Fancy Pants (40 page)
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.
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.
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."
"Not on my program," she said firmly. "I don't manipulate my viewers."
"Francesca, these days we're not talking about a little
thirteen-kiloton firecracker like the one we dropped on Nagasaki. We're
talking megatons. If twenty thousand megatons hits New York City, it's
going to do more than ruin one of Donald Trump's dinner parties. It'll
send fallout over a thousand square miles, and eight million fried
bodies will be left rotting in the gutters."
"I'm trying to eat, Gerry," she protested, setting down her fork.
Gerry had been talking about the horrors of nuclear war for so long
that he could demolish a five-course meal while he described a terminal
case of radiation poisoning, and he dug into his baked potato. "Do you
know the only thing that has any chance of surviving? The cockroaches.
They'll be blind, but they'll still be able to reproduce."
"Gerry, I love you like a brother, but I won't let you turn my show
into a circus." Before he could launch his next round of
arguments, she changed the subject. "Did you talk to Holly Grace this
afternoon?"
He put down his fork and shook his head. "I went over to her mother's
house, but she ducked out the back door when she saw me coming."
Pushing away his plate, he took a sip of water.
He looked so miserable that Francesca was torn between the desire to
comfort him and the urge to smack some sense into him. Gerry and Holly
Grace obviously loved each other, and she wished they would stop
camouflaging their problems. Although Holly Grace hardly ever talked
about it, Francesca knew how badly she wanted a child, but Gerry
wouldn't even discuss the matter with her.
"Why don't the two of you try to come up with some sort of compromise?"
she offered tentatively.
"She doesn't understand the word," Gerry replied. "She's got it in her
head that I've been using her
name, and—"
Francesca groaned. "Not this again. Holly Grace wants a baby, Gerry.
Why won't either of you admit what the real problem is? I know it's
none of my business, but I think you'd make a wonderful father, and—"
"Christ, have you and Naomi been taking nagging lessons together or
what?" He abruptly pushed his
plate away. "Let's go on over to the
Roustabout, okay?"
The Roustabout was the last place she wanted to go. "I don't really—"
"The high school sweethearts are sure to be there. We'll walk in,
pretend we don't see them, and then have sex on top of the bar. What do
you say?"
"I say no."
"Come on, gorgeous. The two of them have been tossing a ton of shit our
way. Let's toss a little back."
True to form, Gerry ignored every one of her protests and hustled her
from the restaurant. Fifteen minutes later, they were walking through
the door of the honky-tonk. The place looked much as Francesca
remembered, although most of the neon Lone Star beer signs had been
replaced with signs
for Miller Lite, and video games now occupied one
corner. The people were the same, however.
"Well, look who just walked through the door," a throaty female voice
drawled from a table twenty feet to their right. "If it isn't the queen
of England herself with the king of the Bolsheviks walking right next
to her." Holly Grace sat with a beer bottle in front of her, while at
her side Dallie sipped a glass of club soda. Francesca felt another of
those queer little jumps in her middle at the sight of those cool blue
eyes studying her over the rim of the glass.
"No, I'm wrong," Holly Grace went on as she took in the black and ivory
print Galanos dress Francesca was wearing with an oversize cinnabar red
jacket. "She's not the queen of England. She's that lady mud wrestler
we saw down in Medina County."
Francesca grabbed Gerry's arm. "Let's go."
Gerry's full lips were growing thinner by the minute, but he refused to
move. Holly Grace tilted back the brim of her Stetson, studiously
ignoring him while she scrutinized Francesca's outfit. "Galanos in the
Roustabout. Shit. You're liable to get us all kicked out. Don't you get
tired always being the center of attention?"
Francesca forgot about Gerry and Dallie and looked at Holly Grace with
genuine concern. She really was acting bitchy. Letting go of Gerry's
arm, she walked over to her and slipped into the chair at her side.
"Are you all right?" she asked.
Holly Grace scowled into her beer glass, but otherwise remained silent.
"Let's go to the bathroom so we can talk," Francesca whispered, and
when Holly Grace didn't respond, she added more forcefully, "Right now."
Holly Grace gave her a rebellious look that resembled Teddy at his
worst. "I'm not going anywhere with you. I'm still mad at you for not
telling me the truth about Teddy." She turned to Dallie. "Dance with
me, baby."
Dallie had been regarding them both with interest. Now he unwound
himself from his chair and looped
his arm over Holly Grace's shoulders
as she stood up. "Sure, honey."
