibited laughter, his unabashed sentimentality. She had once walked into the room and found him crying at a Kodak television commercial, and when she had teased him about it, he hadn't made a single excuse. She had even grown to love his male chauvinism. Unlike Dallie who, despite his good ol' boy demeanor, had always been the most liberated man she'd ever known, Gerry clung to ideas about male-female relationships that were firmly entrenched in the fifties. And Gerry always looked so befuddled when she confronted him with it, so crestfallen that he-the darling of the radicals-couldn't seem to comprehend one of the most basic principles of an entire social revolution.

"Hello, Holly Grace," he said, walking toward her.

She leaned over to put her sticky strawberry daiquiri on the coffee table and tried to look at him as if she couldn't quite remember his name. "Oh, hi, Gerry."

Her ploy didn't work. He came closer, his compact body advancing with a determination that sent a shiver of apprehension through her. "Don't you dare touch me, you commie terrorist," she warned, thrusting out her hand as if it held a crucifix that could ward him off.

He stepped past the coffee table.

"I mean it, Gerry."

"What are you afraid of, babe?"

"Afraid!" she scoffed, taking three steps back. "Me? Afraid of you? In your dreams, you left-wing pinko."

"God, Holly Grace, you've got a mouth on you." He stopped in front of her and without turning addressed his sister. "Naomi, could you and Teddy find something to do in the kitchen for a few minutes?"

"Don't even think about leaving, Naomi," Holly Grace ordered.

"Sorry, Holly Grace, but tension isn't good for a pregnant woman. Come on, Teddy. Let's go make some popcorn."

Holly Grace took a deep breath. This time she wouldn't allow Gerry to get the best of her, no matter what he did. Their affair had lasted for three months, and he'd taken advantage of her the entire time. While she had been falling in love, he had been merely using her celebrity as a way of getting his name in the newspapers so he could publicize his anti-nuclear activities. Holly Grace couldn't believe what a sucker she'd been. Old radicals never changed. They just got law degrees and updated their bag of tricks.

Gerry reached out to touch her, but physical contact with him tended to cloud her thinking, so she jerked her arm away before he could make contact. "Keep your hands to yourself, buster." She had survived these last few months without him very nicely, and she wasn't going to have a relapse now. She was too old to die twice in one year from a broken heart.

"Don't you think this separation has gone on long enough?" he said. "I miss you."

She gave him her coolest stare. "What's wrong? Can't you get your face on television, now that we're not an item anymore?" She used to love the way those dark curls brushed along the back of his neck. She remembered the texture of those curls-soft and silky. She would wrap them around her finger, touch them with her lips.

"Don't start on this, Holly Grace."

"Won't anybody let you make speeches on the nightly news, now that we've broken up?" she said nastily. "You really played our affair for all it was worth, didn't you? While I was mooning over you like a stupid fool, you were sending out press releases."

"You're really starting to piss me off. I love you, Holly Grace. I love you more than I've ever loved anyone in my life. We had something good going."

He was doing it. He was breaking her heart again. "The only good thing we had going was sex," she said fiercely.

"We had a hell of a lot more than sex!"

"Such as what? I don't like your friends, and I sure as hell don't like your politics. Besides, you know I hate Jews."

Gerry groaned and slumped down on the couch. "Oh, God, here we go again."

"I'm a dedicated anti-Semite. I really am, Gerry. I'm from Texas. I hate Jews, I hate blacks, and I think all gay men should be put in prison. Now what kind of future would I have with a left-wing pinko like you?"

"You don't hate Jews," Gerry said reasonably, as if he were speaking to a child. "And three years ago you signed a gay rights petition that was published in every newspaper in New York, and the year after that you had a highly publicized affair with a certain wide receiver for the Pittsburgh Steelers."

"He was very light-skinned," Holly Grace countered. "And he always voted Republican."

