Fancy Pants (51 page)
"Oh, Gerry . . ." She stood looking at him with her heart in her eyes,
and the love he felt for her swelled in his chest until he ached. The
security people didn't want to look like bad guys in front of the
press, so they let him lift his cuffed wrists and slip his arms over
her head. He kissed her so intently that he forgot to make sure they
were turned to face the network television cameras.
Luckily, Gerry had a partner who wasn't as easily distracted by females.
Far overhead, from a small window in the crown of the Statue of
Liberty, another banner began to unfurl, this one a bright canary
yellow. It was made from a synthetic material that had been developed
for the space program—a material that was lightweight and could be
compacted for portability into a package not much bigger than a wallet,
and then would generously expand once it was released. The canary
yellow banner slipped down over Lady Liberty's forehead, unrolled along
the length of her nose, and gradually opened as it came to a stop at
the base of her chin. Its message was clearly legible from the ground,
simply printed in seven thick black letters.
NO NUKES
Francesca saw it first. And then Dallie. Gerry, who had reluctantly
ended his embrace with Holly Grace, smiled when he spotted it and gave
her a quick kiss on the nose. Then he lifted his handcuffed wrists to
the sky, tilted back his head, and balled his hands into fists. "Way to
go, Teddy!" he cried.
Teddy!
Francesca and Dallie looked at each other in alarm and then began
running across the lawn toward the entrance to the statue.
Holly Grace shook her head at Gerry, not sure whether she should laugh
or cry, knowing only that she had an interesting life ahead of her.
"It was too good an opportunity to pass up," he began to explain. "All
these cameras—"
"Be quiet, Gerry, and tell me how I go about getting you out of jail."
It was a skill that Holly Grace suspected she would be making good use
of in the years to come.
"I love you, babe," he said.
"I love you, too," she replied.
Political actions weren't unknown at the Statue of Liberty. In the
sixties, Cuban exiles chained themselves to Liberty's feet; in the
seventies, anti-war veterans hung an upside-down flag from the crown;
and in the eighties, two mountain climbers scaled the surface of the
statue to protest the continued imprisonment of one of the Black
Panthers. Political actions weren't unknown, but none of them had ever
involved a kid.
Teddy sat by himself in the hallway outside the statue's security
office. From behind the closed door, he could hear his mom's voice and
occasionally Dallie's. One of the park rangers had brought him a can of
7-Up, but he couldn't drink it.
The week before, when Gerry had taken Teddy over to Naomi's to see her
new baby, Teddy overheard Gerry and Naomi arguing, and that was how he
learned about Gerry's plan to parachute onto the island. When Gerry had
taken him home, Teddy questioned him. He felt like a hotshot when Gerry
finally confided in him, even though he thought it might have been just
because Gerry was feeling sad about losing Holly Grace.
They had talked about the No Nukes banner, and Teddy begged Gerry to
let him help, but Gerry said he was too young. Teddy hadn't given up.
For two months he had been trying to think of a social studies project
spectacular enough to impress Miss Pearson, and he realized this was
it. When he tried to explain that, Gerry had given him a long lecture
about how political dissent shouldn't be undertaken for selfish
reasons. Teddy had listened closely and pretended to agree, but he
really wanted an A on his social studies project. Dorky old Milton
Grossman had only visited Mayor Koch's office, and Miss Pearson had
given him an A.
It defied Teddy's imagination to think what she might do to a kid who
helped disarm the world!
Now that he had to face the consequences, however, Teddy knew that
breaking the window in the crown had been stupid. But what else could
he have done? Gerry had explained to him that the windows in the crown
opened with a special key some of the maintenance people carried. One
of those people was a friend of Gerry's, and this guy had promised to
slip up into the crown as soon as the President's security people left
and unlock the middle window. But when Teddy got to the crown, all
sweaty and out of breath from having climbed the stairs as fast as he
could to get there ahead of everybody else, something had gone wrong
because the window was still locked.
Gerry had told Teddy that if there was a problem with the window he was
supposed to climb right back down and forget about the No Nukes banner,
but Teddy had too much at stake. Quickly, before he had time to think
about what he was doing, he had snatched the metal lid from a trash can
and banged it against the small center window a few times. After four
tries, he finally broke the glass. It had probably only been an echo in
the crown, but when the glass broke, he thought he could hear the
statue cry out.
The office door opened and the man who was in charge of security came
out. He didn't even look at Teddy; he just went right on down the
corridor without saying anything. Then his mom was standing in the
doorway, and Teddy could see she was really mad. His mom didn't get mad
too often, unless she was really scared about something, but when it
did happen, he got a sick feeling in his stomach. He swallowed hard and
slid his eyes down, because he was scared to look her in the face.
