Fancy Pants (11 page)
"Francesca Day," she replied, permitting her voice to thaw ever so
slightly. She had to remember that Americans were notoriously informal.
What was considered boorish on the part of an Englishman was regarded
as normal behavior in the States. Besides, she couldn't resist bringing
this gorgeous country bumpkin at least partway to his knees. This was
something she was good at, something that couldn't possibly go wrong on
this day when everything else had fallen apart. "I'm grateful to you
for rescuing me," she said, smiling at him over the top of her skirts.
"I'm afraid I've had an absolutely beastly few days."
"You mind telling us about it?" Dallie inquired. "Skeet and I've been
traveling a lot of miles lately, and we're getting tired of each
other's conversation."
"Well, it's all quite ridiculous, really. Miranda Gwynwyck, this
perfectly odious woman—the brewery family, you know—persuaded me to
leave London and accept a part in a film being shot at the Wentworth
plantation."
Skeet's head popped up just behind her left shoulder, and his eyes were
alive with curiosity. "You a movie star?" he inquired. "There's
something about you that's been lookin' familiar to me, but I can't
quite place it."
"Not actually." She thought about mentioning Vivien Leigh to him and
then decided not to bother.
"I got it!" Skeet exclaimed. "I knew I'd seen you before. Dallie,
you'll never guess who this is."
Francesca looked back at him warily.
"This here's 'Bereft Francesca'!" Skeet declared with a hoot of
laughter. "I knew I recognized her. You remember, Dallie. The one goin'
out with all those movie stars."
"No kidding," Dallie said.
"How on earth—" Francesca began, but Skeet interrupted her.
"Say, I was real sorry to hear about your mama and that taxicab."
Francesca stared at him speechlessly.
"Skeet's a fan of the tabloids," Dallie explained. "I don't much like
them myself, but they do make you think about the power of mass
communications. When I was a kid, we used to have this old blue
geography book, and the first chapter was called 'Our Shrinking World.'
That just about says it, doesn't it? Did you have geography books like
that in England?"
"I—I don't think so," she replied weakly. A moment of silence passed
and she had the horrifying feeling that they might be waiting for her
to supply the details of Chloe's death. Even the thought of sharing
something so intimate with strangers appalled her, so she quickly
returned to the subject at hand as if she'd never been interrupted. "I
flew halfway across the world, spent an absolutely miserable night in
the most horrible accommodations you could imagine, and was forced to
wear this absolutely hideous dress. Then I discovered that the picture
had been misrepresented to me."
"Porno flick?" Dallie inquired.
"Certainly not!" she exclaimed. Didn't these rural Americans take even
the briefest moment to examine a thought before they passed it on to
their mouths? "Actually, it was one of those horrid films about"—she
felt ill even saying the word—"vampires."
"No kidding!" Skeet's admiration was evident. "Do you know Vincent
Price?"
Francesca pressed her eyes closed for a moment and then reopened them.
"I haven't had the pleasure."
Skeet tapped Dallie on the shoulder. "Remember old Vincent when he used
to be on 'Hollywood Squares'?
Sometimes his wife was on with him. What's her name? She's one of those
fancy English actresses, too. Maybe Francie knows her."
"Francesca," she snapped. "I detest being called anything else."
Skeet sank back into the seat and she realized she had offended him,
but she didn't care. Her name was her name, and no one had the right to
alter it, especially not today when her hold on the world seemed so
precarious.
"So, what are your plans now?" Dallie asked.
"To return to London as soon as possible." She thought of Miranda
Gwynwyck, of Nicky, of the impossibility of continuing as she was. "And
then I'm getting married." Without realizing it, she had made her
decision, made it because she could see no alternative. After what she
had endured during the past twenty-four hours, being married to a
wealthy brewer no longer seemed like such a terrible fate. But now that
the words had been spoken, she felt depressed instead of relieved.
Another hairpin fell out; this one tumbled down her front and stuck in
a ruffle. She distracted herself from her glum thoughts by asking Skeet
for her cosmetic case. He passed it forward without a word. She pushed
it deep into the folds of her skirt and flipped open the lid.
"My God .. ." She almost wept when she saw her face. Her heavy eye
makeup looked grotesque in natural light, she had eaten off her
lipstick, her hair was falling every which way, and she was dirty!
Never in all her twenty-one years had she primped in front of a man
other than her hairdresser, but she had to get herself hack, the person
she recognized!
Grabbing a bottle of cleansing lotion, she set to work repairing the
mess. As the heavy makeup came off, she felt a need to distance herself
from the two men, to make them understand that she belonged to a
different world. "Honestly, I look a fright. This entire trip has been
an absolute nightmare." She pulled off her false eyelashes, moisturized
her eyelids, and applied a light dusting of highlighter along with
taupe shadow and a dab of mascara. "Normally I use this wonderful
German mascara called Ecarte, but Cissy
Kavendish's maid—a really impossible woman from the West Indies—forgot
to pack it, so I'm slumming with an English brand."
