Fancy Pants (Wynette, Texas #1)(169)

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.”

“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, the 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 way 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 fun 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.