"Come in here, young man," she said, sounding like she'd just eaten
icicles. "Now!"
His stomach did a somersault. He was really in trouble. He'd expected
to get into a little trouble, but not this much. He'd never heard his
mom sound so mad. His stomach seemed to be turning upside down,
and he
thought he might have to throw up. He tried to stall for time by
dragging his good shoes as he walked toward the door, but his mom
caught his arm and pulled him into the office. The door shut hard
behind him.
None of the statue people were there. Just Teddy, his mom, and Dallie.
Dallie was standing over by the window with his arms crossed over his
chest. Because of the sunlight, Teddy couldn't see his face too well
and he was glad about that. On top of the Empire State Building, Dallie
had said he loved Teddy and Teddy had wanted to believe it so bad,
except he was afraid that Dallie had said it just because his mom had
made him.
"Teddy, I'm so ashamed of you," his mother began. "What in the world
made you get involved in something like this? You vandalized the
statue. How could you do that?" His mom's voice was quivering a little
bit, like she was really, really upset, and her accent had gotten
thicker than normal. He wished he wasn't too big to be spanked, because
he knew a spanking wouldn't hurt as much as this did. "It's a miracle
they're not going to press charges against you. I've always trusted
you, Teddy, but it will be a
long time before I'll be able to trust you
again. What you did was illegal... ."
The more she talked, the lower Teddy's head dropped. He didn't know
which was worse—hurting the statue or upsetting his mom so much. He
could feel his throat start to close up and he realized he was going to
cry. Right there in front of Dallie Beaudine, he was going to cry like
a jerk. He kept his eyes glued to the floor and felt like somebody was
shoving rocks into his chest. He took a deep, shaky breath. He couldn't
cry in front of Dallie. He'd stab himself in the eyes before he'd do
that.
A tear dropped and made a big splat on the top of one of his good
shoes. He slid the other shoe over it so Dallie wouldn't see. His mom
kept talking about how she couldn't trust him anymore, how disappointed
she was, and another tear splatted on his other shoe. His stomach hurt,
his throat was closing up on him, and he just wanted to sit down on the
floor and hug one of his old teddy bears and cry real hard.
"That's enough, Francie." Dallie's voice wasn't very loud, but it was
serious, and his mom stopped talking. Teddy took a swipe at his nose
with his sleeve. "You go on outside for a minute, honey," Dallie said
to her.
"No, Dallie, I—"
"Go on, now, honey. We'll be out in a minute."
Don't go! Teddy wanted to scream. Don't leave me alone with him. But it
was too late. After a few seconds, his mother's feet began to move and
then he heard the door shut. Another tear dropped off his chin and he
made a soft little hiccup as he tried to breathe.
Dallie came over next to him. Through his tears, Teddy could see the
cuffs on Dallie's trousers. And then Teddy felt an arm slip around his
shoulders and pull him close.
"You go ahead and cry all you want, son," Dallie said softly. "It's
sometimes hard to cry real good with a woman around, and you've had a
rough day."
Something hard and painful that Teddy had been holding rigidly inside
him far too long seemed to break apart.
Dallie knelt down and pulled Teddy against him. Teddy wrapped his arms
around Dallie's neck and held on to him as tight as he could and cried
so hard he couldn't catch his breath. Dallie rubbed Teddy's back
underneath his shirt and called him son and told him that sooner or
later everything would be all right.
"I didn't mean to hurt the statue." Teddy sobbed into Dallie's neck. "I
love the statue. Mom said she wouldn't ever trust me again."
"Women aren't always reliable when they're as upset as your mom is
right now.'v
"I love my mom." Teddy hiccuped again. "I didn't mean to get her so
mad."
"I know that, son."
"It makes me feel scared inside to have her so mad at me."
"I'll bet it makes her feel scared inside, too."
Teddy finally got the nerve to look up. Dallie's face seemed all blurry
through his tears. "She'll take away my allowance for a million years."
Dallie nodded. "You're probably right about that." And then Dallie
cupped Teddy's head, pulled it against his chest, and kissed Teddy
right next to his ear.
Teddy held on, not saying anything for a few seconds, just accustoming
himself to the feel of a scratchy cheek against his own instead of a
smooth one. "Dallie?"
"Uh-huh."
Teddy buried his mouth in Dallie's shirt collar so the words came out
muffled. "I think—I think you're
my real dad, aren't
you?"
Dallie was quiet for a moment, and when he finally spoke he sounded
like his throat was closing up, too. "You bet I am, son. You bet I am."