She knew she was talking too much, but she didn't seem to be able to
stop herself. She swept a Kent brush over a cake of toffee blusher and
shaded the area just beneath her cheekbones. "I'd give almost anything
for a really good facial right now. There's this wonderful place in
Mayfair that uses thermal
heat and all sorts of other incredibly
miraculous things they combine with massage. Lizzy Arden does
the same
thing." She quickly outlined her lips with a pencil, filled them in
from a pot of rosy beige
gloss, and checked the overall effect. Not
terrific, but at least she almost looked like herself again.
The growing silence in the car was making her increasingly uneasy, so
she kept talking to fill it. "It's always difficult when you're in New
York trying to decide between Arden's and Janet Sartin. Naturally, I'm
talking about Janet Sartin on Madison Avenue. I mean, one can go to her
salon on Park, but it isn't quite the same, is it?"
Everything was quiet for a moment.
Finally, Skeet spoke. "Dallie?"
"Uh-huh?"
"Do you think she's done yet?"
Dallie pulled off his sunglasses and set them back on the dashboard. "I
have a feeling she's just warming up."
She looked over at him, embarrassed by her own behavior and angry with
his. Couldn't he see that she was having the most miserable day of her
life, and try to make things a bit easier for her? She hated the fact
that he didn't seem impressed by her, hated the fact that he wasn't
trying to impress her himself. In some strange way that she couldn't
quite define, his lack of interest seemed more disorienting than
anything else that had happened to her.
She returned her attention to the mirror and began snatching the pins
from her hair, silently admonishing herself to stop worrying about
Dallas Beaudine's opinion. Any moment now they'd stumble on
civilization. She'd call a taxi to take her to the airport in Gulfport
and then book herself on the next flight to London. Suddenly she
remembered her embarrassing financial problem and then, just as
quickly,
found the solution. She would simply call Nicholas and have him wire
her the money for her air fare.
Her throat felt scratchy and dry, and she coughed. "Could you roll up
the windows? This dust is dreadful. And I'd really like something to
drink." She eyed a small Styrofoam cooler in the back. "I don't suppose
there's an off chance that you might have a bottle of Perrier stashed
away in there?"
A moment of pregnant silence filled the interior of the Riviera.
"Shoot, ma'am, we're fresh out," Dallie said finally. "I'm afraid old
Skeet finished the last bottle right
after we pulled that liquor store
holdup over in Meridian."
Part of it was him, but part of it was them, too. He liked down-home
women, good-time women, low-down women. He liked women he could drink
with, women who could tell dirty jokes without lowering their voices,
who'd boom out that old punch line right across the sweating beer
pitchers, wadded-up cocktail napkins, and Waylon Jennings on the
jukebox—never wasting a moment's thought on how some blue-haired club
lady in the next town might be listening in. He liked women who didn't
fuss around with tears and arguments because he was spending all his
time hitting a couple hundred balls with his three-wood at the driving
range instead of taking them to a restaurant that served snails. He
liked women, in fact, who were pretty much like men. Except beautiful.
Because, most of all, Dailie liked beautiful women. Not phony
fashion-model beautiful, with all that makeup and those bony boys'
bodies that gave him the creeps, but sexy beautiful. He liked breasts
and hips, eyes that laughed and teeth that sparkled, lips that parted
wide. He liked women he could love and leave. That's the way he was,
and that's what made him pretty much turn mean on every woman he had
ever cared about. But Francesca Day was going to be the exception. She
made him turn mean just by being there.
"Is that a filling station?" Skeet asked, sounding happy for the first
time in miles.
Francesca peered ahead and breathed a silent prayer of thanksgiving as
Dallie slowed the car. Not that she'd actually believed that story
about the liquor store holdup, but she had to be careful. They pulled
up in front of a ramshackle wooden building with flaking paint and a
hand-lettered "Live Bate" sign leaning against a rusted pump. A cloud
of dust drifted in through the car window as the tires crunched on the
gravel. Francesca felt as if she'd been traveling for aeons; she was
perishing of thirst, dying of starvation, and she had to use the
lavatory.
"End of the line," Dallie said, turning off the ignition. "There'll be
a phone inside. You can call one of your friends from there."
"Oh, I'm not going to call a friend," she replied, extracting a small
calfskin handbag from her cosmetic case. "I'm calling a taxi to take me
to the airport in Gulfport."
A loud groan emanated from the back. Dallie slumped down in his seat
and tipped his hat forward over his eyes.
"Is something wrong?" she inquired.
"I don't even know where to start," Dallie muttered.
"Don't say a word," Skeet announced. "Just let her out, slip the
Riviera into gear, and drive away. The guy pumping gas can handle it. I
mean it, Dallie. Only a fool sets out to make a double bogey on
purpose."
"What's wrong?" Francesca asked, beginning to feel alarmed.
Dallie tilted the brim of his cap back with his thumb. "For starters,
Gulfport is about two hours behind you. We're in Louisiana now, halfway
to New Orleans. If you wanted to go to Gulfport, why were you walking
west instead of east?"
