Fancy Pants

by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

  “If we stay here, we'll get done quicker.” He cleared his throat. “First of all, I apologize for making that smarmy remark about your career being more important to you than Teddy. I never said I was perfect, but still, that was a low blow and I'm ashamed of myself.”

  She pulled her knees closer to her chest and hunched into them. “Do you have any idea what it does to a working mother to hear something like that?”

  “I wasn't thinking,” he mumbled. Then he added defensively, “But damn, Francie, I wish you wouldn't fly off the handle every time I say the slightest little thing wrong. You get too emotional.”

  She dug her fingers into her arms in frustration. Why did men always do this? What made them think they could say the most outrageous—the most painful—things to a woman”, and then expect her to keep silent? She thought of a number of pointed comments she wanted to make, but bit them back in the interest of getting into the house. “Teddy marches to the beat of his own drummer,” she said firmly. “He's not like me and he's not like you. He's completely himself.”

  “I can see that.” His knees were spread. He propped his forearms on them and stared down at the step for a few moments. “It's just that he's not like a regular kid.”

  All her maternal insecurities jangled like bad music. Because Teddy wasn't athletic, Dallie didn't approve of him. “What do you want him to do?” she countered angrily. “Go out and beat up some women?” He stiffened beside her, and she wished she'd kept her mouth shut.

  “How are we going to work this out?” he asked quietly. “We fight like cats and dogs the minute we get within sniffing distance of each other. Maybe we'd be better off if we turned this over to the bloodsuckers.”

  “Is that really what you want to do?”

  “All I know is that I'm getting tired of fighting with you, and we haven't even been together for a whole day.”

  Her teeth had begun to chatter in earnest. “Teddy doesn't like you, Dallie. I'm not going to force him to spend time with you.”

  “Teddy and I just rub each other the wrong way is all. We'll have to work it out.”

  “It won't be that easy.”

  “Lots of things aren't easy.”

  She looked hopefully toward the front door. “Let's stop talking about Teddy and go inside for a few minutes. Then after we get warmed up we can come back out and finish.”

  Dallie nodded his head, then stood and offered his hand. She accepted it, but the contact felt much too good, so she let go as quickly as she could, determined to keep the pressing of flesh between them to a minimum. For a moment he looked as if he'd read her thoughts, and then he turned to unlock the door. “You got a real challenge for yourself with that Doralee,” he remarked. Stepping aside, he gestured her into a terra-cotta hallway lit by an arched window. “How many strays you figure you picked up in the last ten years?”

  “Animal or human?”

  He chuckled, and as she walked into the living room, she remembered what a wonderful sense of humor Dallie had. The living room held a faded Oriental rug, a collection of brass lamps, and some overstuffed chairs. Everything was comfortable and nondescript—everything except the wonderful paintings on the walls. “Dallie, where did you get these?” she asked, walking over to an original oil depicting stark mountains and bleached bones.

  “Here and there,” he said, as if he wasn't quite sure.

  “They're wonderful!” She moved on to study a large canvas splashed with exotic abstract flowers. “I didn't know you collected art.”

  “I don't collect it so much as just nail up a few things I like.”

  She lifted an eyebrow at him so he'd know his country-bumpkin act wasn't fooling her for a minute. Hayseeds didn't buy paintings like these. “Dallas, is it remotely possible for you to carry on a conversation that's not loaded down with manure?”

  “Probably not.” He grinned and then gestured toward the dining room. “There's an acrylic in there you might like. I bought it at this little gallery in Carmel after I double-bogeyed the seventeenth at Pebble Beach two days in a row. I got so depressed I either had to get drunk or buy me a painting. I got another one by the same artist hanging in my house in North Carolina.”

  “I didn't know you had a house in North Carolina.”

  “It's one of those contemporaries that sort of looks like a bank vault. Actually, I'm not too crazy about it, but it's got a pretty view. Most of the houses I been buying lately are more traditional.”

  “There are more?”

