Fancy Pants

Chapter 19

The building was a squat white rectangle of concrete with four dusty cars parked at the side next to a trash dumpster. A padlocked shack stood behind the dumpster, and fifty yards beyond that was the thin metal finger of the radio antenna that Francesca had been walking toward for nearly two hours. As Beast went off to explore, Francesca wearily climbed the two steps to the front door. Its glass surface was nearly opaque with dust and the smear of countless fingerprints. Decals advertising the Sulphur City Chamber of Commerce, the United Way, and various broadcasting associations covered much of the left side of the door, while the center held the gold call letters KDSC. The bottom half of the C was missing, so it might have been a G, but Francesca knew it wasn't because she had seen the C on the mailbox at the end of the lane when she turned in.

Although she could have positioned herself in front of the door to study her reflection, she didn't bother. Instead, she rubbed the back of her hand over her forehead, pushing aside the damp strands of hair that had stuck there, and brushed off her jeans as best she could. She couldn't do anything about the bloody scrapes on her arms, so she ignored them. Her earlier euphoria had faded, leaving exhaustion and a terrible apprehension.

Pushing open the front door, she found herself in a reception area overstuffed with six cluttered desks, nearly as many clocks, an assortment of bulletin boards, calendars, posters, and cartoons fixed to the walls with curling yellowed tape. A brown and gold striped Danish modern couch sat to her left, the center cushion concave from too much use. The room contained only one window, a large one that looked into a studio where an announcer wearing a headset sat in front of a microphone. His voice was piped into the office through a wall speaker and the volume was turned low.

A chubby red-haired chipmunk of a woman looked up at Francesca from the room's only occupied desk. "Can I help you?"

Francesca cleared her throat, her gaze traveling from the swaying gold crosses hanging from the woman's ears down over her polyester blouse, and then on to the black telephone sitting by her wrist. One call to Wynette and her immediate problems would be over. She would have food, a change of clothes, and a roof over her head. But the idea of running to Dallie for help had lost its old appeal. Despite her exhaustion and fear, something inside her had been unalterably changed back on that deserted dirt road. She was sick of being a pretty ornament getting blown away by every ill wind that swept in her direction. For better or for worse, she was going to take control of her own life.

"I wonder if I might speak with the person in charge," she said to the chipmunk. Francesca spoke carefully, trying her best to sound competent and professional, instead of like someone with a dirty face and dusty, sandaled feet who didn't have a dime in her pocket.

The combination of Francesca's bedraggled appearance and her upper-class British accent obviously interested the woman. "I'm Katie Cathcart, the office manager. Could you tell me what this is about?"

Could an office manager help her? Francesca had no idea, but decided she would be better off with the man at the top. She kept her tone friendly, but firm. "It's rather personal."

The woman hesitated, then got up and went into the office behind her. She reappeared a moment later. "As long as you don't take too long, Miss Padgett'll see you. She's our station manager."

Francesca's nervousness took a quantum leap. Why did the station manager have to be a woman? At

least with a man, she would have stood half a chance. And then she reminded herself that this was an opportunity for a fresh beginning-a new Francesca, one who wasn't going to try to slide through life using the tired old tricks of her former self. Straightening her shoulders, she walked into the station manager's office.

A gold metal nameplate on the desk announced the presence of Clare Padgett, an elegant name for an inelegant woman. In her early forties, she had a masculine, square-jawed face, softened only by the remains of a dab of red lipstick. Her graying brown hair was medium-length and blunt-cut. It looked as though it received nothing more than shampooing by way of attention. She held a cigarette like a man, pushed into the crook between the index and middle finger of her right hand, and when she lifted the cigarette to her mouth she didn't so much inhale the smoke as swallow it.

"What is it?" Clare asked abruptly. She spoke in a professional broadcaster's voice, rich and resonant, but without the slightest trace of friendliness. From the wall speaker behind the desk came the faint sound of the announcer reading a local news report.

Even though she hadn't been offered it, Francesca took the room's single straight-backed chair, deciding in an instant that Clare Padgett didn't look like the sort of person who would respect anyone she could step all over. As she gave her name, she positioned herself on the edge of the seat. "I'm sorry to appear without an appointment, but I wanted to inquire about a possible job." Her voice sounded tentative instead of assertive. What had happened to all that arrogance she used to carry around with her like a cloud of perfume?

