Paper Moon (6 page)

“Who needs those guys when you got the best?” Kurt announced.

“Oh, puh-leeze,” Karen groaned as he squeezed into the back seat next to Annie.

“Sorry, princess,” Wally said as he settled on the nonexistent front seat, which was literally a cushion on the floor.

“What about seat belts?” Caroline protested.

“Yeah, isn't there a law or something?” Kurt chimed in.

Hector simply shrugged. Apparently safety precautions weren't as important in Mexico as in the States. “No worries, Señora. It's a short ride.”

But not short enough,
Caroline thought when they pulled up in front of the nightclub. There hadn't been room to breathe with four of them wedged across the back, not even to gasp when the driver threaded through the thick traffic so fast that the street signs blended into a continuous neon blur. Poor Wally would need his hands pried from the armrest, and she needed an oxygen tank.

“Are the others behind us?” the spectacled youngster asked.

“Can't tell,” Caroline said. “We're packed too tight to turn our heads.”

They got out of the car under a flashing marquee that read
Banditos
. The mountain air raised the gooseflesh on Caroline's clammy skin as they made their way into what appeared from the outside to be a movie theater. The lobby had been converted into a soda-fountain bar, while its display cases were still filled with a variety of sweets. The menu behind the counter boasted all manner of nonalcoholic frozen drinks and concoctions aimed at the teen clientele.

Beyond it, three steps down, tables and chairs lined each side of a huge dance floor. While Hector took care of the cover charge, Caroline picked the clingy silk of her tank top away from her skin. Until that cab ride, she'd never suspected she was claustrophobic.

Ushers and waiters clad in tight black trousers, billowing red-and-gold poet's shirts, and an occasional patch over one eye met their party and led them into the purple glow of the dance arena. Black lights. It had been years since Caroline had been in a club with black lights.

“
Para la Señora linda
. For the pretty lady.”

Turning, Caroline accepted a fresh long-stemmed rose from one of the gallant
banditos
. “What a lovely idea. Thank you.”

Even she felt a hint of the thrill that had obviously infected the girls, who coveted the flowers as if they'd been dipped in 24-carat gold. They returned iridescent white smiles to the dark-eyed charmers. There
was
something about that accent . . . Not only were the ladies escorted to the tables, but their flowers were arranged for them in the glass vases on each one by the ushers.

“Boy, do these Mexican men know how to treat a woman,” Annie sighed, watching her escort make his way back to the entrance where more young ladies awaited seating.

“They don't impress me,” Kurt snorted under his breath.

Karen gave the young man a derisive look. “Well, I'd
hope
not.”

Hector turned back to the students, who by now had settled around a circular table. “There is a karaoke show the first hour.

Then there is dancing.”

Señora Marron finally arrived with the third taxi load. “Ah, Señora Spencer, I must ask you a favor.” She leaned over, dropping her voice for Caroline's ear only. “I am having the most terrible of headaches.
Female problems,”
she mouthed, backing away and crossing her arms so that her black silk tasseled shawl overlapped with them. “May I impose upon you to remain as chaperone with Hector and the students, to allow me to return to the hotel and take medicine?”

Me?
Alone with crazy Hector and eight sixteen-year-olds in a dance
club?
Despite her instinctive reservation, Caroline agreed. “By all means, Señora. I—”

The rest of Caroline's sentence was drowned out by a burst of music so loud, she could have sworn the floor beneath her feet shook. God forbid it was an earthquake, she prayed as she glanced around, looking for a sign that it was more than oversized speakers and a DJ a little heavy on the bass dial. They'd passed several places in the city where buildings had been reduced to rubble and laid waste for years due to lack of money to rebuild.

“Just save me one of those headache pills in case I need it,” she shouted into the Spanish teacher's ear.

Grinning widely, Señora Marron mouthed,
“Muchas gracias.
”

Still a tad warm from the close ride, Caroline ordered a frozen drink at an outrageous price. Now she knew how the place got its name . . . and afforded to serve the younger set. Unlike the host ushers, the
bandito
assigned to their table was built more like Wally Peterman than like the larger boys. Although the server's frame hadn't quite fleshed out yet, when he kissed Annie's hand, Caroline thought her daughter would swoon straight away.

To Caroline's left, Wally expressed his disdain to no one in particular. “I think I'm gonna puke.”

“Would it be different if it was one of the
banditas
rolling those limpid dark eyes at you, Wally?” Caroline teased, shoving her shoulder bag under the table.

“Mom!”

Thinking Annie's indignation a bit overdone, Caroline protested. “I think I see a few girls over there at the bar. See, their hair is either short or pulled back.”

Annie pulled Caroline closer. “Not that. It's your glowing bra.”

“My wha—?” The question died in Caroline's throat. She'd been so distracted by all that was going on that she hadn't noticed the way the black light picked up the dainty white scallop of her new eighteen-hour wonder of support, making it glow fluorescent through the white silk of her blouse.

Annie performed a discreet but dastardly imitation of a grade-B horror actor. “It's alive!”

And, unbeknownst to Caroline, she'd paraded it from the entrance to the table. “Oh, my.” Reaching under the table, she retrieved her purse for cover. No wonder the usher and waiter had grinned so widely at her. She felt like the old “living bra” commercial on the nostalgia television network. Annie used to howl every time the Jane Russell–sized undergarment popped out of the washer with a mind and invisible body of its own to demand special detergent from the startled sixties housewife.

But tonight Caroline wanted to hide, not howl. “Does it show too much?” she whispered as the waiter returned with a tray of drinks for their table.

“Just don't let it dance, and you'll be fine.”

