Fancy Pants (50 page)
Francesca and Holly Grace traveled back to New York together, but their
flight was delayed and they didn't reach the city until late. It was
past midnight by the time Francesca had tucked Teddy into bed, too late
to expect a call from Dallie. The following day, she attended a
briefing on the upcoming Statue of Liberty citizenship ceremony, a
luncheon for women in broadcasting, and two meetings. She left a series
of phone numbers with her secretary, making certain that she wasn't out
of contact anywhere she went, but Dallie didn't call.
By the time she left the studio, she had worked herself into a froth of
righteous indignation. She knew he was busy, but he certainly could
have spared a few minutes to call her. Unless he'd changed his mind, a
little voice whispered. Unless he'd had second thoughts. Unless she'd
misread his feelings.
Consuelo and Teddy were gone when she got home. She set down her purse
and briefcase, then slipped wearily out of her jacket and headed down
the hallway to her bedroom, only to come to a halt in the doorway. A
erystal and silver trophy nearly three feet long lay in the exact
center of her bed.
"Dallie!" she screeched.
He came out of her bathroom, hair still wet from the shower, one of her
fluffy pink towels wrapped around his hips. Grinning at her, he hoisted
the trophy off the bed, walked over to her, and deposited
it at her
feet. "Was this pretty much what you had in mind?" he asked.
"You wretch!" She threw herself into his arms, almost knocking over
both him and the trophy in the process. "You darling, impossible,
wonderful wretch!"
And then he was kissing her, and she was kissing him, and they were
holding each other so tightly it seemed as if the life force from one
body had poured into the other. "Damn, I love you," Dallie murmured.
"My sweet little Fancy Pants, driving me half crazy, nagging me to
death." He kissed her again, long and slow. "You're almost the best
thing that ever happened to me."
"Almost?" she murmured against his lips. "What's the best?"
"Being born good-looking." And then he kissed her again.
Their lovemaking was full of laughter and tenderness, with nothing
forbidden, nothing withheld. Afterward, they lay face to face, their
naked bodies pressed together so they could whisper secrets to each
other.
"I thought I was going to die," he told her, "when you said you
wouldn't marry me."
"I thought I was going to die," she told him, "when you didn't say you
loved me."
"I've been afraid so much. You sure were right about that."
"I had to have the best from you. I'm a miserable, selfish person."
"You're the best woman in the world."
He began telling her about Danny and Jaycee Beaudine and the feeling
he'd gotten early in life that he wasn't going to amount to much. It
was easier not to try too hard, he had discovered, than to have all
his
shortcomings proven to him.
Francesca said that Jaycee Beaudine sounded like a perfectly odious
person and Dallie should have had enough sense early on to realize that
the opinions of unsavory people like that were completely unreliable.
Dallie laughed and then kissed her again before he asked when they were
getting married. "I won you
fair and square," he said. "Now it's time
for you to pay up."
Teddy returned several hours later. The two of them had spent a
wonderful evening at Madison Square Garden, where Dallie had sent them
earlier with a pair of ringside tickets to see the Greatest Show on
Earth. Consuelo took in Francesca's and Dallie's flushed faces and
wasn't fooled for a minute about what had been going on while she and
Teddy were watching Gunther Gebel-Williams tame tigers. Teddy and
Dallie eyed each other politely but warily. Teddy was still pretty sure
Dallie was only pretending to like him because of his mom, while Dallie
was trying to figure out how to undo all the damage he'd inflicted.
"Teddy, how about taking me to the top of the Empire State Building
tomorrow after school?" he said. "I'd sure like to see it."
For a moment Dallie thought Teddy was going to refuse. Teddy picked up
his circus program, rolled it into a tube, and blew through it with
elaborate casualness. "I guess it'd be okay." He turned the tube into
a
telescope and looked through it. "As long as I get back in time to
watch The Goonies on cable TV."
stopped well back from the protective metal grating at the edge because
heights made him dizzy. Dallie stopped right at his side because he
wasn't all that crazy about heights himself. "It's not clear enough
today to see the Statue of Liberty," Teddy said, pointing toward the
harbor.
"Sometimes you can see it over there."
"Did you want me to get you one of those rubber King Kongs they're
selling at the concession stand?" Dallie asked.
Teddy liked King Kong a lot, but he shook his head. A guy wearing an
Iowa State windbreaker recognized Dallie and asked for his autograph.
Teddy was an old hand at waiting patiently while grown-ups gave
autographs, but the interruption irritated Dallie. When the fan finally
walked away,
Teddy looked at Dallie and said wisely, "It goes with the
territory."
"How's that again?"
"When you're a famous person, people feel like they know you, even
though they don't. You have a certain obligation."
"That sounds like your mama talking."
"We get interrupted a lot."
Dallie looked at him for a moment. "You know these interruptions are
only going to get worse, don't you, Teddy? Your mama'll be upset if I
don't win a few more golf tournaments for her, and whenever the three
of us go out, there'll be that many more people looking at us."
"Are you and my mom getting married?"
