Fancy Pants

Chapter 30

Six weeks later, Teddy got off the elevator and walked down the hallway to his apartment, dragging his backpack the whole way. He hated school. All his life he'd loved it, but now he hated it. Today Miss Pearson had told the class that they would have to do a social studies project at the end of the year, and Teddy already knew he would probably flunk it. Miss Pearson didn't like him. She said she was going to kick him out of gifted class if his attitude didn't improve.

It was just- Ever since he'd gone to Wynette, nothing seemed to be fun anymore. He felt confused all the time, like there was a monster hiding in his closet ready to jump out at him. And now he might get kicked out of gifted class.

Teddy knew he somehow had to think up a really great social studies project, especially since he'd messed up so bad on his science bug project. This project had to be better than everybody else's-even dorky old Milton Grossman who was going to write Mayor Ed Koch and ask if he could spend part of

the day with him. Miss Pearson had loved that idea. She said Milton's initiative should be an inspiration

to the entire class. Teddy didn't see how anybody who picked his nose and smelled like mothballs could be an inspiration.

As he walked in the door, Consuelo came out from the kitchen and told him, "A package came for you today. It's in your bedroom."

"A package?" Teddy peeled off his jacket as he walked down the hallway. Christmas had come and

gone, his birthday wasn't until July, and Valentine's Day was still two weeks away. Why was he getting

a package?

As he entered his bedroom, he spotted an enormous cardboard carton with the return address of Wynette, Texas, sitting in the middle of the floor. He dropped his jacket, pushed his glasses back up on the bridge of his nose, and chewed on his thumbnail. Part of him wanted the box to be from Dallie, but the other part of him didn't even like to think about Dallie. Whenever he did, he felt like the monster in the closet was standing right behind him.

Slitting open the packing tape with his sharpest scissors, he pulled apart the box flaps and looked around for a note. All he saw was a pile of smaller boxes, and one by one, he began to open them. When he was done, he sat dazed, looking at the bounty that surrounded him, an array of presents so admirably suited

to a nine-year-old boy that it was as if someone had read his mind.

On one side of him rested a small stack of wonderfully gross stuff, like a whoopee cushion, hot pepper gum, and a phony plastic ice cube with a dead fly in the middle. Some of the presents appealed to his intellect-a programmable calculator and the complete set of The Chronicles of Narnia. Another box

held objects representing a whole world of masculinity: a real Swiss Army knife, a flashlight with a black rubber handle, a set of grown-up Black & Decker screwdrivers. But his favorite present was at the bottom of the box. Unwrapping the tissue paper, he let out a cry of pleasure as he took in the best, the neatest, the most awesome sweat shirt he had ever seen.

Gracing the navy blue front was a cartoon of a bearded, leering motorcycle rider with popping eyeballs and drool coming from his mouth. Beneath the biker was Teddy's name in Day-Glo orange letters and

the inscription "Born to Raise Hell." Teddy hugged the sweat shirt to his chest. For a fraction of a moment he let himself believe that Dallie had sent him all this, but then he understood that these weren't the kinds of things you sent to a kid you thought was a wimp, and since he knew how Dallie felt about him, he also knew the gifts had to have come from Skeet. He squeezed the sweat shirt tighter and told himself he was lucky to have a friend like Skeet Cooper, somebody who could see past his glasses and stuff all the way to the real kid.

Theodore Day-Bom to Raise Hell! He loved the sound of those words, the feel of them, the grit and

spit of them, the whole idea that an undersize kid like himself, who was a jerk at sports and might even get kicked out of gifted class, was Born to Raise Hell!

While Teddy was admiring his sweat shirt, Francesca was winding up the taping of her show. As the red light went off on the camera, Nathan Hurd came over to congratulate her. Her producer was balding and chubby, physically unimpressive but mentally a dynamo. In some ways he reminded her of Clare Padgett, who was currently driving the news department at a Houston television station to contemplate suicide. Both were maddening perfectionists, and both of them knew exactly what worked for her.

"I love it when they walk off the show like that," Nathan said, his double chin quivering with pleasure. "We'll run the program as is-the ratings will go right through the ceiling."

She had just finished doing a program on electronic evangelism in which the guest of honor, the Reverend Johnny T. Platt, had walked off in a huff after she'd charmed him into revealing more than he wished to about several failed marriages and his Neanderthal attitude toward women.

