“I want personality, Naomi, not just another cookie cutter model's face,” he had told her when he called her on his Persian carpet the week before. “I want a long-stemmed American Beauty rose with a few thorns on her. This campaign is all about the free-spirited American woman, and if you can't deliver anything closer to target than these overused children's faces you've been shoving under my nose for the past three weeks, then I don't see how you could possibly handle a position as a BS&R vice-president.”
The sly old bastard.
Naomi gathered up her papers the same way she did everything, with quick, concentrated movements. Tomorrow she would start contacting all the theatrical agencies and look for an actress instead of a model. Better male chauvinists than Harry R. Rodenbaugh had tried to keep her down, and not one of them had succeeded.
As Naomi passed her secretary's desk, she stopped to pick up an Express Mail package that had just arrived, and in the process knocked a magazine onto the floor. “I'll get it,” her secretary said, as she reached down.
But Naomi had already picked it up, her critical eye caught by the series of candid photographs on the page that had fallen open. She felt a prickle go up the back of her neck—an instinctive reaction that told her more clearly than any focus group when she was onto something big. Her Sassy Girl! Profile, full-face, three-quarters—each photograph was better than the last. On the floor of her secretary's office, she had found her American Beauty rose.
And then she scanned the caption. The girl wasn't a professional model, but that wasn't necessarily a bad thing. She flipped to the front cover and frowned. “This magazine's six months old.”
“I was cleaning out my bottom drawer, and—”
“Never mind.” She turned back to the photographs and tapped the page with her index finger. “Make some phone calls while I'm in my meeting and see if you can locate her. Don't make any contact; just find out where she is.”
But when Naomi returned from her meeting with Harry Rodenbaugh it was only to discover that her secretary hadn't been able to come up with anything. “She seems to have dropped out of sight, Mrs. Tanaka. No one knows where she is.”
“We'll find her,” Naomi said. The wheels in her mind were already clicking away as she mentally shuffled through her list of contacts. She glanced down at her Rolex oyster watch and calculated time differentials. Then she snatched up the magazine and headed into her office. As she dialed her telephone, she looked down at the series of pictures. “I'm going to find you,” she said to the beautiful woman looking up from the pages. “I'm going to find you, and when I'm done, your life will never be the same.”
The walleyed cat followed Francesca back to the motel. It had dull gray fur with bald patches around its bony shoulders from some long-ago fight. Its face had been squashed to the side, and one eye was misshapen, the iris rolled back into the cat's head so that only the milky white showed. To add to his unsavory appearance, he had lost the tip of one ear. She wished the animal had chosen someone else to follow along the highway, and she quickened her steps as she turned into the parking lot. The cat's unrelenting ugliness disturbed her. She had this illogical feeling that she didn't want to be around anything so ugly, that some of that ugliness might rub off on her, that people are judged by the company they keep.
“Go away!” she commanded.
The animal gave her a faintly malevolent look, but didn't alter its path. She sighed. With the way her luck had gone lately, what did she expect?
She had slept through her first afternoon and night in Lake Charles, only dimly aware of Dallie coming into the room and making a racket, then making another racket when he left the next morning. By the time she had come fully awake, he'd been gone for several hours. Nearly faint with hunger, she had rushed through her bath, afterward making free use of Dallie's toiletries. Then she had picked up the five dollars he had left her for food and, staring down at the bill, made one of the most difficult decisions of her life.
In her hand she now carried a small paper sack containing two pairs of cheap nylon underpants, a tube of inexpensive mascara, the smallest bottle of nail polish remover she could find, and a package of emery boards. With the few cents that remained, she had purchased the only food she could afford, a Milky Way candy bar. Thick and heavy, she could feel its satisfying weight at the bottom of the paper sack. She had wanted real food—capon, wild rice, a mound of salad with blue cheese dressing, a wedge of truffle cake—but she had needed underpants, mascara, salvation for her disgraceful fingernails. As she had walked the mile back along the highway, she thought of all the money she had thrown away over the years. Hundred-dollar shoes, thousand-dollar gowns, money flying from her hands like cards from a magician's fingertips. For the price of a simple silk scarf, she could have eaten like a queen.
Since Francesca didn't have the price of a scarf, she had decided to make the most of her culinary moment, humble though it might be. A shady tree grew beside the motel, complete with a rusted lawn chair. She was going to sit in the chair, enjoy the warmth of the afternoon, and consume the chocolate bar morsel by morsel, savoring each bite to make it last. But first she had to get rid of the cat.
“Shoo!” she hissed, stomping her foot on the asphalt. The cat tilted its lopsided head at her and stood its ground. “Go away, you bloody beast, and find someone else to bother.” When the animal wouldn't move, she expelled her breath in disgust and stomped toward the lawn chair. The cat followed. She ignored it, refusing to let this ugly animal ruin her pleasure in the first food she'd eaten since Saturday evening.