"How was I supposed to know I was walking west?" she replied
indignantly.
Dallie slammed the heels of his hands against the steering wheel.
"Because the goddamn sun was setting in front of your eyes, that's how!"
"Oh." She thought for a moment. There was no reason for her to panic;
she would simply find another way. "Doesn't New Orleans have an
airport? I can fly from there."
"How do you intend to get there? And if you mention a taxi again, I
swear to God I'll throw both pieces of that Louie
Vee-tawn right over into the scrub pine! You're out in the middle of
nowhere, lady, don't you understand that? There aren't any taxicabs out
here! This is backwoods Louisiana, not Paris, France!"
She sat up more stiffly and bit down on the inside of her lip. "I see,"
she said slowly. "Well, perhaps I could pay you to take me the rest of
the way." She glanced down at her handbag, worry furrowing her brow.
How much cash did she have left? She'd better call Nicholas right away
so he could have money waiting for her in New Orleans.
Skeet pushed open the door and stepped out. "I'm gonna get me a bottle
of Dr Pepper while you sort this out, Dallie. But I'm tellin' you one
thing—if she's still in this car when I get back, you can find somebody
else to haul your Spauldings around on Monday morning." The door
slammed shut.
"What an impossible man," Francesca said with a sniff. She looked
sideways at Dallie. He wouldn't really leave her, would he, just
because that horrid sidekick of his didn't like her? She turned to him,
her tone placating. "Just let me make a telephone call. It won't take a
minute."
She extricated herself from the car as gracefully as she could and,
hoops swaying, walked inside the ramshackle building. Opening her
handbag, she took out her wallet and quickly counted her money. It
didn't take long. Something uncomfortable slithered along the base of
her spine. She only had eighteen dollars left . . . eighteen dollars
between herself and starvation.
The receiver was sticky with dirt, but she paid no attention as she
snatched it from its cradle and dialed 0. When she was finally
connected with an overseas operator, she gave Nicholas's number and
reversed the charges. While she waited for the call to go through, she
tried to distract herself from her growing uneasiness by watching
Dallie get out of the car and wander over to the owner of the place,
who was loading some old tires into the back of a dilapidated truck and
regarding all of them with interest. What a waste, she thought, her
eyes straying back to Dallie—putting a face like that on an ignorant
hillbilly.
Nicholas's houseboy finally answered, but her hopes of rescue were
short-lived as he refused the call, announcing that his
employer was out of town for several weeks. She stared at the receiver
and then placed another call, this one to Cissy Kavendish. Cissy
answered, but she was no more inclined to accept the call than
Nicholas's houseboy. That awful bitch! Francesca fumed as the line went
dead.
Beginning to feel genuinely frightened, she mentally ran through her
list of acquaintances only to realize that she hadn't been on the best
of terms with even her most loyal admirers in the last few months. The
only other person who might lend her money was David Graves, who was
away in Africa somewhere shooting a picture. Gritting her teeth, she
placed a third collect call, this one to Miranda Gwynwyck. Somewhat to
her surprise, the call was accepted.
"Francesca, how nice to hear from you, even though it's after midnight
and I was sound asleep. How's your film career coming? Is Lloyd
treating you well?"
Francesca could almost hear her purring, and she clenched the receiver
more tightly. "Everything's super, Miranda; I can't thank you
enough—but I seem to have a small emergency, and I need to get in touch
with Nicky. Give me his number, will you?"
"Sorry, darling, but he's incommunicado at the moment with an old
friend—a glorious blond mathematician who adores him."
"I don't believe you."
"Francesca, even Nicky has his limits, and I do believe you finally
reached them. But give me your number and I'll have him return your
call when he gets back in two weeks so he can tell you himself."
"Two weeks won't do! I have to talk to him now."
"Why?"
'That's private," she snapped.
"Sorry, I can't help."
"Don't do this, Miranda! I absolutely must—" The line went dead just as
the owner of the service station walked in the door and flipped the
dial on a greasy white plastic radio. The voice of Diana Ross suddenly
filled Francesca's ears, asking her if she knew where she was going to.
"Oh, God . . ." she murmured.
And then she looked up to see Dallie walking around the front of the
car toward the driver's side.
"Wait!" She dropped the
receiver and raced out the door, her heart banging against her ribs,
terrified
that he would drive off and leave her.
He stopped where he was and leaned back against the hood, crossing his
arms over his chest. "Don't
tell me," he said. "Nobody was home."
"Well, yes . . . no. You see, Nicky, my fiance—"
"Never mind." He pulled off his cap by the brim and shoved his hand
through his hair. "I'll drop you
off at the airport. Only you have to
promise that you won't talk on the way."
She bristled, but before she had time to reply, he jerked his thumb
toward the passenger door. "Hop in. Skeet wanted to stretch his legs,
so we'll pick him up down the road."
She had to use the toilet before she went anywhere, and she would die
if she didn't change her clothes.
"I need a few minutes," she said.
