Fancy Pants

Chapter 23

Francesca smiled directly into the camera as the "Frances-ca Today" theme music faded and the show began. "Hello, everybody. I hope all of you have your television snacks nearby and that you've finished any urgent bathroom business, because I absolutely guarantee that you're not going to want to move from your seats once you meet our four young guests this evening."

She tilted her head toward the red light that had come on next to camera two. "Tonight we're broadcasting the last show in our series on the British nobility. As you know, we've had our high points and our low points since we've come to Great Britain-even I won't try to pretend that our last program was anything short of a giant bore-but we're back on track tonight."

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw that her producer, Nathan Hurd, had planted his hands on his hips, a sure sign that he was displeased. He hated it when she admitted on the air that one of their shows wasn't wonderful, but her famous royai guest on the last program had been incredibly long-winded and even her most impertinent questions hadn't livened him up. Unfortunately, that program, unlike the one they were now taping, had been broadcast live, so they hadn't been able to redo it.

"With me this evening are four attractive young people, all of them children of famous peers of the British realm. Have you ever wondered what it would be like to grow up knowing that your life has already been mapped out for you? Do young royals ever feel like rebelling? Let's ask."

Francesca introduced her four guests, who were comfortably seated in the attractive living room arrangement that approximated the New York studio set where "Francesca Today" was normally taped. Then she turned her attention to the only child of one of Great Britain's most renowned dukes. "Lady Jane, have you ever thought about chucking family tradition and running off with the chauffeur?"

Lady Jane laughed, then blushed, and Francesca knew she had the beginnings of an entertaining show.

Two hours later, with the taping finished and her young guests' responses lively enough to keep the ratings up, Francesca stepped out of her taxi and entered the Con-naught. Most Americans regarded Claridge's as the ultimate London hotel, but as someone who didn't want to be away from home in the first place, Francesca felt that the better choice was the tiny Connaught, which had only ninety rooms,

the best service in the world, and a minimal chance of running into a rock star in the corridor.

Her tiny frame was swathed from chin to midcalf in an elegant black Russian sable, which was set off

by a pair of perfect pear-shaped four-carat diamond stud earrings that sparkled through the windblown chestnut of her hair. The lobby, with its Oriental rugs and dark-paneled walls, was warm and inviting

after the damp December streets of Mayfair. A magnificent staircase covered by a brass-bordered carpet circled upward six stories, its mahogany banisters gleaming with polish. Although she was exhausted from a hectic week, she managed a smile for the hall porter. The head of every man in the lobby turned as she made her way to the small elevator located near the desk, but she didn't notice.

Beneath the elegance of the sable and the expensive dazzle of the pear-shaped studs, Francesca's clothing was frankly funky. She had changed from her more conservative on-camera outfit into the clothes she had worn to the studio that morning-cropped, tight-fitting black leather pants accompanied by an oversize raspberry sweater appliqued with a taupe teddy bear. Matching raspberry socks, neatly folded over at the tops, set off a pair of Susan Bennis flats. It was an outfit that Teddy especially liked, since cuddly-looking bears and leather-clad motorcycle gangs were among his favorite things. She frequently wore it when they went out for the day, whether to raid F.A.O. Schwarz for a chemistry set, to visit the Temple of Dendur at the Metropolitan, or to pay a call on a slimy-looking pretzel vendor in Times Square whose wares, Teddy insisted, were the best in Manhattan.

Despite her exhaustion, the thought of Teddy made Francesca smile. She missed him so much. It was awful being separated from her child, so awful that she had been seriously thinking about cutting down on her work schedule when her contract came up for renewal in the spring. What good was it to have a child if she couldn't spend time with him? The veil of depression that had been hanging over her for months settled lower. She had been so short-tempered lately, a sure sign that she was working too hard. But she hated to slow down when everything was going so well.

Stepping out of the elevator, she glanced at her watch and made a quick calculation. Yesterday Holly Grace had taken Teddy to Naomi's house, and today they were supposed to go to the South Street Seaport Museum. Maybe she could catch him before he left. She frowned as she remembered that Holly Grace had told her Dallas Beaudine was coming to New York. After all these years, the idea of Teddy and Dallie in the same town still made her nervous. It wasn't that she feared recognition; God knew there wasn't anything about Teddy that would remind Dallie of himself. It was simply that she disliked the thought of Dallie having anything to do with her son.

She slipped her sable over a satin-covered hanger and hung it in the closet. Then she placed a call to

New York. To her delight, Teddy answered the phone.

"Day residence. Theodore speaking."

Just the sound of his voice made Francesca's eyes mist. "Hello, baby."