Later, Dallie and Teddy went out into the hallway to face his mom
together. Except this time, when she saw the way Teddy was holding on
to Dallie, she was the one who started to cry, and before he knew it,
his mom was hugging him and Dallie was hugging her, and the three of
them were standing right there in the middle of the hallway at the
Statue of Liberty security office hugging each other and crying like a
dumb old bunch of babies.
brim of his cap tilted over his eyes to block the morning sun, while
Miss Fancy Pants passed two semis and a Greyhound bus in less time than
it took most people to say amen. Damn, he liked the waj she drove a
car. A man could relax with a woman like her behind the wheel because
he knew he had half a chance at arriving at his destination before his
arteries hardened from old age.
"Are you going to tell me yet where you're taking me?" he asked. When
she'd shanghaied him away from his morning coffee, he hadn't protested
too much because three months of married life had taught him that it
was more fuo to go along with his pretty little wife than to spend half
his time arguing with her.
"Out by that old landfill," she replied. "If I can find the road."
"The landfill? That place has been closed for the last three years.
There's nothing out there."
Francesca made a sharp right turn onto an old asphalt road. "That's
what Miss Sybil said."
"Miss Sybil? What's she got to do with all this?"
"She's a woman," Francesca replied mysteriously. "And she understands a
woman's needs."
Dallie decided the best course of action in a situation like this was
not to ask any more questions, just to let events take their natural
course. He grinned and tilted the brim of his cap down a little
farther. Who would have ever thought that being married to Miss Fancy
Pants would turn out to be so much fun?
Their life was working out even
better than he'd expected. Francie had hauled him over to the French
Riviera for a honeymoon that had been just about the greatest time of
his life, and then they'd come to Wynette for the summer. During the
school year, they had decided to make New York City their base because
it was the best place for Teddy and Francie. Since Dallie would be
playing in the bigger tournaments this fall, he could hang his clothes
just about anywhere. And whenever they got bored, they could go stay in
one of those houses that he owned scattered all around the country.
"We have to be back in Wynette in exactly forty-five minutes," she
said. "You have an interview with
that reporter from Sports
Illustrated, and I have a conference call scheduled with Nathan and my
production people."
She didn't look old enough to know anything about conference calls, let
alone to have production people. Her hair was pulled into a cute
ponytail that made her seem like she was about fourteen, and she had on
this stretchy white top with a little denim skirt he'd bought for her
because he knew it wouldn't do much more than cover her backside.
"I thought we were going to the driving range," he said. "No offense,
Francie, but your golf swing could use some work." Which was a polite
way of putting it. She had the worst golf swing he had ever seen on any
person, male or female, but he enjoyed messing around with her so much
at the range that he acted like she was improving.
"I don't see how my swing is ever going to get better if you keep
telling me so many different things to do," she grumbled. "Keep your
head down, Francie. Pull with your left side, Francie. Lead with your
knees, Francie. Honestly, no one in her right mind could remember all
of that. It's no wonder you can't teach Teddy to hit a baseball. You
make everything so
complicated."
"Now, don't you worry about that boy playing baseball. You should know
by now that sports isn't everything, especially when my son has more
brain power in that head of his than all of Wynette's Little Leaguers
put together." As far as Dallie was concerned, Teddy was the best boy
in the world, and he wouldn't trade him for all the jock kids in
America.
"Speaking of the driving range," she began. "With the PGA Championship
coming up—"
"Uh-oh."
"Sweetheart, I'm not saying that you had a problem with your long irons
last week. Gracious, you won the tournament, so it couldn't have been
much of a problem. Still, I thought you might want to spend a few hours
at the range after your interview to see if you can't improve them just
a little bit." She glanced over, giving him one of those soft, innocent
looks that didn't fool him one bit. "I certainly don't expect you to
win the PGA," she went on. "You've already won two titles this summer,
and you don't have to win every tournament, but. . ." Her voice faded,
as if she realized she'd already said enough. More than enough. One
thing that he had discovered about Francie was that she was just about
insatiable when it came to golf titles.
She swung the New Yorker off the narrow asphalt road and onto a dirt
lane that probably hadn't been used by anybody since the Apaches. The
old Wynette landfill was about a half-mile in the opposite direction,
but he didn't mention that. Half the fun of being with Francie was
watching her improvise.
She caught her bottom lip between her teeth and frowned. "The landfill
should be around here
someplace, although I don't actually suppose it
matters."
He crossed his arms over his chest and pretended he was falling asleep.
She giggled. "I couldn't believe Holly Grace showed up at the
Roustabout last night in a maternity dress—she's barely three months
pregnant. And Gerry has absolutely no idea how to behave in a
honky-tonk. He spent the entire evening drinking white wine and talking
to Skeet about the wonders of natural
childbirth." Francesca turned onto an even bumpier road. "I'm also not
absolutely certain Holly Grace did the right thing by bringing Gerry to
Wynette. She wanted him to get to know her parents
better, but poor
Winona is absolutely terrified of him."