"Thank goodness I only had a few minutes left to fill or we would have had to retape," she said as she undipped her microphone from the paisley scarf draped around the neck of her dress.

Nathan fell into step beside her and they walked from the studio together. Now that the taping was finished and Francesca didn't have to focus all of her concentration on what she was doing, the familiar heaviness settled over her. Six weeks had passed since she'd returned from Wynette. She hadn't seen Dallie since he stormed out of his house. So much for all her worries about how she was going to accommodate having him back in Teddy's life. She felt as confused as one of her teenage runaways.

Why had something that was so wrong for her felt so very right? And then she realized that Nathan was talking to her.

"… so the press release went out today about the Statue of Liberty ceremony. We'll schedule a show

on immigration for May-the rich and the poor, that sort of thing. What do you think?"

She nodded her agreement. She had passed her citizenship exam early in January, and not long afterward, she had received a letter from the White House inviting her to participate in a special ceremony to be held that May at the Statue of Liberty. A number of well-known public figures, all of whom had recently applied for American citizenship, would be sworn in together. In addition to Francesca, the group included several Hispanic athletes, a Korean fashion designer, a Russian ballet dancer, and two widely respected scientists. Inspired by the success of the 1986 rededication of the Statue of Liberty, the White House planned for the President to make a welcoming speech, generating a little patriotic fervor as well as strengthening his position with ethnic voters.

Nathan stopped walking as they reached his office. "I've got some great plans for next season, Francesca. More political stuff. You have the damnedest way of cutting through-"

"Nathan." She hesitated for a moment and then, knowing she'd already put it off too long, made up her mind. "We need to talk."

He gave her a wary look before he gestured her inside. She greeted his secretary and then walked into his private office. He closed the door and perched one chubby hip on the corner of his desk, straining the already overtaxed seams of his chinos.

Francesca took a deep breath and told him of the decision she'd reached after months of deliberation. "I know you're going to be less than delighted about this, Nathan, but when my contract with the network comes up for renewal in the spring, I've told my agent to renegotiate."

"Of course you'll renegotiate," Nathan said cautiously. "I'm sure the network will come up with a few extra dollars to sweeten the pot. Not too many, mind you."

Money wasn't the problem and she shook her head. "I'm not going to do a weekly show any longer, Nathan. I want to cut back to twelve specials a year-one show a month." A feeling of relief came over her as she finally spoke the words aloud.

Nathan shot up from the corner of the desk. "I don't believe you. The network will never go along

with it. You'll be committing professional suicide."

"I'm going to take that chance. I won't live like this anymore, Nathan. I'm tired of being tired all the time. I'm tired of watching other people raise my child."

Nathan, who saw his own daughters only on weekends and left the business of child rearing to his wife, didn't seem to have the vaguest idea what she was talking about. "Women look at you as a role model," he said, apparently deciding to attack her political conscience. "Some of them will say you sold out."

"Maybe… I'm not sure." She pushed aside a stack of magazines and sat down on his couch. "I think women are realizing that they want to be more than burned-out carbon copies of men. For nine years I've done everything the male way. I've turned the raising of my child over to other people, I've scheduled myself so tightly that when I wake up in a hotel room I have to pull a piece of stationery out of the drawer to remember what city I'm in, I go to bed with a knot in my stomach thinking about everything I have to do the next day. I'm tired of it, Nathan. I love my job, but I'm tired of loving it twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. I love Teddy, and I've only got nine years left before he'll be off to college. I want to be with him more. This is the only life I've been given, and to tell you the truth, I haven't been all that happy with the way I'm living it."

He frowned. "Assuming the network goes along with this, which I seriously doubt, you'll lose a lot of money."

"Right," Francesca scoffed. "I'll have to cut my yearly clothing budget down from twenty thousand dollars to ten thousand. I can just see a million burned-out working mothers losing sleep over that while they try to figure out how to buy their kids new shoes for school." How much money did a woman need? she wondered. How much power? Was she the only woman in the world who was tired of buying into all those male yardsticks of success?

"What do you really want, Francesca?" Nathan asked, switching his tactics from confrontation to pacification. "Maybe we can work out some sort of compromise."