Slowly he got up from the couch, his expression both troubled and tender. "Look, babe, I can't give up my politics, not even for you. I know you don't approve of our approach-"

"All of you people are so goddamn sanctimonious," she hissed. "You treat anyone who doesn't agree with your methods like a warmonger. Well, I've got news for you, buddy boy. No sane person likes living with nuclear weapons, but not everybody thinks it's a terrific idea for us to throw all our missiles away while the Soviets are still sitting on top of a whole toy box full of their own."

"Don't you think the Soviets-"

"I'm not listening to you." She grabbed her purse and called out for Teddy. Dallie had been right every one of those times he'd told her money couldn't buy happiness. She was thirty-seven years old and she wanted to nest. She wanted a baby while she could still have one, and she wanted a husband who loved her for herself, not just for the publicity she brought him.

"Holly Grace, please-"

"You go fuck yourself."

"Goddammit!" He grabbed her then, pulled her into his arms, and pressed his mouth to hers in a gesture that wasn't so much a kiss as a way of distracting himself from his desire to shake her until her teeth rattled. They were the same height, and Holly Grace worked out with weights, so Gerry had to use considerable strength to pin her arms to her sides. She finally stopped struggling so that he could work her over with his mouth the way he wanted to-the way she liked. Finally her lips parted enough so that he could slip his tongue inside.

"Come on, babe," he whispered. "Love me back."

She did, just for a moment, until she realized what she was doing. When Gerry felt her stiffen, he immediately slid his mouth to her neck where he took a long, sucking bite.

"You did it to me again," she yelped, squirming away from him and clasping her neck.

He had put his mark on her deliberately and he didn't apologize. "Every time you look at that mark, I want you to remember that you're throwing away the best thing that's ever happened to either one of us."

Holly Grace gave him a furious glare and then spun around toward Teddy, who had just come into the room with Naomi. "Get your coat and tell Naomi good-bye."

"But Holly Grace-" Teddy protested.

"Now!" She bundled Teddy into his coat, grabbed her own, and propelled the two of them out the door without looking back.

As they disappeared, Gerry avoided the displeasure in his sister's eyes by pretending to study a metal sculpture on the mantel. Even though he was forty-two, he wasn't used to being the mature one in a relationship. He was used to women who mothered him, who agreed with his opinions, who cleaned his apartment. He wasn't used to a prickly Texas beauty who could outdrink him any day of the week and who would laugh in his face if he asked her to run a small load of wash. He loved her so much he felt as if a part of him had walked out of the house with her. What was he going to do? He couldn't deny that he'd taken advantage of the publicity from their affair. It was instinctive-the way he did things. For the past few years, the media had ignored his best efforts to draw attention to the cause, and it wasn't in his nature to turn his back on free publicity. Why couldn't she understand that it didn't have a damned thing to do with loving her-he was just seizing his opportunities as he'd always done.

His sister walked past him, and he once again leaned over to address her stomach. "This is Uncle Gerry speaking. If you're a male child in there, guard your balls because there are about a million women out here waiting to cut them off."

"Don't joke about it, Gerry," Naomi said, dropping down into one of the armchairs.

His mouth twisted. "Why not? You've got to admit this whole thing with Holly Grace is pretty goddamn funny."

"You're really screwing up," she said.

"It's impossible to argue with someone who doesn't make sense," he retorted belligerently. "She knows

I love her, and she goddamn well knows it's not just for her famous name."

"She wants a baby, Gerry," Naomi said quietly.

He stiffened. "She just thinks she wants a baby."

"You're such a jerk. Every time the two of you get together, both of you go on and on about your political differences and who's using who. Just once, I'd like to hear one of you admit that most of the reason the two of you can't get it together is because she desperately wants to have a baby and you still haven't grown up enough to be a father."

He turned on his sister. "It doesn't have anything to do with not being grown up. I refuse to bring a kid into a world that has a mushroom cloud hanging over it."

She regarded him sadly, one hand clasped over her rounded stomach. "Who do you think you're kidding, Gerry? You're afraid to be a father. You're afraid you'll screw up as badly with your own kid as Dad did with you-God rest his soul."

Gerry didn't say anything, and he damn well wasn't going to let Naomi see him with tears in his eyes, so he just turned his back on her and stalked right out the door.