Francesca looked over at Dallie and saw that he was pretending to
sleep. She smiled to herself. It was probably just as well. Dallie
still wasn't absolutely rational on the subject of Gerry Jaffe. Of
course, she hadn't been all that rational herself for a while. Gerry
should never have involved Teddy in his scheme, no matter how much her
son had begged to be part of it. Since the incident at the Statue of
Liberty, she, Dallie, and Holly Grace had made certain that Teddy and
Gerry were never left alone together for more than five minutes.
She gently pressed the brake and steered the New Yorker onto a rutted
path that ended in a clump of straggly cedars. Satisfied that the area
was completely deserted, she pushed the buttons that lowered the front
windows and turned off the ignition. The morning air that blew in was
warm and pleasantly dusty.
Dallie still pretended to be asleep, his arms folded over his faded
gray T-shirt and one of a series of caps sporting an American flag
pulled low over his eyes. She postponed the moment when she would
actually touch him, enjoying the anticipation. For all the laughter and
teasing that went on between them, she and Dallie had found a serenity
together, a sense of perfect homecoming that could only happen after
having known the darkest side of another person and then having walked
together out into the sunshine.
Reaching over, she pulled off his cap and dropped it into the back
seat. Then she kissed his closed eyelids, working her fingers into his
hair. "Wake up, sweetheart, you have some work to do."
He nibbled at her bottom lip. "Do you have anything specific in mind?"
"Uh-huh."
He reached beneath her stretchy white top and traced the small bumps of
her spine with his fingertips. "Francie, we have a
perfectly good bed back in Wynette and another one twenty-five miles to
the west
of here."
"The second one is too far away and the first one is too crowded."
He chuckled. Teddy had banged on their bedroom door early that morning
and then climbed into bed
with them to ask their opinion about whether
he should be a detective or a scientist when he grew up.
"Married people aren't supposed to have to make love in a car," he
said, closing his eyes again as she settled into his lap and began
kissing his ear.
"Most married people don't have a meeting of the Friends of Wynette
Public Library going on in one room and an army of teenage girls camped
out in the other," she replied.
"You've got a point there." He lifted her skirt a little so that she
could straddle his legs with her thighs. Then he began to caress one of
those thighs, gradually working upward. His eyes shot open.
"Francie Day Beaudine, you don't have any underpants on."
"Don't I?" she murmured in that bored-little-rich-girl voice of hers.
"How naughty of me."
She was rubbing her breasts against him, kissing his ear, deliberately
driving him crazy. He decided it was long past time he showed Miss
Fancy Pants who was the boss of the family. Pushing open the car door,
he climbed out, taking her with him.
"Dallie . . ." she protested.
He wrapped his arm around her waist and hoisted her up off the ground.
As he carried her toward the trunk of his New Yorker, she delighted him
by starting to struggle, although he did think she could have put a
little more effort into it if she'd concentrated harder.
"I'm not the kind of woman you make love to on the back of a car," she
said in a voice so haughty she sounded like the queen of England.
Except Dallie didn't imagine the queen of England would be moving her
hand up and down the front of his jeans in quite the same way.
"You can't fool me with that accent of yours, ma'am," he drawled. "I
know exactly how you red-blooded American girls like to make love."
As she opened her mouth to reply, he took advantage of her parted lips
to give her the kind of kiss that guaranteed him a few minutes of
silence. Eventually she began to work at the zipper on the front of his
jeans, which didn't take her long at all—Francie was magic with
anything that had to do with clothes.
Their lovemaking started out raunchy, with a little bit of dirty talk
and a lot of shifting around, but then everything turned tender and
sweet, exactly like their feelings for each other. Before long, they
were sprawled across the trunk of the New Yorker, lying right on top of
the pink satin Porthault sheet that Francesca kept stored in the car
for just such an emergency.
Afterward, they looked into each other's eyes, not saying a word, just
looking, and then they exchanged
a kiss so full of love and
understanding that it was hard to remember that any barriers had ever
existed between them.
Dallie took the wheel to drive back to Wynette. When he turned out onto
the main highway, Francesca was cuddled up against him and he was
feeling lazy and contented, pleased with himself for having had the
good sense to marry Miss Fancy Pants. Just then the Bear made one of
his increasingly rare appearances.
Looks like you re in real danger of
making a fool of yourself over this
woman.
You've got that right,
Dallie
replied, brushing the top of her head
with a kiss.
And then the Bear chuckled.
