Fancy Pants (37 page)
"I only hit two women in my life," he finally said, "and you didn't
count because it was more a reflex action since you hit me first. But
I've got to tell you that ever since I found out what you did to me,
I've been thinking about getting hold of you and doing the job right."
She needed the full force of her will to speak calmly. "Let's go
someplace where we can sit down and have a cup of coffee so we can
discuss all this."
His mouth twisted into an ugly sneer. "Don't you think the time to be
sitting down and drinking coffee was ten years ago, after you found out
you were going to have my kid?"
"Dallie—"
He raised his voice. "Don't you think that might have been the time to
call me up on the telephone and say, 'Hey, Dallie, we've got a little
problem here I think we should maybe sit down and talk about'?"
She buried her fists in the pockets of her jacket and hunched her
shoulders against the chill, trying not to let him see how much he was
frightening her. Where was the man who had once been her lover—a man
quick to laugh, a man amused by human foibles, a man as slow and easy
as warm molasses? "I want to see Teddy, Dallie. What have you done with
him?"
"He looks just like my old man," Dallie declared angrily. "A pint-sized
replica of that old bastard Jaycee Beaudine. Jaycee beat up women, too.
He was real good at it."
So that's how he had known. She gestured toward her car, unwilling to
stay any longer in this dark
quarry and listen to him talk about
beating up women. "Dallie, let's go—"
"You didn't figure on Teddy looking like Jaycee, did you? You didn't
count on my recognizing him
when you planned this dirty little private
war."
"I didn't plan anything. And it's not a war. People do what they have
to. You remember what I was like back then. I couldn't go running back
to you and ever have a shot at growing up."
"It wasn't just your decision," he said, his eyes sparking with anger.
"And I don't want to hear any of that feminist horseshit about how I
don't have any rights because I'm a man and you're a woman, and it was
your body. It was my body, too. I'd damn well like to have seen you
have that boy without me."
She went on the attack. "What would you have done if I'd come to you
ten years ago and told you I was pregnant? You were married then,
remember?"
"Married or not, I'd have seen you were taken care of, that's for damn
sure."
"But that's the point! I didn't want you to take care of me. I didn't
have anything, Dallie. I was a silly little girl who thought the world
had been invented to be her personal toy. I had to learn how to work. I
had
to scrub toilets and live on scavenged food and lose whatever pride
I had left before I could gain any self-respect. I couldn't give that
up and go running
back to you for a handout. Having that baby by
myself was something I
had to do. It was the only way I could redeem myself." The closed,
settled expression on his face didn't ease, and she was angry with
herself for trying to make him understand.
"I want Teddy back tonight,
Dallie, or I'm going to the police."
"If you were going to the police, you'd have done it by now."
"The only reason I've waited is because I didn't want the publicity for
him. Believe me, I won't put it off any longer." She stepped closer to
him, determined to let him see that she wasn't powerless. "Don't
underestimate me, Dallie. Don't get me mixed up in your mind with the
girt you knew ten years ago."
Dallie didn't say anything for a moment. He turned his head and stared
off into the night. "The other woman I hit was Holly Grace."
"Dallie, I don't want to hear—"
His hand whipped out and caught her arm. "You're going to listen,
because I want you to understand exactly what kind of a son of a bitch
you're dealing with. I slapped the shit out of Holly Grace after Danny
died—that's the kind of man I am. And you know why?"
"Don't—" She tried to pull away, but he only gripped her tighter.
"Because she cried! That's why I slapped her. I slapped that woman
because she cried after her baby died." Harsh shadows cast by the
headlights slashed his face. He dropped her arm, but his expression
remained fierce. "Does that give you any idea what I might do to you?"
He was bluffing. She knew it. She felt it. In some way, he had cut
himself open so she could see inside him. She had hurt him badly and he
had made up his mind to punish her. He probably did want to hit
her—only he didn't have the stomach to do it. She could see that, too.
With more clarity than she wished for, she finally understood the depth
of his pain. She felt it through every one of her senses because it
mirrored her own so closely. Everything inside her rejected the idea
of
living things being hurt.
Dallie had her son, but he knew he wouldn't be able to keep him for
long. He wanted to hit her, but it went against his nature, so he was
looking for another way to punish her, another way to make her suffer.
She felt a creeping chill. Dallie was smart, and if he thought long
enough he just might find his revenge. Before that happened, she had to
stop him. For both their sakes, and for Teddy's sake, she couldn't let
this go any further.
"I learned a long time ago that people who have lots of possessions
spend so much energy trying to protect what they have that they lose
sight of what's important in life." She stepped forward, not touching
him, just making certain she could look him directly in the eye. "I
have a successful career, Dallie—a seven-figure bank account, a
blue-chip portfolio. I've got a house and beautiful clothes. I have
four-carat diamond studs in my ears. But I never forget what's
important." Her hands went to her ears. She pulled the backs off the
studs and then slipped the diamonds from her earlobes. They nestled in
the center of
her palm, cool as chips of ice. She held them out to him.
For the first time he looked uncertain. "What are you doing? I don't
want those. I'm not holding him for ransom, for chrissake!"
"I know that." She rolled the diamonds in her palm,. letting them catch
the glare from the headlights.
