A Baby...Maybe? & How to Hunt a Husband (4 page)

Only, the coins inside the chest were actually there to distract anyone from finding the real treasure the chest held.

Cara walked slowly over to the dresser. You only live once, she told herself. What was she saving all of the jewelry for? They were there for her to use. She wore the earrings almost every day. They were the smallest of the gold coins her forebears had brought over in the secret compartments built into the chest. The coins had been set in a gold-filigree bracket by a past Romano relative. She looked at her reflection in the dresser mirror. She never thought twice about wearing the earrings. They were so much a part of her. But they were only a small part of the treasure.

She lifted the lid and reached inside, bringing out what remained of the solid-gold coins. Some of the coins had been used to start businesses, to send Ro
manos to college, to get started in life. She had inherited what remained. That same Romano relative who had done the earrings also had made coins into a necklace, bracelet and brooch. They were solid gold, heavy and priceless.

Cara tried on the necklace and almost collapsed under the weight of the coins, each set in a filigree frame then attached to the gold necklace. The bracelet was the same design, and the brooch was layered with coins in the shape of a crescent moon.

She never wore any of the jewelry except the earrings. Tomorrow all that would change. The coins had brought her ancestors luck. They would bring her luck, too. She didn't know how, she didn't know where, all she knew was that she was going to wear those pieces of jewelry, either separately or together, and her life would work out fine.

She undressed for bed, took the sweet-pea nightgown back out of the drawer and was about to put it on but stopped. No, she wouldn't need it. She set her alarm and slipped naked beneath the sheets, took a few deep breaths, then with eyes wide open stared at the ceiling, waiting for the alarm to go off.

Saturday morning couldn't come fast enough, and when the alarm finally buzzed, she was already set to go. She left her car parked on the street in front of the apartment building and took a cab to the airport. She checked her luggage, walked over to the airport gift shop and stopped in front of the mailbox outside the entrance. She took the goodbye note she had written to her parents out of her purse, unfolded it and read it one last time before licking the envelope shut and sending it on its way.

The note was simple and very, very sweet. It was also to the point, because she felt extremely sympathetic to her parents' feelings.

A
T TEN O'CLOCK
on Saturday morning Rex parked his pickup about fifty feet from the cow billboard on the shoulder of the freeway, close to the outdoor patio of Mama Jo's Bar-B-Q.

The meat smoking in the massive drums on the backside parking area had probably been cooking for at least twenty-four hours already. The smell of huge slabs of beef saturated with flavors from mesquite and hickory chips made his stomach growl despite that he had finished breakfast only about an hour earlier.

Mama Jo happened to be one slick businesswoman who knew how to bring in the customers. Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, those smokers were working, and the sweet-tangy aroma of smoking beef could be inhaled from miles away. It was no wonder Mama Jo's was the busiest restaurant in Texas. Automobiles and trucks were guided to Mama Jo's on the smoky barbecue fumes alone. His friend Tony often joked that it was a good thing Donetti's Irish Pub and Sushi Bar was just outside the fragrant limits of Mama Jo's Bar-B-Q, or he'd be out of business. There was nothing in the world like the aroma of Texas barbecue.

On the other side of the freeway the wind carried the smoke puffing out of the bull's nostrils right toward him. That smoke, on the other hand, didn't leave him with the same feeling as Mama Jo's Bar-B-Q did. Not even close.

Rex peered up at the cow billboard. Either way, up close or fifty feet away, the view was the same. He feared the image of shimmering udders would be branded on his brain forever.

Clay's black Mercedes screeched to a stop behind Rex's truck. Clay, using his hand as a shield against the sun, stood next to his car as he looked up at the sign. “Whaddya think?” he asked, his smile bright, his eyes optimistic. “Great advertising campaign, eh?”

“No Bull?”
That was the first thing Rex asked. “When did you come up with that slogan?”

“It just came to me. Pure inspiration at work, that's what it is.”

“Inspiration?” He didn't see any kind of divine entities at work here.

“Isn't it great? Noble, no bull. No-ble. Get it? Huh?” Clay nudged Rex in the ribs.

Rex stepped away from Clay's elbow. “I get it. The problem is, I didn't get what I paid for.”

That seemed to stop Clay cold. “What are you talking about?”

“I did not pay for bestial pornography.”

Clay looked confused.

“You glittered her udders.”

“The pièce de résistance. Great, huh?”

“You had the mock-up. This is nothing like the mock-up. The billboards were supposed to look more like that.” He nodded at the Noble Sperm Bank Association, A Breed Apart logo painted on his truck. “It's a very simple, very subtle proclamation that tells everyone in Pegleg, Texas, and breeders across the country what I do.”