After a brief inspection of Francesca's appearance, Clare Padgett returned her attention to her paperwork. "I don't have any jobs."

It was nothing more than Francesca had expected, but she still felt as if she'd had the wind knocked out

of her. She thought of that dusty ribbon of road stretching to the rim of the Texas horizon. Her tongue

felt dry and swollen in her mouth. "Are you absolutely certain you don't have something? I'm willing to

do anything."

Padgett sucked in more smoke and tapped at the top sheet of paper with her pencil. "What kind of experience do you have?"

Francesca thought quickly. "I've done some acting. And I have lots of experience with-uh-fashion." She crossed her ankles and tried to tuck the toes of her scuffed Bottega Veneta sandals behind the leg of the chair.

"That doesn't exactly qualify you for a job at a radio station, now, does it? Not even a rat-shit operation like this." She tapped her pencil a little harder.

Francesca took a deep breath and prepared to jump into water much too deep for a nonswimmer. "Actually, Miss Padgett, I don't have any radio experience. But I'm a hard worker, and I'm willing to learn." Hard worker? She'd never worked hard in her life.

In any case, Clare was unimpressed. She lifted her eyes and regarded Francesca with open hostility. "I was kicked off the air at a television station in Chicago because of someone like you-a cute little cheerleader who didn't know the difference between hard news and her panty size." She leaned back in her chair, her eyes narrow with disenchantment. "We call women like you Twinkies-little fluff balls who don't know the first thing about broadcasting, but think it would be oh-so-exciting to have a career in radio."

Six months before, Francesca would have swept from the room in a huff, but now she clamped her hands together in her lap and lifted her chin a shade higher. "I'm willing to do anything, Miss Padgett-answer the telephones, run errands…" She couldn't explain to this woman that it wasn't a career in broadcasting that attracted her. If this building had held a fertilizer factory, she would still have wanted a job.

"The only work I have is for someone to do the cleaning and odd jobs."

"I'll take it!" Dear God, cleaning.

"I don't think you're right for it."

Francesca ignored the sarcasm in her voice. "Oh, but I am. I'm a wonderful cleaner."

She had Clare Padgett's attention again, and the woman seemed amused. "Actually, I'd wanted someone Mexican. Are you a citizen?" Francesca shook her head. "Do you have a green card?"

Again she shook her head. She had only the vaguest idea what a green card was, but she was absolutely certain she didn't have one and she refused to start her new life with a lie. Maybe frankness would impress this woman. "I don't even have a passport. It was stolen from me a few hours ago on the road."

"How unfortunate." Clare Padgett was no longer making the smallest effort to hide how much she was enjoying the situation. She reminded Francesca of a cat with a helpless bird clasped in its mouth. Obviously Francesca, despite her bedraggled state, was going to have to pay for all the slights the station manager had suffered over the years at the hands of beautiful women. "In that case, I'll put you on the payroll at sixty-five dollars a week. You'll have every other Saturday off. The rest of the time you'll be here from sunup to sundown, the same hours we're on the air. And you'll be paid in cash. We've got truckloads of Mexicans coming in every day, so the first time you screw up, you're out."

The woman was paying slave wages. This was the sort of job illegal aliens took because they didn't have a choice. "All right," Francesca said, because she didn't have a choice.

Clare Padgett smiled grimly and led Francesca out to the office manager. "Fresh meat, Katie. Give her a mop and show her the bathroom."

Clare disappeared and Katie looked at Francesca with pity. "We haven't had anyone clean for a few weeks. It's pretty bad."

Francesca swallowed hard. "That's all right."

It wasn't all right, of course. She stood in front of a pantry in the station's tiny kitchenette, looking over a shelf full of cleaning products, none of which she had the slightest idea how to use. She knew how to play baccarat, and she could name the maitre d's of the world's most famous restaurants, but she hadn't the faintest idea how to clean a bathroom. She read the labels as quickly as she could, and half an hour later Clare Padgett discovered her on her knees in front of a gruesomely stained toilet, pouring blue powdered cleanser on the seat.