"I'm not your Fancy Pants anymore,
Dallie. I just want to make certain you understand exactly what my
priorities are— how far I'll go to get him back. I want you to know
what you're up against." Her hand closed around the diamonds. "The most
important thing in my life is my son. As far as I'm concerned;
everything else is just spit."
And then while Dallie watched, Black Jack Day's daughter did it again.
With one strong movement of her arm, she threw her flawless four-carat
pear-shaped diamond studs far out into the darkest reaches of the
quarry.
Dallie didn't say anything for a moment. He lifted his foot and rested
his boot on the bumper of the car, staring out in the direction she had
thrown the stones and finally looking back at her. "You've changed,
Francie. You know that?"
She nodded.
"Teddy's not an ordinary boy."
The way he said it, she knew he wasn't issuing a compliment. "Teddy's
the best kid in the world," she answered sharply.
"He needs a father. A man's influence to get him toughened up. The
boy's too soft. The first thing you have to do is tell him about me."
She wanted to scream at him, tell him she would do no such thing, but
she saw with painful clarity that too many people knew the truth for
her to keep it a secret from her son any longer. She nodded reluctantly.
"You've got a lot of lost years to make up for," he said.
"I don't have anything to make up for."
"I'm not going to disappear from his life." Once again his face grew
hard. "We can either work something out ourselves, or I can hire one of
those bloodsucking lawyers to stick it to you."
"I won't have Teddy hurt."
"Then we'd better work it out ourselves." He took his foot off the
bumper, walked around to the driver's door, and climbed in. "Go on back
to the house. I'll bring him to you tomorrow."
"Tomorrow? I want him now! Tonight!"
"Well, now, that's too bad, isn't it?" he said with a sneer. And then
he slammed the car door.
"Dallie!" She ran toward him, but he was already heading out of the
quarry, his tires spitting gravel. She yelled after him until she
realized how futile that was, and then she raced to her own car.
The engine wouldn't start for her at first, and she was afraid she had
run the battery down by leaving her lights on. When it finally turned
over, Dallie had already disappeared. She raced the car up the steep
road after him, ignoring the way the rear end fishtailed. At the top,
she caught sight of two dim red taillights in the distance. Her tires
spun as she accelerated. If only it wasn't so dark! He turned out onto
the highway and she raced after him.
For several miles, she stayed with him, ignoring the squeal of her
tires as she accelerated around wild curves, pushing the car to
reckless speeds when the pavement straightened. He knew the narrow back
roads and she didn't, but she refused to fall back. He wasn't going to
do this to her! She knew she'd
hurt him, but that didn't give him the right to terrorize her. She
pushed the speedometer to sixty-five and then to seventy. . . .
If he hadn't finally turned off his lights, she might have had him.
she climbed wearily out of the car,
she found herself replaying bits
and pieces of the encounter in the quarry. Most men would be glad to
have been spared the burden of an unwanted child. Why couldn't she have
picked one of them?
"Uh .. . Miss Day?"
Francesca's heart sank as she heard the young female voice coming to
her from the vicinity of the pecan trees at the side of the drive. Not
tonight, she thought. Not now, when she felt as if she were already
carrying a thousand pounds on her shoulders. How did they always manage
to find her?
Even before she turned in the direction of the voice, she knew what she
would see—the desperately young face, tough and sad, the cheap clothes
undoubtedly topped by gaudy earrings. She even knew the story she would
hear. But tonight she wouldn't listen. Tonight she had too much trouble
clouding her own life to take on anyone else's.
A girl dressed in jeans and a dirty pink jacket stepped just to the
edge of a puddle of light that shone dimly on the drive from the
kitchen window. She wore too much makeup, and her center-parted hair
fell like a double door over her face.
"I ... uh ... I saw you earlier at the gas station. At first I didn't
believe it was you. I ... uh ... I heard from this girl I met a long
time ago that. . . you know . . . you might, uh . . ."
The runaways' grapevine. It had followed her from Dallas to St. Louis,
then on to Los Angeles and New York. Now it seemed her reputation as
the world's biggest sucker had even spread to small towns like Wynette.
Francesca willed herself to turn her back and walk away. She willed it,
but her feet wouldn't move.
"How did you find me?" she asked.
"I—uh—I asked around. Somebody said you were staying here."
"Tell me your name."
"Dora—Doralee." The girl lifted the cigarette that was shoved between
her fingers and took a drag.
"Would you step into the light so I can see you?"
Doralee did as she was asked, moving reluctantly, as if lifting her red
canvas high-top sneakers required superhuman effort. She couldn't be
more than fifteen, Francesca thought, although she would insist that
she was eighteen. Walking closer, she studied the girl's face. Her
pupils weren't dilated; her speech had been hesitant, but not slurred.
In New York, if she suspected that a girl was strung out on drugs, she
took her to an old brownstone in Brooklyn run by nuns who specialized
in helping addicted teenagers.
"How long since you've had anything decent to eat?" Francesca asked.
"I eat," the girl said defiantly.
Candy bars, Francesca guessed. And Styrofoam cupcakes stuffed with
chemical frosting. Sometimes the street kids pooled their money and
treated themselves to fast-food french fries. "Would you like to come
inside and talk?"