"Mom! Guess what, Mom? I went to Naomi's yesterday and Gerry showed up, and him and Holly

Grace had another fight. Today she's taking me to the South Street Seaport, and then we're going to her apartment and order Chinese. And you know my friend Jason…"

Francesca smiled as she listened to Teddy rattle on. When he finally paused for breath, she said, "I miss you, honey. Remember, I'll be home in a few days, and then we'll have two whole weeks of vacation together in Mexico. We're going to have such a good time." It was to be her first real vacation since she had signed her contract with the network, and the two of them had been looking forward to it for months.

"Will you swim in the ocean this time?"

"I'll wade," she conceded.

He gave a scornful masculine snort. "At least go up to your waist."

"I'll compromise on my knees, but no farther."

"You're really a chicken, Mom," he said solemnly. "A lot more chicken than me."

"You're absolutely right about that."

"Are you studying for your citizenship exam?" he said. "The last time I asked you the test questions,

you messed up the whole part about bills getting passed into law."

"I'll study on the plane," she promised. Applying for American citizenship was something she had postponed far too long. She had always been too busy, too tightly scheduled, until one day she realized that she had lived in the country for ten years and had never cast a ballot. She had been ashamed of herself and, with Teddy helping her, had begun the lengthy application process that same week.

"I love you big heaps, honey," she said.

"Me, too."

"And will you be especially nice to Holly Grace tonight? I don't expect you to understand, but it upsets her when she sees Gerry."

"I don't know why. Gerry's cool."

Francesca was too wise to try to explain the subtleties of male-female relationships to a nine-year-old

boy, especially one who thought all girls were jerks. "Just be extra nice to her, sweetie," she said.

When she had finished her phone call, she undressed and began getting ready for her evening with

Prince Stefan Marko Brancuzi. Wrapping herself in a silk robe, she walked into the tiled bathroom where plump cakes of her favorite soap sat by the roomy tub, along with her customary brand of American shampoo. The Connaught made it their business to know their guests' grooming preferences, along with the papers they read, how they wanted their coffee in the morning, and, in Francesca's case, the fact that Teddy collected bottle caps. A supply of unusual European beer caps always awaited her in a neatly tied parcel when she checked out. She'd never quite had the heart to tell them that Teddy's idea of collecting bottle caps was based more on quantity than on quality, with Pepsi currently beating out Coke by 394.

She eased herself into the hot bathwater and when her skin had adjusted to the temperature, settled back and shut her eyes. God, she was tired. She needed a vacation so badly. A small voice nagged at her, asking how much longer she was going to go on like this-leaving her child to fly all over the world at the drop of a hat, attending endless production meetings, skimming stacks of books every night before she went to sleep? Lately Holly Grace and Naomi had been with Teddy more than she had.

Thoughts of Holly Grace pushed her mind in a slow circle back to Dallas Beaudine.

Her encounter with him had taken place so long ago that it no longer seemed anything more than an accident of biology that he'd fathered Teddy. He wasn't the one who had given birth, or gone without nylons in those early years to pay for corrective baby shoes, or lost sleep worrying about raising a child whose I.Q. was a good forty points higher than her own. Francesca, not Dallie Beaudine, was responsible for the person Teddy had become. No matter how hard Holly Grace pushed, Francesca refused to let him back into even the smallest corner of her life.

"Aw, come on, Francie, it's been ten years," Holly Grace had complained the last time they'd talked about it. They had been lunching at the newly opened Aurora on East Forty-ninth, sitting on a leather banquette off to one side of the granite horseshoe bar. "In a few weeks Dallie's going to be in the city talking to the network about doing color commentary for their golf tournaments this spring. How about you relax your rules for a change and let me take Teddy to meet him? Teddy's heard stories about Dallie for years, and Dallie's curious about Teddy after listening to me ramble on about him so much."

"Absolutely not!" Francesca speared a morsel of duck confit lightly coated in hazelnut oil from her salad and made the excuse she always made when the topic came up, the only one Holly Grace seemed to accept. "That time with Dallie was the most humiliating period of my entire life, and I refuse to bring back even the smallest memory of it. I won't have any contact with him ever again-and that means keeping Teddy away, too. You know how I feel about this, Holly Grace, and you promised you wouldn't push me again."

Holly Grace was clearly exasperated. "Francie, that boy is going to grow up queer if you don't let him associate with more members of the male sex."

"You're all the father a boy needs," Francesca replied dryly, feeling both exasperation and deep affection for the woman who had stood by her through so much.

Holly Grace chose to take Francesca's remark seriously. "I sure haven't been able to make a success of his athletic career." She stared glumly toward the frosted globes hanging over the bar. "Honest to God, Francie, he's got more left feet than you do."

