Dallie didn't say anything for a moment. He lifted his foot and rested his boot on the bumper of the car, staring out in the direction she had thrown the stones and finally looking back at her. “You've changed, Francie. You know that?”
She nodded.
“Teddy's not an ordinary boy.”
The way he said it, she knew he wasn't issuing a compliment. “Teddy's the best kid in the world,” she answered sharply.
“He needs a father. A man's influence to get him toughened up. The boy's too soft. The first thing you have to do is tell him about me.”
She wanted to scream at him, tell him she would do no such thing, but she saw with painful clarity that too many people knew the truth for her to keep it a secret from her son any longer. She nodded reluctantly.
“You've got a lot of lost years to make up for,” he said.
“I don't have anything to make up for.”
“I'm not going to disappear from his life.” Once again his face grew hard. “We can either work something out ourselves, or I can hire one of those bloodsucking lawyers to stick it to you.”
“I won't have Teddy hurt.”
“Then we'd better work it out ourselves.” He took his foot off the bumper, walked around to the driver's door, and climbed in. “Go on back to the house. I'll bring him to you tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow? I want him now! Tonight!”
“Well, now, that's too bad, isn't it?” he said with a sneer. And then he slammed the car door.
“Dallie!” She ran toward him, but he was already heading out of the quarry, his tires spitting gravel. She yelled after him until she realized how futile that was, and then she raced to her own car.
The engine wouldn't start for her at first, and she was afraid she had run the battery down by leaving her lights on. When it finally turned over, Dallie had already disappeared. She raced the car up the steep road after him, ignoring the way the rear end fishtailed. At the top, she caught sight of two dim red taillights in the distance. Her tires spun as she accelerated. If only it wasn't so dark! He turned out onto the highway and she raced after him.
For several miles, she stayed with him, ignoring the squeal of her tires as she accelerated around wild curves, pushing the car to reckless speeds when the pavement straightened. He knew the narrow back roads and she didn't, but she refused to fall back. He wasn't going to do this to her! She knew she'd hurt him, but that didn't give him the right to terrorize her. She pushed the speedometer to sixty-five and then to seventy....
If he hadn't finally turned off his lights, she might have had him.
Chapter
26
Francesca felt numb by the time she returned to Dallie's house. As she climbed wearily out of the car, she found herself replaying bits and pieces of the encounter in the quarry. Most men would be glad to have been spared the burden of an unwanted child. Why couldn't she have picked one of them?
“Uh... Miss Day?”
Francesca's heart sank as she heard the young female voice coming to her from the vicinity of the pecan trees at the side of the drive. Not tonight, she thought. Not now, when she felt as if she were already carrying a thousand pounds on her shoulders. How did they always manage to find her?
Even before she turned in the direction of the voice, she knew what she would see—the desperately young face, | tough and sad, the cheap clothes undoubtedly topped by gaudy earrings. She even knew the story she would hear. But tonight she wouldn't listen. Tonight she had too much trouble clouding her own life to take on anyone else's.
A girl dressed in jeans and a dirty pink jacket stepped just to the edge of a puddle of light that shone dimly on the drive from the kitchen window. She wore too much makeup, and her center-parted hair fell like a double door over her face. “I... uh... I saw you earlier at the gas station. At first I didn't believe it was you. I... uh... I heard from this girl I met a long time ago that... you know... you might, uh...”
The runaways' grapevine. It had followed her from Dallas to St. Louis, then on to Los Angeles and New York. Now it seemed her reputation as the world's biggest sucker had even spread to small towns like Wynette. Francesca willed herself to turn her back and walk away. She willed it, but her feet wouldn't move.
“How did you find me?” she asked.
“I—uh—I asked around. Somebody said you were staying here.”
“Tell me your name.”
“Dora—Doralee.” The girl lifted the cigarette that was shoved between her fingers and took a drag.
“Would you step into the light so I can see you?”