"I guess." The girl shrugged her shoulders and flipped her cigarette
down onto the drive.
As Francesca led her toward the kitchen door, she thought she could
hear Holly Grace's scornful voice mocking her: "You and your teenage
hookers! Let the government take care of these kids like it's supposed
to. I swear to God, you don't have the sense you were born with." But
Francesca knew the government didn't have enough shelters to take care
of all
these kids. They simply shipped them back
to their parents where, all
too frequently, the problems started all over again.
The first time Francesca had become involved with a runaway was in
Dallas after she'd done one of her early television shows. The subject
had been teenage prostitution, and Francesca had been horrified at the
power the pimps exerted over the girls, who were, after all, still
children. Without quite knowing how it had happened, she'd found
herself bringing two of them home and then badgering the social welfare
system until they found foster homes for them.
The word had slowly spread, and every few months since then she'd found
herself with a runaway on
her hands. First in Dallas, then in Los
Angeles, then in New York, she would leave work at night to find
someone standing outside the building, having heard through the
grapevine of the streets that Francesca Day helped girls who were in
trouble. Frequently they just wanted food, other times a place to hide
from their pimps. Seldom did they say much; they had suffered too many
rejections. They just slouched in front of her like this girl, smoking
a cigarette or biting their fingernails and hoping that Francesca Day
would somehow understand that she was their last hope.
"I have to call your family," Francesca announced as she warmed a plate
of leftovers in the microwave and then set it out, along with an apple
and a glass of milk.
"My mom don't give a shit what happens to me," Doralee said, her
shoulders slumped so far forward that the ends of her hair nearly
touched the table.
"I still have to call her," Francesca replied firmly. While Doralee
tucked into the leftovers on her plate, Francesca called the number in
New Mexico that the girl grudgingly gave her. It was just as she'd
said. Her mother didn't give a shit.
After Doralee had finished eating, she began to respond to Francesca's
questions. She had been hitchhiking when she saw Francesca pull into
the service station and ask for directions to the gravel quarry. She'd
lived on the streets of Houston for a while and spent some time in
Austin. Her pimp beat her up
because she wasn't turning enough tricks. She was starting to worry
about AIDS.
Francesca had heard it all so many times before—these poor, sad
children cast out too young into the world. An hour later, she tucked
the girl into the small hideaway bed in the sewing room and then gently
awakened Miss Sybil to tell her what had happened at the quarry.
Miss Sybil stayed up with her for several hours until Francesca
insisted she go back to bed. Francesca knew she could never fall asleep
herself, and she returned to the kitchen where she rinsed the dirty
dishes from Doralee's dinner and loaded them into the dishwasher. Then
she lined the kitchen drawers with
fresh shelf paper she found in the
cupboard. At two o'clock in the morning, she began to bake. Anything to
make the long hours of the night pass faster.
"What's that over there, Skeet?" Teddy jumped up and down in the back
seat and pointed out the side window of the car. "Over there! Those
animals by the hills!"
"I thought I told you to put your seat belt on," Dallie snapped from
behind the wheel. "Dammit, Teddy,
I don't want you jumping around like
that when I'm driving. You put that seat belt on right now or I'm going
to pull this car right off the road."
Skeet frowned at Dallie and then looked over his shoulder at Teddy, who
was scowling at the back of Dallie's neck in exactly the same way Skeet
had seen Dallie scowl at people he didn't like. "Those are angora
goats, Teddy. People around here raise 'em for mohair to make fancy
sweaters."
But Teddy had lost interest in the goats. He was scratching his neck
and toying with one end of the open seat belt.
"Did you fasten it?" Dallie snapped.
"Uh-huh." Teddy secured the belt as slowly as he dared.
"Yes, sir," Dallie reprimanded. "When you're talkin' to grown-ups, you
say 'sir' and 'ma'am.' Just because you live in the North doesn't mean
you can't have some manners. You understand?"
"Uh-huh."
Dallie spun around toward the back seat.
"Yes, sir," Teddy mumbled sullenly. And then he looked toward Skeet.
"How much longer till I get to
see my mom?"
"Not too long now," Skeet replied. "Why don't you dig in that cooler
there and see if you can find yourself a can of Dr Pepper?" As Teddy
busied himself with the cooler, Skeet reached for the radio and flipped
the sound to the rear speakers so he couldn't be overheard from the
back seat. Sliding a few inches closer to Dallie, he remarked, "You're
acting pretty much like a sumbitch, you know that?"
"Stay out of this," Dallie retorted. "I don't even know why I called
you and told you to meet me." He fell silent for a moment, and his
knuckles tightened on the wheel. "You see what she's done to him? He
goes around talking about his I.Q. scores and his allergies. And look
what happened at the motel when I tried to throw the football around
with him a little bit. He's the clumsiest kid I ever saw in my life. If
he can't handle something the size of a football, you can just imagine
what he'd do with a golf ball."
Skeet thought about that for a minute. "Sports isn't everything."
Dallie lowered his voice. "I know that. But the kid acts funny. You
can't tell what he's thinking behind those glasses, and he pulls his
pants up to his armpits. What kind of kid wears his pants high like
that?"