The two of them began to walk away, but Gerry took a step forward,
blocking their path. "Isn't it interesting the way they grab on to each
other?" he said to Francesca. "It's the most fascinating case of
arrested development I've ever seen."
"You go ahead and dance, Holly Grace," Francesca said quietly, "but
while you're doing it, think about the fact that I might need you right
now just as much as Dallie does."
For a moment Holly Grace hesitated, but then she turned into Dallie's
arms and together they moved out onto the dance floor.
At that moment, one of the patrons of the Roustabout came up to ask
Francesca for her autograph, and before long she was surrounded by
fans. She chatted with them while inwardly she was filled with
frustration. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Gerry talking to a
buxom young thing at the bar. Holly Grace danced past with Dallie, the
two of them moving together like one single, graceful body, their
casual intimacy so absolute they seemed to shut out the rest of the
world. Her cheeks began to ache from smiling. She signed more
autographs and acknowledged more compliments, but the patrons of the
Roustabout refused to let her go. They were accustomed to having the
star of "China Colt" in their midst, but seeing the glamorous Francesca
Day was something else entirely. It wasn't long before she spotted
Holly Grace slipping out the back door by herself. A hand touched her
from behind.
"Sorry, folks, but Francie promised me this dance. You still remember
the two-step, honey?"
Francesca turned toward Dallie and, after a moment's hesitation, went
into his arms. He caught her against him, and she had the unsettling
feeling that she'd been pitched back ten years to the time when
this
man had formed the center of her world.
"Damn, it feels funny to be dancing with somebody who's wearing a
dress," he said. "You got shoulder pads in that jacket?"
His tone was soft, gentle with amusement. It felt so good to be close
to him. Much too good.
"Don't you let Holly Grace hurt your feelings," he said quietly. "She
just needs some time."
Dallie's sympathy, under the circumstances, surprised her. She managed
to reply, "Her friendship means
a lot to me."
"If you ask me, the way that old commie lover has taken advantage of
her is bothering her more than anything."
Francesca realized that Dallie didn't understand the true nature of the
trouble between Holly Grace and Gerry, and she decided it wasn't her
place to enlighten him.
"Sooner or later, she'll come around," he went on. "And I know she'd
appreciate it if you'd be there waiting for her. Now, how 'bout you
stop worrying about Holly Grace and concentrate on the music so we can
get down to some serious dancing?"
Francesca tried to oblige, but she was so aware of him that serious
dancing was beyond her. The music slowed into a romantic country
ballad. His jaw brushed the top of her head.
"You look awful pretty tonight, Francie."
His voice held a trace of huskiness that unnerved her. He drew her
infinitesimally closer. "You're such
a tiny little thing. I forgot how
little you are."
Don't charm me, she wanted to plead as she felt the warmth of his body
seep through into her own. Don't be sweet and sexy and make me forget
everything that's standing between us. She had the disconcerting sense
that the sounds around them were fading, the music growing still, the
other voices disappearing so that it seemed as if the two of them were
alone on the dance floor.
He pulled her closer and their rhythm subtly changed, no longer quite a
dance but something closer to an embrace. His body felt hard and solid
against hers, and she tried to summon the energy to fight her
attraction to him. "Let's— let's sit down now."
"All right."
But instead of letting her go, he tucked their clasped hands between
their bodies. His other hand slipped under her jacket so that only the
thin silk of her dress separated her skin from his touch. Somehow her
cheek seemed to find his shoulder. She leaned into it as if she had
come home. Drawing in her breath,
she shut her eyes and drifted with
him.
"Francie," he whispered into her hair, "we're going to have to do
something about this."
She thought about pretending that she didn't understand what he meant,
but at that moment coquetry
was beyond her. "It's—it's
just a simple chemical attraction. If we ignore it, it'll go away."
He pulled her closer. "You sure about that?"
"Absolutely." She hoped he didn't hear the slight quaver in her voice.
She was suddenly frightened, and she found herself saying, "Gracious,
Dallie, this has happened to me hundreds of times before. Thousands.
I'm sure it's happened to you, too."
"Yeah," he said flatly. "Thousands of times." Abruptly he stopped
moving and dropped his arms. "Listen, Francie, if it's all the same to
you, I don't feel too much like dancing anymore."
"Fine." She gave him her best cocktail party smile and busied her hands
by straightening the front of her jacket. "That's fine with me."
"See you later." He turned to walk away.
"Yes, later," she said to his back.
Their parting was cordial. No angry words had been spoken. No warnings
had been issued. But as she watched him disappear into the crowd, she
had the vague feeling that a new set of battle lines had been drawn
between them.