  He shrugged. “It got so I could hardly stand staying in motels anymore, and since I started finishing in the money at a few tournaments and picking up some decent endorsements, I needed something to do with my cash. So I bought a couple of houses in different parts of the country. You want something to drink?”

  She realized that she'd had nothing to eat since the night before. “What I'd really like is food. And then I think I'd better get back to Teddy.” And call Stefan, she thought to herself. And meet with the social worker to discuss Doralee. And talk to Holly Grace, who used to be her best friend.

  “You coddle Teddy too much,” Dallie commented, leading her toward the kitchen.

  She stopped in her tracks. The fragile truce between them was broken. It took him a moment to realize she wasn't following him, and then he turned to see what was holding her up. When he spotted the expression on her face, he sighed and reached for her arm to lead her to the front porch. She tried to pull away, but he held her fast.

  A chilly blast hit her as he pushed her outside. She spun around to confront him. “Don't make judgments about my mothering, Dallie. You've spent less than a week with Teddy, so don't start imagining you're an authority on raising him. You don't even know him!”

  “I know what I see. Damn, Francie, I'm not trying to hurt your feelings, but he's a disappointment to me is all.”

  She felt a sharp stab of pain. Teddy—her pride and joy, blood of her blood, heart of her heart—how could he be a disappointment to anyone? “I don't really care,” she said coldly. “The only thing that bothers me is what a disappointment you apparently are to him.”

  Dallie stuffed one of his hands in the pocket of his jeans and looked out toward the cedar trees, not saying anything. The wind caught a lock of his hair, blowing it back from his forehead. Finally he spoke quietly. “Maybe we'd better get back to Wynette. I guess this wasn't such a good idea.”

  She looked out at the cedars herself for a few moments before she nodded slowly and walked toward the car.

  The house was empty except for Teddy and Skeet. Dallie went back out without saying where he was going, and Francesca took Teddy for a walk. Twice she tried to introduce Dallie's name, but he resisted her efforts and she didn't push him. He couldn't say enough, however, about the virtues of Skeet Cooper.

  When they returned to the house, Teddy ran off to get a snack and she went down to the basement where she found Skeet putting a coat of varnish on the club head he'd been sanding earlier. He didn't look up as she came into the workroom, and she watched him for a few minutes before she spoke. “Skeet, I want to thank you for being so nice to Teddy. He needs a friend right now.”

  “You don't have to thank me,” Skeet replied gruffly. “He's a good boy.”

  She propped her elbow on top of the vise, taking pleasure in watching Skeet work. The slow, careful movements soothed her so that she could think more clearly. Twenty-four hours before, all she had wanted to do was to get Teddy away from Dallie, but now she toyed with the idea of trying to bring them together. Sooner or later, Teddy was going to have to acknowledge his relationship to Dallie. She couldn't bear the idea of her son growing up with emotional scars because he hated his father, and if freeing him of those scars meant she would have to spend a few more days in Wynette, she would simply do so.

  Her mind made up, she looked over at Skeet. “You really like Teddy, don't you?”

  “'Course I like him. He's the kind of kid you don't mind spending time with.”

>   “It's too bad everybody doesn't feel that way,” she said bitterly.

  Skeet cleared his throat. “You give Dallie time, Francie. I know you're the impatient type, always wanting to rush things, but some things just can't be rushed.”

  “They hate each other, Skeet.”

  He turned the club head to inspect it and then dipped his brush in the varnish can. “When two people are so much alike, it's sometimes hard for them to get along.”

  “Alike?” She stared at him. “Dallie and Teddy aren't anything alike.”

  He looked at her as if she were the stupidest person he'd ever met, and then he shook his head and went back to varnishing the club head.

  “Dallie's graceful,” she argued. “He's athletic. He's gorgeous—”

  Skeet chuckled. “Teddy sure is a homely little cuss. Hard to figure how two people as pretty as you and Dallie managed to produce him.”