"He's probably afraid they'll fall down. His hips aren't much bigger
than your thigh."
"Yeah? Well, that's another thing. He's puny. You remember how big
Danny was, right from the beginning."
"Danny's mama was a lot taller than Teddy's."
Dallie's jaw set in a hard, straight line, and Skeet didn't say any
more.
In the back seat, Teddy closed one eye and peered down into the depths
of his Dr Pepper can with the other. He scratched the rash on his
stomach underneath his T-shirt. Although he couldn't hear what they
were saying in the front, he knew they were talking about him. And he
didn't care, either. Skeet was neat, but Dallie was a big jerk. A great
big butt-hole.
The depths of the Dr Pepper can clouded in his vision, and he felt like
he had a big green slimy frog caught in his throat. Yesterday he'd
finally stopped pretending to himself that
everything was all right, because he knew it wasn't. He didn't believe
his mom had told Dallie to take him away from New York like this, no
matter what Dallie said. He thought maybe Dallie had kidnapped him, and
he tried not to be scared. But he knew something was wrong, and he
wanted his mom.
The frog swelled up in his throat. It made him mad to be crying like
some jerky baby, so he glanced toward the front seat. When he was
satisfied that Dallie's attention was on his driving, his fingers crept
to his seat-belt buckle. Soundlessly, he slipped it open. No butt-hole
was going to tell Lasher the Great what to do.
Francesca dreamed about Teddy's science project. She was caught in a
glass cage with insects crawling
all over her, and someone was using a
giant pin, trying to spear the bugs to mount them. She was next. And
then she saw Teddy's face on the other side of the glass, calling out
to her. She tried to get to him,
to reach him. . . .
"Mom! Mom!"
She jerked awake. With her mind still foggy from sleep, she felt
something small and solid fly across the bed at her, tangling itself in
the covers and the sash from her robe. "Mom!"
For a few seconds, she was caught between her dream and reality, and
then she felt only a piercing sense of joy. "Teddy? Oh, Teddy!" She
caught his small body and pulled him to her, laughing and crying. "Oh,
baby ..." His hair felt chilly against her cheek, as if he'd just come
in from outside. She pulled him up in the bed and caught his face
between her hands, kissing him again and again. She rejoiced in the
familiar feeling of his small arms around her neck, his body pressed
against hers, that fine hair, his little-boy smell. She wanted to lick
his cheeks, just like a mother cat.
She was vaguely aware of Dallie leaning just inside the door of the
bedroom watching them, but she was too caught up in the exquisite joy
of having her son back to care. One of Teddy's hands was in her hair.
He'd buried his face in her neck, and she could feel him trembling.
"It's all right, baby," she
whispered, tears sliding down her own cheeks. "It's all right."
When she lifted her head, her eyes inadvertently- met Dallie's. He
looked so sad and so alone that, for a second, she had a crazy urge to
hold out her hand and beckon him to join the two of them on the bed. He
spun around to walk away, and she was disgusted with herself. But then
she forgot about Dallie as Teddy claimed all of her attention. It was
some time before either of them could calm down enough to talk. She
noticed that Teddy was covered with dull red blotches, and he kept
scratching himself with stubby fingernails. "You ate ketchup," she
scolded gently, reaching under his T-shirt to stroke his back. "Why
did
you eat ketchup, baby?"
"Mom," he murmured, "I want to go home."
She dropped her legs over the side of the bed, still holding on to his
hand. How was she going to tell Teddy about Dallie? Last night while
she'd been lining drawers and baking cakes, she had decided it would be
best to wait until they were back in New York and events had returned
to normal. But now, looking at his small, wary face, she knew
postponement wasn't possible.
As she'd raised Teddy, she had never permitted herself to utter those
convenient little lies most mothers told their children to buy
themselves peace. She hadn't even been able to manage the Santa Claus
story with any degree of conviction. But now she had been caught out in
the one lie she had told him, and it was a whopper.
"Teddy," she said, clasping both his hands between hers, "we've talked
a lot about how important it is
to tell the truth. Sometimes, though,
it's hard for a mother to always do that, especially when her child
is
too young to understand."
Without warning, Teddy snatched his hands away and jumped up from the
bed. "I have to go see Skeet," he said. "I told him I'd be right back
down. I have to go now."
"Teddy!" Francesca jumped up and caught his arm before he could reach
the door. "Teddy, I need to
talk to you."
"I don't want to," he mumbled.
He knows, Francesca thought. On some subliminal level, he knows I'm
going to tell him something he doesn't want to hear. She wrapped her
arms around his shoulders. "Teddy, it's about Dallie."
"I don't want to hear."
She held him tighter, whispering into his hair. "A long time ago,
Dallie and I knew each other, sweetheart. We—we loved each other." She
grimaced at this additional face-saving lie, but decided it was better
than confusing her son with details he wouldn't understand. "Things
didn't work out between us, honey, and we had to separate." She knelt
down in front of him so she could look into his face, her hands sliding
down his arms to catch his small wrists as he still tried to pull away
from her. "Teddy, what I told you about your father—about how I'd known
him in England, and he died—"
count because it was more a reflex action since you hit me first. But
I've got to tell you that ever since I found out what you did to me,
I've been thinking about getting hold of you and doing the job right."