"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 ofDallie'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 tenMy 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.
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."
"Not on my program," she said firmly. "I don't manipulate my viewers."
"Francesca, these days we're not talking about a little
thirteen-kiloton firecracker like the one we dropped on Nagasaki. We're
talking megatons. If twenty thousand megatons hits New York City, it's
going to do more than ruin one of Donald Trump's dinner parties. It'll
send fallout over a thousand square miles, and eight million fried
bodies will be left rotting in the gutters."
"I'm trying to eat, Gerry," she protested, setting down her fork.
Gerry had been talking about the horrors of nuclear war for so long
that he could demolish a five-course meal while he described a terminal
case of radiation poisoning, and he dug into his baked potato. "Do you
know the only thing that has any chance of surviving? The cockroaches.
They'll be blind, but they'll still be able to reproduce."
"Gerry, I love you like a brother, but I won't let you turn my show
into a circus." Before he could launch his next round of
arguments, she changed the subject. "Did you talk to Holly Grace this
afternoon?"
He put down his fork and shook his head. "I went over to her mother's
house, but she ducked out the back door when she saw me coming."
Pushing away his plate, he took a sip of water.
He looked so miserable that Francesca was torn between the desire to
comfort him and the urge to smack some sense into him. Gerry and Holly
Grace obviously loved each other, and she wished they would stop
camouflaging their problems. Although Holly Grace hardly ever talked
about it, Francesca knew how badly she wanted a child, but Gerry
wouldn't even discuss the matter with her.
"Why don't the two of you try to come up with some sort of compromise?"
she offered tentatively.
"She doesn't understand the word," Gerry replied. "She's got it in her
head that I've been using her
name, and—"
Francesca groaned. "Not this again. Holly Grace wants a baby, Gerry.
Why won't either of you admit what the real problem is? I know it's
none of my business, but I think you'd make a wonderful father, and—"
"Christ, have you and Naomi been taking nagging lessons together or
what?" He abruptly pushed his
plate away. "Let's go on over to the
Roustabout, okay?"
The Roustabout was the last place she wanted to go. "I don't really—"
"The high school sweethearts are sure to be there. We'll walk in,
pretend we don't see them, and then have sex on top of the bar. What do
you say?"
"I say no."
"Come on, gorgeous. The two of them have been tossing a ton of shit our
way. Let's toss a little back."
True to form, Gerry ignored every one of her protests and hustled her
from the restaurant. Fifteen minutes later, they were walking through
the door of the honky-tonk. The place looked much as Francesca
remembered, although most of the neon Lone Star beer signs had been
replaced with signs
for Miller Lite, and video games now occupied one
corner. The people were the same, however.
"Well, look who just walked through the door," a throaty female voice
drawled from a table twenty feet to their right. "If it isn't the queen
of England herself with the king of the Bolsheviks walking right next
to her." Holly Grace sat with a beer bottle in front of her, while at
her side Dallie sipped a glass of club soda. Francesca felt another of
those queer little jumps in her middle at the sight of those cool blue
eyes studying her over the rim of the glass.
"No, I'm wrong," Holly Grace went on as she took in the black and ivory
print Galanos dress Francesca was wearing with an oversize cinnabar red
jacket. "She's not the queen of England. She's that lady mud wrestler
we saw down in Medina County."
Francesca grabbed Gerry's arm. "Let's go."
Gerry's full lips were growing thinner by the minute, but he refused to
move. Holly Grace tilted back the brim of her Stetson, studiously
ignoring him while she scrutinized Francesca's outfit. "Galanos in the
Roustabout. Shit. You're liable to get us all kicked out. Don't you get
tired always being the center of attention?"
Francesca forgot about Gerry and Dallie and looked at Holly Grace with
genuine concern. She really was acting bitchy. Letting go of Gerry's
arm, she walked over to her and slipped into the chair at her side.
"Are you all right?" she asked.
Holly Grace scowled into her beer glass, but otherwise remained silent.
"Let's go to the bathroom so we can talk," Francesca whispered, and
when Holly Grace didn't respond, she added more forcefully, "Right now."
Holly Grace gave her a rebellious look that resembled Teddy at his
worst. "I'm not going anywhere with you. I'm still mad at you for not
telling me the truth about Teddy." She turned to Dallie. "Dance with
me, baby."
Dallie had been regarding them both with interest. Now he unwound
himself from his chair and looped
his arm over Holly Grace's shoulders
as she stood up. "Sure, honey."
