“I’ll make you a chart that will help you keep your new clothes matched correctly.”
“What’s to match? Men’s clothes aren’t like women’s. We just put on what strikes our fancy.”
She mimicked his drawl and lingo for effect. “I’m gonna strike your fancy—right upside your head.” Dinah wagged a finger at him. “Dressing well is not as simple as you think. You have to keep the right colors and styles together.”
He put her down and looked at her seriously. “I knew there was a catch,” he intoned in a wry voice. The salesman came back with a full bottle of wine and a second glass. Rucker waved aside the glass, took the bottle, and swallowed a long swig straight from it. He squared his shoulders, eyed the salesman like a Marine about to charge into battle with a puny companion, and said, “Let’s do it, buddy.”
“Indeed.” The salesman sniffed and led him away.
• • •
The weekly visit from a housekeeper kept Rucker’s sumptuous, Early American bedroom sparkling clean and reasonably neat, but only a very brave housekeeper would attempt to navigate his walk-in closet. Apparently, Dinah thought with amused disgust as she surveyed it, no one has had that much courage. The closet, which was huge, had not one square inch of empty floor space. Old, partially strung tennis rackets hung from the clothes racks. A yellow, half-inflated river raft sagged against one wall. A collection of imported-beer bottles rested on the shoe racks.
Behind her, Rucker came trudging across the darkly carpeted bedroom floor, his arms stacked so high with his new purchases that he could barely see around them. “Outta my way,” he puffed. “I got to put this stuff away before I get a hernia.”
Dinah eyed him balefully. “Nothing new is going in this closet until everything old is removed.” She studied the area, which was lit by a dim overhead light fixture. “I’ve counted twenty pairs of ancient jogging shoes, three moldy sets of golf clubs, six dilapidated pairs of golf shoes, and a five-gallon garbage bag full of dirty socks. Dirty socks, Rucker? Why?”
“I guess I forgot about ’em,” he answered sheepishly. He went to his king-size bed and dumped all his bags and boxes on the dark spread. “I guess I thought the washing machine ate them. Washing machines have a way of doin’ that, you know.” He paused, then smiled at her rakishly. “Come on, Dee. Let’s go downstairs and have a glass of wine in front of the fireplace. It’s so cold and rainy outside, and I’d love to kiss your toes the way I did the other night.…”
“Not until we excavate the vault of ‘Tutankhamen’ McClure.” Sniffing delicately, Dinah picked her way into the closet, kicked aside some jogging shoes, and sat down cross-legged. “Get a handful of garbage bags,” she ordered. “The thirty-gallon size.”
Mumbling about assertive women, he went downstairs and came back with the bags and a six-pack of cold beer. He sat down next to her on the floor, swallowed the contents of a can in three big gulps, then heaved the can over his shoulder. It landed neatly inside the upturned raft. “Two points,” he noted cheerfully.
Dinah shoved his shoulder in mild rebuke, then opened one of the garbage bags and began stuffing shoes inside. “My memories,” he said wistfully, watching her.
“Memories are not made of moldy athletic shoes.”
“Aw, I guess you’re right.” He got a bag and began depositing shoes in it himself, without much enthusiasm. After a moment, he reached over to a cardboard box by the wall and pulled it toward him.
“What’s that?” Dinah asked.
“My high-school yearbooks.” He thumbed through one as she leaned toward him and peered curiously. “There I am.” He pointed to a photo of the Latin Club.
“You were in the Latin Club?”
“Sure.” He cleared his throat. “Nunc est bibendum,” he said gravely. “That’s a very serious Latin phrase.”
She gave him an affectionate, but rebuking, look. “Of course it is. It means ‘Now is the time for drinking.’ ”
He nodded. “Very serious.”
Smiling, Dinah leaned forward and studied his picture. He was tall and awkward looking, just as he’d described to her once. All hands and feet and bony structure, like a coat rack waiting for the coat, and an angular face that showed strength of character but could not yet be called handsome. His hair was cut laughably short, even for twenty years ago. But it was the defiant look about him that drew her attention most: hands jammed in front pockets, legs braced, shoulders hunched. Even in the old photo it was easy to see the poverty behind his khaki work pants, baggy plaid shirt, and lace-up work boots. Her smile faded into sympathy.