She needed the full force of her will to speak calmly. "Let's go
someplace where we can sit down and have a cup of coffee so we can
discuss all this."
His mouth twisted into an ugly sneer. "Don't you think the time to be
sitting down and drinking coffee was ten years ago, after you found out
you were going to have my kid?"
"Dallie—"
He raised his voice. "Don't you think that might have been the time to
call me up on the telephone and say, 'Hey, Dallie, we've got a little
problem here I think we should maybe sit down and talk about'?"
She buried her fists in the pockets of her jacket and hunched her
shoulders against the chill, trying not to let him see how much he was
frightening her. Where was the man who had once been her lover—a man
quick to laugh, a man amused by human foibles, a man as slow and easy
as warm molasses? "I want to see Teddy, Dallie. What have you done with
him?"
"He looks just like my old man," Dallie declared angrily. "A pint-sized
replica of that old bastard Jaycee Beaudine. Jaycee beat up women, too.
He was real good at it."
So that's how he had known. She gestured toward her car, unwilling to
stay any longer in this dark
quarry and listen to him talk about
beating up women. "Dallie, let's go—"
"You didn't figure on Teddy looking like Jaycee, did you? You didn't
count on my recognizing him
when you planned this dirty little private
war."
"I didn't plan anything. And it's not a war. People do what they have
to. You remember what I was like back then. I couldn't go running back
to you and ever have a shot at growing up."
"It wasn't just your decision," he said, his eyes sparking with anger.
"And I don't want to hear any of that feminist horseshit about how I
don't have any rights because I'm a man and you're a woman, and it was
your body. It was my body, too. I'd damn well like to have seen you
have that boy without me."
She went on the attack. "What would you have done if I'd come to you
ten years ago and told you I was pregnant? You were married then,
remember?"
"Married or not, I'd have seen you were taken care of, that's for damn
sure."
"But that's the point! I didn't want you to take care of me. I didn't
have anything, Dallie. I was a silly little girl who thought the world
had been invented to be her personal toy. I had to learn how to work. I
had
to scrub toilets and live on scavenged food and lose whatever pride
I had left before I could gain any self-respect. I couldn't give that
up and go running
back to you for a handout. Having that baby by
myself was something I
had to do. It was the only way I could redeem myself." The closed,
settled expression on his face didn't ease, and she was angry with
herself for trying to make him understand.
"I want Teddy back tonight,
Dallie, or I'm going to the police."
"If you were going to the police, you'd have done it by now."
"The only reason I've waited is because I didn't want the publicity for
him. Believe me, I won't put it off any longer." She stepped closer to
him, determined to let him see that she wasn't powerless. "Don't
underestimate me, Dallie. Don't get me mixed up in your mind with the
girt you knew ten years ago."
Dallie didn't say anything for a moment. He turned his head and stared
off into the night. "The other woman I hit was Holly Grace."
"Dallie, I don't want to hear—"
His hand whipped out and caught her arm. "You're going to listen,
because I want you to understand exactly what kind of a son of a bitch
you're dealing with. I slapped the shit out of Holly Grace after Danny
died—that's the kind of man I am. And you know why?"
"Don't—" She tried to pull away, but he only gripped her tighter.
"Because she cried! That's why I slapped her. I slapped that woman
because she cried after her baby died." Harsh shadows cast by the
headlights slashed his face. He dropped her arm, but his expression
remained fierce. "Does that give you any idea what I might do to you?"
He was bluffing. She knew it. She felt it. In some way, he had cut
himself open so she could see inside him. She had hurt him badly and he
had made up his mind to punish her. He probably did want to hit
her—only he didn't have the stomach to do it. She could see that, too.
With more clarity than she wished for, she finally understood the depth
of his pain. She felt it through every one of her senses because it
mirrored her own so closely. Everything inside her rejected the idea
of
living things being hurt.
Dallie had her son, but he knew he wouldn't be able to keep him for
long. He wanted to hit her, but it went against his nature, so he was
looking for another way to punish her, another way to make her suffer.
She felt a creeping chill. Dallie was smart, and if he thought long
enough he just might find his revenge. Before that happened, she had to
stop him. For both their sakes, and for Teddy's sake, she couldn't let
this go any further.
"I learned a long time ago that people who have lots of possessions
spend so much energy trying to protect what they have that they lose
sight of what's important in life." She stepped forward, not touching
him, just making certain she could look him directly in the eye. "I
have a successful career, Dallie—a seven-figure bank account, a
blue-chip portfolio. I've got a house and beautiful clothes. I have
four-carat diamond studs in my ears. But I never forget what's
important." Her hands went to her ears. She pulled the backs off the
studs and then slipped the diamonds from her earlobes. They nestled in
the center of
her palm, cool as chips of ice. She held them out to him.
For the first time he looked uncertain. "What are you doing? I don't
want those. I'm not holding him for ransom, for chrissake!"
"I know that." She rolled the diamonds in her palm,. letting them catch
the glare from the headlights.