The two of them began to walk away, but Gerry took a step forward,
blocking their path. "Isn't it interesting the way they grab on to each
other?" he said to Francesca. "It's the most fascinating case of
arrested development I've ever seen."
"You go ahead and dance, Holly Grace," Francesca said quietly, "but
while you're doing it, think about the fact that I might need you right
now just as much as Dallie does."
For a moment Holly Grace hesitated, but then she turned into Dallie's
arms and together they moved out onto the dance floor.
At that moment, one of the patrons of the Roustabout came up to ask
Francesca for her autograph, and before long she was surrounded by
fans. She chatted with them while inwardly she was filled with
frustration. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Gerry talking to a
buxom young thing at the bar. Holly Grace danced past with Dallie, the
two of them moving together like one single, graceful body, their
casual intimacy so absolute they seemed to shut out the rest of the
world. Her cheeks began to ache from smiling. She signed more
autographs and acknowledged more compliments, but the patrons of the
Roustabout refused to let her go. They were accustomed to having the
star of "China Colt" in their midst, but seeing the glamorous Francesca
Day was something else entirely. It wasn't long before she spotted
Holly Grace slipping out the back door by herself. A hand touched her
from behind.
"Sorry, folks, but Francie promised me this dance. You still remember
the two-step, honey?"
Francesca turned toward Dallie and, after a moment's hesitation, went
into his arms. He caught her against him, and she had the unsettling
feeling that she'd been pitched back ten years to the time when
this
man had formed the center of her world.
"Damn, it feels funny to be dancing with somebody who's wearing a
dress," he said. "You got shoulder pads in that jacket?"
His tone was soft, gentle with amusement. It felt so good to be close
to him. Much too good.
"Don't you let Holly Grace hurt your feelings," he said quietly. "She
just needs some time."
Dallie's sympathy, under the circumstances, surprised her. She managed
to reply, "Her friendship means
a lot to me."
"If you ask me, the way that old commie lover has taken advantage of
her is bothering her more than anything."
Francesca realized that Dallie didn't understand the true nature of the
trouble between Holly Grace and Gerry, and she decided it wasn't her
place to enlighten him.
"Sooner or later, she'll come around," he went on. "And I know she'd
appreciate it if you'd be there waiting for her. Now, how 'bout you
stop worrying about Holly Grace and concentrate on the music so we can
get down to some serious dancing?"
Francesca tried to oblige, but she was so aware of him that serious
dancing was beyond her. The music slowed into a romantic country
ballad. His jaw brushed the top of her head.
"You look awful pretty tonight, Francie."
His voice held a trace of huskiness that unnerved her. He drew her
infinitesimally closer. "You're such
a tiny little thing. I forgot how
little you are."
Don't charm me, she wanted to plead as she felt the warmth of his body
seep through into her own. Don't be sweet and sexy and make me forget
everything that's standing between us. She had the disconcerting sense
that the sounds around them were fading, the music growing still, the
other voices disappearing so that it seemed as if the two of them were
alone on the dance floor.
He pulled her closer and their rhythm subtly changed, no longer quite a
dance but something closer to an embrace. His body felt hard and solid
against hers, and she tried to summon the energy to fight her
attraction to him. "Let's— let's sit down now."
"All right."
But instead of letting her go, he tucked their clasped hands between
their bodies. His other hand slipped under her jacket so that only the
thin silk of her dress separated her skin from his touch. Somehow her
cheek seemed to find his shoulder. She leaned into it as if she had
come home. Drawing in her breath,
she shut her eyes and drifted with
him.
"Francie," he whispered into her hair, "we're going to have to do
something about this."
She thought about pretending that she didn't understand what he meant,
but at that moment coquetry
was beyond her. "It's—it's
just a simple chemical attraction. If we ignore it, it'll go away."
He pulled her closer. "You sure about that?"
"Absolutely." She hoped he didn't hear the slight quaver in her voice.
She was suddenly frightened, and she found herself saying, "Gracious,
Dallie, this has happened to me hundreds of times before. Thousands.
I'm sure it's happened to you, too."
"Yeah," he said flatly. "Thousands of times." Abruptly he stopped
moving and dropped his arms. "Listen, Francie, if it's all the same to
you, I don't feel too much like dancing anymore."
"Fine." She gave him her best cocktail party smile and busied her hands
by straightening the front of her jacket. "That's fine with me."
"See you later." He turned to walk away.
"Yes, later," she said to his back.
Their parting was cordial. No angry words had been spoken. No warnings
had been issued. But as she watched him disappear into the crowd, she
had the vague feeling that a new set of battle lines had been drawn
between them.
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