"When you scrub the floor, make certain you get into the corners, Francesca. I hate sloppy work."

Francesca gritted her teeth and nodded. Her stomach did a small flip-flop as she prepared to attack the mess on the underside of the seat. Unbidden, she thought of Hedda, her old housekeeper. Hedda, with her rolled stockings and bad back, who'd spent her life on her knees cleaning up after Chloe and Francesca.

Clare sucked on her cigarette and then deliberately tossed it down next to Francesca's foot. "You'd better hustle, chicky. We're getting ready to close down for the day." Francesca heard a malevolent chuckle as the woman moved away.

A little later, the announcer who'd been on the air when Francesca arrived stuck his head in the bathroom and told her he had to lock up. Her heart lurched. She had no place to go, no bed to sleep in. "Has everybody left?"

He nodded and ran his eyes over her, obviously liking what he saw. "You need a lift into town?"

She stood and wiped her hair out of her eyes with her forearm, trying to seem casual. "No. Somebody's picking me up." She inclined her head toward the mess, her resolution not to begin her new life with lies already abandoned. "Miss Padgett told me I had to finish this tonight before I left. She said I could lock up." Did she sound too offhand? Not offhand enough? What would she do if he refused?

"Suit yourself." He gave her an appreciative smile. A few minutes later she let out a slow, relieved breath as she heard the front door close.

Francesca spent the night on the black and gold office sofa with Beast curled against her stomach, both of them poorly fed on sandwiches she had made from stale bread and a jar of peanut butter she found in the kitchenette. Exhaustion had seeped into the very marrow of her bones, but still she couldn't fail asleep. Instead, she lay with her eyes open, Beast's fur pushed into the V's between her fingers, thinking about how many more obstacles lay in her way.

The next morning she awakened before five and promptly threw up into the toilet she had so painstakingly cleaned the night before. For the rest of the day, she tried to tell herself it was only a reaction to the peanut butter.

"Francesca! Dammit, where is she?" Clare stormed from her office as Francesca flew out of the newsroom where she'd just finished delivering a batch of afternoon papers to the news director.

"I'm here, Clare," she said wearily. "What's the problem?"

It had been six weeks since she'd started work at KDSC, and her relationship with the station manager hadn't improved. According to the gossip she'd picked up from members of the small KDSC staff,

Clare's radio career had been launched at a time when few women could get jobs in broadcasting. Station managers hired her because she was intelligent and aggressive, and then fired her for the same reason. She finally made it to television, where she fought bitter battles for the right to report hard news instead

of the softer stories considered appropriate for women reporters.

Ironically, she was defeated by Equal Opportunity. In the early seventies when employers were forced

to hire women, they bypassed battle-scarred veterans like Clare, with their sharp tongues and cynical outlooks, for newer, fresher faces straight off college campuses-pretty, malleable sorority girls with degrees in communication arts. Women like Clare had to take what was left-jobs for which they were overqualified, like running backwater radio stations. As a result, they smoked too much, grew increasingly bitter, and made life miserable for any females they suspected of trying to get by on nothing more than a pretty face.

"I just got a call from that fool at the Sulphur City bank," Clare snapped at Francesca. "He wants the Christmas promotions today instead of tomorrow." She pointed toward a box of bell-shaped tree ornaments printed with the name of the radio station on one side and the name of the bank on the other. "Get over there right away with them, and don't take all day like you did last time."

Francesca refrained from pointing out that she wouldn't have taken so long last time if four staff members hadn't dumped additional errands on her-everything from delivering overdue bills for air time to having a new water pump put in the station's battered Dodge Dart. She pulled on the red and black plaid car coat she'd bought at a Goodwill store for five dollars and then grabbed the key to the Dart from a cup hook next to the studio window. Inside, Tony March, the afternoon deejay, was cuing up a record. Although he hadn't been with KDSC very long, everyone knew he would be quitting soon. He had a good voice and a distinct personality. For announcers like Tony, KDSC, with its unimpressive 500-watt signal, was merely a stepping stone to better things. Francesca had already discovered that the only people who stayed at KDSC for very long were people like her who didn't have any other choice.