"I want time," Francesca replied wearily. "I want to be able to read a book just because I want to read it, not because the author is going to be on my show the next day. I want to be able to go through an entire week without anyone sticking a single hot roller in my hair. I want to chaperon one of Teddy's class trips, for God's sake." And then she gave voice to an idea that had been gradually growing inside her. "I want

to take some of the energy that's gone into my job and give serious thought to doing something significant for all those fourteen-year-old girls who are selling their bodies on the streets of this country because they don't have anyplace to go."

"We'll do more shows on runaways," he said quickly. "I'll work something out so you can take a little more vacation time. I know we've been working you hard, but-"

"No sale, Nathan," she said, getting up from the couch. "This merry-go-round is slowing down for a while."

"But, Francesca-"

She gave him a quick kiss on the cheek and then left his office before he could say any more. She knew her popularity wasn't any guarantee that the network wouldn't fire her if they felt she was being unreasonable, but she had to take that chance. The events of the past six weeks had shown her where her priorities lay, and they had also taught her something important about herself-she no longer had anything to prove.

Once she arrived at her own office, Francesca found a pile of telephone messages waiting for her. She picked up the first one, then set it aside without looking at it. Her gaze drifted to the file on her desk, which held a detailed summary of the professional golfing career of Dallas Beaudine. At the same time she had been trying to put Dallie out of her mind, she had been gathering the material. Although she

toyed thoughtfully with the pages, she didn't bother to reread what she'd already studied so thoroughly. Every article, every phone call she'd made, every piece of information she had been able to gather

pointed in the same direction. Dallas Beaudine had all the talent it took to be a champion; he just didn't seem to want it badly enough. She thought about what Skeet had said and wondered what all this had to do with Teddy, but the answer continued to elude her.

Stefan was in town and she had promised to go with him to a private party at La Cote Basque that night. For the rest of the afternoon, she considered canceling, but she knew that would be the coward's way

out. Stefan wanted something from her that she now understood she couldn't give, and it wasn't fair to postpone talking to him about it any longer.

Stefan had been in New York twice since she'd gotten back from Wynette, and she had seen him both times. He had known about Teddy's kidnapping, of course, so she had been forced to tell him something about what had happened in Wynette, although she had omitted giving him any details about Dallie.

She studied the photograph of Teddy on her desk. It showed him floating in a Flintstones inner tube, his small, skinny legs glistening with water. If Dallie hadn't wanted to contact her again, he should at least have made some attempt to get in touch with Teddy. She felt sad and disillusioned. She had thought that Dallie was a better person than he had turned out to be. As she headed home that evening, she told herself she had to accept the fact that she had made a gigantic mistake and then forget about it.

Before she got dressed for her date with Stefan, she sat with Teddy while he ate his dinner and thought about how carefree she had been only two months before. Now she felt as if she were carrying the troubles of the world on her shoulders. She should never have had that ridiculous one-night stand with Dallie, she was getting ready to hurt Stefan, and the network might very well fire her. She was too miserable to cheer up Holly Grace, and she was terribly worried about Teddy. He was so withdrawn and so obviously unhappy. He wouldn't talk about what had happened in Wynette, and he resisted all of her efforts to draw him out about the trouble he was having in school.

"How did things go with you and Miss Pearson today?"

she asked casually, as she watched him sneak a forkful of peas underneath his baked potato.

"Okay, 1 guess."

"Just okay?"

He pushed his chair back from the table and cleared his plate. "I've got some homework to do. I'm not too hungry."

She frowned as he left the kitchen. She wished Teddy's teacher weren't so rigid and punitive. Unlike Teddy's former teachers, Miss Pearson seemed more concerned with grades than with learning, a quality that Francesca believed was disastrous when working with gifted children. Teddy had never worried about his marks until this year, but now that seemed to be all he thought about. As Francesca slipped into a beaded Armani gown for her evening with Stefan, she decided to schedule another appointment with the school administrator.

The party at La Cote Basque was lively, with wonderful food and a satisfying number of famous faces in the crowd, but Francesca was too distracted to enjoy herself. A group of paparazzi was waiting as she and Stefan emerged from the restaurant shortly after midnight. She pulled the fur collar of her coat high around her chin and looked away from the flashing strobes. "Sable sucks," she muttered.

