She gulped. “You think?”
“Why not? You prob’ly been putting off hysterics for days.”
A sigh shook her. “I suppose I am acting hysterical.”
He kissed her on the nose. “On you, it’s beautiful.”
She smiled a misty smile. Suddenly he became aware of the slippery blue dress. His hands flexed on her strong shoulders.
She leaned into him. “You’re so nice to me, King Dave.”
In an instant, they were kissing. She tasted salty from all the boo-hoo, and her mouth opened so deep, he thought he would fall in. He let his car keys fall and squished her shoulders. Her purse fell on his foot. She squished his butt with both hands. He heard the shoe box hit the front stoop. He was too busy rubbing his hands all over that slippery blue dress to notice where the dress bag fell. When he came up for air, she moaned, like, No.
“’Nuff said?” he panted, picking up the dress bag, the shoe bag, her purse, and his car keys.
“Plenty,” she said, her eyes sparkling.
“Six. Because we’ll grab a little nosh before curtain.”
She stood there holding all those bags and he stood there waiting for her to unlock her apartment building door and go in. Finally he took her keys and opened the door for her.
“Bye,” she said, looking over her shoulder with big eyes.
“See you.” He waited.
“At six,” she said when he didn’t move.
Oh hell. He stepped forward, slid one hand around her back, bent her in half, mashed her good and hard one more time, and pulled her upright, leaving her panting and grinning, with her hair coming down over that blue dress like liquid gold.
Chapter Thirty
She seemed to have pulled herself together by six. King Dave wolf-whistled when he saw her in the complete outfit—the killer black dress, the stockings with the fuck-me seams up the back, the heels that made her calves look tight and ready, and the pearls and diamonds. He owed Tiffany for that one. He would never have thought of Van Cleef and Arpel on his own.
Nadine had put her hair up like today, with that one lock dangling out of her topknot and brushing her collarbone like an impossibly long candle flame. With the pearl and diamond choker around her white throat, she was a total goddess.
She looked happy, demure, and glowing. He was proud to escort her through the tall brass doors at 20 North Wacker.
As they walked down the center aisle toward the house seats he’d finagled out of the gal in the box office, Nadine gasped. She was rubbernecking at the ceiling. He glanced up.
“Gaudy,” he said.
“It’s magnificent,” she breathed.
“Big deal. Front of house is just a lot of fancy paint and plush seats. What’s cool is, I happen to know that they fly the comic baritone in this production. Third act. No stabilizers.”
She was staring at the audience now. “Do you know, I don’t see anybody here who looks as good in his tux as you do.”
King Dave laughed. “I’m too broad in the shoulders.”
“Never,” she said.
“The tailor bitched when I bought this thing five years ago, and I’m bigger now.”
Nadine did him credit. Her hair gleamed, the diamonds sparkled at her throat, her cheeks were pink, and her lips were that hot coral color that made him think of a custom paint job on a ’65 Mustang convertible. One older babe in a foxy black dress gave Nadine a goggle-eyed look. King Dave wanted to say, She’s got curves, and she’s showing them off for me.
He kept his remarks to himself. Nadine was having fun looking at all the pickled old richies. They sat in the house seats he’d bought. She seemed fine until the overture finished and the tenor started singing from offstage. Two minutes into the serenade, he felt her stiffen.
“You okay, princess?”
“Sure,” she said tightly. But a minute later she got up. “Back soon. Tummy,” she whispered and hustled away up the aisle.
Nadine slowed as she got to the exit, her heart pounding. The woman in the black dress ahead of her turned right and began to descend the big marble staircase. Carefully keeping out of her line of sight, Nadine followed, clutching the banister, teetering on her tall shoes, thrilled and terrified.
Nadine and her quarry entered the ladies’ bathroom and stood in front of the long gilded mirror, six feet apart.
“Nice dress,” said a faintly familiar voice.
Nadine looked straight at her quarry. The statuesque brunette stood at the mirror, lipstick in hand, looking straight back. Nadine’s breath caught in her chest. “I know.”