Doralee did as she was asked, moving reluctantly, as if lifting her red canvas high-top sneakers required superhuman effort. She couldn't be more than fifteen, Francesca thought, although she would insist that she was eighteen. Walking closer, she studied the girl's face. Her pupils weren't dilated; her speech had been hesitant, but not slurred. In New York, if she suspected that a girl was strung out on drugs, she took her to an old brownstone in Brooklyn run by nuns who specialized in helping addicted teenagers.
“How long since you've had anything decent to eat?” Francesca asked.
“I eat,” the girl said defiantly.
Candy bars, Francesca guessed. And Styrofoam cupcakes stuffed with chemical frosting. Sometimes the street kids pooled their money and treated themselves to fast-food french fries. “Would you like to come inside and talk?”
“I guess.” The girl shrugged her shoulders and flipped her cigarette down onto the drive.
As Francesca led her toward the kitchen door, she thought she could hear Holly Grace's scornful voice mocking her: “You and your teenage hookers! Let the government take care of these kids like it's supposed to. I swear to God, you don't have the sense you were born with.” But Francesca knew the government didn't have enough shelters to take care of all these kids. They simply shipped them back to their parents where, all too frequently, the problems started all over again.
The first time Francesca had become involved with a runaway was in Dallas after she'd done one of her early television shows. The subject had been teenage prostitution, and Francesca had been horrified at the power the pimps exerted over the girls, who were, after all, still children. Without quite knowing how it had happened, she'd found herself bringing two of them home and then badgering the social welfare system until they found foster homes for them.
The word had slowly spread, and every few months since then she'd found herself with a runaway on her hands. First in Dallas, then in Los Angeles, then in New York, she would leave work at night to find someone standing outside the building, having heard through the grapevine of the streets that Francesca Day helped girls who were in trouble. Frequently they just wanted food, other times a place to hide from their pimps. Seldom did they say much; they had suffered too many rejections. They just slouched in front of her like this girl, smoking a cigarette or biting their fingernails and hoping that Francesca Day would somehow understand that she was their last hope.
“I have to call your family,” Francesca announced as she warmed a plate of leftovers in the microwave and then set it out, along with an apple and a glass of milk.
“My mom don't give a shit what happens to me,” Doralee said, her shoulders slumped so far forward that the ends of her hair nearly touched the table.
“I still have to call her,” Francesca replied firmly. While Doralee tucked into the leftovers on her plate, Francesca called the number in New Mexico that the girl grudgingly gave her. It was just as she'd said. Her mother didn't give a shit.
After Doralee had finished eating, she began to respond to Francesca's questions. She had been hitchhiking when she saw Francesca pull into the service station and ask for directions to the gravel quarry. She'd lived on the streets of Houston for a while and spent some time in Austin. Her pimp beat her up because she wasn't turning enough tricks. She was starting to worry about AIDS.
Francesca had heard it all so many times before—these poor, sad childr
en cast out too young into the world. An hour later, she tucked the girl into the small hideaway bed in the sewing room and then gently awakened Miss Sybil to tell her what had happened at the quarry.
Miss Sybil stayed up with her for several hours until Francesca insisted she go back to bed. Francesca knew she could never fall asleep herself, and she returned to the kitchen where she rinsed the dirty dishes from Doralee's dinner and loaded them into the dishwasher. Then she lined the kitchen drawers with fresh shelf paper she found in the cupboard. At two o'clock in the morning, she began to bake. Anything to make the long hours of the night pass faster.
“What's that over there, Skeet?” Teddy jumped up and down in the back seat and pointed out the side window of the car. “Over there! Those animals by the hills!”
“I thought I told you to put your seat belt on,” Dallie snapped from behind the wheel. “Dammit, Teddy, I don't want you jumping around like that when I'm driving. You put that seat belt on right now or I'm going to pull this car right off the road.”
Skeet frowned at Dallie and then looked over his shoulder at Teddy, who was scowling at the back of Dallie's neck in exactly the same way Skeet had seen Dallie scowl at people he didn't like. “Those are angora goats, Teddy. People around here raise 'em for mohair to make fancy sweaters.”
But Teddy had lost interest in the goats. He was scratching his neck and toying with one end of the open seat belt.
“Did you fasten it?” Dallie snapped.
“Uh-huh.” Teddy secured the belt as slowly as he dared.