"I'm sure you won't mind waiting." Since she wasn't sure of any such
thing, she turned the full force of her charm on him—green cat's eyes,
soft mouth, a small, helpless hand on his arm.
The hand was a mistake. He looked down at it as if she'd put a snake
there. "I got to tell you, Francie—there's something about the way you
go about doing things that pretty much rubs me the wrong way."
She snatched away her hand. "Don't call me that! My name is Francesca.
And don't imagine I'm exactly enamored with you, either."
"I don't imagine you're exactly enamored with anybody except yourself."
He pulled a piece of bubble gum from his shirt pocket. "And Mr.
Vee-tawn, of course."
She gave him her most withering glare, went to the back door of the
car, and pulled it open to extract her suitcase, because absolutely
nothing—not abysmal poverty, Miranda's betrayal, or Dallie Beaudine's
insolence—was going to make her stay in her torturous pink outfit a
moment longer.
He slowly unwrapped his piece of bubble gum as he watched her
struggling with the suitcase. "If you
turn it on its side there,
Francie, I think it'll be easier to get out."
She clamped her teeth together to keep from calling him every vile name
in her vocabulary and jerked
on the suitcase, putting a long scratch in
the leather as it banged into the door handle. I'll kill him, she
thought, dragging the suitcase toward a rusted blue and white rest room
sign. I'll kill him and then I'll stomp on his corpse. Grasping a
chipped white porcelain knob that hung loose from its plate, she pushed
on the door, but it refused to budge. She tried two more times before
it finally swung inward, squealing
on its hinges. And then she gulped.
The room was terrible. Dirty water lay in the recesses of the broken
floor tiles revealed by a dim bare light bulb hanging from the ceiling
by a cord. The toilet was encrusted with filth, its lid had
disappeared, and the seat was broken in half. As she stood looking at
the noisome room, the tears that had been threatening all day finally
broke loose. She was hungry and thirsty, she had to use the toilet, she
didn't have any money, and she wanted to go home. Dropping the suitcase
outside in the dirt, she sat down on it and began to cry. How could
this be happening to her? She was one of the ten most beautiful women
in Great Britain!
A pair of cowboy boots appeared in the dust at her side. She began
crying harder, burying her face in her hands and releasing great
gulping sobs that seemed to come all the way from her toes. The boots
took a few steps to the side, then tapped impatiently in the dirt.
"This kickup gonna take much longer, Francie? I want to fetch Skeet
before the 'gators get him."
"I went out with the Prince of Wales," she said with a sob, finally
looking up at him. "He fell in love with me!"
"Uh-huh. Well, they say there's a lot of inbreeding—"
"I could have been queen!" The word was a wail as tears dripped off her
cheeks and onto her breasts. "He adored me, everybody knew it. We went
to balls and the opera—"
He squinted against the fading sun. "Do you think you could sorta skip
through this part and get to the point?"
"I have to go to the loo!" she cried, pointing a shaky finger toward
the rusty blue and white sign.
He left her side and then reappeared a moment later. "I see what you
mean." Digging two rumpled tissues from his pocket, he let them flutter
down into her lap. "I think you'll be safer
out back behind the building."
She looked down at the tissues and then up at him and began sobbing
again.
He took several chomps on his gum. "That domestic mascara of yours sure
is falling down on the job."
Leaping up from the suitcase, tissues dropping to the ground, she
shouted at him, "You think all this is amusing, don't you? You find it
hysterically funny that I'm trapped in this awful dress and I can't go
home and Nicky's gone off with some dreadful mathematician Miranda says
is glorious—"
"Uh-huh." Her suitcase fell forward under the pressure of Dallie's boot
toe. Before Francesca had a chance to protest, he had knelt down and
flipped open the catches. "This is a god-awful mess," he said when he
saw the chaos inside. "You got any jeans in here?"
"Under the Zandra Rhodes."
"What's a zanderoads? Never mind, I found the jeans. How about a
T-shirt? You wear T-shirts, Francie?"
"There's a blouse," she sniffed. "Greige with cocoa trim—a Halston. And
a Hermes belt with an art deco buckle. And my Bottega Veneta sandals."
He propped one arm across his knee and looked up at her. "You're
startin' to push me again, aren't you, darlin'?"
Dashing away her tears with the back of her hand, she stared down at
him, not having the faintest idea what he was talking about. He sighed
and got back up. "Maybe you'd better find what you want yourself. I'll
amble back to the car and wait for you. And try not to take too long.
Old Skeet's already gonna be hotter than a Texas tamale."
As he turned to walk away, she sniffed and bit on her lip. "Mr.
Beaudine?" He turned. She dug her fingernails into her palms. "Would it
be possible—" Gracious, this was humiliating! "That is to say, perhaps
you might— Actually, I seem to—" What was wrong with her? How had an
ignorant hillbilly managed to intimidate her so badly that she couldn't
seem to form the simplest sentence?
"Spit it out, honey. I got my heart set on findin' a cure for cancer
before the decade's over, or at least having a cold Lone Star and a
chili dog by the time Landry's boys hit the Astroturf
for the division championship."
slightly. She had to remember that Americans were notoriously informal.