"That's not exactly a popularly held opinion, darling," Stefan replied, leading her toward his limousine.

"That media circus happened because of this coat," she complained after the limo had slipped out into the traffic on East Fifty-fifth Street. "The press hardly ever bothers you. It's me. If I'd worn my old raincoat.,." She chattered on about the sable, stalling for time while she tried to find the courage to hurt him. Finally she fell silent and let the old memories that had been nagging at her all evening take hold-thinking about her childhood, about Chloe, about Dallie. Stefan kept gazing over at her, apparently lost in thoughts of his own. As the limousine swept past Cartier, she decided she couldn't put it off any longer, and she touched his arm. "Do you mind if we walk for a bit?"

It was past midnight, the February night was chill, and Stefan looked at her uneasily-as if he might suspect what was coming-but he ordered the driver to stop anyway. As they stepped out onto the sidewalk, a hansom cab passed, the hooves of the horse clomping rhythmically on the pavement. They began walking down Fifth Avenue together, their breath clouding the air.

"Stefan," she said, resting her cheek for a brief moment against the fine woolen sleeve of his overcoat.

"I know you're looking for a woman to share your life, but I'm afraid I'm not the one."

She heard him take a deep breath, then expel it. "You're tired tonight, darling. Perhaps this discussion should wait."

"I think it's waited long enough," she said gently.

She talked for some time, and in the end she could see that she had hurt him, but perhaps not as much

as she had feared. She suspected that someplace inside him, he had known all along that she was not

the right woman to be his princess.

Dallie called Francesca the following day at the office. He began the conversation without preamble, as

if he'd just talked to her the day before instead of six weeks ago and there were no bad feelings between them.

"Hey, Francie, you've got half of Wynette ready to lynch you."

She had a sudden vision of all those glorious temper tantrums she used to throw in her youth, but she kept her voice calm and casual, even though her spine was rigid with tension. "Any particular reason?" she asked.

"The way you ran all over that TV minister last week was a real shame. People down here take their evangelists seriously, and Johnny Platt is a real favorite."

"He's a charlatan," she replied, as calmly as she could manage. Her fingernails dug into her palms. Why couldn't Dallie just once say what was on his mind? Why did he have to go through all these elaborate camouflaging rituals?

"Maybe, but they've got him scheduled opposite 'Gilligan's Island' reruns, so when people consider the alternative, nobody's too anxious to see his program get canceled." There was a short, thoughtful pause. "Tell me something, Francie-and this should be right up your alley-with Gilligan and his buddies shipwrecked on that island so long, how's come those women never ran out of eye makeup? And toilet paper? You think the captain and Gilligan used banana leaves all that time?"

She wanted to scream at him, but she refused to give him the satisfaction. "I have a meeting, Dallie. Did you call for any particular reason?"

"As a matter of fact, I'm flying to New York next week to meet with the boys at the network again,

and I thought I might stop by around seven on Tuesday night to say hello to Teddy and maybe take

you out to dinner."

"I can't make it," she said coldly, resentment leaking from every one of her pores.

"Just for dinner, Francie. You don't have to make a big deal out of it."

If he wouldn't say what was on his mind, she would. "I won't see you, Dallie. You had your chance,

and you blew it."

There was a long silence. She willed herself to hang up, but she couldn't quite coordinate the motion. When Dallie finally spoke, his easy tone was gone. He sounded tired and troubled. "I'm sorry for not calling you earlier, Francie. I needed some time."

"And now I need some."

"All right," he said slowly. "Just let me stop by and see Teddy, then."

"I don't think so."

"I have to start fixing things with him, Francie. I'll take it easy. Just a couple of minutes."

She had grown tough over the years; she'd had to. But now when she needed that toughness the most,

all she could do was visualize a little boy shoving peas under his baked potato. "Just for a few minutes," she conceded. "That's all."

"Great!" He sounded as exuberant as a teenager. "That's just great, Francie." And then, quickly, "After

I see Teddy, I'll take you out for a bite of dinner." Before she could open her mouth to protest, he had hung up.

She put her head down on the desk and groaned. She didn't have a spine; she had a strand of limp spaghetti.

