Hold on Tight (17 page)

His voice was droll and absurdly polite. “Thank you kindly, ma’am.”

They made their way out of the row and melded with the crowd in the aisle. Dinah faced forward and kept her gaze on the black jacket of the man ahead of her. Rucker took her elbow with one hand. “It’s awfully warm in here,” she murmured, fanning herself, still not looking at him.

“Awful warm.”

“Lovely concert.”

“Dee-lightful.”

She coughed, sputtered on restrained laughter, and twisted her head to gaze up at him, red faced. He looked back tenderly, then let go of her elbow and opened his arm in an invitation to her. Dinah stepped close to him, and his arm closed around her shoulders. She put her arm around his waist and hugged him.

“I’ll never take you to a classical concert again,” she promised.

The next week, he surprised her with a pair of season passes.

“Rucker, for heaven’s sake! Am I going to have to wrestle with you right here in the mall? Now quit stalling!”

Rucker knew he looked defensive. Hell, I am defensive, he admitted. He gazed down at Dinah, who was tugging at his arm and grimacing with the effort. She wore her high-heeled boots, nice jeans, and a long, man’s-style shirt in a soft blue plaid. A blue leather belt cinched it at the waist. A big canvas tote bag swung from her shoulder, she wore a leather coat, and her hair was done up in a loose bundle.

Beautiful turquoise jewelry accented the light blue of her eyes. As she pulled on his arm again a dark swirl of hair escaped and fell across her forehead. Rucker sighed. Even disheveled she was always flawlessly stylish and too adorable to resist. He squinted at the display window of the exclusive Birmingham men’s store.

“I won’t buy any colored underwear,” he growled. “I draw the line at colored underwear.”

“Who said anything about underwear!”

“You want to make me into a male model. They all wear colored underwear.”

“My dear, deranged man, I just thought I’d help you improve your wardrobe. Isn’t that what you asked me to do?”

“I recollect you simperin’ sweetly at me over my grits this mornin’ and saying, ‘Why don’t we go shopping today, sugar bunny?’ Damn, I knew I was in trouble when I heard ‘sugar bunny.’ You’re too dignified to call me ‘sugar bunny’ unless you really, really, want me to do something I don’t want to do.”

“You said that you’d like to get some new clothes!”

“New jeans! New … new crew socks! New golf shirts!”

“Rucker.” She affected her most serious tone, the one he’d heard her use in city-council meetings when people got uppity. She emphasized each word. “You’re
a famous writer. You speak to dozens of groups each year. You’re going to be interviewed on Larry King’s television show again soon. You need to look more coordinated.”

“Ugh.
Coordinated
. That’s the word my house decorator used when she wanted to put cherubs everywhere.”

“I promise I won’t put a cherub on you.”

Sighing, Rucker let her lead him into the store. It was an elegant, darkly masculine place with dozens of mannequins designed to look like stalwart, mature men. “Hey,” Rucker protested. “I don’t want to shop anywhere where the dummies have gray hair! I’m not old.”

“You won’t live long enough to be old if you don’t pipe down. This is a store for executive types. Executive types are more likely to have gray hair. All right?”

“Yes’m,” he grumbled.

A nattily dressed salesman hurried over. “May I help you?” he asked in a supercilious tone, scanning Rucker’s barely laced jogging shoes, jeans with a torn knee, college jersey, and blue hunter’s coat. Annoyed, Rucker started to say that he could help him by taking a headfirst dive off a tall mannequin, but Dinah’s dulcet voice interrupted.

“My friend needs a whole new wardrobe,” she said politely. “For casual wear and for business. Colorwise, I believe his best neutral is black. I think he’d enjoy some low-keyed monochromatics, and as for combinations, let’s keep them analogous. Some blue schemes, and green as well.”

“Very good, very tasteful!” the salesman complimented.

Rucker turned to Dinah. “I don’t have any idea what you just told him I wanted.”

She smiled at him sweetly. “You’ll survive.”

Rucker shook his head. He loved her more with each new day, but he didn’t know if he could put up with being well dressed, much less monochromatic and analogous. For her, and her alone, he’d try.

Dinah sat in a darkly upholstered chair sipping a glass of wine the salesman had given her. Her eyes kept darting to the paneled door of the dressing suite.
When it opened suddenly, she nearly dropped her wine glass. Dinah set it down on a small lacquered table and stood up nervously.

The salesman stepped out smiling. He waved one hand toward the door and moved aside. “The gentleman has good raw material, thankfully,” he noted.

The raw material walked out of the dressing suite wearing a classic navy blazer with dark gray slacks, a red tie accented with tiny, blue-and-white squares, and a white, button-down shirt with small, broadly spaced red pinstripes. The raw material looked at her anxiously, then tucked his chin and gazed down the length of his body. Dinah noticed that he wore black Italian loafers. With socks that matched, she presumed. It was an amazing transformation.

Rucker looked back up at her, studying her face with a plaintive gaze. “I look silly, Dee!” he exclaimed abruptly. The salesman blanched. “I can see it in your eyes!”

Dinah hurried forward, shaking her head. Rucker, for once in his life, was uncomfortable and uncertain. He had the desperate look of a horse about to bolt. “Big guy, you look fantastic,” she reassured, clasping his hands.

He stared down at her, his green eyes narrowing to speculative slits. “Then why did you look at me that way!”

“What way?”

“Like I’m bad barbecue!”

“You’re fine, just—”

“You can’t put a rhinestone collar on a hound dog! I’m not right for chic clothes! People will point at me and say, ‘There he goes, a rooster in eagle feathers!’ No, Thanksgiving’s too close. A turkey in eagle feathers—”

“Rucker, Rucker, calm down. You look wonderful.” She stood back, gazing at him, her heart pattering with a thready beat. It was no flattery. She’d always appreciated well-dressed men, and the combination of stylish clothes with Rucker’s natural sensuality was enough to make her press her hands to her throat and shake her head in stunned admiration. “Oh, honey,” she sighed. “Oh, honey.”

He kept studying her, and now he saw the happy glow in her eyes. Slowly, his cockiness returned. He looked down at himself again, held his hands out, and turned in a circle. “Pretty durned slick, then?”

“Pretty durned slick, you egomaniac.”

“Very slick,” the salesman agreed, relieved. “And this is just the beginning.” He looked at Rucker warily. “Would you care for a glass of wine before we continue, sir?”

Rucker waved one hand and boomed, “Hell, get the whole bottle! I’m goin’ on a shoppin’ spree!”

Those words,
shopping spree
, sent the salesman hurrying off to fill the request. Dinah laughed as Rucker hugged her boisterously then lifted her off her feet and swung her in a circle. When he stopped she kisssed him on the nose.

“You think I look great,” he said. “That’s all I need to know. If you think I look great, then I know I look great.” He paused, suffering another moment of indecision. “
Do
I look great, ladybug?”

Oh, to hell with my dignity, Dinah thought. She began to giggle and nod.

“Oooh, giggles. She’s giggling! That’s a good sign!”

“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?”