"I'm not your Fancy Pants anymore,
Dallie. I just want to make certain you understand exactly what my
priorities are— how far I'll go to get him back. I want you to know
what you're up against." Her hand closed around the diamonds. "The most
important thing in my life is my son. As far as I'm concerned;
everything else is just spit."
And then while Dallie watched, Black Jack Day's daughter did it again.
With one strong movement of her arm, she threw her flawless four-carat
pear-shaped diamond studs far out into the darkest reaches of the
quarry.
Dallie didn't say anything for a moment. He lifted his foot and rested
his boot on the bumper of the car, staring out in the direction she had
thrown the stones and finally looking back at her. "You've changed,
Francie. You know that?"
She nodded.
"Teddy's not an ordinary boy."
The way he said it, she knew he wasn't issuing a compliment. "Teddy's
the best kid in the world," she answered sharply.
"He needs a father. A man's influence to get him toughened up. The
boy's too soft. The first thing you have to do is tell him about me."
She wanted to scream at him, tell him she would do no such thing, but
she saw with painful clarity that too many people knew the truth for
her to keep it a secret from her son any longer. She nodded reluctantly.
"You've got a lot of lost years to make up for," he said.
"I don't have anything to make up for."
"I'm not going to disappear from his life." Once again his face grew
hard. "We can either work something out ourselves, or I can hire one of
those bloodsucking lawyers to stick it to you."
"I won't have Teddy hurt."
"Then we'd better work it out ourselves." He took his foot off the
bumper, walked around to the driver's door, and climbed in. "Go on back
to the house. I'll bring him to you tomorrow."
"Tomorrow? I want him now! Tonight!"
"Well, now, that's too bad, isn't it?" he said with a sneer. And then
he slammed the car door.
"Dallie!" She ran toward him, but he was already heading out of the
quarry, his tires spitting gravel. She yelled after him until she
realized how futile that was, and then she raced to her own car.
The engine wouldn't start for her at first, and she was afraid she had
run the battery down by leaving her lights on. When it finally turned
over, Dallie had already disappeared. She raced the car up the steep
road after him, ignoring the way the rear end fishtailed. At the top,
she caught sight of two dim red taillights in the distance. Her tires
spun as she accelerated. If only it wasn't so dark! He turned out onto
the highway and she raced after him.
For several miles, she stayed with him, ignoring the squeal of her
tires as she accelerated around wild curves, pushing the car to
reckless speeds when the pavement straightened. He knew the narrow back
roads and she didn't, but she refused to fall back. He wasn't going to
do this to her! She knew she'd
hurt him, but that didn't give him the right to terrorize her. She
pushed the speedometer to sixty-five and then to seventy. . . .
If he hadn't finally turned off his lights, she might have had him.
Chapter 26
Francesca felt numb by the time she returned to Dallie's house. Asshe climbed wearily out of the car,
she found herself replaying bits
and pieces of the encounter in the quarry. Most men would be glad to
have been spared the burden of an unwanted child. Why couldn't she have
picked one of them?
"Uh .. . Miss Day?"
Francesca's heart sank as she heard the young female voice coming to
her from the vicinity of the pecan trees at the side of the drive. Not
tonight, she thought. Not now, when she felt as if she were already
carrying a thousand pounds on her shoulders. How did they always manage
to find her?
Even before she turned in the direction of the voice, she knew what she
would see—the desperately young face, tough and sad, the cheap clothes
undoubtedly topped by gaudy earrings. She even knew the story she would
hear. But tonight she wouldn't listen. Tonight she had too much trouble
clouding her own life to take on anyone else's.
A girl dressed in jeans and a dirty pink jacket stepped just to the
edge of a puddle of light that shone dimly on the drive from the
kitchen window. She wore too much makeup, and her center-parted hair
fell like a double door over her face.
"I ... uh ... I saw you earlier at the gas station. At first I didn't
believe it was you. I ... uh ... I heard from this girl I met a long
time ago that. . . you know . . . you might, uh . . ."
The runaways' grapevine. It had followed her from Dallas to St. Louis,
then on to Los Angeles and New York. Now it seemed her reputation as
the world's biggest sucker had even spread to small towns like Wynette.
Francesca willed herself to turn her back and walk away. She willed it,
but her feet wouldn't move.
"How did you find me?" she asked.
"I—uh—I asked around. Somebody said you were staying here."
"Tell me your name."
"Dora—Doralee." The girl lifted the cigarette that was shoved between
her fingers and took a drag.
"Would you step into the light so I can see you?"
Doralee did as she was asked, moving reluctantly, as if lifting her red
canvas high-top sneakers required superhuman effort. She couldn't be
more than fifteen, Francesca thought, although she would insist that
she was eighteen. Walking closer, she studied the girl's face. Her
pupils weren't dilated; her speech had been hesitant, but not slurred.
In New York, if she suspected that a girl was strung out on drugs, she
took her to an old brownstone in Brooklyn run by nuns who specialized
in helping addicted teenagers.
"How long since you've had anything decent to eat?" Francesca asked.
"I eat," the girl said defiantly.
Candy bars, Francesca guessed. And Styrofoam cupcakes stuffed with
chemical frosting. Sometimes the street kids pooled their money and
treated themselves to fast-food french fries. "Would you like to come
inside and talk?"