Kicking off her sandals as she sat down, she cooled the bottoms of her feet in the grass while she dug into the bag for her candy bar. It felt as precious as a bar of gold bullion in her hand. Carefully unwrapping it, she dampened her finger to pick up a few errant chocolate slivers that fell out of the wrapper onto her jeans. Ambrosia... She slid the corner of the bar into her mouth, sank her teeth through the chocolate shell and into the nougat, and bit through. As she chewed, she knew she had never tasted anything so wonderful in her life. She had to force herself to take another slow bite instead of stuffing it all into her mouth.
The cat emitted a deep, gravelly sound, which Francesca guessed was some perverted form of a meow.
She glared at it, standing near the tree trunk watching her with its one good eye. “Forget it, beast. I need this more than you do.” She took another bite. “I'm not an animal person, so you don't have to stare at me like that. I've no affection for anything that has paws and doesn't know how to flush.”
The animal didn't move. She noticed its protruding ribs, the dullness of its fur. Was it her imagination or did she sense a certain sad resignation in that ugly, walleyed face? She took another small bite. The chocolate no longer tasted nearly as good. If only she didn't know how terrible hunger pangs felt.
“Dammit to bloody hell!” She jerked a chunk off the end of the bar, broke it into small pieces, and laid them on top of the wrapper. As she placed it all on the ground, she glared at the animal. “I hope you're satisfied, you miserable cat.”
The cat walked over to the chair, bent his battered head to the chocolate, and consumed every morsel as if he were doing her a favor.
Dallie got back from the course after seven that evening. By that time she had repaired her fingernails, counted the cinder blocks on the walls of the room, and read Genesis. When he came through the door, she was so desperate for human company that she jumped up from her chair, only restraining herself at the last moment from running over to him.
“There's the ugliest cat I've ever seen in my life out there,” he said, throwing his keys down on the dresser. “Damn, I hate cats. Only animal in the world that I can't stand is a cat.” Since at that particular moment, Francesca wasn't too fond of the species herself, she didn't offer any argument. “Here,” he said, tossing a sack at her. “I brought you some dinner.”
She let out a small cry as she grabbed the sack and tore it open. “A hamburger! Oh, God
... chips, lovely chips! I adore you.” She pulled out the french fries and immediately shoved two into her mouth.
“Jeez, Francie, you don't have to act as if you're starving to death. I left you money for lunch.”
He pulled a change of clothes from his suitcase and disappeared into the bathroom for a shower. By the time he returned in his customary uniform of jeans and T-shirt, she had appeased her hunger but not her desire for company. However, she saw with alarm that he was getting ready to go out again.
“Are you leaving already?”
He sat down on the end of the bed and pulled on his boots. “Skeet and me have an appointment with a man named Pearl.”
“At this time of night?”
He chuckled. “Mr. Pearl keeps real flexible hours.”
She had the feeling that she had missed something, but she couldn't imagine what. Pushing aside the food rubble, she jumped to her feet. “Could I go with you, Dallie? I can sit in the car while you have your appointment.”
“I don't think so, Francie. This kind of meeting can sometimes go on till the wee hours.”
“I don't mind. Really I don't.” She hated herself for pressing on, but she didn't think she could stand being shut up in the room much longer without anyone to talk to.
“Sorry, Fancy Pants.” He shoved his wallet into his back pocket.
“Don't call me that! I hate it!” He lifted one eyebrow in her direction, and she quickly changed the subject. “Tell me about the golf tournament. How did you do?”
“Today was just a practice round. The Pro-Am's on Wednesday, but the actual tournament doesn't get going until Thursday. Did you make any progress getting hold of Nicky?”
She shook her head, not anxious to pursue that particular topic. “How much could you earn if you win this tournament?”
He picked up his cap and set it on his head, where the American flag over the bill stared back at her. “Only about ten thousand. This isn't much of a tournament, but the club pro's a friend of mine, so I play every year.”
An amount she would have considered paltry a year before suddenly seemed like a fortune. “But that's wonderful. Ten thousand dollars! You simply have to win, Dallie.”
He looked at her with a curiously blank face. “Why's that?”
“Why, so you can have the money, of course.”
He shrugged. “As long as the Riviera's running smooth, I don't care too much about money, Francie.”
“That's ridiculous. Everybody cares about money.”
“I don't.” He went out the door and then almost immediately reappeared. “Why's there a hamburger wrapper out here, Francie? You haven't been feeding that ugly cat, have you?”
“Don't be ridiculous. I detest cats.”
“Now, that's the first sensible thing you've said since I met you.” He gave her a small, approving nod and shut the door. She kicked the desk chair with the toe of her sandal and once again began counting the cinder blocks.
“Pearl is a beer!” she screamed five nights later when Dallie returned near dusk from playing in the semifinal round of the tournament. She waved the shiny magazine advertisement in his face. “All these nights when you've left me alone in this godforsaken room with nothing but television to keep me company, you've been out drinking beer in some sleazy bar.”
Skeet set Dallie's clubs in the corner. “You've got to get up pretty early in the morning to put one over on Miss Fran-chess-ka. You shouldn't have left your old magazines lying around, Dallie.”
Dallie shrugged and rubbed a sore muscle in his left arm. “Who figured she could read?”