What was considered boorish on the part of an Englishman was regarded
as normal behavior in the States. Besides, she couldn't resist bringing
this gorgeous country bumpkin at least partway to his knees. This was
something she was good at, something that couldn't possibly go wrong on
this day when everything else had fallen apart. "I'm grateful to you
for rescuing me," she said, smiling at him over the top of her skirts.
"I'm afraid I've had an absolutely beastly few days."
"You mind telling us about it?" Dallie inquired. "Skeet and I've been
traveling a lot of miles lately, and we're getting tired of each
other's conversation."
"Well, it's all quite ridiculous, really. Miranda Gwynwyck, this
perfectly odious woman—the brewery family, you know—persuaded me to
leave London and accept a part in a film being shot at the Wentworth
plantation."
Skeet's head popped up just behind her left shoulder, and his eyes were
alive with curiosity. "You a movie star?" he inquired. "There's
something about you that's been lookin' familiar to me, but I can't
quite place it."
"Not actually." She thought about mentioning Vivien Leigh to him and
then decided not to bother.
"I got it!" Skeet exclaimed. "I knew I'd seen you before. Dallie,
you'll never guess who this is."
Francesca looked back at him warily.
"This here's 'Bereft Francesca'!" Skeet declared with a hoot of
laughter. "I knew I recognized her. You remember, Dallie. The one goin'
out with all those movie stars."
"No kidding," Dallie said.
"How on earth—" Francesca began, but Skeet interrupted her.
"Say, I was real sorry to hear about your mama and that taxicab."
Francesca stared at him speechlessly.
"Skeet's a fan of the tabloids," Dallie explained. "I don't much like
them myself, but they do make you think about the power of mass
communications. When I was a kid, we used to have this old blue
geography book, and the first chapter was called 'Our Shrinking World.'
That just about says it, doesn't it? Did you have geography books like
that in England?"
"I—I don't think so," she replied weakly. A moment of silence passed
and she had the horrifying feeling that they might be waiting for her
to supply the details of Chloe's death. Even the thought of sharing
something so intimate with strangers appalled her, so she quickly
returned to the subject at hand as if she'd never been interrupted. "I
flew halfway across the world, spent an absolutely miserable night in
the most horrible accommodations you could imagine, and was forced to
wear this absolutely hideous dress. Then I discovered that the picture
had been misrepresented to me."
"Porno flick?" Dallie inquired.
"Certainly not!" she exclaimed. Didn't these rural Americans take even
the briefest moment to examine a thought before they passed it on to
their mouths? "Actually, it was one of those horrid films about"—she
felt ill even saying the word—"vampires."
"No kidding!" Skeet's admiration was evident. "Do you know Vincent
Price?"
Francesca pressed her eyes closed for a moment and then reopened them.
"I haven't had the pleasure."
Skeet tapped Dallie on the shoulder. "Remember old Vincent when he used
to be on 'Hollywood Squares'?
Sometimes his wife was on with him. What's her name? She's one of those
fancy English actresses, too. Maybe Francie knows her."
"Francesca," she snapped. "I detest being called anything else."
Skeet sank back into the seat and she realized she had offended him,
but she didn't care. Her name was her name, and no one had the right to
alter it, especially not today when her hold on the world seemed so
precarious.
"So, what are your plans now?" Dallie asked.
"To return to London as soon as possible." She thought of Miranda
Gwynwyck, of Nicky, of the impossibility of continuing as she was. "And
then I'm getting married." Without realizing it, she had made her
decision, made it because she could see no alternative. After what she
had endured during the past twenty-four hours, being married to a
wealthy brewer no longer seemed like such a terrible fate. But now that
the words had been spoken, she felt depressed instead of relieved.
Another hairpin fell out; this one tumbled down her front and stuck in
a ruffle. She distracted herself from her glum thoughts by asking Skeet
for her cosmetic case. He passed it forward without a word. She pushed
it deep into the folds of her skirt and flipped open the lid.
"My God .. ." She almost wept when she saw her face. Her heavy eye
makeup looked grotesque in natural light, she had eaten off her
lipstick, her hair was falling every which way, and she was dirty!
Never in all her twenty-one years had she primped in front of a man
other than her hairdresser, but she had to get herself hack, the person
she recognized!
Grabbing a bottle of cleansing lotion, she set to work repairing the
mess. As the heavy makeup came off, she felt a need to distance herself
from the two men, to make them understand that she belonged to a
different world. "Honestly, I look a fright. This entire trip has been
an absolute nightmare." She pulled off her false eyelashes, moisturized
her eyelids, and applied a light dusting of highlighter along with
taupe shadow and a dab of mascara. "Normally I use this wonderful
German mascara called Ecarte, but Cissy
Kavendish's maid—a really impossible woman from the West Indies—forgot
to pack it, so I'm slumming with an English brand."