  “Maybe he's a little homely on the outside,” she replied defensively, “but he's a knockout on the inside.”

  Skeet chuckled again, dipped his brush, and then looked over at her. “I don't like to give advice, Francie, but if I were you I'd concentrate more on nagging Dallie about his golf than on nagging him about Teddy.”

  She looked at him in astonishment. “Why ever should I nag him about his golf?”

  “You're not going to get rid of him. You realize that, don't you? Now that he knows Teddy's his boy, he's going to keep popping up whether you like it or not.”

  She'd already come to the same conclusion, and she nodded reluctantly.

  He stroked the brush along the smooth curve of the wood. “My best piece of advice, Francie, is that you use those brains of yours to figure out how to get him to play better golf.”

  She was completely mystified. “What are you trying to tell me?”

  “Just exactly what I said, is all.”

  “But I don't know anything about golf, and I don't see what Dallie's game has to do with Teddy.”

  “The thing about advice is—you can either take it or leave it.”

  She gave him a searching look. “You know why he's being so critical of Teddy, don't you?”

  “I got a few ideas.”

  “Is it because Teddy looks like Jaycee? Is that it?”

  He snorted. “Give Dallie credit for having more sense than that.”

  “Then what?”

  He propped the club head on a rod to dry and put the brush in a jar of mineral spirits. “You just concentrate on his golf is all. Maybe you'll have better luck than I've had.”

  And he wouldn't say anything more than that.

  When Francesca went upstairs, she spotted Teddy playing with one of Dallie's dogs in the yard. An envelope lay on the kitchen table with her name scrawled across it in Gerry's handwriting. Opening it, she read the message inside.

  Baby, Sweetie, Lamb Chop, Love of My Life,

  How's about you and me tie one on tonight? Pick you up for dinner and debauchery at 7:00. Your best friend is the queen of the morons, and I'm the world's biggest chump. I promise not to cry on your shoulder for more than most of the evening. When are you going to stop being so lily-livered and put me on your television show?

  Sincerely,

  Zorro the Great

  P.S. Bring a birth control device.

  Francesca laughed. Despite their rocky beginning on that Texas road ten years ago, she and Gerry had formed a comfortable friendship in the two years since she'd moved to Manhattan. He had spent the first few months of their acquaintance apologizing for having abandoned her, even though Francesca told him he'd done her a favor that day. To her astonishment, he had produced an old yellowed envelope containing her passport and the four hundred dollars that had been in her case. She had long ago given Holly Grace the money to repay Dallie what she owed him, so Francesca had treated the three of them to a night on the town.

  When Gerry came to pick her up that evening, he was wearing his leather bomber jacket with dark brown trousers and a cream-colored sweater. Sweeping her into his arms, he gave her a friendly smack on the lips, his dark eyes sparkling with wickedness. “Hey, gorgeous. Why couldn't I have fallen in love with you instead of Holly Grace?”

  “Because you're too smart to put up with me,” she said, laughing.

  “Where's Teddy?”

  “He conned Doralee and Miss Sybil into taking him to see some horrid movie about killer grasshoppers.”

  Gerry smiled and then sobered, looking at her with concern. “How're you really doing? This has been rough on you, hasn't it?”

  “I've had better weeks,” she conceded. So far, only her problem with Doralee was any closer to solution. That afternoon Miss Sybil had insisted on taking the teenager to the county offices herself, telling Francesca in no uncertain terms that she intended to keep Doralee until a foster family could be found.

  “I spent some time with Dallie this afternoon,” Gerry said.”

  “You did?” Francesca was surprised. It was difficult to imagine the two of them together.

  Gerry held the front door open for her. “I gave him some not-so-friendly legal advice and told him if he ever tried anything like this with Teddy again, I would personally bring the entire American legal system down on his head.”

  “I can just imagine how he reacted to that,” she replied dryly.