Dallie nodded his head. "I love your mama a lot. She's about the best
lady in the world." He took a deep breath, charging in just as
Francesca would have. "I love you, too, Teddy. I know that might be
hard for you to believe after the way I've been acting, but it's true."
Teddy pulled off his glasses and submitted the lenses to an elaborate
cleaning on the hem of his T-shirt. "What about Holly Grace?" he said,
holding the lenses up to the light. "Does this mean we won't see Holly
Grace anymore, because of how you and her used to be married?"
Dallie smiled. Teddy might not want to acknowledge what he'd just
heard, but at least he hadn't walked away. "We couldn't get rid of
Holly Grace even if we tried to. Your mama and I both love her; she'll
always be part of our family. Skeet, too, and Miss Sybil. Along with
whatever runaways your mom manages to pick up."
"Gerry, too?" Teddy asked.
Dallie hesitated. "I guess that's up to Gerry."
Teddy wasn't Feeling so dizzy now, and he took a few steps closer to
the protective grating at the edge. Dallie wasn't quite as eager to
move forward, but he did, too. "You and I still have some things to
talk about, you know," Dallie said.
"I want one of those King Kongs," Teddy declared abruptly.
Dallie saw that Teddy still wasn't ready for any father-son
revelations, and he swallowed his disappointment. "I have something to
ask you."
"I don't want to talk about it." Teddy mutinously laced his fingers
through the metal grating.
Dallie laced his fingers through, too, hoping he could get this next
part right. "Did you ever go to play
with a friend, and when you got
there you found out that he had built something special when you
weren't around? A fort, maybe, or a castle?"
Teddy nodded warily.
"Maybe he made a swing when you weren't around, or built a racetrack
for his cars?"
"Or maybe he built this neat planetarium out of garbage bags and a
flashlight," Teddy interjected.
"Or a planetarium out of garbage bags," Dallie quickly amended.
"Anyway, maybe you looked at this planetarium, and you thought it was
so terrific that you felt a little jealous you hadn't made it
yourself." Dallie let go of the fence, keeping his eyes on Teddy to
make sure the boy was following him. "So, because you were jealous,
instead of telling your friend what a great planetarium he'd made, you
sort of stuck your nose up in the air and told him you didn't think
what he'd made was all that terrific, even though it was about the best
planetarium you'd ever seen."
Teddy nodded slowly, interested that a grown-up would know about
something like that. Dallie rested his arm on top of a telescope that
was pointing toward New Jersey. "That's pretty much what happened when
I saw you."
"It is?" Teddy declared in astonishment.
"Here's this kid, and he's a real great kid—smart and brave—but I
didn't have anything to do with making him that way, and I was jealous.
So instead of saying to his mom, 'Hey, you raised yourself a pretty
neat kid,' I acted like I didn't think the kid was all that great, and
that he would have been a lot better if I'd been around to help raise
him." He
searched Teddy's face, trying to read by his expression whether he was
following, but the boy wasn't giving anything away. "Could you
understand something like that?" he asked finally.
Another child might have nodded, but a child with an I.Q. of one
hundred sixty-eight needed some time
to sort things out. "Could we go
look at those rubber King Kongs now?" he asked politely.
complete with a soft, balmy breeze, a cornflower blue sky, and the lazy
swoop of sea gulls. Three launches decorated with red, white, and blue
bunting had crossed New York Harbor toward Liberty Island that morning
and had landed at the dock where the Circle Line ferry normally
disgorged tourists. But for the next few hours, there would be no
tourists, and only a few hundred people populated the island.
Lady Liberty towered over a platform that had been specially built on
the lawn at the south side of the island next to the statue's base.
Normally, public ceremonies were held in a fenced-in area behind the
statue, but the White House advance team thought this location, beneath
the face of the statue and with an unblocked view of the harbor, was
more photogenic for the press. Francesca, in a pale pistachio dress
with an ivory silk-shantung jacket, sat in a row with the other
honorees, various government dignitaries, and a Supreme Court Justice.
At the lectern, the President of the United States talked about the
promise of America, his words echoing from the loudspeakers set up in
the trees.
"We celebrate here today—old and young, black and white, some from
humble roots, others born into prosperity. We have different religions
and different political beliefs. But as we rest in the shadow of the
great Lady Liberty, we are all equals, all inheritors of the flame. ..."
Francesca's heart was so full of joy she thought she would burst. Each
participant had been permitted to invite twenty guests, and as she
gazed out over her diverse group, she realized that these people she
had come to love represented a microcosm of the country itself.
Dallie, wearing an American flag pin on the lapel of his navy suit
coat, sat with Miss Sybil on one side of him, Teddy and Holly Grace on
the other. Behind them, Naomi leaned to one side to whisper something
in her husband's ear. She looked healthy after having given birth, but
she seemed nervous, undoubtedly worried about leaving her four-week-old
baby girl even for half a day. Both Naomi and her husband wore black
armbands to protest apartheid. Nathan Hurd sat with Skeet Cooper, an
interesting combination of personalities in Francesca's opinion. From
Skeet to the end of the row stretched a group of young female
faces—black and white, some with too much makeup, but all of them
possessing a spark of hope in their own futures. They were Francesca's
runaways, and she had been touched when so many of them wanted to be
with her today. Even Stefan had called her from Europe this morning to
congratulate her, and she had pried out the welcome news that he was
currently enjoying the affection of the beautiful young widow of an
Italian industrialist. Only Gerry hadn't acknowledged her invitation,
and Francesca missed him. She wondered if he was still angry with her
because she had turned down his latest demand to appear on her program.