“I designed that dress,” said the older woman. She was utterly glamorous in a little black dress and tall black pumps, with big diamond clips in her ears. She seemed a million miles away from the tiny front pew in Goreville’s only church.
“I know,” Nadine said again. The room reeled around her. “Hello, Momma.”
The woman floated toward Nadine. All doubts disappeared.
“Nadine?” the glamorous stranger who was her mother said hesitantly. She stopped two feet away and looked into her eyes.
“Yes.”
“Nadine,” her mother said in a wondering voice. “How tall you are. But your eyes.” She stared. Her lips parted.
Nadine put a hand to her throat. “I’m not—” she tried to say, Not very good with words. “I don’t—” I don’t want to talk to you. “I can’t—” I can’t take my eyes off you. She felt helpless to move or breathe.
Her mother came closer, an easy touch away.
“I always thought,” she said slowly, looking Nadine up and down with wide eyes, “that if I ever met you I would get down on my knees and beg your forgiveness.” She spoke as if in a dream.
Nadine waited. “But?”
Momma breathed deeply. “I guess I imagined that you would still be a little girl. So tall,” she murmured. “Now,” she paused, and a diffident, wry look that Nadine didn’t remember crossed her face. “Now I don’t know what’s appropriate.”
“You sound like a Yankee,” Nadine blurted.
“I’ve made some changes, yes.” Her mother stared at her. “Perhaps—I might invite you to lunch?” She lifted a hand.
Nadine saw Momma’s hand tremble. She took a step backward. “Um, I work through most lunches.”
Her mother stilled the hand, like someone afraid of startling a wild animal. “So do I.”
Nadine looked at her own dress, then at Momma’s simple little voile sheathe. Did Momma design her dresses at a kitchen table in Chicago? The fast-fleeing adult part of her mind said, Probably not.
“I have to go now,” she said. Her heart hammered.
Momma groped inside the tiny bag dangling at her hip, never taking her eyes off Nadine. “Call me,” she said, her voice rising into a range Nadine recognized at last. Her lips trembled. “Please.” And she handed Nadine a white card.
Nadine took it and ran out of the bathroom. She didn’t stop running until she had plunged back into her seat beside King Dave in front of rows and rows of faintly hissing opera lovers.
“What happened to you?” King Dave whispered.
Chapter Thirty-One
Nadine cowered in her seat, shuddering violently, the white card crushed in her fist. Her mother, alive. Beautiful in an older, glamorous way. Sophisticated, too—that funny little wry smile was nothing like the Momma she remembered. The Yankee accent with a hint of Texas underneath.
A deeper tremor shook Nadine.
She opened her fist. The card said, Myrna Caldwell, Magic by Myrna, and an address at the Apparel Mart. Caldwell was Momma’s maiden name. Nadine’s heart thumped painfully. A phone number. E-mail. Her mother had e-mail. All these years when her mother wasn’t even dead, she had e-mail. Nadine wanted to stand up and yell, My Momma had e-mail all this time!
She realized King Dave was tugging her hand.
“Your highness?” he whispered when she looked at him.
“I saw my mother,” she whispered.
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He took the card. “Holy shit,” he said, squinting at it. A woman in front of them went shush. He stood. “C’mon. Up.”
She got up and let him herd her up the long aisle, down the wide marble stairs, around a corner, and into a dark alcove up against a door marked PRIVATE.
He wrapped himself around her. She shook in the warm solid space inside his arms—shook and shook until her teeth rattled. “It was her. She’s a dress designer. She made this dress, King Dave! My mo-omma ma-ay-ade this duh-duh-duh—”
Nadine wailed. Was she grieving for the mother who hadn’t died, or for the child who’d grieved in vain?
King Dave made mumbly noises in her hair. That only made her hysterical.
“I—I’m losing—oh, King Dave, I—” She bawled.
He squeezed her so tightly, it shocked her into silence. He crooned to her hair, “Boom, boom, baby boom boom, baby goes boom boom down.”
Now she couldn’t breathe. But she was safe. King Dave wouldn’t let her lose her mind. She cried harder, but silently. She needed to hear him sing it.