She knew she was talking too much, but she didn't seem to be able to
stop herself. She swept a Kent brush over a cake of toffee blusher and
shaded the area just beneath her cheekbones. "I'd give almost anything
for a really good facial right now. There's this wonderful place in
Mayfair that uses thermal
heat and all sorts of other incredibly
miraculous things they combine with massage. Lizzy Arden does
the same
thing." She quickly outlined her lips with a pencil, filled them in
from a pot of rosy beige
gloss, and checked the overall effect. Not
terrific, but at least she almost looked like herself again.
The growing silence in the car was making her increasingly uneasy, so
she kept talking to fill it. "It's always difficult when you're in New
York trying to decide between Arden's and Janet Sartin. Naturally, I'm
talking about Janet Sartin on Madison Avenue. I mean, one can go to her
salon on Park, but it isn't quite the same, is it?"
Everything was quiet for a moment.
Finally, Skeet spoke. "Dallie?"
"Uh-huh?"
"Do you think she's done yet?"
Dallie pulled off his sunglasses and set them back on the dashboard. "I
have a feeling she's just warming up."
She looked over at him, embarrassed by her own behavior and angry with
his. Couldn't he see that she was having the most miserable day of her
life, and try to make things a bit easier for her? She hated the fact
that he didn't seem impressed by her, hated the fact that he wasn't
trying to impress her himself. In some strange way that she couldn't
quite define, his lack of interest seemed more disorienting than
anything else that had happened to her.
She returned her attention to the mirror and began snatching the pins
from her hair, silently admonishing herself to stop worrying about
Dallas Beaudine's opinion. Any moment now they'd stumble on
civilization. She'd call a taxi to take her to the airport in Gulfport
and then book herself on the next flight to London. Suddenly she
remembered her embarrassing financial problem and then, just as
quickly,
found the solution. She would simply call Nicholas and have him wire
her the money for her air fare.
Her throat felt scratchy and dry, and she coughed. "Could you roll up
the windows? This dust is dreadful. And I'd really like something to
drink." She eyed a small Styrofoam cooler in the back. "I don't suppose
there's an off chance that you might have a bottle of Perrier stashed
away in there?"
A moment of pregnant silence filled the interior of the Riviera.
"Shoot, ma'am, we're fresh out," Dallie said finally. "I'm afraid old
Skeet finished the last bottle right
after we pulled that liquor store
holdup over in Meridian."
Chapter 8
Dallie was the first to admit that he didn't always treat women well.Part of it was him, but part of it was them, too. He liked down-home
women, good-time women, low-down women. He liked women he could drink
with, women who could tell dirty jokes without lowering their voices,
who'd boom out that old punch line right across the sweating beer
pitchers, wadded-up cocktail napkins, and Waylon Jennings on the
jukebox—never wasting a moment's thought on how some blue-haired club
lady in the next town might be listening in. He liked women who didn't
fuss around with tears and arguments because he was spending all his
time hitting a couple hundred balls with his three-wood at the driving
range instead of taking them to a restaurant that served snails. He
liked women, in fact, who were pretty much like men. Except beautiful.
Because, most of all, Dailie liked beautiful women. Not phony
fashion-model beautiful, with all that makeup and those bony boys'
bodies that gave him the creeps, but sexy beautiful. He liked breasts
and hips, eyes that laughed and teeth that sparkled, lips that parted
wide. He liked women he could love and leave. That's the way he was,
and that's what made him pretty much turn mean on every woman he had
ever cared about. But Francesca Day was going to be the exception. She
made him turn mean just by being there.
"Is that a filling station?" Skeet asked, sounding happy for the first
time in miles.
Francesca peered ahead and breathed a silent prayer of thanksgiving as
Dallie slowed the car. Not that she'd actually believed that story
about the liquor store holdup, but she had to be careful. They pulled
up in front of a ramshackle wooden building with flaking paint and a
hand-lettered "Live Bate" sign leaning against a rusted pump. A cloud
of dust drifted in through the car window as the tires crunched on the
gravel. Francesca felt as if she'd been traveling for aeons; she was
perishing of thirst, dying of starvation, and she had to use the
lavatory.
"End of the line," Dallie said, turning off the ignition. "There'll be
a phone inside. You can call one of your friends from there."
"Oh, I'm not going to call a friend," she replied, extracting a small
calfskin handbag from her cosmetic case. "I'm calling a taxi to take me
to the airport in Gulfport."
A loud groan emanated from the back. Dallie slumped down in his seat
and tipped his hat forward over his eyes.
"Is something wrong?" she inquired.
"I don't even know where to start," Dallie muttered.
"Don't say a word," Skeet announced. "Just let her out, slip the
Riviera into gear, and drive away. The guy pumping gas can handle it. I
mean it, Dallie. Only a fool sets out to make a double bogey on
purpose."
"What's wrong?" Francesca asked, beginning to feel alarmed.
Dallie tilted the brim of his cap back with his thumb. "For starters,
Gulfport is about two hours behind you. We're in Louisiana now, halfway
to New Orleans. If you wanted to go to Gulfport, why were you walking
west instead of east?"