  “I'll do you a favor and spare you the details.” They walked toward Gerry's rented Toyota. “You know, it's Strange. Once we stopped trading insults, I almost found myself liking the son of a bitch. I mean, I hate the fact that he and Holly Grace used to be married, and I especially hate the fact that they still care so much about each other, but once we started talking, I had this weird feeling that Dallie and I had known each other a long time. It was crazy.”

  “Don't be fooled,” Francesca said, as he opened the car door for her. “The only reason you felt comfortable with him is because being with him is a lot like being with Holly Grace. If you like one of them, it's pretty hard not to like the other one.”

  They ate at a cozy restaurant that served wonderful veal. Before they had finished the main course, they were once again embroiled in their standard argument about why Francesca wouldn't put Gerry on her television show.

  “Just put me on once, gorgeous, that's all I ask.”

  “Forget it. I know you. You'd show up with fake radiation burns all over your body or you'd announce on the air that Russian missiles are on their way to blow up Nebraska.”

  “So what? You have millions of complacent androids watching your show who don't understand that we're living on the eve of destruction. It's my job to shake up people like that.”

  “Not on my program,” she said firmly. “I don't manipulate my viewers.”

  “Francesca, these days we're not talking about a little thirteen-kiloton firecracker like the one we dropped on Nagasaki. We're talking megatons. If twenty thousand megatons hits New York City, it's going to do more than ruin one of Donald Trump's dinner parties. It'll send fallout over a thousand square miles, and eight million fried bodies will be left rotting in the gutters.”

  “I'm trying to eat, Gerry,” she protested, setting down her fork.

  Gerry had been talking about the horrors of nuclear war for so long that he could demolish a five-course meal while he described a terminal case of radiation poisoning, and he dug into his baked potato. “Do you know the only thing that has any chance of surviving? The cockroaches. They'll be blind, but they'll still be able to reproduce.”

  “Gerry, I love you like a brother, but I won't let you turn my show into a circus.” Before he could launch his next round of arguments, she changed the subject. “Did you talk to Holly Grace this afternoon?”

  He put down his fork and shook his head. “I went over to her mother's house, but she ducked out the back door when she saw me coming.” Pushing away his plate, he took a sip of water.

  He looked so miserable that Francesca was torn between the desire to comfort him and the urge to smac
k some sense into him. Gerry and Holly Grace obviously loved each other, and she wished they would stop camouflaging their problems. Although Holly Grace hardly ever talked about it, Francesca knew how badly she wanted a child, but Gerry wouldn't even discuss the matter with her.

  “Why don't the two of you try to come up with some sort of compromise?” she offered tentatively.

  “She doesn't understand the word,” Gerry replied. “She's got it in her head that I've been using her name, and—”

  Francesca groaned. “Not this again. Holly Grace wants a baby, Gerry. Why won't either of you admit what the real problem is? I know it's none of my business, but I think you'd make a wonderful father, and—”

  “Christ, have you and Naomi been taking nagging lessons together or what?” He abruptly pushed his plate away. “Let's go on over to the Roustabout, okay?”

  The Roustabout was the last place she wanted to go. “I don't really—”

  “The high school sweethearts are sure to be there. We'll walk in, pretend we don't see them, and then have sex on top of the bar. What do you say?”

  “I say no.”

  “Come on, gorgeous. The two of them have been tossing a ton of shit our way. Let's toss a little back.”

  True to form, Gerry ignored every one of her protests and hustled her from the restaurant. Fifteen minutes later, they were walking through the door of the honky-tonk. The place looked much as Francesca remembered, although most of the neon Lone Star beer signs had been replaced with signs for Miller Lite, and video games now occupied one corner. The people were the same, however.

  “Well, look who just walked through the door,” a throaty female voice drawled from a table twenty feet to their right. “If it isn't the queen of England herself with the king of the Bolsheviks walking right next to her.” Holly Grace sat with a beer bottle in front of her, while at her side Dallie sipped a glass of club soda. Francesca felt another of those queer little jumps in her middle at the sight of those cool blue eyes studying her over the rim of the glass.