Dallie caught her looking at him and gave her a private smile that told
her as clearly as if he'd spoken the words how much he loved her.
Despite their superficial differences, they had discovered that their
souls were a matched set.
Teddy had snuggled over close to Holly Grace instead of to his father,
but Francesca thought that situation would soon resolve itself and she
didn't permit it to disturb her pleasure in the day. In a week
she and
Dallie would be married, and she was happier than she had ever been in
her life.
The President was revving up for a big finish. "And so America is still
the land of opportunity, still the home of individual initiative, as
witnessed by the success of those we honor this day. We are the
greatest country in the world..."
Francesca had done programs on the homeless in America, on poverty and
injustice, racism and sexism. She knew all the country's flaws, but for
now she could only agree with the President. America wasn't a perfect
country; it was too often
self-serving, violent, and greedy. But it was a country that frequently
had its heart in the right place, even if it couldn't always get all
the details worked out correctly.
The President finished to a rousing ovation, captured by the network
cameras for airing on the news that night. Then the Supreme Court
Justice stepped forward. Although she couldn't see Ellis Island behind
her, Francesca felt its presence like a blessing, and she thought of
all those throngs of immigrants who had come to this land with only the
clothes on their backs and the determination to make a new life for
themselves. Of all the millions who had passed through these golden
gates, surely she had been the most worthless.
Francesca stood along with the others, a smile tugging at the corners
of her lips as she remembered a twenty-one-year-old girl in a pink
antebellum gown trudging down a Louisiana road carrying a Louis Vuitton
suitcase. She lifted her hand and began to repeat the words being
spoken by the Supreme Court Justice.
"I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and
abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate,
state or sovereignty. . . ."
Good-bye, England, she thought. It wasn't your fault that I made such a
muddle of things. You're a good old country, but I needed a rough,
young scrapper of a place to teach me how to stand on my own.
". . . that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the
United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic . .
."
She would try her best, even though the responsibilities of citizenship
awed her. If a society was to
remain free, how could it take those
duties lightly?
". . . that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States .. ."
Gracious, she certainly hoped not!
". . . that I will perform work of national importance under civilian
direction when required by law . . ."
Next month, she was to testify before a congressional committee on the
problem of runaways, and she had already started forming an
organization to raise funds to build shelters. With
"Francesca Today" broadcasting only once a month, she would finally
have a chance to give something back to the country that had already
given her so much.
"... that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation
or purpose of evasion; so help me God."
As the ceremony ended, a series of Texas cheers went up from the
audience. With tears in her eyes, Francesca watched her guests making
spectacles of themselves. Then the President greeted the new citizens,
followed by the Supreme Court Justice and the other government
dignitaries. A band struck up the first bars of "Stars and Stripes
Forever," and the White House staff member who was in charge of the
ceremony began moving the participants toward bunting-draped tables set
up under the trees and laden with punch and tea sandwiches, just like a
Fourth of July picnic.
Dallie got through the crowd to her first, a Texas-size grin spread all
over his face. "The last thing this country needs is another voting
liberal, but I'm real proud of you anyway, honey."
Francesca laughed and hugged him. On the east side of the island there
was a noisy roar from the lawn as the presidential helicopter took off,
bearing away the Chief Executive and some of the ceremony's other
dignitaries. With the President gone, the mood of the occasion relaxed.
As the helicopter disappeared, an announcement was made that the statue
had been opened for private viewing by those who wished to enter.
"I'm proud of you, Mom," Teddy said. She gave him a squeeze.
"You looked almost as good up there as that Korean dress designer,"
Holly Grace told her. "Did you know he had on pink socks with
rhinestone butterflies?" Francesca appreciated Holly Grace's attempt at
good humor, especially since she knew it was mostly pretense. Too much
of Holly Grace's sparkle had faded over the past few months.
"Over here, Miss Day," one of the photographers called out.
She smiled into the camera and talked to everyone who came up to greet
her. Her former runaways lined up to meet Dallie. They
flirted with him outrageously, and he flirted right back until he had
them all giggling. The photographers wanted pictures of Holly Grace,
and each of the networks asked to film a brief interview with
Francesca. After she had finished the last one, Dallie pressed a cup of
punch into her hands. "Have you seen Teddy?"
Francesca glanced around. "Not for a while." She turned to Holly Grace
who had just come up next to them. "Have you seen Teddy?"
Holly Grace shook her head. Dallie looked worried and Francesca smiled
at him. "We're on an island," she said. "He can't get into too much
trouble."