Skeet chuckled and left the room. A stab of hurt shot through her at Dallie's comment. Uncomfortable memories of some of the unkind remarks she'd made returned to nag at her, remarks that had seemed clever at the time, but now seemed merely cruel. “You think I'm awfully funny, don't you?” she said quietly. “You enjoy telling jokes I don't understand and making references that go right past me. You don't even have the courtesy to mock me behind my back; you make fun of me right to my face.”
Dallie unbuttoned his shirt. “Jeez, Francie, don't make such a big deal out of it.”
She slumped down on the edge of the bed. He hadn't looked at her—not once since he'd walked into the room had he looked at her, not even when he was talking to her. She'd become invisible to him—sexless and invisible. Her fears that he would expect her to sleep with him in return for sharing the room now seemed ridiculous. He wasn't attracted to her at all. He didn't even like her. As he stripped off his shirt, she stared at his chest, lightly covered with hair and well muscled. The cloud of depression that had been following her for days settled lower.
He pulled off his shirt and tossed it on the bed. “Listen, Francie, you wouldn't like the kind of place Skeet and I patronize. There aren't any tablecloths, and all the food is deep-fried.”
She thought of the Blue Choctaw and knew he was probably right. Then she looked toward the lighted television screen where something called “I Dream of Jeannie” was coming on for the second time that day. “I don't care, Dallie. I love fried food, and tablecloths are passé anyway. Just last year Mother gave a party for Nureyev and she used placemats.”
“I'll bet they didn't have a map of Louisiana printed on them.”
“I don't think Porthault does maps.”
He sighed and scratched his chest. Why wouldn't he look at her? She stood. “That was a joke, Dallie. I can make jokes, too.”
“No offense, Francie, but your jokes aren't too funny.”
“They are to me. They are to my friends.”
“Yeah? Well, that's another thing. We have different taste in friends, and I know you wouldn't like my drinking buddies. A few of them are golfers, some of them are locals, most of them say things like ‘I seen’ a lot. They're not your kind of people.”
“To be totally honest,” she said, glancing toward the television screen, “anyone who doesn't sleep in a bottle is my kind of person.”
Dallie smiled at that and disappeared into the bathroom to take his shower. Ten minutes later, the door flew open and he exploded into the bedroom with a towel knotted around his hips and his face red beneath his tan. “Why is my toothbrush wet?” he roared, shaking the offending object in her face.
Her wish had come true. He was looking at her now, staring right through her—and she didn't like it one bit. She took a step back and tucked her bottom lip between her teeth in an expression she hoped looked charmingly guilty. “I'm afraid I had to borrow it.”
“Borrow it! That's the most disgusting thing I've ever heard.”
“Yes, well you see I seemed to have lost mine, and I—”
“Borrow it!” She backed farther away as she saw that he was building up steam. “We're not talking about a cup of sugar here, sister! We're talking about a frigging toothbrush, the most personal possession a person can own!”
“I've been sanitizing it,” she explained.
“You've been sanitizing it,” he repeated ominously. “‘Been’ implies that this wasn't a one-shot occurrence. ‘Been’ implies that we have a whole history of extended use.”
“Not extended, actually. I mean, we've only known each other a few days.”
He threw the toothbrush at her, hitting her in the arm. “Take it! Take the fucking thing! I've ignored the fact that you've gotten into my clothes, that you've screwed up my razor, that you haven't put the cap back on my deodorant! I've ignored the mess you make around this place, but I goddamn well am not going to ignore this.”
She realized then that he was truly angry with her, and that, unwittingly, she had stepped over some invisible line. For a reason she couldn't comprehend, this business about the toothbrush was important enough that he'd decided to make an issue of it. She felt a wave of undiluted panic sweep through her. She had pushed him too far, and he was going to kick her out. In the next few seconds, he would lift his hand, point his finger toward that door, and tell her to get out of his life forever and ever.
/>
She hurried across the room. “Dallie, I'm sorry. Really I am.” He gave her a stony glare. She lifted her hands and pressed them lightly to his chest, her fingers splayed, the short, unpolished nails slightly yellowed from years of being hidden by carmine varnish. Tilting her head up, she gazed directly into his eyes. “Don't be angry with me.” She shifted her weight closer so that her legs were pressing against his, and then she tucked her head into his chest and rested her cheek against his bare skin. No man could resist her. Not really. Not when she put her mind to it. She just hadn't put her mind to it, that was all. Hadn't Chloe raised her from birth to enchant men?
“What are you doing?” he asked.
She didn't reply; she just leaned against him, soft and compliant as a sleepy kitten. He smelled clean, like soap, and she inhaled the scent. He wasn't going to kick her out. She wouldn't let him. If he kicked her out, she wouldn't have anything or anyone left. She would vanish. Right now Dallie Beaudine was all she had left in the world, and she would do anything to keep him. Her hands crept up over his chest. She stood on tiptoe and circled his neck with her arms, then slid her lips along the line of his jaw and pressed her breasts into his chest. She could feel him growing hard beneath the towel, and she felt a renewed sense of her own power.
“Exactly what do you have in mind with all this?” he asked quietly. “A little tag team wrestling under the sheets?”
“It's inevitable, isn't it?” She forced herself to sound offhand. “Not that you haven't been a perfect gentleman about it, but we are sharing the same room.”