Fancy Pants (Wynette, Texas #1)(135)

“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?”