Fancy Pants (Wynette, Texas #1)(50)

“Maybe you better start thinking about why everybody wants to get rid of you so bad.”

“It's not my fault, don't you see? It's circumstances.” She began to tell him all of it, beginning with Chloe's death, stumbling over her words in her haste to get them out before he walked away. She told him how she'd sold everything to pay for her ticket home only to realize that even if she did have a ticket, she couldn't possibly go back to London without money, without clothes, with the news of her humiliation in that terrible movie on everyone's lips so that they were all laughing at her. She realized right then that she had to stay where she was, where no one knew her, until Nicky got back from his sordid fling with the blond mathematician and she had a chance to talk to him over the telephone. That's why she'd set out to find Dallie at the Blue Choctaw. “Don't you see? I can't go back to London until I know Nicky will be right there at the airport waiting for me.”

“I thought you told me he was your fiancé?”

“He is.”

“Then why is he having a fling with a blond mathematician?”

“He's sulking.”

“Jesus, Francie—”

She rushed over to kneel down beside his chair and looked up at him with her heart-stopping eyes. “It's not my fault, Dallie. Really. The last time I saw him, we had this awful quarrel just because I turned down his marriage proposal.” A great stillness came over Dallie's face and she realized he had misinterpreted what she'd said. “No, it's not what you're thinking! He'll marry me! We've quarreled hundreds of times and he always proposes again. It's just a matter of getting hold of him on the telephone and telling him I forgive him.”

Dallie shook his head. “Poor son of a bitch,” he muttered.

She tried to glare at him, but her eyes were too teary, so she stood and turned her back, struggling for control. “What I need, Dallie, is some way to endure the next few weeks until I can talk to Nicky. I thought you could help me, but last night you wouldn't talk to me, and you made me so angry, and now you've taken my money.” She spun on him, her voice catching on a sob. “Don't you see, Dallie? If you'd just been reasonable, none of this would have happened.”

“I'll be goddamned.” Dallie's boots hit the floor. “You're getting ready to blame all this on me, aren't you? Jesus, I hate people like you. No matter what happens, you manage to shift the blame to somebody else.”

She jumped up. “I don't have to listen to this! All I wanted was some help.”

“And a small bit of cash to go with it.”

“I can return every penny in a few weeks.”

“If Nicky takes you back.” He stretched out his legs again, crossing them at the ankles. “Francie, you don't seem to realize that I'm a stranger with no obligation to you. I don't do all that good a job of taking care of myself, and I'm sure as hell not going to take you on, even for a few weeks. To tell you the truth, I don't even like you.”

She looked at him, bewilderment imprinted on her face. “You don't like me?”

“I really don't, Francie.” His burst of anger had faded, and he spoke calmly and with such obvious conviction that she knew he was telling the truth. “Look, honey, you're a real traffic stopper with that face of yours, and even though you're a little on the puny side, you kiss great. I can't deny that I had a few wayward thoughts about what the two of us might have been able to accomplish underneath the covers, and if you had a different personality I could even see myself losing my head over you for a few weeks. But the thing of it is, you don't have a different personality, and the way you are is pretty much a composite of all the bad qualities of every man and woman I ever met, with none of the good qualities thrown in to even things out.”

She sank down on the end of the bed, hurt enveloping her. “I see,” she said quietly.

He stood and pulled out his wallet. “I don't have a lot of ready cash right now. I'll cover the rest of the motel bill with plastic and leave fifty dollars to hold you for a few days. If you get around to paying me back, send me a check in care of General Delivery, Wynette, Texas. If you don't get around to it, I'll know things didn't work out between you and Nicky, and hope greener pastures turn up soon.”

With that speech, he tossed the motel key on the desk and walked out the door.

She was finally alone. She stared down at a dark stain that looked like an outline of Capri on the motel carpet. Now. Now she'd hit bottom.

Skeet leaned out the passenger window as Dallie approached the Riviera. “You want me to drive?” he asked. “You can crawl in the back and try for a few hours’ sleep.”

Dallie opened the driver's door. “You drive too damned slow, and I don't feel like sleeping.”

“Suit yourself.” Skeet settled in and handed Dallie a Styrofoam coffee cup with the lid still snapped on. Then he gave him a slip of pink paper. “The cashier's phone number.”

Dallie crumpled the paper and pushed it into the ashtray, where it joined two others. He pulled on his cap. “You ever heard of Pygmalion, Skeet?”

“Is he the guy who played right tackle for Wynette High?”

Dallie used his front teeth to pull the lid off his coffee cup while he turned the key in the ignition. “No, that was Pygella, Jimmy Pygella. He moved to Corpus Christi a few years back and opened up a Midas muffler shop. Pygmalion's this play by George Bernard Shaw about a Cockney flower girl who gets made over into a real lady.” He flipped on the windshield wipers.