"I guess." The girl shrugged her shoulders and flipped her cigarette
down onto the drive.
As Francesca led her toward the kitchen door, she thought she could
hear Holly Grace's scornful voice mocking her: "You and your teenage
hookers! Let the government take care of these kids like it's supposed
to. I swear to God, you don't have the sense you were born with." But
Francesca knew the government didn't have enough shelters to take care
of all
these kids. They simply shipped them back
to their parents where, all
too frequently, the problems started all over again.
The first time Francesca had become involved with a runaway was in
Dallas after she'd done one of her early television shows. The subject
had been teenage prostitution, and Francesca had been horrified at the
power the pimps exerted over the girls, who were, after all, still
children. Without quite knowing how it had happened, she'd found
herself bringing two of them home and then badgering the social welfare
system until they found foster homes for them.
The word had slowly spread, and every few months since then she'd found
herself with a runaway on
her hands. First in Dallas, then in Los
Angeles, then in New York, she would leave work at night to find
someone standing outside the building, having heard through the
grapevine of the streets that Francesca Day helped girls who were in
trouble. Frequently they just wanted food, other times a place to hide
from their pimps. Seldom did they say much; they had suffered too many
rejections. They just slouched in front of her like this girl, smoking
a cigarette or biting their fingernails and hoping that Francesca Day
would somehow understand that she was their last hope.
"I have to call your family," Francesca announced as she warmed a plate
of leftovers in the microwave and then set it out, along with an apple
and a glass of milk.
"My mom don't give a shit what happens to me," Doralee said, her
shoulders slumped so far forward that the ends of her hair nearly
touched the table.
"I still have to call her," Francesca replied firmly. While Doralee
tucked into the leftovers on her plate, Francesca called the number in
New Mexico that the girl grudgingly gave her. It was just as she'd
said. Her mother didn't give a shit.
After Doralee had finished eating, she began to respond to Francesca's
questions. She had been hitchhiking when she saw Francesca pull into
the service station and ask for directions to the gravel quarry. She'd
lived on the streets of Houston for a while and spent some time in
Austin. Her pimp beat her up
because she wasn't turning enough tricks. She was starting to worry
about AIDS.
Francesca had heard it all so many times before—these poor, sad
children cast out too young into the world. An hour later, she tucked
the girl into the small hideaway bed in the sewing room and then gently
awakened Miss Sybil to tell her what had happened at the quarry.
Miss Sybil stayed up with her for several hours until Francesca
insisted she go back to bed. Francesca knew she could never fall asleep
herself, and she returned to the kitchen where she rinsed the dirty
dishes from Doralee's dinner and loaded them into the dishwasher. Then
she lined the kitchen drawers with
fresh shelf paper she found in the
cupboard. At two o'clock in the morning, she began to bake. Anything to
make the long hours of the night pass faster.
"What's that over there, Skeet?" Teddy jumped up and down in the back
seat and pointed out the side window of the car. "Over there! Those
animals by the hills!"
"I thought I told you to put your seat belt on," Dallie snapped from
behind the wheel. "Dammit, Teddy,
I don't want you jumping around like
that when I'm driving. You put that seat belt on right now or I'm going
to pull this car right off the road."
Skeet frowned at Dallie and then looked over his shoulder at Teddy, who
was scowling at the back of Dallie's neck in exactly the same way Skeet
had seen Dallie scowl at people he didn't like. "Those are angora
goats, Teddy. People around here raise 'em for mohair to make fancy
sweaters."
But Teddy had lost interest in the goats. He was scratching his neck
and toying with one end of the open seat belt.
"Did you fasten it?" Dallie snapped.
"Uh-huh." Teddy secured the belt as slowly as he dared.
"Yes, sir," Dallie reprimanded. "When you're talkin' to grown-ups, you
say 'sir' and 'ma'am.' Just because you live in the North doesn't mean
you can't have some manners. You understand?"
"Uh-huh."
Dallie spun around toward the back seat.
"Yes, sir," Teddy mumbled sullenly. And then he looked toward Skeet.
"How much longer till I get to
see my mom?"
"Not too long now," Skeet replied. "Why don't you dig in that cooler
there and see if you can find yourself a can of Dr Pepper?" As Teddy
busied himself with the cooler, Skeet reached for the radio and flipped
the sound to the rear speakers so he couldn't be overheard from the
back seat. Sliding a few inches closer to Dallie, he remarked, "You're
acting pretty much like a sumbitch, you know that?"
"Stay out of this," Dallie retorted. "I don't even know why I called
you and told you to meet me." He fell silent for a moment, and his
knuckles tightened on the wheel. "You see what she's done to him? He
goes around talking about his I.Q. scores and his allergies. And look
what happened at the motel when I tried to throw the football around
with him a little bit. He's the clumsiest kid I ever saw in my life. If
he can't handle something the size of a football, you can just imagine
what he'd do with a golf ball."
Skeet thought about that for a minute. "Sports isn't everything."
Dallie lowered his voice. "I know that. But the kid acts funny. You
can't tell what he's thinking behind those glasses, and he pulls his
pants up to his armpits. What kind of kid wears his pants high like
that?"
