During the next few months, Dallie found a number of excuses to come to New York. First he had to meet with some advertising executives about a promotion he was doing for a line of golf clubs. Then he was "on his way" from Houston to Phoenix. Later he had a wild craving to sit in gridlocked traffic and breathe exhaust fumes. Francesca could never remember having laughed so much or felt so absolutely sassy and full of herself. When Dallie put his mind to it he was irresistible, and since she'd long ago
gotten out of the habit of telling herself lies, she stopped trying to cheapen her feelings for him by hiding them under the convenient label of lust. No matter how potentially heartbreaking-she realized that she was falling in love with him. She loved his look, his laughter, the easygoing nature of his manliness.
Still, the obstacles between them loomed like skyscrapers, and her love had a bittersweet edge. She
wasn't an idealistic twenty-one-year-old anymore, and she couldn't envision any fairy-tale future. Although she knew Dallie cared for her, his feelings seemed much more casual than her own.
And Teddy continued to be a problem. She sensed how much Dallie wanted to win him over, yet he remained stiff and formal with her son-as if he was afraid to be himself. Their outings too frequently ended in disaster as Teddy misbehaved and Dallie reprimanded him. Although she hated admitting it,
she sometimes found herself feeling relieved when Teddy had other plans and she and Dallie could
spend their time alone together.
On a Sunday late in April, Francesca invited Holly Grace to come over and watch the final round of one of the year's more important golf tournaments. To their delight, Dallie was only two shots off the lead. Holly Grace was convinced that if he made a strong finish, he'd play out the season instead of going into the announcers' booth in two weeks to do color commentary for the U.S. Classic.
"He'll blow it," Teddy said as he came into the room and plopped himself on the floor in front of the television. "He always does."
"Not this time," Francesca told him, irritated with his know-it-all attitude. "This time he's going to do it." He'd better do it, she thought. The night before on the phone, she'd promised him a variety of erotic rewards if he came through today.
"When did you get to be such a golf fan?" he had asked.
She had no intention of telling him about the hours she had spent reviewing every detail of his professional career, or the weeks she had spent looking at videotapes of his old tournaments as she tried to find the key to unlock Dallie Beaudine's secrets.
"I became a fan after I developed this incredible crush on Seve Ballesteros," she had replied breezily, as she settled back into the satin pillows on her bed and propped the receiver on her shoulder. "He is so gorgeous. Do you think you could fix me up with him?"
Dallie had snorted at her reference to the darkly handsome Spaniard who was one of the best professional golfers in the world. "Keep talking like that and I'll fix you up, all right. You just forget about old Seve tomorrow and keep your eye on the All-American Kid."
Now as she watched the All-American Kid, she definitely liked what she saw. He parred the fourteenth and fifteenth holes and then birdied sixteen. The leader board shifted and he was one stroke out of first place. The camera picked up Dallie and Skeet walking toward the seventeenth hole and then cut for a Merrill Lynch commercial.
Teddy got up from his spot in front of the television and disappeared into his bedroom. Francesca put out a plate of cheese and crackers, but both she and Holly Grace were too nervous to eat. "He's going to do it," Holly Grace said for the fifth time. "When I talked to him last night, he said he was feeling real good."
"I'm glad the two of you are speaking to each other again," Francesca remarked.
"Oh, you know Dallie and me. We can't stay mad at each other for long."
Teddy returned from the bedroom wearing his cowboy boots and a navy blue sweat shirt that fell past
his hips. "Where on earth did you get that hideous thing?" She eyed the drooling motorcyclist and the Day-Glo inscription with distaste.
"It was a present," Teddy muttered, plopping himself back down on the carpet.
So this was the sweat shirt she'd heard about. She looked thoughtfully at the television screen, which showed Dallie teeing up his ball on the seventeenth hole, and then back at Teddy. "I like it," she said.
Teddy pushed his glasses back up on his nose, all his attention on the tournament. "He's going to clutch."
"Don't say that," Francesca snapped.
Holly Grace stared intently at the screen. "He's got to put it just beyond the bunker, over toward the left side of the fairway. That'll give him a real good look at the flag."
Pat Summerall, the CBS commentator, spoke over the picture to his partner Ken Venturi. "What do you think, Ken? Is Beaudine going to be able to hold it together for two more holes?"
"I don't know, Pat. Dallie's looked real good today, but he's got to be feeling the pressure right now, and he never plays his best during these big tournaments."
Francesca held her breath as Dallie hit his drive, and then Pat Summerall said ominously, "It doesn't look as if he's caught it flush."
"He's coming down awfully close to that left fairway bunker," Venturi observed.
"Oh, no," Francesca cried, her fingers tightly crossed as she stared at the ball flying across the small screen.
"Dammit, Dallie!" Holly Grace shrieked at the television.
The ball dropped from the sky and buried itself in the left fairway bunker.
"I told you he'd blow it," Teddy said.
Chapter 31
Dallie had an excellent view of Central Park from his hotel room, but he impatiently turned away from
the window and began pacing the floor. He had tried to read on the plane flying into JFK, but had found that nothing held his attention, and now that he had reached his hotel he felt claustrophobic. Once again he had let a tournament victory get away from him. The thought of Francesca and Teddy sitting in front of the television and watching him lose was just about more than he could stand.
But the loss of the tournament wasn't all that was bothering him. No matter how hard he tried to distract himself, he couldn't stop thinking about Holly Grace. They'd made up since their fight at the farmhouse and she hadn't mentioned anything about using him for stud service again, but some of the spunk had gone out of her, and he didn't like that one bit. The more he thought about what had happened to her,
the more he wanted to put his fist through Gerry Jaffe's face.
He tried to forget about Holly Grace's troubles, but an idea had been nagging at the back of his mind
ever since he'd gotten on the plane, and now he found himself picking up the piece of paper that held Jaffe's address. He'd gotten it from Naomi Perlman less than an hour ago, and since then he had been trying to make up his mind whether or not to use it. Glancing at his watch, he saw that it was already seven-thirty. He was going to meet Francie at nine for dinner. He was tired and jagged, in no mood to be reasonable, and certainly in no condition to try to straighten out Holly Grace's troubles. Still, he found himself tucking Jaffe's address into the pocket of his navy blue sport coat and heading down to the lobby to get a cab.
Jaffe lived in an apartment building not far from the United Nations. Dallie paid the driver and began walking toward the entrance, only to see Gerry coming out through the front door.
Gerry spotted him immediately, and Dallie could tell by the expression on his face that he'd received better surprises in his life. Still, he managed a polite nod. "Hello, Beaudine."