“Yes, sir, “ Dallie reprimanded. “When you're talkin' to grown-ups, you say 'sir' and 'ma'am.' Just because you live in the North doesn't mean you can't have some manners. You understand?”
“Uh-huh.”
Dallie spun around toward the back seat.
“Yes, sir, “ Teddy mumbled sullenly. And then he looked toward Skeet. “How much longer till I get to see my mom?”
“Not too long now,” Skeet replied. “Why don't you dig in that cooler there and see if you can find yourself a can of Dr Pepper?” As Teddy busied himself with the cooler, Skeet reached for the radio and flipped the sound to the rear speakers so he couldn't be overheard from the back seat. Sliding a few inches closer to Dallie, he remarked, “You're acting pretty much like a sumbitch, you know that?”
“Stay out of this,” Dallie retorted. “I don't even know why I called you and told you to meet me.” He fell silent for a moment, and his knuckles tightened on the wheel. “You see what she's done to him? He goes around talking about his I.Q. scores and his allergies. And look what happened at the motel when I tried to throw the football around with him a little bit. He's the clumsiest kid I ever saw in my life. If he can't handle something the size of a football, you can just imagine what he'd do with a golf ball.”
Skeet thought about that for a minute. “Sports isn't everything.”
Dallie lowered his voice. “I know that. But the kid acts funny. You can't tell what he's thinking behind those glasses, and he pulls his pants up to his armpits. What kind of kid wears his pants high like that?”
“He's probably afraid they'll fall down. His hips aren't much bigger than your thigh.”
“Yeah? Well, that's another thing. He's puny. You remember how big Danny was, right from the beginning.”
“Danny's mama was a lot taller than Teddy's.”
Dallie's jaw set in a hard, straight line, and Skeet didn't say any more.
In the back seat, Teddy closed one eye and peered down into the depths of his Dr Pepper can with the other. He scratched the rash on his stomach underneath his T-shirt. Although he couldn't hear what they were saying in the front, he knew they were talking about him. And he didn't care, either. Skeet was neat, but Dallie was a big jerk. A great big butt-hole.
The depths of the Dr Pepper can clouded in his vision, and he felt like he had a big green slimy frog caught in his throat. Yesterday he'd finally stopped pretending to himself that everything was all right, because he knew it wasn't. He didn't believe his mom had told Dallie to take him away from New York like this, no matter what Dallie said. He thought maybe Dallie had kidnapped him, and he tried not to be scared. But he knew something was wrong, and he wanted his mom.
The frog swelled up in his throat. It made him mad to be crying like some jerky baby, so he glanced toward the front seat. When he was satisfied that Dallie's attention was on his driving, his fingers crept to his seat-belt buckle. Soundlessly, he slipped it open. No butt-hole was going to tell Lasher the Great what to do.
Francesca dreamed about Teddy's science project. She was caught in a glass cage with insects crawling all over her, and someone was using a giant pin, trying to spear the bugs to mount them. She was next. And then she saw Teddy's face on the other side of the glass, calling out to her. She tried to get to him, to reach him....
“Mom! Mom!”
She jerked awake. With her mind still foggy from sleep, she felt something small and solid fly across the bed at her, tangling itself in the covers and the sash from her robe. “Mom!”
For a few seconds, she was caught between her dream and reality, and then she felt only a piercing sense of joy. “Teddy? Oh, Teddy!” She caught his small body and pulled him to her, laughing and crying. “Oh, baby...” His hair felt chilly against her cheek, as if he'd just come in from outside. She pulled him up in the bed and caught his face between her hands, kissing him again and again. She rejoiced in the familiar feeling of his small arms around her neck, his body pressed against hers, that fine hair, his little-boy smell. She wanted to lick his cheeks, just like a mother cat.
She was vaguely aware of Dallie leaning just inside the door of the bedroom watching them, but she was too caught up in the exquisite joy of having her son back to care. One of Teddy's hands was in her hair. He'd buried his face in her neck, and she could feel him trembling. “It's all right, baby,” she whispered, tears sliding down her own cheeks. “It's all right.”