Dallie didn't seem convinced. "Francie, he's your son, too. With a gene
pool like that to draw from, it seems to me he could manage to get into
trouble just about anywhere."
"Let's go look for him." She offered the suggestion more from a desire
to be alone with Dallie than from any concern about Teddy. The island
was closed to tourists for another hour. What harm could come to him?
As she set down her punch cup, she noticed that Naomi was clutching Ben
Perlman's hand and looking up into the sky. Shielding her eyes,
Francesca looked up, too, but all she saw was a small plane circling
overhead. And then she noticed that something seemed to have dropped
from the plane. As she watched, a square-canopy parachute opened. One
by one, the people around her gazed up into the sky and observed the
descent of the parachutist toward Liberty Island.
As he fell, a long white banner gradually unfurled behind him. It had
letters printed on it in black, but they were impossible to read as the
wind whipped the banner in one direction and then the other,
threatening to tangle in the parachutist's rig. Suddenly the banner
straightened.
Francesca felt a set of sharp fingernails digging into the sleeve of
her silk shantung jacket. "Oh, my God," Holly Grace whispered.
The eyes of every onlooker—as well as those of the network television
cameras—were glued to the banner and the message it carried:
MARRY ME, HOLLY GRACE
Although he was concealed inside a helmet and a white jumpsuit, the
parachutist could only be Gerry Jaffe.
"I'm going to kill him," Holly Grace said, venom dripping from every
syllable. "This time he's gone too far." And then the wind shifted and
the banner's other side was visible.
It held a drawing of a barbell.
Naomi came up next to Holly Grace. "I'm sorry," she said. "I tried to
talk him out of it, but he loves you so much, and he refuses to do
anything the easy way."
Holly Grace didn't reply. She kept her eyes glued on the descent. The
parachutist dropped closer to the island and then began to drift. Naomi
let out a small squeak of alarm, and Holly Grace's fingers dug deeper
into Francesca's arm. "He's going into the water," Holly Grace cried.
"Oh, God, he'll drown. He'll get tangled in his parachute or that
stupid banner—" She broke away from Francesca and began running toward
the seawall, shrieking for all she was worth. "You stupid commie! You
dumb, stupid—"
Dallie draped his arm over Francesca's shoulder. "You got any idea why
he has a picture of two doorknobs on that banner?"
"It's a barbell," she replied, holding her breath as Gerry just cleared
the seawall and landed on the lawn about fifty yards away.
"Holly Grace is really going to give him hell for this," he commented,
thoroughly enjoying himself. "Damn, she's mad."
"Mad" wasn't the word for it. Holly Grace was furious. She was so
enraged she could barely contain herself. While Gerry struggled to
gather up the parachute, she screamed every foul word at him that she
could think of.
He balled the parachute and the banner together and threw them down on
the grass so that he finally had two hands free to deal with her. When
he saw her flushed face and felt the heat of her fury, he realized he
was going to need both of them.
"I'll never forgive you for this," she cried, taking a punch at his
arm, to the delight of the network cameramen. "You don't have enough
experience to make a jump like that. You could have
been killed.
I wish you had been!"
He pulled off his helmet, and his curly hair was as disheveled as a
dark angel's. "I've been trying to talk
to you for weeks, but you
wouldn't see me. Besides, I thought you'd like it."
"Like it!" She nearly spit at him. "I've never been so humiliated in my
life! You've made a spectacle out of me. You don't have an ounce of
common sense. Not one single ounce."
"Gerry!" He heard Naomi call out and from the corner of his eye, he saw
the statue's security people running toward him.
He knew he didn't have much time. What he had done was definitely
illegal, and he didn't doubt for a moment that they were going to
arrest him. "I just publicly committed myself to you, Holly Grace. What
more do you want from me?"
"You publicly made a fool of yourself. Jumping out of an airplane and
almost drowning with that stupid banner. And why did you put a dog bone
on it? Do you mind telling me what you meant by that?"
"Dog bone?" Gerry threw up his arms in frustration. No matter what he
did, he couldn't seem to please this woman, and if he lost her this
time, he would never get her back. Just the thought of losing her gave
him a cold chill. Holly Grace Beaudine was the one woman he'd never
been able to bring to heel, the one woman who made him feel that he
could conquer the world, and he needed her the same way he needed
oxygen.
The security people had almost reached him. "Are you blind, Holly
Grace? That wasn't a dog bone. Jesus, I just made the most terrifying
commitment of my entire life, and you missed the whole point."
"What are you talking about?"
"It was a baby rattle!"
The first two security men grabbed him.
"A baby rattle?" Her fierce expression melted in surprise and her voice
softened. "That was a baby rattie?"
A third security officer pushed Holly Grace aside. Apparently deciding
Gerry wasn't going to give them any real trouble, the officer cuffed
Gerry's hands in front of his body.