By the time the doorman buzzed her on Tuesday evening to announce Dallie's arrival, Francesca was

a nervous wreck. She had tried on three of her most conservative outfits before she'd rebelliously settled on one of her wildest-a mint green satin bustier set off by an emerald velvet miniskirt. The colors deepened the green of her eyes and, in her imagination at least, made her look more dangerous. The fact that she was probably overdressed for an evening with Dallie didn't deter her. Even though she suspected they would end up in some seedy dive with plastic-covered menus, this was still her city and Dallie would have to be the one to fit in.

After fluffing her hair into casual disarray, she draped a pair of Tina Chow's crystal pendants around her neck. Although she had more faith in her own powers than in the mystical ones of Tina Chow's fashionable necklaces, she decided that she shouldn't overlook anything that would help her get through what could only be a difficult evening. She knew she didn't have to go to dinner with Dallie-she didn't even have to be here when he arrived-but she wanted to see him again. It was that simple.

She heard Consuelo opening the front door, and she nearly jumped out of her skin. She forced herself to wait in her room for a few minutes until she felt calmer, but only ended up making herself more nervous, so she walked out to the living room to greet him.

He was carrying a wrapped parcel and standing by the fireplace admiring the red dinosaur that hung above it. He turned at the sound of her approach and gazed at her. She noted his well-cut gray suit, dress shirt with French cuffs, and deep blue tie. She had never seen him in a suit, and unconsciously she found herself waiting for him to start pulling at the collar and unknotting his tie. He did neither.

His eyes took in the little velvet miniskirt, the green satin bustier, and he shook his head in admiration. "Damn, Francie, you look better in hooker clothes than any woman I know."

She wanted to laugh, but it seemed more prudent to fall back on sarcasm. "If any of my old problems with personal vanity ever crop back up, remind me to spend five minutes in your company."

He grinned, then walked over to her and brushed her lips with a light kiss that tasted vaguely of bubble gum. The skin on the side of her neck prickled with goose bumps. Looking squarely into her eyes, he said, "You're just about the prettiest woman in the world, and you know it."

She moved quickly away from him. He began looking around the living room, his gaze drifting from Teddy's orange vinyl beanbag chair to a Louis XVI mirror. "I like this place. It's real comfortable."

"Thank you," she replied a little stiffly, still trying to take in the fact that they were face to face again and that he seemed a lot more at ease than she. What were they going to say to each other tonight? They had absolutely nothing to talk about that wasn't either controversial, embarrassing, or emotionally explosive.

"Is Teddy around?" He passed the wrapped parcel from his left hand to his right.

"He's in his room." She saw no sense in explaining that Teddy had thrown a fit when she'd told him that Dallie was coming over.

"Do you think you could ask him to come out here for a minute?"

"I-I doubt that it'll be that easy."

A shadow fell over his face. "Then just show me which room is his."

She hesitated for a moment, then nodded and led him down the hallway. Teddy was sitting at his desk idly pushing a G.I. Joe jeep back and forth.

"What do you want?" he asked, as he looked up and saw Dallie standing behind Francesca.

"I brought you a little something," Dallie said. "Sort of a late Christmas present."

"I don't want it," Teddy retorted sullenly. "My mom buys me everything I need." He pushed the jeep over the edge of the desk and let it crash to the carpet. Francesca shot him a warning look, but Teddy pretended not to notice.

"In that case, why don't you just give these to one of your friends?" Dallie walked over and laid the box on Teddy's bed.

Teddy eyed it suspiciously. "What's in there?"

"It might be a pair of cowboy boots."

Something flickered in Teddy's eyes. "Cowboy boots? Did Skeet send them?"

Dallie shook his head.

"Skeet sent me some other stuff," Teddy announced.

"What stuff?" Francesca asked.

Teddy shrugged his shoulders. "Just a whoopee cushion and stuff."

"That was nice of him," she replied, wondering why Teddy hadn't mentioned it to her.

"Did the sweat shirt fit?" Dallie asked.

Teddy straightened up in his chair and stared at Dallie, his eyes alert behind his glasses. Francesca looked at them both curiously, wondering what they were talking about.

"It fit," Teddy said, his voice so soft it was barely audible.

Dallie nodded, lightly touched Teddy's hair, then turned and left the room.

The cab ride was relatively quiet, with Francesca nestled into the velvet collar of a beaded jacket and Dallie glaring at the driver. Dallie had brushed off her question when she'd asked him about the incident with Teddy and, even though it went against her nature, she didn't press.