Francesca knew she was too defensive about Teddy's lack of a father, but she couldn't help herself. "I tried, didn't I? You made me pitch balls to him when he was four years old."

"And wasn't that a great moment in baseball history," Holly Grace replied with withering sarcasm. "Helen Keller pitching and Little Stevie Wonder catching. The two of you are the most uncoordinated-"

"You didn't do any better with him. He fell off that awful horse when you took him riding, and he broke his finger the first time you threw a football at him."

"That's one of the reasons I want him to meet Dallie. Now that Teddy's getting a little older, Dallie might have some ideas about what to do with him." Holly Grace extracted a sprig of watercress from beneath a flaky piece of smoked sea bass and munched on it contemplatively. "I don't know-it must be all that foreign blood Teddy's got. Damn, if Dallie really had been his father, we wouldn't have this problem. Athletic coordination is programmed in all the Beaudine genes."

A lot you know, Francesca thought with a wry smile, as she lathered her arms and then moved the soapy loofah over her legs. Sometimes she found herself wondering what wonderful, wayward chromosome had produced her son. She knew that Holly Grace was disappointed that Teddy wasn't better looking, but Francesca had always regarded Teddy's sweet, homely face as a gift. It would never occur to Teddy to rely on good looks to get through life. He would use his brain, his courage, and his sweet, sentimental heart.

The water in the tub was growing tepid, and she realized she had barely twenty minutes before the driver arrived to take her to Stefan's yacht for dinner. Although she was tired, she was looking forward to spending the night with Stefan. After several months of long-distance phone calls with only a few rushed face-to-face meetings, she felt that the time had definitely come to deepen their relationship. Unfortunately, working fourteen-hour days since she had arrived in London hadn't left her with any spare time for sexual frolicking. But with the last show on tape, all she had left to do tomorrow was stand in front of various British monuments for some tourist shots they planned to use at the end of the broadcast. She had made up her mind that before she flew back to New York, she and Stefan were going to spend at least two nights together.

Despite the pressures of the clock, she picked up the soap and absentmindedly rubbed it over her breasts. They tingled, reminding her of how glad she would be to end her year of self-imposed celibacy. It wasn't that she'd planned to be celibate for so long, it was just that she seemed psychologically incapable of bed-hopping. Holly Grace might mourn the passing of the one-night stand, but regardless of how much Francesca's healthy body nagged at her, she found sex without emotional attachment an arid, awkward business.

Two years ago, she had nearly married a charismatic young California congressman. He was handsome, successful, and wonderful in bed. But he nearly went crazy whenever she brought home one of her runaways and he hardly ever laughed at her jokes, so she had finally stopped seeing him. Prince Stefan Marko Brancuzi was the first man she'd met since then whom she cared enough about to sleep with.

They had met several months before when she'd interviewed him on her show. She had found Stefan both charming and intelligent, and he had soon proven himself to be a good friend. But was caring the same thing as loving, she wondered, or was she just trying to find a way out of the dissatisfaction she

had been feeling with her life?

Shaking off her melancholy mood, she toweled herself dry and slipped on her robe. Knotting the sash,

she moved to the mirror, where she applied her makeup efficiently, allowing no time for either scrutiny

or admiration. She took care of herself because it was her business to look good, but when people raved about her sage green eyes, her delicate cheekbones and gleaming chestnut hair, Francesca found herself withdrawing from them. Painful experience had taught her that being born with a face like hers was more of a liability than an asset. Strength of character came from hard work, not smoky-thick eyelashes.

Clothes, however, were another matter.

Surveying the four evening outfits she had brought with her, she passed up a silver-studded Kamali and a yummy Donna Karan, deciding instead on a strapless black silk faille designed by Gianni Versace. The gown bared her shoulders, cinched her waist, and then fell in soft, uneven tiers to mid-calf. Dressing quickly, she gathered up her purse and reached for her sable. As her fingers brushed the soft fur collar, she hesitated, wishing Stefan hadn't given her the coat. But he'd been so upset when she'd tried to refuse it that she'd eventually given in. Still, she disliked the idea of all those furry little animals dying so she could be fashionably dressed. Also, the lavishness of the gift subtly offended her sense of self-reliance.

With a stubborn set to her jaw, she passed over the fur for a flaming fuchsia shawl. Then, for the first time that evening, she really looked at herself in the mirror. Versace gown, pear-shaped diamond studs, black stockings sprinkled with a mist of tiny jet beads, slim Italian heels-all luxuries she had bought for herself. A smile tugged at the comers of her mouth as she draped the fuchsia shawl around her bare shoulders and made her way to the elevator. God bless America.