"How much did you give 'em at the motel desk before we left this morning?"
Dallie muttered something Skeet couldn't quite hear.
"Whadja say?" Skeet repeated belligerently.
"A hundred, I said! A hundred now and another hundred next year when I come back and find the dog
in good shape."
"Damn fool," Skeet muttered. "You and your strays. You got mangy dogs boarded away with motel managers in thirty states. I don't even know how you half keep track. Dogs. Runaway kids…"
"Kid. There was only one, and I put him on a Trailways bus the same day."
"You and your damn strays."
Dallie's gaze slowly swept Skeet from head to toe. "Yeah," he said. "Me and my goddamn strays."
That shut Skeet up for a while, which was exactly what Dallie had intended. He opened his book for the second time, and three pieces of blue stationery folded in half slipped out into his lap. He unfolded them, taking in the border of romping Snoopys across the top and the row of X's at the end, and then he began to read.
Dear Dallie,
I'm lying at the side of Rocky Halley's swimming pool with just about an inch and a half of purple bikini between myself and notoriety. Do you remember Sue Louise Jefferson, the little girl who worked at the Dairy Queen and betrayed her parents by going north to Purdue instead of to East Texas Baptist because she wanted to be the Boilermakers' Golden Girl, but then she got knocked
up after the Ohio State game by a Buckeye linebacker instead? (Purdue lost, 21-13.) Anyway, I've been thinking about one day a few years back when Sue Louise was still in Wynette and she was feeling like Wynette High and her boyfriend were getting to be 100 much for her. Sue Louise looked over at me (I'd ordered a vanilla chocolate twist with sprinkles) and said, "I been thinking that life's like a Dairy Queen, Holly Grace. Either it tastes so good it gives you the shivers or it's melting all over your hand."
Life's melting, Dallie.
After coming in at fifty percent over quota for those bloodsuckers at Sports Equipment International, I was pulled into the office last week by the new V.P. who told me they're promoting someone else to southwest regional sales manager. Since that Someone Else bap-pens to be male and barely made quota last year, I hit the roof and told the V.P. he was looking right down the bosom of an Equal Opportunity lawsuit. He said, "Now, now, honey. You women are too sensitive about this sort of thing. I want you
to trust me." At which point I told him I wouldn't trust him not to get a hard-on in an old ladies'
retirement home. Several more heated exchanges followed, which is why I'm currently lying beside old Number 22's swimming pool instead of living in airports.
News on the brighter side-I Farrah Fawcetted my hair until it looks just short of spectacular, and the Firebird's running great. (It was the carburetor, just like you said.)
Don't buy any bridges, Dallie, and keep making those birdies.
Love,
Holly Grace
P.S. I made up some of that about Sue Louise Jefferson, so if you happen to see her next time you're in Wynette, don't mention anything about the Buckeye linebacker.
Dallie smiled to himself, folded the letter into quarters, and tucked it into his shirt pocket, the closest place he could find to his heart.
Chapter 6
The limousine was a 1971 Chevrolet without air conditioning. This was especially irksome to Francesca because the thick, heavy heat seemed to have formed a cocoon around her. Even though her travels in the United States had until that day been limited to Manhattan and the Hamptons, she was too preoccupied with her own misjudg-ment to show any interest in the unfamiliar landscape they had passed since leaving Gulfport an hour earlier. How could she have blundered so badly in her choice of wardrobe? She glanced down with disgust at her heavy white woolen trousers and the long-sleeved celery-green cashmere sweater that was sticking so uncomfortably to her skin. It was the first day of October! Who could have imagined it would be so hot?
After nearly twenty-four hours of travel, her eyelids were drooping from weariness and her body was covered with grime. She had flown from Gatwick to JFK, then to Atlanta, and from there to Gulfport where the temperature was ninety-two in the shade and where the only driver she'd been able to hire had a car without air conditioning. Now all she could think about was going to her hotel, ordering a lovely gin and quinine, taking a long, cold shower, and sleeping for the next twenty-four hours. As soon as she
checked in with the film company and found out where she was being lodged, she'd do exactly that.
Pulling the sweater away from her damp chest, she tried to think of something to cheer herself up until she reached the hotel. This was going to be an absolutely smashing adventure, she told herself. Although she had no acting experience, she'd always been a wonderful mimic, and she would work very hard in the film so that the critics would think she was marvelous and all the best directors would want to hire her. She would go to wonderful parties and have a lovely career and make absolutely scads of money. This was what had been missing from her life, that elusive "something" she'd never quite been able to define. Why ever hadn't she thought of it before?
She pushed her hair back from her temples with the tips of her fingers and congratulated herself on having so neatly cleared the hurdle of finding enough money to cover her air fare. It had been a lark, actually, once she'd gotten over the initial shock of the idea. Lots of socialites took their clothes to stores that bought designer labels for resale; she didn't know why she hadn't done so months before. The money from the sale had paid for a first-class airline ticket and settled the most pressing of her bills. People made financial matters so unnecessarily complex, she now realized, when all it took to solve one's difficulties was a little initiative. She abhorred wearing last season's clothes, anyway, and now she could begin buying an entire new wardrobe as soon as the film company reimbursed her for her ticket.
The car turned into a long drive lined with live oaks. She craned her neck as they rounded a bend and she saw a restored plantation house ahead, a three-story brick and wooden structure with six fluted columns gracefully set across the front veranda. As they drew nearer, she noticed an assortment of twentieth-century trucks and vans parked next to the antebellum home. The vehicles looked just as out of place as the members of the crew who wandered about in shorts with T-shirts, bare chests, and halter tops.
The driver pulled the car to a stop and turned to her. He had a large round American Bicentennial button affixed to the collar of his tan work shirt. It read "1776-1976" across the top, with "AMERICA" and "LAND OF OPPORTUNITY" at the center and bottom. Francesca had seen signs of the American Bicentennial everywhere since she'd landed at JFK. The souvenir stands were loaded with commemorative buttons and cheap plastic models of the Statue of Liberty. When they passed through Gulfport, she'd even seen fire hydrants painted to look like Revolutionary War minute-men. To someone who came from a country as old as England, all this celebrating of a mere two hundred years seemed excessive.
"Forty-eight dollar," the taxi driver announced in English so heavily accented that she could barely understand it.
She sifted through the American currency she had purchased with her English pounds when she'd landed at JFK and handed him most of what she had, along with a generous tip and a smile. Then she climbed out of the cab, taking her cosmetic case with her.
"Francesca Day?" A young woman with frizzy hair and dangling earrings came toward her across the
side lawn.
"Yes?"
"Hi. I'm Sally Calaverro. Welcome to the end of nowhere. I'm afraid I'm going to need you in wardrobe right away."
The driver set the Vuitton suitcase at Francesca's feet. She took in Sally's rumpled India print cotton skirt and the brown tank top she had unwisely chosen to wear without a bra. "That's impossible, Miss Calaverro," she replied. "As soon as I see Mr. Byron, I'm going to the hotel and then to bed. The only sleep I've had for twenty-four hours was on the plane, and I'm frightfully exhausted."