"Marry me, Holly Grace," Gerry said, ignoring the fact that his rights
were being read to him. "Marry me and have my baby—have a dozen of
them! Just don't ever leave me."
flight was delayed and they didn't reach the city until late. It was
past midnight by the time Francesca had tucked Teddy into bed, too late
to expect a call from Dallie. The following day, she attended a
briefing on the upcoming Statue of Liberty citizenship ceremony, a
luncheon for women in broadcasting, and two meetings. She left a series
of phone numbers with her secretary, making certain that she wasn't out
of contact anywhere she went, but Dallie didn't call.
By the time she left the studio, she had worked herself into a froth of
righteous indignation. She knew he was busy, but he certainly could
have spared a few minutes to call her. Unless he'd changed his mind, a
little voice whispered. Unless he'd had second thoughts. Unless she'd
misread his feelings.
Consuelo and Teddy were gone when she got home. She set down her purse
and briefcase, then slipped wearily out of her jacket and headed down
the hallway to her bedroom, only to come to a halt in the doorway. A
erystal and silver trophy nearly three feet long lay in the exact
center of her bed.
"Dallie!" she screeched.
He came out of her bathroom, hair still wet from the shower, one of her
fluffy pink towels wrapped around his hips. Grinning at her, he hoisted
the trophy off the bed, walked over to her, and deposited
it at her
feet. "Was this pretty much what you had in mind?" he asked.
"You wretch!" She threw herself into his arms, almost knocking over
both him and the trophy in the process. "You darling, impossible,
wonderful wretch!"
And then he was kissing her, and she was kissing him, and they were
holding each other so tightly it seemed as if the life force from one
body had poured into the other. "Damn, I love you," Dallie murmured.
"My sweet little Fancy Pants, driving me half crazy, nagging me to
death." He kissed her again, long and slow. "You're almost the best
thing that ever happened to me."
"Almost?" she murmured against his lips. "What's the best?"
"Being born good-looking." And then he kissed her again.
Their lovemaking was full of laughter and tenderness, with nothing
forbidden, nothing withheld. Afterward, they lay face to face, their
naked bodies pressed together so they could whisper secrets to each
other.
"I thought I was going to die," he told her, "when you said you
wouldn't marry me."
"I thought I was going to die," she told him, "when you didn't say you
loved me."
"I've been afraid so much. You sure were right about that."
"I had to have the best from you. I'm a miserable, selfish person."
"You're the best woman in the world."
He began telling her about Danny and Jaycee Beaudine and the feeling
he'd gotten early in life that he wasn't going to amount to much. It
was easier not to try too hard, he had discovered, than to have all
his
shortcomings proven to him.
Francesca said that Jaycee Beaudine sounded like a perfectly odious
person and Dallie should have had enough sense early on to realize that
the opinions of unsavory people like that were completely unreliable.
Dallie laughed and then kissed her again before he asked when they were
getting married. "I won you
fair and square," he said. "Now it's time
for you to pay up."
* * *
They were dressed and sitting in the living room when Consuelo andTeddy returned several hours later. The two of them had spent a
wonderful evening at Madison Square Garden, where Dallie had sent them
earlier with a pair of ringside tickets to see the Greatest Show on
Earth. Consuelo took in Francesca's and Dallie's flushed faces and
wasn't fooled for a minute about what had been going on while she and
Teddy were watching Gunther Gebel-Williams tame tigers. Teddy and
Dallie eyed each other politely but warily. Teddy was still pretty sure
Dallie was only pretending to like him because of his mom, while Dallie
was trying to figure out how to undo all the damage he'd inflicted.
"Teddy, how about taking me to the top of the Empire State Building
tomorrow after school?" he said. "I'd sure like to see it."
For a moment Dallie thought Teddy was going to refuse. Teddy picked up
his circus program, rolled it into a tube, and blew through it with
elaborate casualness. "I guess it'd be okay." He turned the tube into
a
telescope and looked through it. "As long as I get back in time to
watch The Goonies on cable TV."
* * *
The next day the two of them went up to the observation platform. Teddystopped well back from the protective metal grating at the edge because
heights made him dizzy. Dallie stopped right at his side because he
wasn't all that crazy about heights himself. "It's not clear enough
today to see the Statue of Liberty," Teddy said, pointing toward the
harbor.
"Sometimes you can see it over there."
"Did you want me to get you one of those rubber King Kongs they're
selling at the concession stand?" Dallie asked.
Teddy liked King Kong a lot, but he shook his head. A guy wearing an
Iowa State windbreaker recognized Dallie and asked for his autograph.
Teddy was an old hand at waiting patiently while grown-ups gave
autographs, but the interruption irritated Dallie. When the fan finally
walked away,
Teddy looked at Dallie and said wisely, "It goes with the
territory."
"How's that again?"
"When you're a famous person, people feel like they know you, even
though they don't. You have a certain obligation."
"That sounds like your mama talking."
"We get interrupted a lot."
Dallie looked at him for a moment. "You know these interruptions are
only going to get worse, don't you, Teddy? Your mama'll be upset if I
don't win a few more golf tournaments for her, and whenever the three
of us go out, there'll be that many more people looking at us."
"Are you and my mom getting married?"