“You might cry, but everybody does it, everybody goes boom down.”
Out on stage, the tenor serenaded the leading lady. King Dave sang better.
She hiccupped.
He held her tighter. Safe.
At length the hysterical sobs stopped. “I’m so so-hic-orry,” she whispered.
“Shh-shh. Was she nice to you?”
“I sus-hic-surprised her. She said how tall I am. King Dave,” Nadine said urgently. “She doesn’t even know I got tall!”
“Well, you said she went away and you grew a foot and life got shitty.”
“Oh, it did!” It was so nice of him to understand. And she didn’t have to swear because he knew and he understood and he knew all the right curse words.
“She might not even know how shitty it was,” he said softly. “You might have to tell her.”
Nadine shook her head violently. “No. N-n-n-n-no!”
“Why not? Tell her what you think of her. She must be willing to listen, or else she wouldn’t have given you her card.”
Nadine burrowed her face into his neck. “Don’t make me.”
He squeezed her again, nice and long and firm, until the shudders left her. “I can’t make you. You’re a grown-up.”
“No. I’m not.” Now she understood what was wrong. She was eleven years old and Daddy had just told her that Momma would never come home again.
Half a laugh choked out of her. “I’m not a grown-up right now. I’m a little girl. Ugh,” she said, with all-over shudders for a fake funeral and fake sympathy from all the fake people in Goreville. It turned her stomach. “I feel sick.”
“No, no,” he said. “You’re my grown-up princess. I’ll squeeze you’til it goes away.” And he did.
What an unspeakably icky feeling. She was a little girl again. Terrible things had happened. Soon she would go numb, eight solid years of pretending she liked being Daddy’s perfect little girl, scolding and moralizing like a parrot. Oh, ugh! Would she ever be a grown woman again?
“I hate this,” she said into King Dave’s coat.
“I know, baby,” he whispered.
She was losing her waitress-toughness, her new city ways. “I feel like I’m shrinking,” she said foolishly.
He felt her all over from her hair down to her bottom. “Nope. All there.”
She laughed and stepped away from his groping hand. Thank goodness for King Dave!
Her strength trickled back. She didn’t have to be helpless. She could handle this. She’d handled Daddy and Bub Smith in the middle of lunch rush at Liz Otter’s. She could take anything.
“I think you should call her,” King Dave said soberly.
“Not yet,” she said.
“You want to. She wants you to. Do it.”
Nadine set her jaw. “I can’t!”
“Sure you can. You’re my princess. You need your Mom.”
“Someday,” she whispered, covering her face with both hands.
“Shit,” King Dave said again and wrapped her up once more.
“You four-flusher!”
Nadine felt King Dave twitch. She looked up from his shirt-front. He scowled and glanced over his shoulder.
“Beat it, Tammy,” he snapped. “I’m busy.”
Instantly Nadine grew up, eleven to twenty, no waiting.
Tammy! What if she whipped out her spray can and zapped King Dave’s beautiful tuxedo? With a snarl Nadine pulled free.
“You owe me,” Tammy said behind King Dave’s back.
Nadine whispered fiercely, “Don’t let her bother you!”
He tried to pull her closer again. “Sh, sh.” Over his shoulder he barked, “I mean it, Tammy. Go away.” There was danger in his voice.
“Don’t act so tough! I still got a pile of pictures! You want me to send them to your buddies at the Opera House? How about I send one to your father?”
“Send ’em to the fucking newspapers. I got more important things to do,” King Dave said, keeping his big body between Nadine and Tammy.
“No,” Nadine whispered.
He bent over her with worry in his angel blue eyes, ignoring Tammy. “You okay now?” He kissed a tear off her chin.
She squeezed his hand. “Don’t let her hurt you!”
“She’ll go away,” he said. “She was never up to my weight.”
Nadine felt a thump on King Dave’s back, clear through him.
“You big bully! What about my little boy?” Tammy whined. “I need that money! I can have your wages garnished, you know.”
Nadine snapped past his shoulder, “And King Dave can tell the judge you violated his visitation rights! Get out of the way, King Dave.” She shoved him aside. “Where’s the money he gave his mother for you?” she said to the ex.