Good
work, Beaudine.
and the love he felt for her swelled in his chest until he ached. The
security people didn't want to look like bad guys in front of the
press, so they let him lift his cuffed wrists and slip his arms over
her head. He kissed her so intently that he forgot to make sure they
were turned to face the network television cameras.
Luckily, Gerry had a partner who wasn't as easily distracted by females.
Far overhead, from a small window in the crown of the Statue of
Liberty, another banner began to unfurl, this one a bright canary
yellow. It was made from a synthetic material that had been developed
for the space program—a material that was lightweight and could be
compacted for portability into a package not much bigger than a wallet,
and then would generously expand once it was released. The canary
yellow banner slipped down over Lady Liberty's forehead, unrolled along
the length of her nose, and gradually opened as it came to a stop at
the base of her chin. Its message was clearly legible from the ground,
simply printed in seven thick black letters.
NO NUKES
Francesca saw it first. And then Dallie. Gerry, who had reluctantly
ended his embrace with Holly Grace, smiled when he spotted it and gave
her a quick kiss on the nose. Then he lifted his handcuffed wrists to
the sky, tilted back his head, and balled his hands into fists. "Way to
go, Teddy!" he cried.
Teddy!
Francesca and Dallie looked at each other in alarm and then began
running across the lawn toward the entrance to the statue.
Holly Grace shook her head at Gerry, not sure whether she should laugh
or cry, knowing only that she had an interesting life ahead of her.
"It was too good an opportunity to pass up," he began to explain. "All
these cameras—"
"Be quiet, Gerry, and tell me how I go about getting you out of jail."
It was a skill that Holly Grace suspected she would be making good use
of in the years to come.
"I love you, babe," he said.
"I love you, too," she replied.
Political actions weren't unknown at the Statue of Liberty. In the
sixties, Cuban exiles chained themselves to Liberty's feet; in the
seventies, anti-war veterans hung an upside-down flag from the crown;
and in the eighties, two mountain climbers scaled the surface of the
statue to protest the continued imprisonment of one of the Black
Panthers. Political actions weren't unknown, but none of them had ever
involved a kid.
Teddy sat by himself in the hallway outside the statue's security
office. From behind the closed door, he could hear his mom's voice and
occasionally Dallie's. One of the park rangers had brought him a can of
7-Up, but he couldn't drink it.
The week before, when Gerry had taken Teddy over to Naomi's to see her
new baby, Teddy overheard Gerry and Naomi arguing, and that was how he
learned about Gerry's plan to parachute onto the island. When Gerry had
taken him home, Teddy questioned him. He felt like a hotshot when Gerry
finally confided in him, even though he thought it might have been just
because Gerry was feeling sad about losing Holly Grace.
They had talked about the No Nukes banner, and Teddy begged Gerry to
let him help, but Gerry said he was too young. Teddy hadn't given up.
For two months he had been trying to think of a social studies project
spectacular enough to impress Miss Pearson, and he realized this was
it. When he tried to explain that, Gerry had given him a long lecture
about how political dissent shouldn't be undertaken for selfish
reasons. Teddy had listened closely and pretended to agree, but he
really wanted an A on his social studies project. Dorky old Milton
Grossman had only visited Mayor Koch's office, and Miss Pearson had
given him an A.
It defied Teddy's imagination to think what she might do to a kid who
helped disarm the world!
Now that he had to face the consequences, however, Teddy knew that
breaking the window in the crown had been stupid. But what else could
he have done? Gerry had explained to him that the windows in the crown
opened with a special key some of the maintenance people carried. One
of those people was a friend of Gerry's, and this guy had promised to
slip up into the crown as soon as the President's security people left
and unlock the middle window. But when Teddy got to the crown, all
sweaty and out of breath from having climbed the stairs as fast as he
could to get there ahead of everybody else, something had gone wrong
because the window was still locked.
Gerry had told Teddy that if there was a problem with the window he was
supposed to climb right back down and forget about the No Nukes banner,
but Teddy had too much at stake. Quickly, before he had time to think
about what he was doing, he had snatched the metal lid from a trash can
and banged it against the small center window a few times. After four
tries, he finally broke the glass. It had probably only been an echo in
the crown, but when the glass broke, he thought he could hear the
statue cry out.
The office door opened and the man who was in charge of security came
out. He didn't even look at Teddy; he just went right on down the
corridor without saying anything. Then his mom was standing in the
doorway, and Teddy could see she was really mad. His mom didn't get mad
too often, unless she was really scared about something, but when it
did happen, he got a sick feeling in his stomach. He swallowed hard and
slid his eyes down, because he was scared to look her in the face.
"Come in here, young man," she said, sounding like she'd just eaten
icicles. "Now!"