"How was I supposed to know I was walking west?" she replied
indignantly.
Dallie slammed the heels of his hands against the steering wheel.
"Because the goddamn sun was setting in front of your eyes, that's how!"
"Oh." She thought for a moment. There was no reason for her to panic;
she would simply find another way. "Doesn't New Orleans have an
airport? I can fly from there."
"How do you intend to get there? And if you mention a taxi again, I
swear to God I'll throw both pieces of that Louie
Vee-tawn right over into the scrub pine! You're out in the middle of
nowhere, lady, don't you understand that? There aren't any taxicabs out
here! This is backwoods Louisiana, not Paris, France!"
She sat up more stiffly and bit down on the inside of her lip. "I see,"
she said slowly. "Well, perhaps I could pay you to take me the rest of
the way." She glanced down at her handbag, worry furrowing her brow.
How much cash did she have left? She'd better call Nicholas right away
so he could have money waiting for her in New Orleans.
Skeet pushed open the door and stepped out. "I'm gonna get me a bottle
of Dr Pepper while you sort this out, Dallie. But I'm tellin' you one
thing—if she's still in this car when I get back, you can find somebody
else to haul your Spauldings around on Monday morning." The door
slammed shut.
"What an impossible man," Francesca said with a sniff. She looked
sideways at Dallie. He wouldn't really leave her, would he, just
because that horrid sidekick of his didn't like her? She turned to him,
her tone placating. "Just let me make a telephone call. It won't take a
minute."
She extricated herself from the car as gracefully as she could and,
hoops swaying, walked inside the ramshackle building. Opening her
handbag, she took out her wallet and quickly counted her money. It
didn't take long. Something uncomfortable slithered along the base of
her spine. She only had eighteen dollars left . . . eighteen dollars
between herself and starvation.
The receiver was sticky with dirt, but she paid no attention as she
snatched it from its cradle and dialed 0. When she was finally
connected with an overseas operator, she gave Nicholas's number and
reversed the charges. While she waited for the call to go through, she
tried to distract herself from her growing uneasiness by watching
Dallie get out of the car and wander over to the owner of the place,
who was loading some old tires into the back of a dilapidated truck and
regarding all of them with interest. What a waste, she thought, her
eyes straying back to Dallie—putting a face like that on an ignorant
hillbilly.
Nicholas's houseboy finally answered, but her hopes of rescue were
short-lived as he refused the call, announcing that his
employer was out of town for several weeks. She stared at the receiver
and then placed another call, this one to Cissy Kavendish. Cissy
answered, but she was no more inclined to accept the call than
Nicholas's houseboy. That awful bitch! Francesca fumed as the line went
dead.
Beginning to feel genuinely frightened, she mentally ran through her
list of acquaintances only to realize that she hadn't been on the best
of terms with even her most loyal admirers in the last few months. The
only other person who might lend her money was David Graves, who was
away in Africa somewhere shooting a picture. Gritting her teeth, she
placed a third collect call, this one to Miranda Gwynwyck. Somewhat to
her surprise, the call was accepted.
"Francesca, how nice to hear from you, even though it's after midnight
and I was sound asleep. How's your film career coming? Is Lloyd
treating you well?"
Francesca could almost hear her purring, and she clenched the receiver
more tightly. "Everything's super, Miranda; I can't thank you
enough—but I seem to have a small emergency, and I need to get in touch
with Nicky. Give me his number, will you?"
"Sorry, darling, but he's incommunicado at the moment with an old
friend—a glorious blond mathematician who adores him."
"I don't believe you."
"Francesca, even Nicky has his limits, and I do believe you finally
reached them. But give me your number and I'll have him return your
call when he gets back in two weeks so he can tell you himself."
"Two weeks won't do! I have to talk to him now."
"Why?"
'That's private," she snapped.
"Sorry, I can't help."
"Don't do this, Miranda! I absolutely must—" The line went dead just as
the owner of the service station walked in the door and flipped the
dial on a greasy white plastic radio. The voice of Diana Ross suddenly
filled Francesca's ears, asking her if she knew where she was going to.
"Oh, God . . ." she murmured.
And then she looked up to see Dallie walking around the front of the
car toward the driver's side.
"Wait!" She dropped the
receiver and raced out the door, her heart banging against her ribs,
terrified
that he would drive off and leave her.
He stopped where he was and leaned back against the hood, crossing his
arms over his chest. "Don't
tell me," he said. "Nobody was home."
"Well, yes . . . no. You see, Nicky, my fiance—"
"Never mind." He pulled off his cap by the brim and shoved his hand
through his hair. "I'll drop you
off at the airport. Only you have to
promise that you won't talk on the way."
She bristled, but before she had time to reply, he jerked his thumb
toward the passenger door. "Hop in. Skeet wanted to stretch his legs,
so we'll pick him up down the road."
She had to use the toilet before she went anywhere, and she would die
if she didn't change her clothes.
"I need a few minutes," she said.