“Uh, look pretty mean, there, don’t I?” he said gruffly. “That picture was taken one afternoon right after school, and I was dreadin’ work. From the time I was fourteen, I worked in a furniture factory afternoons and weekends. Summers too.”
Dinah mentally compared her free time during the highschool years: carefree, pampered days spent shopping, reading, and preparing for pageants. “You had to work, I suppose.” she said softly. “There was no choice.”
“Yep.”
She touched the photograph with her fingertip and spoke softly. “A good kid.”
“A bad kid,” he corrected. “Believe it or not, I was sensitive. Too sensitive. I saw too many things wrong with the way people treated each other, so I used to fight … all the time. I’d get suspended, and my poor mama would come see the principal and repeat her same old story, bless her heart. ‘He’s not a bad boy. He’s just not like anyone else, and they pick on him.’ Good story. Kept me from endin’ up in juvenile hall.”
Dinah looked at him, open mouthed. This was a side of Rucker she’d never suspected. “I’ve always assumed that you were just like you are now—mellow.”
His eyes were serious and somewhat bitter as he shook his head. “Kids who are dirt poor have a hard time bein’ mellow. It’s humiliating to wear your father’s hand-me-downs and never have enough money to buy a full lunch in the school cafeteria. Especially in a small town, where everybody knows that you’re poor and your father was no-account.”
“He was?”
“Chased everything in skirts. Had such bad credit that nobody’d even loan him a pot to—well, nobody would loan him anything.”
“Oh, Rucker.” She stroked his arm.
“I was glad when the mean bastard died in that truck accident. Real glad. But I had to wear his damned leftover clothes until I went into the Army. As soon as I got my army issue I threw away every piece of his clothes.”
Dinah shoved the garbage bags aside and scooted over to put her arms around Rucker’s neck. She kissed him. “I’m glad you’re not like everybody else.” She kissed him again. “So it’s good to have new clothes?”
He smiled a little. “Uh-huh. It’s like puttin’ the past behind you. I always feel that way about new clothes.”
“Really? I didn’t make you buy things you hate?”
“Nope.” He sighed grandly, looking resigned. “It’s time to move into the next phase of my life. The Esquire phase.”
“Esquire, my foot. I don’t want an Esquire man.” Her voice dropped. “I want you.” Dinah began to pull him down, pushing old jogging shoes aside as she did. She felt such tenderness for him after what he’d just told her about his youth that she wanted to love the sadness out of him. “Right here, right now.”
“Here?” He gestured around them. “Near the dirty socks? Dee? Are you sure you feel okay?”
“Yes.” She began pulling up his sweater, his new sweater, a muted blue with fine gray and white stripes. He wore it over an oyster-gray shirt, the collar peaking stylishly over the sweater’s neck. He had on crisp new jeans. “I prefer your old jeans,” she whispered huskily, as he stretched out beside her. “They’re more … uhmmm …”
“Form fittin’,” he said devilishly. “I know how you like to watch my form.”
“I do like to watch you. I admit it.”
He unbuttoned her blousey plaid shirt and slid his hand inside to cup
one of her breasts over the lacy bra she wore. “Dee,” he whispered. “I never thought you’d want to make love to me on top of old jogging shoes. You sure have gotten earthy.”
“I’d make love to you anywhere, big guy.”
He took her in his arms and his eyes filled with devotion. “This relationship of ours is working out just as well as I figured, ladybug. We’re definitely compatible. Like hot corn and cool butter.” He lowered his head and began kissing her neck. “I love you, butter.”
She nodded, smiling at his silly analogy but feeling strange, as if she might cry from a mixture of conflicting emotions. She still had the dismal fear that the future wouldn’t be as wonderful as the present. “I love you, corn,” she whispered.
It was an unusually cold afternoon for early December, and a white mountain fog had rolled in early, bringing with it a fine mist that just stopped short of qualifying as rain. Dinah liked this kind of weather—“toast and tea weather,” as Rucker called it. It made everything indoors feel so cozy and warm. Even her small mayor’s office with its scarred, corkboard walls, battered desk, and humming space heater seemed cheerful. Outside, the first shades of dusk were drawing around Mount Pleasant even though the courthouse clock had only just finished striking five.
