the car.
The house was empty except for Teddy and Skeet. Dallie went back out without saying where he was going, and Francesca took Teddy for a walk. Twice she tried to introduce Dallie's name, but he resisted her efforts and she didn't push him. He couldn't say enough, however, about the virtues of Skeet Cooper.
When they returned to the house, Teddy ran off to get a snack and she went down to the basement where she found Skeet putting a coat of varnish on the club head he'd been sanding earlier. He didn't look up as she came into the workroom, and she watched him for a few minutes before she spoke. "Skeet, I want to thank you for being so nice to Teddy. He needs a friend right now."
"You don't have to thank me," Skeet replied gruffly. "He's a good boy."
She propped her elbow on top of the vise, taking pleasure in watching Skeet work. The slow, careful movements soothed her so that she could think more clearly. Twenty-four hours before, all she had wanted to do was to get Teddy away from Dallie, but now she toyed with the idea of trying to bring them together. Sooner or later, Teddy was going to have to acknowledge his relationship to Dallie. She couldn't bear the idea of her son growing up with emotional scars because he hated his father, and if freeing him
of those scars meant she would have to spend a few more days in Wynette, she would simply do so.
Her mind made up, she looked over at Skeet. "You really like Teddy, don't you?"
" 'Course I like him. He's the kind of kid you don't mind spending time with."
"It's too bad everybody doesn't feel that way," she said bitterly.
Skeet cleared his throat. "You give Dallie time, Francie. I know you're the impatient type, always
wanting to rush things, but some things just can't be rushed."
"They hate each other, Skeet."
He turned the club head to inspect it and then dipped his brush in the varnish can. "When two people
are so much alike, it's sometimes hard for them to get along."
"Alike?" She stared at him. "Dallie and Teddy aren't anything alike."
He looked at her as if she were the stupidest person he'd ever met, and then he shook his head and
went back to varnishing the club head.
"Dallie's graceful," she argued. "He's athletic. He's gorgeous-"
Skeet chuckled. "Teddy sure is a homely little cuss. Hard to figure how two people as pretty as you and Dallie managed to produce him."
"Maybe he's a little homely on the outside," she replied defensively, "but he's a knockout on the inside."
Skeet chuckled again, dipped his brush, and then looked over at her. "I don't like to give advice, Francie, but if I were you I'd concentrate more on nagging Dallie about his golf than on nagging him about Teddy."
She looked at him in astonishment. "Why ever should I nag him about his golf?"
"You're not going to get rid of him. You realize that, don't you? Now that he knows Teddy's his boy,
he's going to keep popping up whether you like it or not."
She'd already come to the same conclusion, and she nodded reluctantly.
He stroked the brush along the smooth curve of the wood. "My best piece of advice, Francie, is that
you use those brains of yours to figure out how to get him to play better golf."
She was completely mystified. "What are you trying to tell me?"
"Just exactly what I said, is all."
"But I don't know anything about golf, and I don't see what Dallie's game has to do with Teddy."
"The thing about advice is-you can either take it or leave it."
She gave him a searching look. "You know why he's being so critical of Teddy, don't you?"
"I got a few ideas."
"Is it because Teddy looks like Jaycee? Is that it?"
He snorted. "Give Dallie credit for having more sense than that."
"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."