The car started after only three attempts, which was nearly a record. She backed around and headed out of the parking lot. A glance at the rearview mirror showed pale skin, dull hair snared at the back of her neck with a rubber band, and a red-rimmed nose from the latest in a series of head colds. Her car coat was too big for her, and she had neither the money nor the energy to improve her appearance. At least she didn't have to fend off many advances from the male staff members.

There had been few successes for her these past six weeks, but many disasters. One of the worst had occurred the day before Thanksgiving when Clare had discovered she was sleeping on the station couch and screamed at her in front of everyone until Francesca's cheeks burned with humiliation. Now she and Beast lived in a bedroom-kitchen combination over a garage in Sulphur City. It was drafty and badly furnished with discarded furniture and a lumpy twin bed, but the rent was cheap and she could pay it by the week, so she tried to feel grateful for every ugly inch of it. She had also gained the use of the station's Dodge Dart, although Clare made her pay for gas even when someone else took the car. It was an exhausting, hand-to-mouth existence, with no room for financial emergencies, no room for personal

emergencies, and no-absolutely no-room for an unwanted pregnancy.

Her fists tightened on the steering wheel. By doing without almost everything, she had managed to save the one hundred and fifty dollars the San Antonio abortion clinic would charge her to get rid of Dallie Beaudine's baby. She refused to let herself think of the ramifications of her decision; she was simply too poor and too desperate to consider the morality of the act. After her appointment on Saturday, she would have averted one more disaster. That was all the introspection she allowed herself.

She finished running her errands in little more than an hour and returned to the station, only to have

Clare yell at her for having gone off without washing her office windows first.

The following Saturday she got up at dawn and made the two-hour drive to San Antonio. The waiting room of the abortion clinic was sparsely furnished but clean. She sat down on a molded plastic chair, her hands clutching her black canvas shoulder bag, her legs pressed tightly together as if they were unconsciously trying to protect the small piece of protoplasm that would soon be taken from her body. The room held three other women. Two were Mexican and one was a worn-out blonde with an acned face and hopeless eyes. All of them were poor.

A middle-aged, Spanish-looking woman in a neat white blouse and dark skirt appeared at the door and called her name. "Francesca, I'm Mrs. Garcia," she said in lightly accented English. "Would you come with me, please?"

Francesca numbly followed her into a small office paneled in fake mahogany. Mrs. Garcia took a seat behind her desk and invited Francesca to sit in another molded plastic chair, differing only in color from the one in the waiting room.

The woman was friendly and efficient as she went over the forms for Francesca to sign. Then she explained the procedure that would take place in one of the surgical rooms down the hall. Francesca bit down on the inside of her lip and tried not to listen too closely. Mrs. Garcia spoke slowly and calmly, always using the word "tissue," never "fetus." Francesca felt a detached sense of gratitude. Ever since

she had realized she was pregnant, she had refused to personify the unwelcome visitor lodged in her womb. She refused to connect it in her mind to that night in a Louisiana swamp. Her life had been pared down to the bone-to the marrow -and there was no room for sentiment, no room to build falsely romantic pictures of chubby pink cheeks and soft curly hair, no need ever to use the word "baby," not even in her thoughts. Mrs. Garcia began to speak of "vacuum aspiration," and Francesca thought of the old Hoover she pushed around the radio station carpet every evening.

"Do you have any questions?"

She shook her head. The faces of the three sad women in the waiting room seemed implanted in her mind-women with no future, no hope. Mrs. Garcia slid a booklet across the metal desktop. "This pamphlet contains information on birth control that you should read before you have intercourse again."

Again? The memory of Dallie's deep, hot kisses rushed back to her, but the intimate caresses that had once set her senses aflame now seemed to have happened to someone else. She couldn't imagine ever feeling that good again.

"I can't have this-this tissue," Francesca said abruptly, interrupting the woman in midsentence as she showed her a diagram of the female reproductive organs.

Mrs. Garcia stopped what she was saying and inclined her head to listen, obviously accustomed to hearing the most private revelations pass across her desk.

Francesca knew she had no need to justify her actions, but she couldn't seem to stop the flow of words. "Don't you see that it's impossible?" Her fists clenched into knots in her lap. "I'm not a horrible person. I'm not unfeeling. But I can barely take care of myself and a walleyed cat."

