She Walks in Beauty (47 page)

She bit down on that last phrase just a little too hard for you not to get the sarcasm if you had half a brain. Sam shook her head. Too much! The
Inquirer
was shouting into the phone over the roar.

Connors turned and grabbed the crown away from Lynn Anderson, then held it out to the Marilyn look-alike. “Lana DeLucca, Miss New Jersey! Girl
, you’re
Miss America! Come get this baby!”

The crowd, half of whom were from New Jersey, was standing on chairs, screaming, throwing programs and soft drink cups. This was as good as the Giants taking the Super Bowl in the last minutes with a field goal! This was excellent! This was stupendous! This was Jersey justice!

Billy Carroll fell headfirst to the stage in a dead faint.

Lana bent her knees and dipped down while Connors crowned her. Now that was more like it! And the faceless NBC announcer who’d begun the evening with
Something fabulous is happening here tonight!
got his big chance, Billy being unconscious. He belted “There She Is” so loudly his mama, out there in TV land, almost had a stroke while Lana DeLucca wiggled down the runway, her bosoms bouncing in her flesh-colored gown—Miss America, by God, and don’t you forget it!

Harry fought his way through the crowd. He swooped Sam up in a big hug, then laid a long, slow kiss on her. “It’s over. I love you, pretty lady. Now, you ready to go home?”

“And give Malachy Champion his autograph book? You bet. Right after Lavert’s lunch tomorrow, you put me on that plane, Music Man.”

“To New Orleans.”

“Unh-uh. Atlanta. I love you, too, Harry, but I’ve got to go home.” Oh, he looked
so
sad. “At least long enough to give Hoke my resignation.” On second thought…

Harry leaped three feet. “And
then
New Orleans?”

“We’ll talk about it later. But right now, sweet Harry, I’ve got to get to a phone.”

She almost got away, but Lavert leaped over the top of a row of chairs to join them. “You believe that jive? You believe that Connors? Girl cost me a bundle.”

“Who’d you bet on?” Sam laughed.

“Connors. Who you think? Magic said she was going to win.”

Maybe she did, said Sam. Maybe she got what she wanted.

Lavert shook his head. Women. Next time, he’d get it in writing. Spell it out. He punched Harry in the arm. “And you? What’d you lose, that mini-Marilyn won it with her hootchy-kooch?”

“The farm. Lost the farm. I bet on Connors, too.”

“But, guys! She won,” said Sam. “Connors really won.”

“I don’t know if that’s what the man’s gonna say, comes to pay-up day.”

“What man?” Sam gave Harry her fishy look.

“Man who wrote the book.”

“Book? Book? Who’d you bet with, Harry?”

“I bet with my man here, Lavert.”

“Lavert didn’t write any book. And he just said he bet on Connors, too. So how could he have bet with you?”

“Cookbook. I’m writing a cookbook, sugar.” Lavert gave her the big grin.

“I hate you both. I hate you when you do me like this.”

“Do you like what?” Harry reached over, but she slipped away. She really did have to file her story and talk to Hoke.

Harry turned to Lavert, both of them following her to the phones. “Man, what do you think? How does that work? Could we have still won the bet with the pizza man?”

“Unh-uh. It’s like a replay. We lost. New Jersey won.”

“New Jersey. The lovely Miss DeLucca.” Harry whistled a couple of bars of “I Want to Be Loved by You,” her song, and did a passable soft-shoe. But
nobody
could do Lana’s wiggle.

Lavert was thinking about it. “Naw, Texas, man. Texas
really
won. The girl folded, but she
was
Miss America, man. She was perfect.”

“Hey!” Sam yelled from the phone. “Give it up.
Nobody’s
perfect.” Then she smiled a Miss America smile, warm and winning, into the receiver, just like the magazine said she should. “Hoke, I’ve got some bad news and some worse news. Which do you want first?”