When she lifted her head, her eyes inadvertently met Dallie's. He looked so sad and so alone that, for a second, she had a crazy urge to hold out her hand and beckon him to join the two of them on the bed. He spun around to walk away, and she was disgusted with herself. But then she forgot about Dallie as Teddy claimed all of her attention. It was some time before either of them could calm down enough to talk. She noticed that Teddy was covered with dull red blotches, and he kept scratching himself with stubby fingernails. “You ate ketchup,” she scolded gently, reaching under his T-shirt to stroke his back. “Why did you eat ketchup, baby?”
“Mom,” he murmured, “I want to go home.”
She dropped her legs over the side of the bed, still holding on to his hand. How was she going to tell Teddy about Dallie? Last night while she'd been lining drawers and baking cakes, she had decided it would be best to wait until they were back in New York and events had returned to normal. But now, looking at his small, wary face, she knew postponement wasn't possible.
As she'd raised Teddy, she had never permitted herself to utter those convenient little lies most mothers told their children to buy themselves peace. She hadn't even been able to manage the Santa Claus story with any degree of conviction. But now she had been caught out in the one lie she had told him, and it was a whopper.
“Teddy,” she said, clasping both his hands between hers, “we've talked a lot about how important it is to tell the truth. Sometimes, though, it's hard for a mother to always do that, especially when her child is too young to understand.”
Without warning, Teddy snatched his hands away and jumped up from the bed. “I have to go see Skeet,” he said. “I told him I'd be right back down. I have to go now.”
“Teddy!” Francesca jumped up and caught his arm before he could reach the door. “Teddy, I need to talk to you.”
“I don't want to,” he mumbled.
He knows, Francesca thought. On some subliminal level, he knows I'm going to tell him something he doesn't want to hear. She wrapped her ar
ms around his shoulders. “Teddy, it's about Dallie.”
“I don't want to hear.”
She held him tighter, whispering into his hair. “A long time ago, Dallie and I knew each other, sweetheart. We—we loved each other.” She grimaced at this additional face-saving lie, but decided it was better than confusing her son with details he wouldn't understand. “Things didn't work out between us, honey, and we had to separate.” She knelt down in front of him so she could look into his face, her hands sliding down his arms to catch his small wrists as he still tried to pull away from her. “Teddy, what I told you about your father—about how I'd known him in England, and he died—”
Teddy shook his head, his small, blotched face contorted with misery. “I have to go! I mean it, Mom! I have to go! Dallie's a jerk! I hate him!”
“Teddy—”
“No!” Using all his strength, he twisted out of her hands and before she could catch him, he'd raced from the room. She heard his feet making fast, angry thumps down the stairs.
She sagged back on her heels. Her son, who liked every adult male he'd ever met in his life, didn't like Dallie Beaudine. For a moment she felt a petty rush of satisfaction, but then, in a sickening flash of insight, she realized that no matter how much she might hate it, Dallie was bound to become a factor in Teddy's life. What effect would it have on her son to dislike the man who, sooner or later, he must realize was his father?
Shoving her hands through her hair, she got up and pushed the door shut so she could get dressed. As she pulled on slacks and a sweater, she saw a vision of Dallie's face as he had looked when he was watching them. There had been something familiar about his expression, something that reminded her of the lost teenage girls who waited for her outside the studio at night.
She scowled at herself in the mirror. She was too fanciful. Dallie Beaudine wasn't a teenage runaway, and she refused to waste a moment's sympathy on a man who was little better than a common criminal.
After peeking into the sewing room to reassure herself that Doralee was still asleep, she took a few minutes to collect herself by making a phone call to set up an appointment with one of the county social workers. Afterward, she went in search of Teddy. She found him slumped on a stool next to a workbench in the basement where Skeet was sanding the bare wooden head of a golf club. Neither of them was talking, but the silence seemed to be companionable rather than hostile. She saw some suspicious streaks on her son's cheeks and slid her arm around his shoulders, her heart aching for him. She hadn't seen Skeet in ten years, but he nodded at her as casually as if it had been ten minutes. She nodded back. The heating duct above her head clattered.