His stomach did a somersault. He was really in trouble. He'd expected
to get into a little trouble, but not this much. He'd never heard his
mom sound so mad. His stomach seemed to be turning upside down,
and he
thought he might have to throw up. He tried to stall for time by
dragging his good shoes as he walked toward the door, but his mom
caught his arm and pulled him into the office. The door shut hard
behind him.
None of the statue people were there. Just Teddy, his mom, and Dallie.
Dallie was standing over by the window with his arms crossed over his
chest. Because of the sunlight, Teddy couldn't see his face too well
and he was glad about that. On top of the Empire State Building, Dallie
had said he loved Teddy and Teddy had wanted to believe it so bad,
except he was afraid that Dallie had said it just because his mom had
made him.
"Teddy, I'm so ashamed of you," his mother began. "What in the world
made you get involved in something like this? You vandalized the
statue. How could you do that?" His mom's voice was quivering a little
bit, like she was really, really upset, and her accent had gotten
thicker than normal. He wished he wasn't too big to be spanked, because
he knew a spanking wouldn't hurt as much as this did. "It's a miracle
they're not going to press charges against you. I've always trusted
you, Teddy, but it will be a
long time before I'll be able to trust you
again. What you did was illegal... ."
The more she talked, the lower Teddy's head dropped. He didn't know
which was worse—hurting the statue or upsetting his mom so much. He
could feel his throat start to close up and he realized he was going to
cry. Right there in front of Dallie Beaudine, he was going to cry like
a jerk. He kept his eyes glued to the floor and felt like somebody was
shoving rocks into his chest. He took a deep, shaky breath. He couldn't
cry in front of Dallie. He'd stab himself in the eyes before he'd do
that.
A tear dropped and made a big splat on the top of one of his good
shoes. He slid the other shoe over it so Dallie wouldn't see. His mom
kept talking about how she couldn't trust him anymore, how disappointed
she was, and another tear splatted on his other shoe. His stomach hurt,
his throat was closing up on him, and he just wanted to sit down on the
floor and hug one of his old teddy bears and cry real hard.
"That's enough, Francie." Dallie's voice wasn't very loud, but it was
serious, and his mom stopped talking. Teddy took a swipe at his nose
with his sleeve. "You go on outside for a minute, honey," Dallie said
to her.
"No, Dallie, I—"
"Go on, now, honey. We'll be out in a minute."
Don't go! Teddy wanted to scream. Don't leave me alone with him. But it
was too late. After a few seconds, his mother's feet began to move and
then he heard the door shut. Another tear dropped off his chin and he
made a soft little hiccup as he tried to breathe.
Dallie came over next to him. Through his tears, Teddy could see the
cuffs on Dallie's trousers. And then Teddy felt an arm slip around his
shoulders and pull him close.
"You go ahead and cry all you want, son," Dallie said softly. "It's
sometimes hard to cry real good with a woman around, and you've had a
rough day."
Something hard and painful that Teddy had been holding rigidly inside
him far too long seemed to break apart.
Dallie knelt down and pulled Teddy against him. Teddy wrapped his arms
around Dallie's neck and held on to him as tight as he could and cried
so hard he couldn't catch his breath. Dallie rubbed Teddy's back
underneath his shirt and called him son and told him that sooner or
later everything would be all right.
"I didn't mean to hurt the statue." Teddy sobbed into Dallie's neck. "I
love the statue. Mom said she wouldn't ever trust me again."
"Women aren't always reliable when they're as upset as your mom is
right now.'v
"I love my mom." Teddy hiccuped again. "I didn't mean to get her so
mad."
"I know that, son."
"It makes me feel scared inside to have her so mad at me."
"I'll bet it makes her feel scared inside, too."
Teddy finally got the nerve to look up. Dallie's face seemed all blurry
through his tears. "She'll take away my allowance for a million years."
Dallie nodded. "You're probably right about that." And then Dallie
cupped Teddy's head, pulled it against his chest, and kissed Teddy
right next to his ear.
Teddy held on, not saying anything for a few seconds, just accustoming
himself to the feel of a scratchy cheek against his own instead of a
smooth one. "Dallie?"
"Uh-huh."
Teddy buried his mouth in Dallie's shirt collar so the words came out
muffled. "I think—I think you're
my real dad, aren't
you?"
Dallie was quiet for a moment, and when he finally spoke he sounded
like his throat was closing up, too. "You bet I am, son. You bet I am."
Later, Dallie and Teddy went out into the hallway to face his mom
together. Except this time, when she saw the way Teddy was holding on
to Dallie, she was the one who started to cry, and before he knew it,
his mom was hugging him and Dallie was hugging her, and the three of
them were standing right there in the middle of the hallway at the
Statue of Liberty security office hugging each other and crying like a
dumb old bunch of babies.