"He's probably afraid they'll fall down. His hips aren't much bigger
than your thigh."
"Yeah? Well, that's another thing. He's puny. You remember how big
Danny was, right from the beginning."
"Danny's mama was a lot taller than Teddy's."
Dallie's jaw set in a hard, straight line, and Skeet didn't say any
more.
In the back seat, Teddy closed one eye and peered down into the depths
of his Dr Pepper can with the other. He scratched the rash on his
stomach underneath his T-shirt. Although he couldn't hear what they
were saying in the front, he knew they were talking about him. And he
didn't care, either. Skeet was neat, but Dallie was a big jerk. A great
big butt-hole.
The depths of the Dr Pepper can clouded in his vision, and he felt like
he had a big green slimy frog caught in his throat. Yesterday he'd
finally stopped pretending to himself that
everything was all right, because he knew it wasn't. He didn't believe
his mom had told Dallie to take him away from New York like this, no
matter what Dallie said. He thought maybe Dallie had kidnapped him, and
he tried not to be scared. But he knew something was wrong, and he
wanted his mom.
The frog swelled up in his throat. It made him mad to be crying like
some jerky baby, so he glanced toward the front seat. When he was
satisfied that Dallie's attention was on his driving, his fingers crept
to his seat-belt buckle. Soundlessly, he slipped it open. No butt-hole
was going to tell Lasher the Great what to do.
Francesca dreamed about Teddy's science project. She was caught in a
glass cage with insects crawling
all over her, and someone was using a
giant pin, trying to spear the bugs to mount them. She was next. And
then she saw Teddy's face on the other side of the glass, calling out
to her. She tried to get to him,
to reach him. . . .
"Mom! Mom!"
She jerked awake. With her mind still foggy from sleep, she felt
something small and solid fly across the bed at her, tangling itself in
the covers and the sash from her robe. "Mom!"
For a few seconds, she was caught between her dream and reality, and
then she felt only a piercing sense of joy. "Teddy? Oh, Teddy!" She
caught his small body and pulled him to her, laughing and crying. "Oh,
baby ..." His hair felt chilly against her cheek, as if he'd just come
in from outside. She pulled him up in the bed and caught his face
between her hands, kissing him again and again. She rejoiced in the
familiar feeling of his small arms around her neck, his body pressed
against hers, that fine hair, his little-boy smell. She wanted to lick
his cheeks, just like a mother cat.
She was vaguely aware of Dallie leaning just inside the door of the
bedroom watching them, but she was too caught up in the exquisite joy
of having her son back to care. One of Teddy's hands was in her hair.
He'd buried his face in her neck, and she could feel him trembling.
"It's all right, baby," she
whispered, tears sliding down her own cheeks. "It's all right."
When she lifted her head, her eyes inadvertently- met Dallie's. He
looked so sad and so alone that, for a second, she had a crazy urge to
hold out her hand and beckon him to join the two of them on the bed. He
spun around to walk away, and she was disgusted with herself. But then
she forgot about Dallie as Teddy claimed all of her attention. It was
some time before either of them could calm down enough to talk. She
noticed that Teddy was covered with dull red blotches, and he kept
scratching himself with stubby fingernails. "You ate ketchup," she
scolded gently, reaching under his T-shirt to stroke his back. "Why
did
you eat ketchup, baby?"
"Mom," he murmured, "I want to go home."
She dropped her legs over the side of the bed, still holding on to his
hand. How was she going to tell Teddy about Dallie? Last night while
she'd been lining drawers and baking cakes, she had decided it would be
best to wait until they were back in New York and events had returned
to normal. But now, looking at his small, wary face, she knew
postponement wasn't possible.
As she'd raised Teddy, she had never permitted herself to utter those
convenient little lies most mothers told their children to buy
themselves peace. She hadn't even been able to manage the Santa Claus
story with any degree of conviction. But now she had been caught out in
the one lie she had told him, and it was a whopper.
"Teddy," she said, clasping both his hands between hers, "we've talked
a lot about how important it is
to tell the truth. Sometimes, though,
it's hard for a mother to always do that, especially when her child
is
too young to understand."
Without warning, Teddy snatched his hands away and jumped up from the
bed. "I have to go see Skeet," he said. "I told him I'd be right back
down. I have to go now."
"Teddy!" Francesca jumped up and caught his arm before he could reach
the door. "Teddy, I need to
talk to you."
"I don't want to," he mumbled.
He knows, Francesca thought. On some subliminal level, he knows I'm
going to tell him something he doesn't want to hear. She wrapped her
arms around his shoulders. "Teddy, it's about Dallie."
"I don't want to hear."
She held him tighter, whispering into his hair. "A long time ago,
Dallie and I knew each other, sweetheart. We—we loved each other." She
grimaced at this additional face-saving lie, but decided it was better
than confusing her son with details he wouldn't understand. "Things
didn't work out between us, honey, and we had to separate." She knelt
down in front of him so she could look into his face, her hands sliding
down his arms to catch his small wrists as he still tried to pull away
from her. "Teddy, what I told you about your father—about how I'd known
him in England, and he died—"
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