Dallie nodded his head. "I love your mama a lot. She's about the best
lady in the world." He took a deep breath, charging in just as
Francesca would have. "I love you, too, Teddy. I know that might be
hard for you to believe after the way I've been acting, but it's true."
Teddy pulled off his glasses and submitted the lenses to an elaborate
cleaning on the hem of his T-shirt. "What about Holly Grace?" he said,
holding the lenses up to the light. "Does this mean we won't see Holly
Grace anymore, because of how you and her used to be married?"
Dallie smiled. Teddy might not want to acknowledge what he'd just
heard, but at least he hadn't walked away. "We couldn't get rid of
Holly Grace even if we tried to. Your mama and I both love her; she'll
always be part of our family. Skeet, too, and Miss Sybil. Along with
whatever runaways your mom manages to pick up."
"Gerry, too?" Teddy asked.
Dallie hesitated. "I guess that's up to Gerry."
Teddy wasn't Feeling so dizzy now, and he took a few steps closer to
the protective grating at the edge. Dallie wasn't quite as eager to
move forward, but he did, too. "You and I still have some things to
talk about, you know," Dallie said.
"I want one of those King Kongs," Teddy declared abruptly.
Dallie saw that Teddy still wasn't ready for any father-son
revelations, and he swallowed his disappointment. "I have something to
ask you."
"I don't want to talk about it." Teddy mutinously laced his fingers
through the metal grating.
Dallie laced his fingers through, too, hoping he could get this next
part right. "Did you ever go to play
with a friend, and when you got
there you found out that he had built something special when you
weren't around? A fort, maybe, or a castle?"
Teddy nodded warily.
"Maybe he made a swing when you weren't around, or built a racetrack
for his cars?"
"Or maybe he built this neat planetarium out of garbage bags and a
flashlight," Teddy interjected.
"Or a planetarium out of garbage bags," Dallie quickly amended.
"Anyway, maybe you looked at this planetarium, and you thought it was
so terrific that you felt a little jealous you hadn't made it
yourself." Dallie let go of the fence, keeping his eyes on Teddy to
make sure the boy was following him. "So, because you were jealous,
instead of telling your friend what a great planetarium he'd made, you
sort of stuck your nose up in the air and told him you didn't think
what he'd made was all that terrific, even though it was about the best
planetarium you'd ever seen."
Teddy nodded slowly, interested that a grown-up would know about
something like that. Dallie rested his arm on top of a telescope that
was pointing toward New Jersey. "That's pretty much what happened when
I saw you."
"It is?" Teddy declared in astonishment.
"Here's this kid, and he's a real great kid—smart and brave—but I
didn't have anything to do with making him that way, and I was jealous.
So instead of saying to his mom, 'Hey, you raised yourself a pretty
neat kid,' I acted like I didn't think the kid was all that great, and
that he would have been a lot better if I'd been around to help raise
him." He
searched Teddy's face, trying to read by his expression whether he was
following, but the boy wasn't giving anything away. "Could you
understand something like that?" he asked finally.
Another child might have nodded, but a child with an I.Q. of one
hundred sixty-eight needed some time
to sort things out. "Could we go
look at those rubber King Kongs now?" he asked politely.
* * *
The Statue of Liberty ceremony took place on a poet's day in May,complete with a soft, balmy breeze, a cornflower blue sky, and the lazy
swoop of sea gulls. Three launches decorated with red, white, and blue
bunting had crossed New York Harbor toward Liberty Island that morning
and had landed at the dock where the Circle Line ferry normally
disgorged tourists. But for the next few hours, there would be no
tourists, and only a few hundred people populated the island.
Lady Liberty towered over a platform that had been specially built on
the lawn at the south side of the island next to the statue's base.
Normally, public ceremonies were held in a fenced-in area behind the
statue, but the White House advance team thought this location, beneath
the face of the statue and with an unblocked view of the harbor, was
more photogenic for the press. Francesca, in a pale pistachio dress
with an ivory silk-shantung jacket, sat in a row with the other
honorees, various government dignitaries, and a Supreme Court Justice.
At the lectern, the President of the United States talked about the
promise of America, his words echoing from the loudspeakers set up in
the trees.
"We celebrate here today—old and young, black and white, some from
humble roots, others born into prosperity. We have different religions
and different political beliefs. But as we rest in the shadow of the
great Lady Liberty, we are all equals, all inheritors of the flame. ..."
Francesca's heart was so full of joy she thought she would burst. Each
participant had been permitted to invite twenty guests, and as she
gazed out over her diverse group, she realized that these people she
had come to love represented a microcosm of the country itself.