Epilogue
Dallie sat in the passenger seat of his big Chrysler New Yorker, thebrim of his cap tilted over his eyes to block the morning sun, while
Miss Fancy Pants passed two semis and a Greyhound bus in less time than
it took most people to say amen. Damn, he liked the waj she drove a
car. A man could relax with a woman like her behind the wheel because
he knew he had half a chance at arriving at his destination before his
arteries hardened from old age.
"Are you going to tell me yet where you're taking me?" he asked. When
she'd shanghaied him away from his morning coffee, he hadn't protested
too much because three months of married life had taught him that it
was more fuo to go along with his pretty little wife than to spend half
his time arguing with her.
"Out by that old landfill," she replied. "If I can find the road."
"The landfill? That place has been closed for the last three years.
There's nothing out there."
Francesca made a sharp right turn onto an old asphalt road. "That's
what Miss Sybil said."
"Miss Sybil? What's she got to do with all this?"
"She's a woman," Francesca replied mysteriously. "And she understands a
woman's needs."
Dallie decided the best course of action in a situation like this was
not to ask any more questions, just to let events take their natural
course. He grinned and tilted the brim of his cap down a little
farther. Who would have ever thought that being married to Miss Fancy
Pants would turn out to be so much fun?
Their life was working out even
better than he'd expected. Francie had hauled him over to the French
Riviera for a honeymoon that had been just about the greatest time of
his life, and then they'd come to Wynette for the summer. During the
school year, they had decided to make New York City their base because
it was the best place for Teddy and Francie. Since Dallie would be
playing in the bigger tournaments this fall, he could hang his clothes
just about anywhere. And whenever they got bored, they could go stay in
one of those houses that he owned scattered all around the country.
"We have to be back in Wynette in exactly forty-five minutes," she
said. "You have an interview with
that reporter from Sports
Illustrated, and I have a conference call scheduled with Nathan and my
production people."
She didn't look old enough to know anything about conference calls, let
alone to have production people. Her hair was pulled into a cute
ponytail that made her seem like she was about fourteen, and she had on
this stretchy white top with a little denim skirt he'd bought for her
because he knew it wouldn't do much more than cover her backside.
"I thought we were going to the driving range," he said. "No offense,
Francie, but your golf swing could use some work." Which was a polite
way of putting it. She had the worst golf swing he had ever seen on any
person, male or female, but he enjoyed messing around with her so much
at the range that he acted like she was improving.
"I don't see how my swing is ever going to get better if you keep
telling me so many different things to do," she grumbled. "Keep your
head down, Francie. Pull with your left side, Francie. Lead with your
knees, Francie. Honestly, no one in her right mind could remember all
of that. It's no wonder you can't teach Teddy to hit a baseball. You
make everything so
complicated."
"Now, don't you worry about that boy playing baseball. You should know
by now that sports isn't everything, especially when my son has more
brain power in that head of his than all of Wynette's Little Leaguers
put together." As far as Dallie was concerned, Teddy was the best boy
in the world, and he wouldn't trade him for all the jock kids in
America.
"Speaking of the driving range," she began. "With the PGA Championship
coming up—"
"Uh-oh."
"Sweetheart, I'm not saying that you had a problem with your long irons
last week. Gracious, you won the tournament, so it couldn't have been
much of a problem. Still, I thought you might want to spend a few hours
at the range after your interview to see if you can't improve them just
a little bit." She glanced over, giving him one of those soft, innocent
looks that didn't fool him one bit. "I certainly don't expect you to
win the PGA," she went on. "You've already won two titles this summer,
and you don't have to win every tournament, but. . ." Her voice faded,
as if she realized she'd already said enough. More than enough. One
thing that he had discovered about Francie was that she was just about
insatiable when it came to golf titles.
She swung the New Yorker off the narrow asphalt road and onto a dirt
lane that probably hadn't been used by anybody since the Apaches. The
old Wynette landfill was about a half-mile in the opposite direction,
but he didn't mention that. Half the fun of being with Francie was
watching her improvise.
She caught her bottom lip between her teeth and frowned. "The landfill
should be around here
someplace, although I don't actually suppose it
matters."
He crossed his arms over his chest and pretended he was falling asleep.
She giggled. "I couldn't believe Holly Grace showed up at the
Roustabout last night in a maternity dress—she's barely three months
pregnant. And Gerry has absolutely no idea how to behave in a
honky-tonk. He spent the entire evening drinking white wine and talking
to Skeet about the wonders of natural
childbirth." Francesca turned onto an even bumpier road. "I'm also not
absolutely certain Holly Grace did the right thing by bringing Gerry to
Wynette. She wanted him to get to know her parents
better, but poor
Winona is absolutely terrified of him."