Dinah sipped a mug of coffee and bent over the neat stack of paperwork on her desk. She reached out and adjusted the jointed arm on the drafting light that was screwed to one corner of the desk, pulling the light closer to her. As she did, she heard the click of the phone intercom. Lula Belle’s voice came out.
“Rucker’s on line one.” She chortled. “He asked me why I was workin’ late instead of chasin’ men. I told him I’ve got enough trouble figurin’ out city water bills.”
Dinah laughed. “After what we went through today, I don’t think we’ll ever get them straight.” She punched a button on the phone console. “Flirting with the city clerk won’t get you anywhere, sir.”
“Oh?” Even long-distance, his deep voice sent pleasant shivers up her spine. “Who do I have to flirt with to get satisfaction?”
“The mayor.”
“You mean that beautiful brunette who has such good taste in men?”
“I’m afraid she doesn’t look beautiful today. She looks a bit soggy. She’s been outside trying to trace a lost water line.”
“Don’t y’all have a map of those things?”
“Well, you would think so, wouldn’t you? My predecessor, the honorable Mervin Flortney, lost it. Odd, but his house is on the mystery water line. Hasn’t paid a water bill in years.” Dinah adopted a Sherlock Holmes voice. “Fascinating, wouldn’t you say, Watson? Makes one wonder if the loss was intentional, eh?”
“Eh. Does a hound dog have fleas?”
“Precisely. At any rate, Lula Belle and I have just spent two hours tracking down water valves on West Pleasant Road. I’m sitting here with mascara smeared under my eyes and an old towel on my head, wearing dirty jeans and a damp sweatshirt. One of your old ones.”
“Why, how disgustin’,” he said primly. “I’m wearin’ a dress shirt—something in a pale robin’s-egg blue, my best color—a charming, tan silk paisley tie, and exquisitely tailored tan slacks.”
“Why, how nice,” she answered drolly. “You got the chart right, for once. You certainly must look like the top turnip in the patch, Mr. Turnip Head.”
“Mean politician.”
They both chuckled. “So how’s Dallas?” she asked. “Are you ready to give your speech?”
“Dallas is great! You ain’t gonna believe the suite these cattlemen got for me. It’s at this old grand hotel named The Adolphus. It’s got antiques in it. I don’t know whether to sit on the bed or take a picture of it. This is the suite Jimmy Carter stays in when he comes to Dallas on business. How about that?”
“You’re a VIP,” she said, smiling. “Give me your room number.”
“It’s a suite,” he protested with mock rebuke. “A suite, not a room.” He relayed the number, and she wrote it down. “I’ll give you a call tonight, ladybug, after we get through. I gotta run ’cause the Gannon boys want to buy me a couple of drinks before dinner.”
“The Gannons? As in Gannon International?”
“Just a few of my associates,” he sighed with great nonchalance. “You know how it is for us slick-dressed people. A beer with the jet-setters, prime rib with the cattlemen’s association, a speech that knocks them on their horns a-laughin’ …”
“A wildly inflated self-assessment,” she replied tartly. “Call me later, you handsome hound. I love you.”
His voice became soft and serious. “I love you too. And tell Jethro that Daddy says hello.”
“He’ll be so thrilled. Since his expression never changes, I won’t be able to tell that he’s thrilled, but I’ll assume that he is.”
Rucker was still laughing when he said good-bye. Dinah hung up the phone and sat without moving for a while, thinking about him and smiling. She was so lost in daydreams that at first she didn’t hear the new voices in the hall outside her office. When she realized that Lula Belle was arguing with someone loudly—and loudly was loud, with Lula Belle—Dinah leapt up and hurried toward the door.
“You get out of here!” she heard Lula Belle screech. “All right, then, all right! I’m callin’ the police!”
A sudden sinking sensation, part fear, part foreboding, grabbed at Dinah’s stomach. As she reached her door a man blocked her way. Dinah halted, her heart freezing, her hands rising involuntarily to her throat as if to protect it. Pale, predatory eyes gleamed down at her. Todd Norins held out a hand with well-manicured nails.