Tammy was a revelation. She wore one of those cheap shiny red sprayed-on dresses. Her hair was big, her hips were little, and her shoes made her stand on tiptoe. She barely came up to Nadine’s shoulder. She was a pint-size, cheap coward. What’s more, she lacked moral weight.
“You could have garnished his wages before,” Nadine said. “Why pull some sleazy stunt with a camera?”
The answer was in the toss of Tammy’s head and her evasive eyes. “I can’t pay my mortgage if he don’t pay me.”
“I pay your mortgage,” King Dave said. “You wanted a Porsche. Not part of the settlement.” He was glancing from Nadine to Tammy, looking thoughtful. “I already gave my Mom your check.”
Tammy stuck her tongue out. “She won’t give it to me.”
Nadine was shocked. She had thought more highly of Linda Flaherty’s sense of honor. “She won’t?”
Without meeting Nadine’s eyes, Tammy flung at King Dave, “She found out why you paid up. She sided with you!”
King Dave looked dumbfounded. “She did?”
Nadine couldn’t hold back a laugh. So Linda had stuck up for her son! Poor Tammy. She’d probably told Linda about the orange paint herself, expecting to find an ally.
“When did she do that?” King Dave said.
Nadine said, “I watched King Dave write that check a long time ago. We thought you were out of town. You dumped Davy Junior on King Dave’s Momma,” she added severely. This poisonous little weed could hardly plead her child’s poverty and then abandon him.
Tammy flushed. “I—I’ve been staying with a—a friend—”
“Tamara, I looked all over for you,” said a new voice.
King Dave turned and Nadine saw, looming behind him, a tall, blond, tuxedoed side of beef with a self-important frown. The frown lightened when the beef saw Nadine.
One look at Tammy’s face told Nadine that she had zero interest in introducing this friend to her ex-husband.
“Good evening,” Nadine said in her best receiving-line manner. “I’m Nadine Fisher.” She offered a hand. The beef took it with a wolf look that made Tammy glare. “This gentleman is David Flaherty, Tamm�
�Tamara’s ex-husband. You must be her boyfriend?”
Tammy’s glare moved from her boyfriend to Nadine.
“I’m her fiancé,” the beef said aggressively, putting a lot of shoulder into the handshake with King Dave. “Melvin Zweck.” He winced and tried to let go of King Dave’s hand, and Nadine set her high heel firmly on King Dave’s toe. King Dave released him.
“I own the biggest meat distributing firm in Chicagoland,” Melvin announced. “This classy little lady agreed to become my wife yesterday.” He picked up Tammy’s hand, not so much holding it as showing off the hog-choker diamond on it.
Which explained why the classy little lady was so eager to collect from King Dave quickly and quietly.
“How wonderful for you both,” Nadine said. “You must permit me to congratulate you.” She held out her hand again and the beef dropped Tammy’s to take it again.
Tammy looked nervous.
Nadine drew Melvin out of the alcove into the main hallway. “Will you be marrying in fall? Oh, a fashionable October wedding! So much cooler for you gentlemen in your lovely tuxedos.” She babbled on, turning the full force of preacher’s daughter on Melvin. She had two objectives. “Where is your business located?”
Melvin told her the exact name and address of his business.
One down. She hoped she would remember. Now for number two. “David is the fifth generation of his family in the entertainment industry,” she said, “but he’s by no means determined that his children should go into it. And you? Do you like children?”
Melvin waved a hand, carefree. “Ten years from now. Maybe.”
So Tammy was keeping Davy Junior a secret. Obviously custody was going to be an interesting factor in her future. Maybe she hoped to leave Davy Junior with Linda forever.
Nadine moved her hand so as not to obscure Melvin’s view of her Magic-by-Myrna cleavage. Melvin pontificated about meat distribution, staring down her dress. Tuning him out, she listened to the battle behind her.
King Dave was saying, “—better things to do than chase you around town.”
“I’ll go to Corbett’s and hand them to every stagehand I see,” Tammy threatened.
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