Francesca looked over at Dallie and saw that he was pretending to
sleep. She smiled to herself. It was probably just as well. Dallie
still wasn't absolutely rational on the subject of Gerry Jaffe. Of
course, she hadn't been all that rational herself for a while. Gerry
should never have involved Teddy in his scheme, no matter how much her
son had begged to be part of it. Since the incident at the Statue of
Liberty, she, Dallie, and Holly Grace had made certain that Teddy and
Gerry were never left alone together for more than five minutes.
She gently pressed the brake and steered the New Yorker onto a rutted
path that ended in a clump of straggly cedars. Satisfied that the area
was completely deserted, she pushed the buttons that lowered the front
windows and turned off the ignition. The morning air that blew in was
warm and pleasantly dusty.
Dallie still pretended to be asleep, his arms folded over his faded
gray T-shirt and one of a series of caps sporting an American flag
pulled low over his eyes. She postponed the moment when she would
actually touch him, enjoying the anticipation. For all the laughter and
teasing that went on between them, she and Dallie had found a serenity
together, a sense of perfect homecoming that could only happen after
having known the darkest side of another person and then having walked
together out into the sunshine.
Reaching over, she pulled off his cap and dropped it into the back
seat. Then she kissed his closed eyelids, working her fingers into his
hair. "Wake up, sweetheart, you have some work to do."
He nibbled at her bottom lip. "Do you have anything specific in mind?"
"Uh-huh."
He reached beneath her stretchy white top and traced the small bumps of
her spine with his fingertips. "Francie, we have a
perfectly good bed back in Wynette and another one twenty-five miles to
the west
of here."
"The second one is too far away and the first one is too crowded."
He chuckled. Teddy had banged on their bedroom door early that morning
and then climbed into bed
with them to ask their opinion about whether
he should be a detective or a scientist when he grew up.
"Married people aren't supposed to have to make love in a car," he
said, closing his eyes again as she settled into his lap and began
kissing his ear.
"Most married people don't have a meeting of the Friends of Wynette
Public Library going on in one room and an army of teenage girls camped
out in the other," she replied.
"You've got a point there." He lifted her skirt a little so that she
could straddle his legs with her thighs. Then he began to caress one of
those thighs, gradually working upward. His eyes shot open.
"Francie Day Beaudine, you don't have any underpants on."
"Don't I?" she murmured in that bored-little-rich-girl voice of hers.
"How naughty of me."
She was rubbing her breasts against him, kissing his ear, deliberately
driving him crazy. He decided it was long past time he showed Miss
Fancy Pants who was the boss of the family. Pushing open the car door,
he climbed out, taking her with him.
"Dallie . . ." she protested.
He wrapped his arm around her waist and hoisted her up off the ground.
As he carried her toward the trunk of his New Yorker, she delighted him
by starting to struggle, although he did think she could have put a
little more effort into it if she'd concentrated harder.
"I'm not the kind of woman you make love to on the back of a car," she
said in a voice so haughty she sounded like the queen of England.
Except Dallie didn't imagine the queen of England would be moving her
hand up and down the front of his jeans in quite the same way.
"You can't fool me with that accent of yours, ma'am," he drawled. "I
know exactly how you red-blooded American girls like to make love."
As she opened her mouth to reply, he took advantage of her parted lips
to give her the kind of kiss that guaranteed him a few minutes of
silence. Eventually she began to work at the zipper on the front of his
jeans, which didn't take her long at all—Francie was magic with
anything that had to do with clothes.
Their lovemaking started out raunchy, with a little bit of dirty talk
and a lot of shifting around, but then everything turned tender and
sweet, exactly like their feelings for each other. Before long, they
were sprawled across the trunk of the New Yorker, lying right on top of
the pink satin Porthault sheet that Francesca kept stored in the car
for just such an emergency.
Afterward, they looked into each other's eyes, not saying a word, just
looking, and then they exchanged
a kiss so full of love and
understanding that it was hard to remember that any barriers had ever
existed between them.
Dallie took the wheel to drive back to Wynette. When he turned out onto
the main highway, Francesca was cuddled up against him and he was
feeling lazy and contented, pleased with himself for having had the
good sense to marry Miss Fancy Pants. Just then the Bear made one of
his increasingly rare appearances.
Looks like you re in real danger of
making a fool of yourself over this
woman.
You've got that right,
Dallie
replied, brushing the top of her head
with a kiss.
And then the Bear chuckled.
Good
work, Beaudine.
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