"I'm sure you won't mind waiting." Since she wasn't sure of any such
thing, she turned the full force of her charm on him—green cat's eyes,
soft mouth, a small, helpless hand on his arm.
The hand was a mistake. He looked down at it as if she'd put a snake
there. "I got to tell you, Francie—there's something about the way you
go about doing things that pretty much rubs me the wrong way."
She snatched away her hand. "Don't call me that! My name is Francesca.
And don't imagine I'm exactly enamored with you, either."
"I don't imagine you're exactly enamored with anybody except yourself."
He pulled a piece of bubble gum from his shirt pocket. "And Mr.
Vee-tawn, of course."
She gave him her most withering glare, went to the back door of the
car, and pulled it open to extract her suitcase, because absolutely
nothing—not abysmal poverty, Miranda's betrayal, or Dallie Beaudine's
insolence—was going to make her stay in her torturous pink outfit a
moment longer.
He slowly unwrapped his piece of bubble gum as he watched her
struggling with the suitcase. "If you
turn it on its side there,
Francie, I think it'll be easier to get out."
She clamped her teeth together to keep from calling him every vile name
in her vocabulary and jerked
on the suitcase, putting a long scratch in
the leather as it banged into the door handle. I'll kill him, she
thought, dragging the suitcase toward a rusted blue and white rest room
sign. I'll kill him and then I'll stomp on his corpse. Grasping a
chipped white porcelain knob that hung loose from its plate, she pushed
on the door, but it refused to budge. She tried two more times before
it finally swung inward, squealing
on its hinges. And then she gulped.
The room was terrible. Dirty water lay in the recesses of the broken
floor tiles revealed by a dim bare light bulb hanging from the ceiling
by a cord. The toilet was encrusted with filth, its lid had
disappeared, and the seat was broken in half. As she stood looking at
the noisome room, the tears that had been threatening all day finally
broke loose. She was hungry and thirsty, she had to use the toilet, she
didn't have any money, and she wanted to go home. Dropping the suitcase
outside in the dirt, she sat down on it and began to cry. How could
this be happening to her? She was one of the ten most beautiful women
in Great Britain!
A pair of cowboy boots appeared in the dust at her side. She began
crying harder, burying her face in her hands and releasing great
gulping sobs that seemed to come all the way from her toes. The boots
took a few steps to the side, then tapped impatiently in the dirt.
"This kickup gonna take much longer, Francie? I want to fetch Skeet
before the 'gators get him."
"I went out with the Prince of Wales," she said with a sob, finally
looking up at him. "He fell in love with me!"
"Uh-huh. Well, they say there's a lot of inbreeding—"
"I could have been queen!" The word was a wail as tears dripped off her
cheeks and onto her breasts. "He adored me, everybody knew it. We went
to balls and the opera—"
He squinted against the fading sun. "Do you think you could sorta skip
through this part and get to the point?"
"I have to go to the loo!" she cried, pointing a shaky finger toward
the rusty blue and white sign.
He left her side and then reappeared a moment later. "I see what you
mean." Digging two rumpled tissues from his pocket, he let them flutter
down into her lap. "I think you'll be safer
out back behind the building."
She looked down at the tissues and then up at him and began sobbing
again.
He took several chomps on his gum. "That domestic mascara of yours sure
is falling down on the job."
Leaping up from the suitcase, tissues dropping to the ground, she
shouted at him, "You think all this is amusing, don't you? You find it
hysterically funny that I'm trapped in this awful dress and I can't go
home and Nicky's gone off with some dreadful mathematician Miranda says
is glorious—"
"Uh-huh." Her suitcase fell forward under the pressure of Dallie's boot
toe. Before Francesca had a chance to protest, he had knelt down and
flipped open the catches. "This is a god-awful mess," he said when he
saw the chaos inside. "You got any jeans in here?"
"Under the Zandra Rhodes."
"What's a zanderoads? Never mind, I found the jeans. How about a
T-shirt? You wear T-shirts, Francie?"
"There's a blouse," she sniffed. "Greige with cocoa trim—a Halston. And
a Hermes belt with an art deco buckle. And my Bottega Veneta sandals."
He propped one arm across his knee and looked up at her. "You're
startin' to push me again, aren't you, darlin'?"
Dashing away her tears with the back of her hand, she stared down at
him, not having the faintest idea what he was talking about. He sighed
and got back up. "Maybe you'd better find what you want yourself. I'll
amble back to the car and wait for you. And try not to take too long.
Old Skeet's already gonna be hotter than a Texas tamale."
As he turned to walk away, she sniffed and bit on her lip. "Mr.
Beaudine?" He turned. She dug her fingernails into her palms. "Would it
be possible—" Gracious, this was humiliating! "That is to say, perhaps
you might— Actually, I seem to—" What was wrong with her? How had an
ignorant hillbilly managed to intimidate her so badly that she couldn't
seem to form the simplest sentence?
"Spit it out, honey. I got my heart set on findin' a cure for cancer
before the decade's over, or at least having a cold Lone Star and a
chili dog by the time Landry's boys hit the Astroturf
for the division championship."
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