The woman gazed at her sympathetically. "Of course you're not unfeeling, Francesca. It's your body,

and only you can decide what's best."

"I've made up my mind," she replied, her tone as angry as if the woman had argued with her. "I don't have a husband or money. I'm barely hanging on to a job working for a boss who hates me. I don't even have any way to pay my medical bills."

"I understand. It's difficult-"

"You don't understand!" Francesca leaned forward, her eyes dry and furious, each word coming out like

a hard, crisp pellet. "All my life I've lived off other people, but I'm not going to do that anymore. I'm going to make something of myself!"

"I think your ambition is admirable. You're obviously a competent young-"

Again Francesca pushed aside her sympathy, trying to explain to Mrs. Garcia-trying to explain to herself-what had brought her to this red brick abortion clinic in the poorest part of San Antonio. The room was warm, but she hugged herself as if she felt a chill. "Have you ever seen those pictures people put together on black velvet with little nails and different colored strings-pictures of bridges and butterflies, things like that?" Mrs. Garcia nodded. Francesca gazed at the fake mahogany paneling without seeing it. "I have one of those awful pictures fastened to the wall, right above my bed, this terrible pink and orange string picture of a guitar."

"I don't quite see-"

"How can someone bring a baby into the world when she lives in a place with a string picture of a guitar on the wall? What kind of mother would deliberately expose a helpless little baby to something so ugly?" Baby. She'd said the word. Twice she'd said it. A painful press of tears pricked at the backs of her eyelids but she refused to shed them. In the past year, she'd cried enough spoiled, self-indulgent tears to last a lifetime, and she wasn't going to cry any more.

"You know, Francesca, an abortion doesn't have to be the end of the world. In the future, the circumstances may be different for you… the time more convenient."

Her final word seemed to hang in the air. Francesca slumped back in the chair, all the anger drained out

of her. Was that what a human life came down to, she wondered, a matter of convenience? It was inconvenient for her to have a baby right now, so she would simply do away with it? She looked up at Mrs. Garcia. "My friends in London used to schedule their abortions so they wouldn't miss any balls or parties."

For the first time Mrs. Garcia visibly bristled. "The women who come here aren't worried about missing

a party, Francesca. They're fifteen-year-olds with their whole lives in front of them, or married women who already have too many children and absent husbands. They're women without jobs and without any hope of getting work."

But she wasn't like them, Francesca told herself. She wasn't helpless and broken anymore. These past few months she had proven that. She'd scrubbed toilets, endured abuse, fed and sheltered herself on next to nothing. Most people would have crumbled, but she hadn't. She had survived.

It was a new, tantalizing view of herself. She sat straighter in the chair, her fists gradually easing open in her lap. Mrs. Garcia spoke hesitantly. "Your life seems rather precarious at the moment."

Francesca thought of Clare, of the ugly rooms above the garage, of the string guitar, of her inability to call Dallie for help, even when she desperately needed it. "It is precarious," she agreed. Leaning over, she picked up her canvas shoulder bag. Then she rose from her chair. The impulsive, optimistic part of her that she thought had died months before seemed to have taken over her feet, seemed to be forcing her to do something that could only lead to disaster, something illogical, foolish…

Something wonderful.

"May I have my money back, please, Mrs. Garcia? Take out whatever you need to cover your time today."

Mrs. Garcia looked worried. "Are you sure about your decision, Francesca? You're already ten weeks pregnant. You don't have much more time to undergo a safe abortion. Are you absolutely sure?"

Francesca had never been less sure of anything in her life, but she nodded.

She broke into a little run as she left the abortion clinic, and then a skip to cover the last few feet to the Dart. Her mouth curved in a smile. Of all the stupid things she had ever done in her life, this was the stupidest. Her smile grew wider. Dallie had been absolutely right about her-she didn't have a single ounce of common sense. She was poorer than a church mouse, badly educated, and living every minute on the cutting edge of disaster. But right now, at this very moment, none of that mattered, because some things in life were more important than common sense.

Francesca Serritella Day had lost most of her dignity and all of her pride. She wasn't going to lose her baby.