Caroline gave her smart-alecky daughter a dirty look. With no prospect of help from her offspring, she assessed her present company for a possible solution. No one had a jacket, but the boys who'd come with Señora Marron wore unbuttoned cotton shirts over their tees. While Caroline would pay them good money for either shirt at that moment, she was too embarrassed to ask.

Handing her wallet to Annie to pay for the drinks the waiter brought, Caroline kept her handbag pressed against her chest and slumped against the back of her chair. Okay, so she'd just slink down and pray for a quick end to what promised to be a long evening. It couldn't get any worse.

“Excuse me, is this seat taken?”

Or maybe it could.

Looking as if he'd just stepped off of a page of an L. L. Bean catalog
,
Blaine Madison stood at the vacant sixth seat of the table, across from Caroline. He'd changed into a pair of jeans and a white polo shirt that flaunted the muscled evidence that he was no stranger to a gym. Eye-catching as he was, Caroline's attention honed in on the jacket he held slung over his shoulder.

“Dad, you came!” Karen practically took Kurt's foot off with her chair as she slid away from the table to greet her father. “What happened?”

“I started thinking about all the fun you would be having without me,” he told her, grinning. “Besides, how could I pass up spending the evening with the most beautiful girl in Mexico City . . . especially when she's
my
girl?”

Karen looked as though happiness would lift her off the floor. “By all means, sit down.” Caroline pointed to the chair and raised her voice above the Spanish lyrics of the young man who had taken over the karaoke microphone. “Although I'll warn you, it's chilly in here. Maybe once the dancing starts, it won't seem so cold.” She shivered, more from humiliation than temperature. Had he missed the glow-light special, or was he being polite and pretending to ignore it like everyone else?

Regardless, he took the bait—hook, line, and sinker. “I have a jacket, if you'd like.”

Thank You, Lord.

“That would be a godsend.” A real one. It never ceased to amaze Caroline, the minor details that God saw to.

“Mexico City nights do tend to get chilly.” He handed her the jacket and sat down. “We're in a high, dry lake bed surrounded by mountains. Never go out in these parts without a wrap of some kind.”

“You are so bad,” Annie chided under her breath as Caroline cloaked herself in the jacket.

She kicked her daughter beneath the table. She hadn't lied. It
was
chilly in the club—even though she was a smoldering hot pot of embarrassment. Besides, surely God would rather she allowed Blaine to draw the wrong conclusion than have her eighteen-hour wonder exposed in all its fluorescent glory.

CHAPTER
5

The flashing lights behind the karaoke performers gave the show a professional look, although a few of the talent-challenged would put the lights to the test. The students made themselves at home with their Hispanic counterparts, dancing without inhibition, while a young man sang solo by the karaoke setup on the main stage.

“Teen divas, look out,” Caroline remarked when girls from their group took over the mikes for a rock-and-roll number.

Blaine didn't reply. He stared at his daughter, his expression a mixture of pride and wounded disbelief. Was that his little girl moving onstage like a Britney Spears wannabe?

Having been there for Annie's first bra and heels, Caroline had eased into the transition, although with no less regret than what she read on Blaine's face. The hardest task for a parent was to encourage them to grow, but not too fast for their own good.

“I didn't know you could sing,” Blaine said when Karen returned to the table, flushed with excitement and the high of the applause.

“There's a lot you don't know about me, Daddy. Can I have money for a drink?”

Caroline flinched for Blaine, who handed over some Mexican currency. With an impassive expression, he watched Karen and Annie head for the soda fountain with Kurt tagging along like a love-struck pup.

At the end of the karaoke hour, the DJ switched to dance numbers. As Karen abandoned her soda for dancing, Blaine caught her arm and said something to her. The music was too loud for Caroline to hear, but clearly Karen was resisting her father's words. Finally Blaine shook his head in resignation and sent her off with a semblance of a smile.

“There was a time that she begged me to dance with her,” he told Caroline, slipping into the seat next to her. “She used to stand on my shoes.”

The meticulous Blaine Madison let his little girl scuff his shoes? Caroline smiled inwardly. “She's just growing up. At this age, peers trump daddies as dance partners.”

Karen and Annie ganged up on Wally, the only one of the students still sitting, and coerced him onto the floor.

Blaine snorted in disbelief as Karen danced a circle around the spectacled youth. “Even the nerd beats good old Dad.”

“Be nice,” Caroline warned. “Wally's grown up with these kids.”

“Hey—” Blaine threw up defensive hands. “I was a nerd. No girls ever dragged me out onto the dance floor.”

Try as she might, Caroline could not picture Blaine Madison any way but tall, dark, and collected—everything she was not. Particularly, not collected. Perhaps it was the whiff of some masculine spice in his aftershave, impossible to ignore with his nearness scattering her thoughts.

“So, are you off the clock for the remainder of the trip?” When one's senses take a leave of absence, stick to business.

“What's that?”

The large speakers blasting from the DJ's equipment platform would leave them both voiceless by midnight.

“Did you”—the thunderous drum finale ended—“finish your business?” Caroline's shout ended with a belated taper in volume, her words hanging in the air like a Harrier jet, all roar and attention grabbing. She'd have ducked under the table, but for the spell cast by his dimpled grin.

“In a manner of speaking. I turned the formalities of getting the agreement on paper to my brother and our legal team.”

Something about the way he said it gave Caroline the impression that he wasn't sure he'd done the right thing.

“So you're one of those ‘if you want it done right, do it yourself ' types, eh?”

His humor faded. “You said on the plane that you have a daycare center. Is there any other way to run a business?”