The cab pulled up in front of Lutece. She was surprised and then illogically disappointed. Although Lutece was probably the best restaurant in New York, she couldn't help but think less of Dallie for trying so obvious a ploy to impress her. Why didn't he just take her someplace where he'd be comfortable, instead of a restaurant so obviously foreign to his nature? He held the door for her as they walked inside and then took her jacket and passed it over to be checked in the vestiaire. Francesca envisioned an uncomfortable evening ahead, as she tried to interpret both the menu and the wine list without damaging his male ego.

Lutece's hostess saw Francesca and gave her a welcoming smile. "Mademoiselle Day, it is always a pleasure to have you with us." And then she turned to Dallie. "Monsieur Beaudine, it's been almost two months. We've missed you. I've held your old table."

Old table! Francesca stared at Dallie while he and ma-dame exchanged pleasantries. She'd done it again. Once more she'd let herself buy into the image Dallie had created for himself and forgotten that this was

a man who had spent the best part of the last fifteen years hanging out in the most exclusive country

clubs in America.

"The scallops are especially good tonight," madame announced, as she led them down Lutece's narrow brick hallway to the antegarden.

"Just about everything's good here," Dallie confided after they were settled in the wicker chairs. "Except

I make sure to get an English translation of anything that looks suspicious before I eat it. Last time they almost stuck me with liver."

Francesca laughed. "You're a wonder, Dallie, you really are."

"Now, why's that?"

"It's hard to imagine too many people who are just as comfortable at Lutece as they are in a Texas honky-tonk."

He looked at her thoughtfully. "It seems to me you're pretty comfortable both places."

His comment knocked Francesca slightly off balance. She had grown so accustomed to musing over their differences that it was hard to adjust to the suggestion that they had any similarities. They chatted about the menu for a while, with Dallie making irreverent observations about any item of food that struck him as overly complex. All the time he talked, his eyes seemed to be drinking her up. She began to feel beautiful in a way she had never felt before-a visceral kind of beauty that came from deep within. The softness of her mood alarmed her, and she was glad of the distraction when the waiter appeared to take their order.

After the waiter left, Dallie swept his eyes over her again, his smile slow and intimate. "I had a good time with you that night."

Oh, no, you don't, she thought. He wasn't going to win her over that easily. She had played games with the best of them, and this was one fish who would have to wiggle on the hook for a while. She widened her eyes innocently, opening her mouth to ask him what night he was talking about, only to find herself smiling at him instead. "I had a good time, too."

He reached across the table and squeezed her hand, but then let go of it almost as quickly as he had touched it. "I'm sorry about yelling at you like that. Holly Grace got me pretty upset. She shouldn't have busted in on us. What happened wasn't your fault, and I shouldn't have taken it out on you."

Francesca nodded, not actually accepting his apology, but not quite throwing it back in his face, either. The conversation drifted in safer directions until the waiter appeared with their first course. After they were served, Francesca asked Dallie about his meeting with the network. He was guarded in his reply, a fact that interested her enough to make her probe a little deeper.

"I understand that if you sign with the network, you'll have to stop playing in most of the bigger tournaments." She extracted a snail from a small ceramic pot where it lay bathed in a buttery sauce rich with herbs.

He shrugged. "It won't be long before I'm too old to be competitive. I might as well sign the deal while the money's good."

The facts and figures of Dallie's career flashed through her head. She sketched a circle on the tablecloth and then, like an inexperienced traveler cautiously setting foot in a strange country, commented, "Holly Grace told me you probably won't play in the U.S. Classic this year."

"Probably not."

"I wouldn't think you'd let yourself retire until you'd won a major tournament."

"I've done all right for myself." His knuckles tightened ever so slightly around the glass of club soda he'd picked up. And then he bdgan telling her how well Miss Sybil and Doralee were getting along. Since Francesca had just spoken with both women on the telephone, she was far more interested in the way

he had changed the subject than in what he was saying.

The waiter arrived with their entrees. Dallie had selected scallops served in a rich dark sauce of tomatoes and garlic, while she had chosen a flaky pastry stuffed with an aromatic mixture of crabmeat and wild mushrooms. She picked up her fork and tried again. "The U.S. Classic is becoming almost as important

as the Masters, isn't it?"