“It’s certainly nice to see you again, Dinah. After all these years.” He almost smiled.
Nine
It had been a good night, a good speech, and a good time, Rucker thought contentedly as he leaned against the beveled glass of the private penthouse elevator. In recent years, success had lived up to all its promises, and he was a happy beneficiary. Rucker puffed a cloud of fragrant smoke from a long cigar. He enjoyed smoking a good cigar sometimes, and this one was magnificent.
Humming an old Tammy Wynette song, he straightened as the elevator reached his floor. The door slid back with the graceful whoosh of fine machinery, and Rucker stepped into a small lobby decorated in Queen Anne antiques, the fabrics flowery, the ambience elegant and old-world. Rudolph Valentino had once stayed in this hotel. And John Wayne. Can’t picture the Duke among all this frippery, Rucker thought sternly. Fumbling with his hotel key, he climbed a winding, private staircase that led up one story to the landing of his exclusive suite.
The sight of Dinah seated on the floor, her back against the suite’s door jamb, brought him to an astonished stop. She uncurled her long legs and got up slowly, her movements awkward and weary.
“Dee!” he called, and covered the last few steps in one leap. He threw the cigar into an ash stand by the door and grabbed her shoulders. Rucker stared down at her, fear and concern twisting his stomach. She looked like she’d been through hell. “What is it, hon? What are you doin’ here?”
Her voice was hollow and cold. “The game’s over. Drop the southern comfort act, Rucker. I know what you really want from me now.”
Shock left him speechless for once in his life. He blankly noted that her glorious dark hair, usually so perfect, now hung in limp, disheveled strands, as if she’d spent hours running her hands through it. She wore her leather coat over the floppy gray sweatshirt and dirty jeans. Her feet were covered by mud-stained tennis shoes, and a small leather purse dangled from the angry fist her right hand made. That fist drew his attention.
“Punch me or explain what’s wrong,” he ordered desperately. Her face was what upset him most. It was swollen from crying, and now her eyes glittered with new tears. New tears, exhaustion, and bitterness, as she gazed up at him mutely. Bitterness he couldn’t comprehend.
“I wanted to believe in you so badly,” she said in a dull voice. “Don’t you have any shame??
??
“Dee? What the hell is the matter? What happened? Why’d you fly to Dallas?” He tried to take her in his arms, but her hands came up and braced against his dark blue jacket. She held him away, and he gazed down at her in utter bewilderment, frowning.
“We have to talk,” she said, and her icy tone cut through him. “I don’t want your sympathy. I want explanations.”
“What is it?” he demanded, his fear making him so reckless that he shook her slightly. “Damn it, Dee, tell me!”
“Let go of me!” She shoved him fiercely, and he was so amazed that he released her arms. She stepped back, her chest moving harshly as she took quick, short breaths. “Stop pretending to be innocent! I hate this act of yours!”
“Dee?” he said again, stunned. She was a stranger, a violent stranger blind with fury. “What the—”
“What did Todd Norins promise you?” Her voice was cutting. “A plug on his show for your books or your column? That he’d help you get some spectacular job in broadcasting? That he’d share the credit when he broke my story? What, Rucker? What would make me worth all the trouble you went through? Seduction and courtship. I must be one hell of a good story to you!”
The sound of Norins’s name had startled him, and now he looked down at her in new silence as a terrible sense of understanding crept over him. “Oh, no,” he groaned.
“He showed up at my office today. He brought his cameraman along.” Her voice was full of sarcasm. “We had an impromptu interview. It consisted mainly of Norins asking me questions and me telling him to get out. The tape will be aired in all its glory on USA Personal next week.” She paused, her eyes glinting even brighter. “He said you told him where to find me.” Her voice broke as tears streamed down her cheeks. “You told … told him everything … you knew about me. Why, damn it? What was the payoff for you! That’s all I want to know! What was the payoff!”
Shaking his head, he took a step toward her, his hands out in supplication. “Dee, it wasn’t like that, I swear. I never tried to hurt you. I was looking for information. I called Norins because he’d done that article years ago—”