“You have stiff competition.” He glanced at the bull. “No pun intended. You said that yourself. How do you expect to get breeders interested in your bull with some pansy-looking logo like that?”

“Let's get something straight. My business is doing just fine. I hired you as a favor to your brother. These billboards may ruin me.” And it wasn't just himself that was at stake. He had his investors to think about. This wasn't a one-man operation.

“They're not going to ruin you. They're going to make you. You need a bull that looks like he's got what it takes to make things happen. And that's what I gave you.”

“What you gave me is a bull who looks like he's getting ready to hump the cow.”

“That's the idea.” Clay nodded, as if Rex was finally getting it.

Only Clay was the one who didn't get the program. “Look at what kind of interest these billboards are generating,” Rex said as vehicles whizzed past, honking their horns, making catcalls out the windows. “I want some of that,” some lady yelled. “Whoo-whoo,” another hooted.

“You're not going to be sorry you put your advertising needs in my hands. Your business will boom.”

“It's already booming.”

“Now it will explode. I see putting these billboards everywhere. Maybe even have cow and bull magnets, the kind that have the lips that come together to kiss. Or we could put the magnets on their—” Clay gave Rex a man-to-man look. When Rex's expression finally appeared to sink into the ad executive's brain, Clay's voice became serious and he mumbled, “Just a thought.” He cleared his throat. “We'll add the magnets as inserts to telephone and electric bills.”

Rex held up his hand. “Forget it.”

“Let me finish. I'm only getting started here. I have plans. Big plans. Wait till you hear about the cow and bull calendar,” he said with pride. “Not to mention the huge advertising campaign I've outlined for mag
azines and newspapers. You'll have to clone your bull just to keep up with the business.”

“The billboards have got to come down.”

“No way,” he said in disbelief.

“All the way down.”

“You're killin' me.” Clay's voice was strangled.

“Replace them with regular rectangular billboards that look like my logo.”

“You're going to ruin an incredible campaign,” Clay accused him.

“The bull's penis is so big it's offensive.”

“Bulls have big penises.”

“Yes, they do, but it doesn't have to be displayed ten feet long on a billboard.”

“Men need visuals, you know that. They have to see what they're getting. It's like silicone.”

“What?”

“The woman's breast. Silicone breasts aren't real, but that doesn't stop men from fantasizing about them. Same with the bull's bobby. Guys know it's not real, but that's not going to stop them from thinking if their cattle was inseminated with your bull's semen, they could breed a giant.”

“That's not what the phone calls we've been getting—”

“Have you been getting calls already?”

“We can't keep up with them.”

“It's amazing, isn't it, what a little advertising will do for a business?”

“You don't get it. I'm quickly becoming the laughingstock of this county.” Rex's jaw was clenched so tightly it hurt. “These are not phone calls about doing business with me. These calls range from women screaming about the obscene nature of the bull's organ to men wanting to know if I provide growth hormones for them.”

“As they say in the advertising world,” Clay said flippantly, “any publicity is good publicity.”

“Publicity is over. Take the billboards down. Today.”

“I can't do that today. No one works on Saturday.”

“I work on Saturday.”

“You're the customer, but I'm telling you right now, you'll be sorry you didn't go with the plan.”

“What I'm sorry about is that I'm going to have to listen to Cathy rag on me about losing another cell phone.”

“I can understand the cell phone issue. And maybe that's just what you need. Time without a phone, to think, and you might reconsider the advertising campaign. When you find your phone, call me and let me know if you really want to take the billboards down.”

“I do.”

Clay was already back at his car. “I'll wait to hear the final decision.”

“I told you my final decision,” he shouted to Clay, but the man had already slammed the door shut and was heading back on the freeway.

What was with these people? Didn't anyone listen anymore?

 

C
ARA ARRIVED
at Houston's George Bush Intercontinental Airport around midmorning. In her excitement and rush to leave the apartment and get to the airport, she hadn't eaten breakfast.

She would have had something at the airport, but her gold coins kind of wreaked havoc with the new heavy-duty security in place. Every time she walked through the metal detectors, X-ray alarm buzzers sounded. Off came the earrings, off came the brooch, off came the necklace and finally the bracelet. The buzzers still rang. Her belt was next and then her loafers.

Finally, off came the safety pin she had used in place of the button she hadn't time to sew back on her khakis. That final humiliation and embarrassment was almost worth having to endure when the buzzer was silent. They gave her back the button and kept the safety pin.

It took a full ten minutes and the help of a stranger to get all the jewelry back on. By then there was no time to grab a snack.

She'd been given cheese and crackers on the first plane, and peanuts on the second, but that didn't do much to combat her hunger. By the time she landed, she was absolutely famished. She retrieved her luggage, then she had to wait at the car-rental counter as they processed her paperwork.