"Yeah, I guess." Dallie captured one of the scallops with his fork and dredged it through the thick sauce. "You know what Skeet told me the other day? He said as far as he's concerned you're the most interesting stray we ever picked up. That's quite a compliment, especially since he didn't used to be able to stand you."

"I'm flattered."

"For a long time he was holding out for this one-armed drifter who could burp 'Tom Dooley,' but I think you changed his mind during your recent memorable visit. Of course, there's always a chance he'll reconsider."

He rattled on and on. She smiled and nodded and waited for him to run down, disarming him with the easiness of her manner and the attentive tilt of her head, lulling him so completely that he forgot he was sitting across the table from a woman who had spent the last ten years of her life prying out secrets most people wanted to keep hidden, a woman who could go in for the kill so skillfully, so guilelessly, that the victim frequently died with a smile on his face. Gently she decapitated a stalk of white asparagus. "Why don't you wait until after the U.S. Classic before you go into the announcers' booth? Whatever are you afraid of?"

He bristled like a cornered porcupine. "Afraid of? Since when did you get to be such an expert on golf that you know what a professional player might be afraid of?"

"When you host a television show like mine, you get to know a little bit about everything," she replied evasively.

"If I'd known this was going to be a damned interview, I'd have stayed home."

"But then we would have missed a lovely evening together, wouldn't we?"

Without anything more than the evidence presented by the dark scowl on his face, Francesca became absolutely, totally convinced that Skeet Cooper had told her the truth, and that not only did her son's happiness depend upon the game of golf, but quite possibly her own did as well. What she didn't know was how to make use of that newfound understanding. Thoughtfully, she picked up her wine goblet, took a sip, and changed the subject.

Francesca didn't plan on ending up in bed with Dallie that night, but as the dinner progressed her senses seemed to go on overload. Their conversation grew more infrequent, the looks between them more lingering. It was as if she'd taken a powerful drug and she couldn't break the spell. By the time their coffee arrived, they couldn't take their eyes off each other and before she knew it, they were in Dallie's bed at the Essex House.

"Um, you taste so good," he murmured.

She arched her back, a groan of pure pleasure coming from deep in her throat, as he loved her with his mouth and tongue, giving her all the time she needed, sweeping her up the mountains of her own passion, but never quite letting her cross the peak.

"Oh… please," she begged.

"Not yet," he replied.

"I-I can't stand any more."

"I'm afraid you're going to have to, honey."

"No… please…" She reached for herself, but he caught her wrists and pinioned them at her sides.

"You shouldn't have done that, darlin'. Now I'm going to have to start all over again."

Her skin was damp, her fingers rigid in his hair, when he finally gave her the release she was desperate for. "That was a dreadful thing to do," she sighed after she had tumbled back to earth. "You're going to pay for that torture."

"Did you ever notice that the clitoris is the only sexual organ that doesn't have a dirty-word nickname." He nuzzled at her breasts, still taking his time with her even though he hadn't been satisfied himself. "It has an abbreviation, but not a real scummy nickname like everything else. Think about it. You got your-"

"Probably because men have only recently discovered the clitoris," she said wickedly. "There hasn't been time."

"I don't think so," he replied, seeking out the object under discussion. "I think it's because it's pretty

much an insignificant organ."

"An insignificant organ!" She caught her breath as he began working his magic again.

"Sure," he whispered huskily. "More like one of those puny little electronic keyboards than the mighty ol' Wurlitzer."

"Of all the male, egotistical-" With a deep, throaty laugh, she rolled on top of him. "Watch out, mister! This little keyboard's about to make your mighty ol' Wurlitzer play the symphony of its life."

During the next few months, Dallie found a number of excuses to come to New York. First he had to meet with some advertising executives about a promotion he was doing for a line of golf clubs. Then he was "on his way" from Houston to Phoenix. Later he had a wild craving to sit in gridlocked traffic and breathe exhaust fumes. Francesca could never remember having laughed so much or felt so absolutely sassy and full of herself. When Dallie put his mind to it he was irresistible, and since she'd long ago

gotten out of the habit of telling herself lies, she stopped trying to cheapen her feelings for him by hiding them under the convenient label of lust. No matter how potentially heartbreaking-she realized that she was falling in love with him. She loved his look, his laughter, the easygoing nature of his manliness.