Dallie, wearing an American flag pin on the lapel of his navy suit
coat, sat with Miss Sybil on one side of him, Teddy and Holly Grace on
the other. Behind them, Naomi leaned to one side to whisper something
in her husband's ear. She looked healthy after having given birth, but
she seemed nervous, undoubtedly worried about leaving her four-week-old
baby girl even for half a day. Both Naomi and her husband wore black
armbands to protest apartheid. Nathan Hurd sat with Skeet Cooper, an
interesting combination of personalities in Francesca's opinion. From
Skeet to the end of the row stretched a group of young female
faces—black and white, some with too much makeup, but all of them
possessing a spark of hope in their own futures. They were Francesca's
runaways, and she had been touched when so many of them wanted to be
with her today. Even Stefan had called her from Europe this morning to
congratulate her, and she had pried out the welcome news that he was
currently enjoying the affection of the beautiful young widow of an
Italian industrialist. Only Gerry hadn't acknowledged her invitation,
and Francesca missed him. She wondered if he was still angry with her
because she had turned down his latest demand to appear on her program.
Dallie caught her looking at him and gave her a private smile that told
her as clearly as if he'd spoken the words how much he loved her.
Despite their superficial differences, they had discovered that their
souls were a matched set.
Teddy had snuggled over close to Holly Grace instead of to his father,
but Francesca thought that situation would soon resolve itself and she
didn't permit it to disturb her pleasure in the day. In a week
she and
Dallie would be married, and she was happier than she had ever been in
her life.
The President was revving up for a big finish. "And so America is still
the land of opportunity, still the home of individual initiative, as
witnessed by the success of those we honor this day. We are the
greatest country in the world..."
Francesca had done programs on the homeless in America, on poverty and
injustice, racism and sexism. She knew all the country's flaws, but for
now she could only agree with the President. America wasn't a perfect
country; it was too often
self-serving, violent, and greedy. But it was a country that frequently
had its heart in the right place, even if it couldn't always get all
the details worked out correctly.
The President finished to a rousing ovation, captured by the network
cameras for airing on the news that night. Then the Supreme Court
Justice stepped forward. Although she couldn't see Ellis Island behind
her, Francesca felt its presence like a blessing, and she thought of
all those throngs of immigrants who had come to this land with only the
clothes on their backs and the determination to make a new life for
themselves. Of all the millions who had passed through these golden
gates, surely she had been the most worthless.
Francesca stood along with the others, a smile tugging at the corners
of her lips as she remembered a twenty-one-year-old girl in a pink
antebellum gown trudging down a Louisiana road carrying a Louis Vuitton
suitcase. She lifted her hand and began to repeat the words being
spoken by the Supreme Court Justice.
"I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and
abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate,
state or sovereignty. . . ."
Good-bye, England, she thought. It wasn't your fault that I made such a
muddle of things. You're a good old country, but I needed a rough,
young scrapper of a place to teach me how to stand on my own.
". . . that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the
United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic . .
."
She would try her best, even though the responsibilities of citizenship
awed her. If a society was to
remain free, how could it take those
duties lightly?
". . . that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States .. ."
Gracious, she certainly hoped not!
". . . that I will perform work of national importance under civilian
direction when required by law . . ."
Next month, she was to testify before a congressional committee on the
problem of runaways, and she had already started forming an
organization to raise funds to build shelters. With
"Francesca Today" broadcasting only once a month, she would finally
have a chance to give something back to the country that had already
given her so much.
"... that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation
or purpose of evasion; so help me God."
As the ceremony ended, a series of Texas cheers went up from the
audience. With tears in her eyes, Francesca watched her guests making
spectacles of themselves. Then the President greeted the new citizens,
followed by the Supreme Court Justice and the other government
dignitaries. A band struck up the first bars of "Stars and Stripes
Forever," and the White House staff member who was in charge of the
ceremony began moving the participants toward bunting-draped tables set
up under the trees and laden with punch and tea sandwiches, just like a
Fourth of July picnic.
Dallie got through the crowd to her first, a Texas-size grin spread all
over his face. "The last thing this country needs is another voting
liberal, but I'm real proud of you anyway, honey."
Francesca laughed and hugged him. On the east side of the island there
was a noisy roar from the lawn as the presidential helicopter took off,
bearing away the Chief Executive and some of the ceremony's other
dignitaries. With the President gone, the mood of the occasion relaxed.
As the helicopter disappeared, an announcement was made that the statue
had been opened for private viewing by those who wished to enter.
"I'm proud of you, Mom," Teddy said. She gave him a squeeze.
"You looked almost as good up there as that Korean dress designer,"
Holly Grace told her. "Did you know he had on pink socks with
rhinestone butterflies?" Francesca appreciated Holly Grace's attempt at
good humor, especially since she knew it was mostly pretense. Too much
of Holly Grace's sparkle had faded over the past few months.
"Over here, Miss Day," one of the photographers called out.
She smiled into the camera and talked to everyone who came up to greet
her. Her former runaways lined up to meet Dallie. They
flirted with him outrageously, and he flirted right back until he had
them all giggling. The photographers wanted pictures of Holly Grace,
and each of the networks asked to film a brief interview with
Francesca. After she had finished the last one, Dallie pressed a cup of
punch into her hands. "Have you seen Teddy?"
Francesca glanced around. "Not for a while." She turned to Holly Grace
who had just come up next to them. "Have you seen Teddy?"
Holly Grace shook her head. Dallie looked worried and Francesca smiled
at him. "We're on an island," she said. "He can't get into too much
trouble."