“I'm sorry,” the rental agent said. “You had ordered an economy sedan, and we don't have any left.”

Cara stared at her. “What am I supposed to do?”

The lady smiled, and in the brightest Texas accent she said, “Don't you worry about any little thing. You have your choice—at the same price and terms as the economy car—of either a minivan or a Mustang.”

Cara's stomach growled. Normally she would have been embarrassed, except all she could think about was a Mustang. “Mustang,” she said before common sense told her to take the minivan.

She signed the papers and was given a map and directions to Mama Jo's Bar-B-Q, the restaurant where she was to meet Kate. The shuttle bus dropped her in front of the car she would call her own for the next nine days. All thoughts of food and hunger instantly fled the moment she saw her Mustang. Not just any Mustang either. A bright red convertible. This was about as close to heaven as a woman could get.

Here she was, a meek, mild kindergarten teacher who always did for others and never made waves. A
good daughter who tried to please. Now, she had run away from home, kind of, and she was going to be driving a Mustang convertible. What was happening to her? Cara didn't even feel one little twinge of guilt for running away, leaving only the note to ease her poor mother's mind. That almost bothered her because she should have felt guilty for not feeling guilty. But right now, all she felt was the hot smooth surface of the hood of the Mustang and this incredible excitement about the nine blissful days she'd spend here in Texas. No mother nagging her. No introductions to fixer-uppers as candidates for marriage. Just peace. And boy, did she need peace.

She carefully followed the directions to the restaurant. She had been to Houston once before, and it was just as she remembered. Expansive. The city went on and on. She remembered what Tony had told her once, that Houston was so big, that when you finally reached the end of the city limits, you were in Dallas. If the drive she was taking to Pegleg was any indication, she figured Tony was speaking the truth.

Cara finally passed the town of Stafford, and then Missouri City, and by the time she saw the second Sugar Land exit and the first Pegleg exit, she had been on the road for over ninety minutes. The excitement and anticipation pumping through her was giving way to the overwhelming hunger deep inside her. She could have sworn that she had smelled barbecue miles and miles away. It must have been traveling on a phantom cloud. Yet, as she got closer to Pegleg, the scent of cooking beef became stronger. Maybe it wasn't just a phantom cloud.

Cara took the correct exit and turned into the parking lot. It was like nothing she had ever seen before. The lot took up at least a city block. She had to drive around the perimeter and the aisles at least twice before a car pulled out, leaving her a space to park. She
pressed a button and the convertible's top rose up, then dropped into place. She grabbed her purse, got out of the car. There was a button on the key chain to lock the door. Remote locks—it was incredible. She couldn't believe her luck.

A long line of customers were giving their names to the hostess, just hoping to get a table. It took a full five minutes to get to the hostess, who told her the wait for a table would be at least another hour.

“Do you have a phone I can use?” Cara asked.

“Sure.” The young woman signaled her to come around the counter and pointed to the black desk phone.

“I'm here. I made it,” Cara said when Kate answered the phone.

“I'm about twenty minutes from the restaurant. I'm on my way.”

The hostess smiled at Cara as she walked to the front of the counter. “There's iced tea, soda, water and some nibblers.” The lady pointed to the table off to the side. “Help yourself, and if you want, you can wait out on the patio.”

Cara filled a tall glass with ice and poured tea out of one of the glass pitchers. She placed a pile of spicy-hot chicken wings on a very large plate. They would never have plates that large in Erie. She dabbed ranch dressing over the top layer of wings and, satisfied the dressing had dripped through the layers of chicken, she grabbed a stack of napkins and followed several other customers outside.

The sun shone so brightly here in Texas. Only a few fluffy cottonball-like clouds scattered here and there marred the perfection of the huge expanse of blue sky.

When she had left Erie that morning it had been raining, the temperature close to freezing. The blue worsted-wool overcoat she had worn for the past five
winters now rested in the Mustang's trunk. Her hair, usually pulled back in a tight ponytail, hung long and curly down her back, touching below her waist.

For the first time in months, maybe years, Cara felt free, unencumbered, and she loved every second of that feeling. She knew it would be only a matter of time before her old routine would return with a force so great it would knock her over. She had nine days. That was all. The extent of her freedom. Then back to Erie she'd go. Back to her old school, back to her old life. Best not waste her freedom by thinking about her life in Erie.

The patio was crowded. The tables full. That didn't surprise Cara, considering the hour-long wait. She walked around the perimeter of the patio until she found an empty spot along the decorative wrought-iron fence. She balanced her plate on top of one of the spikes on the fence so she could use both hands to wrap a napkin around the condensation of the tea glass. She sipped the tea and looked out toward the freeway. That's when she saw the billboard.