Still, the obstacles between them loomed like skyscrapers, and her love had a bittersweet edge. She

wasn't an idealistic twenty-one-year-old anymore, and she couldn't envision any fairy-tale future. Although she knew Dallie cared for her, his feelings seemed much more casual than her own.

And Teddy continued to be a problem. She sensed how much Dallie wanted to win him over, yet he remained stiff and formal with her son-as if he was afraid to be himself. Their outings too frequently ended in disaster as Teddy misbehaved and Dallie reprimanded him. Although she hated admitting it,

she sometimes found herself feeling relieved when Teddy had other plans and she and Dallie could

spend their time alone together.

On a Sunday late in April, Francesca invited Holly Grace to come over and watch the final round of one of the year's more important golf tournaments. To their delight, Dallie was only two shots off the lead. Holly Grace was convinced that if he made a strong finish, he'd play out the season instead of going into the announcers' booth in two weeks to do color commentary for the U.S. Classic.

"He'll blow it," Teddy said as he came into the room and plopped himself on the floor in front of the television. "He always does."

"Not this time," Francesca told him, irritated with his know-it-all attitude. "This time he's going to do it." He'd better do it, she thought. The night before on the phone, she'd promised him a variety of erotic rewards if he came through today.

"When did you get to be such a golf fan?" he had asked.

She had no intention of telling him about the hours she had spent reviewing every detail of his professional career, or the weeks she had spent looking at videotapes of his old tournaments as she tried to find the key to unlock Dallie Beaudine's secrets.

"I became a fan after I developed this incredible crush on Seve Ballesteros," she had replied breezily, as she settled back into the satin pillows on her bed and propped the receiver on her shoulder. "He is so gorgeous. Do you think you could fix me up with him?"

Dallie had snorted at her reference to the darkly handsome Spaniard who was one of the best professional golfers in the world. "Keep talking like that and I'll fix you up, all right. You just forget about old Seve tomorrow and keep your eye on the All-American Kid."

Now as she watched the All-American Kid, she definitely liked what she saw. He parred the fourteenth and fifteenth holes and then birdied sixteen. The leader board shifted and he was one stroke out of first place. The camera picked up Dallie and Skeet walking toward the seventeenth hole and then cut for a Merrill Lynch commercial.

Teddy got up from his spot in front of the television and disappeared into his bedroom. Francesca put out a plate of cheese and crackers, but both she and Holly Grace were too nervous to eat. "He's going to do it," Holly Grace said for the fifth time. "When I talked to him last night, he said he was feeling real good."

"I'm glad the two of you are speaking to each other again," Francesca remarked.

"Oh, you know Dallie and me. We can't stay mad at each other for long."

Teddy returned from the bedroom wearing his cowboy boots and a navy blue sweat shirt that fell past

his hips. "Where on earth did you get that hideous thing?" She eyed the drooling motorcyclist and the Day-Glo inscription with distaste.

"It was a present," Teddy muttered, plopping himself back down on the carpet.

So this was the sweat shirt she'd heard about. She looked thoughtfully at the television screen, which showed Dallie teeing up his ball on the seventeenth hole, and then back at Teddy. "I like it," she said.

Teddy pushed his glasses back up on his nose, all his attention on the tournament. "He's going to clutch."

"Don't say that," Francesca snapped.

Holly Grace stared intently at the screen. "He's got to put it just beyond the bunker, over toward the left side of the fairway. That'll give him a real good look at the flag."

Pat Summerall, the CBS commentator, spoke over the picture to his partner Ken Venturi. "What do you think, Ken? Is Beaudine going to be able to hold it together for two more holes?"

"I don't know, Pat. Dallie's looked real good today, but he's got to be feeling the pressure right now, and he never plays his best during these big tournaments."

Francesca held her breath as Dallie hit his drive, and then Pat Summerall said ominously, "It doesn't look as if he's caught it flush."

"He's coming down awfully close to that left fairway bunker," Venturi observed.

"Oh, no," Francesca cried, her fingers tightly crossed as she stared at the ball flying across the small screen.

"Dammit, Dallie!" Holly Grace shrieked at the television.

The ball dropped from the sky and buried itself in the left fairway bunker.

"I told you he'd blow it," Teddy said.