Dallie didn't seem convinced. "Francie, he's your son, too. With a gene
pool like that to draw from, it seems to me he could manage to get into
trouble just about anywhere."
"Let's go look for him." She offered the suggestion more from a desire
to be alone with Dallie than from any concern about Teddy. The island
was closed to tourists for another hour. What harm could come to him?
As she set down her punch cup, she noticed that Naomi was clutching Ben
Perlman's hand and looking up into the sky. Shielding her eyes,
Francesca looked up, too, but all she saw was a small plane circling
overhead. And then she noticed that something seemed to have dropped
from the plane. As she watched, a square-canopy parachute opened. One
by one, the people around her gazed up into the sky and observed the
descent of the parachutist toward Liberty Island.
As he fell, a long white banner gradually unfurled behind him. It had
letters printed on it in black, but they were impossible to read as the
wind whipped the banner in one direction and then the other,
threatening to tangle in the parachutist's rig. Suddenly the banner
straightened.
Francesca felt a set of sharp fingernails digging into the sleeve of
her silk shantung jacket. "Oh, my God," Holly Grace whispered.
The eyes of every onlooker—as well as those of the network television
cameras—were glued to the banner and the message it carried:
MARRY ME, HOLLY GRACE
Although he was concealed inside a helmet and a white jumpsuit, the
parachutist could only be Gerry Jaffe.
"I'm going to kill him," Holly Grace said, venom dripping from every
syllable. "This time he's gone too far." And then the wind shifted and
the banner's other side was visible.
It held a drawing of a barbell.
Naomi came up next to Holly Grace. "I'm sorry," she said. "I tried to
talk him out of it, but he loves you so much, and he refuses to do
anything the easy way."
Holly Grace didn't reply. She kept her eyes glued on the descent. The
parachutist dropped closer to the island and then began to drift. Naomi
let out a small squeak of alarm, and Holly Grace's fingers dug deeper
into Francesca's arm. "He's going into the water," Holly Grace cried.
"Oh, God, he'll drown. He'll get tangled in his parachute or that
stupid banner—" She broke away from Francesca and began running toward
the seawall, shrieking for all she was worth. "You stupid commie! You
dumb, stupid—"
Dallie draped his arm over Francesca's shoulder. "You got any idea why
he has a picture of two doorknobs on that banner?"
"It's a barbell," she replied, holding her breath as Gerry just cleared
the seawall and landed on the lawn about fifty yards away.
"Holly Grace is really going to give him hell for this," he commented,
thoroughly enjoying himself. "Damn, she's mad."
"Mad" wasn't the word for it. Holly Grace was furious. She was so
enraged she could barely contain herself. While Gerry struggled to
gather up the parachute, she screamed every foul word at him that she
could think of.
He balled the parachute and the banner together and threw them down on
the grass so that he finally had two hands free to deal with her. When
he saw her flushed face and felt the heat of her fury, he realized he
was going to need both of them.
"I'll never forgive you for this," she cried, taking a punch at his
arm, to the delight of the network cameramen. "You don't have enough
experience to make a jump like that. You could have
been killed.
I wish you had been!"
He pulled off his helmet, and his curly hair was as disheveled as a
dark angel's. "I've been trying to talk
to you for weeks, but you
wouldn't see me. Besides, I thought you'd like it."
"Like it!" She nearly spit at him. "I've never been so humiliated in my
life! You've made a spectacle out of me. You don't have an ounce of
common sense. Not one single ounce."
"Gerry!" He heard Naomi call out and from the corner of his eye, he saw
the statue's security people running toward him.
He knew he didn't have much time. What he had done was definitely
illegal, and he didn't doubt for a moment that they were going to
arrest him. "I just publicly committed myself to you, Holly Grace. What
more do you want from me?"
"You publicly made a fool of yourself. Jumping out of an airplane and
almost drowning with that stupid banner. And why did you put a dog bone
on it? Do you mind telling me what you meant by that?"
"Dog bone?" Gerry threw up his arms in frustration. No matter what he
did, he couldn't seem to please this woman, and if he lost her this
time, he would never get her back. Just the thought of losing her gave
him a cold chill. Holly Grace Beaudine was the one woman he'd never
been able to bring to heel, the one woman who made him feel that he
could conquer the world, and he needed her the same way he needed
oxygen.
The security people had almost reached him. "Are you blind, Holly
Grace? That wasn't a dog bone. Jesus, I just made the most terrifying
commitment of my entire life, and you missed the whole point."
"What are you talking about?"
"It was a baby rattle!"
The first two security men grabbed him.
"A baby rattle?" Her fierce expression melted in surprise and her voice
softened. "That was a baby rattie?"
A third security officer pushed Holly Grace aside. Apparently deciding
Gerry wasn't going to give them any real trouble, the officer cuffed
Gerry's hands in front of his body.
"Marry me, Holly Grace," Gerry said, ignoring the fact that his rights
were being read to him. "Marry me and have my baby—have a dozen of
them! Just don't ever leave me."
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