Fancy Pants

Epilogue

Dallie sat in the passenger seat of his big Chrysler New Yorker, the brim of his cap tilted over his eyes to block the morning sun, while Miss Fancy Pants passed two semis and a Greyhound bus in less time than it took most people to say amen. Damn, he liked the waj she drove a car. A man could relax with a woman like her behind the wheel because he knew he had half a chance at arriving at his destination before his arteries hardened from old age.

"Are you going to tell me yet where you're taking me?" he asked. When she'd shanghaied him away from his morning coffee, he hadn't protested too much because three months of married life had taught him that it was more fuo to go along with his pretty little wife than to spend half his time arguing with her.

"Out by that old landfill," she replied. "If I can find the road."

"The landfill? That place has been closed for the last three years. There's nothing out there."

Francesca made a sharp right turn onto an old asphalt road. "That's what Miss Sybil said."

"Miss Sybil? What's she got to do with all this?"

"She's a woman," Francesca replied mysteriously. "And she understands a woman's needs."

Dallie decided the best course of action in a situation like this was not to ask any more questions, just to let events take their natural course. He grinned and tilted the brim of his cap down a little farther. Who would have ever thought that being married to Miss Fancy Pants would turn out to be so much fun?

Their life was working out even better than he'd expected. Francie had hauled him over to the French Riviera for a honeymoon that had been just about the greatest time of his life, and then they'd come to Wynette for the summer. During the school year, they had decided to make New York City their base because it was the best place for Teddy and Francie. Since Dallie would be playing in the bigger tournaments this fall, he could hang his clothes just about anywhere. And whenever they got bored, they could go stay in one of those houses that he owned scattered all around the country.

"We have to be back in Wynette in exactly forty-five minutes," she said. "You have an interview with

that reporter from Sports Illustrated, and I have a conference call scheduled with Nathan and my production people."

She didn't look old enough to know anything about conference calls, let alone to have production people. Her hair was pulled into a cute ponytail that made her seem like she was about fourteen, and she had on this stretchy white top with a little denim skirt he'd bought for her because he knew it wouldn't do much more than cover her backside.

"I thought we were going to the driving range," he said. "No offense, Francie, but your golf swing could use some work." Which was a polite way of putting it. She had the worst golf swing he had ever seen on any person, male or female, but he enjoyed messing around with her so much at the range that he acted like she was improving.

"I don't see how my swing is ever going to get better if you keep telling me so many different things to do," she grumbled. "Keep your head down, Francie. Pull with your left side, Francie. Lead with your knees, Francie. Honestly, no one in her right mind could remember all of that. It's no wonder you can't teach Teddy to hit a baseball. You make everything so complicated."

"Now, don't you worry about that boy playing baseball. You should know by now that sports isn't everything, especially when my son has more brain power in that head of his than all of Wynette's Little Leaguers put together." As far as Dallie was concerned, Teddy was the best boy in the world, and he wouldn't trade him for all the jock kids in America.

"Speaking of the driving range," she began. "With the PGA Championship coming up-"

"Uh-oh."

"Sweetheart, I'm not saying that you had a problem with your long irons last week. Gracious, you won the tournament, so it couldn't have been much of a problem. Still, I thought you might want to spend a few hours at the range after your interview to see if you can't improve them just a little bit." She glanced over, giving him one of those soft, innocent looks that didn't fool him one bit. "I certainly don't expect you to win the PGA," she went on. "You've already won two titles this summer, and you don't have to win every tournament, but…" Her voice faded, as if she realized she'd already said enough. More than enough. One thing that he had discovered about Francie was that she was just about insatiable when it came to golf titles.

She swung the New Yorker off the narrow asphalt road and onto a dirt lane that probably hadn't been used by anybody since the Apaches. The old Wynette landfill was about a half-mile in the opposite direction, but he didn't mention that. Half the fun of being with Francie was watching her improvise.

She caught her bottom lip between her teeth and frowned. "The landfill should be around here

someplace, although I don't actually suppose it matters."

He crossed his arms over his chest and pretended he was falling asleep.

She giggled. "I couldn't believe Holly Grace showed up at the Roustabout last night in a maternity dress-she's barely three months pregnant. And Gerry has absolutely no idea how to behave in a honky-tonk. He spent the entire evening drinking white wine and talking to Skeet about the wonders of natural childbirth." Francesca turned onto an even bumpier road. "I'm also not absolutely certain Holly Grace did the right thing by bringing Gerry to Wynette. She wanted him to get to know her parents

better, but poor Winona is absolutely terrified of him."

Francesca looked over at Dallie and saw that he was pretending to sleep. She smiled to herself. It was probably just as well. Dallie still wasn't absolutely rational on the subject of Gerry Jaffe. Of course, she hadn't been all that rational herself for a while. Gerry should never have involved Teddy in his scheme, no matter how much her son had begged to be part of it. Since the incident at the Statue of Liberty, she, Dallie, and Holly Grace had made certain that Teddy and Gerry were never left alone together for more than five minutes.

She gently pressed the brake and steered the New Yorker onto a rutted path that ended in a clump of straggly cedars. Satisfied that the area was completely deserted, she pushed the buttons that lowered the front windows and turned off the ignition. The morning air that blew in was warm and pleasantly dusty.

Dallie still pretended to be asleep, his arms folded over his faded gray T-shirt and one of a series of caps sporting an American flag pulled low over his eyes. She postponed the moment when she would actually touch him, enjoying the anticipation. For all the laughter and teasing that went on between them, she and Dallie had found a serenity together, a sense of perfect homecoming that could only happen after having known the darkest side of another person and then having walked together out into the sunshine.

Reaching over, she pulled off his cap and dropped it into the back seat. Then she kissed his closed eyelids, working her fingers into his hair. "Wake up, sweetheart, you have some work to do."

He nibbled at her bottom lip. "Do you have anything specific in mind?"

"Uh-huh."

He reached beneath her stretchy white top and traced the small bumps of her spine with his fingertips. "Francie, we have a perfectly good bed back in Wynette and another one twenty-five miles to the west

of here."

"The second one is too far away and the first one is too crowded."

He chuckled. Teddy had banged on their bedroom door early that morning and then climbed into bed

with them to ask their opinion about whether he should be a detective or a scientist when he grew up.

"Married people aren't supposed to have to make love in a car," he said, closing his eyes again as she settled into his lap and began kissing his ear.

"Most married people don't have a meeting of the Friends of Wynette Public Library going on in one room and an army of teenage girls camped out in the other," she replied.

"You've got a point there." He lifted her skirt a little so that she could straddle his legs with her thighs. Then he began to caress one of those thighs, gradually working upward. His eyes shot open.

"Francie Day Beaudine, you don't have any underpants on."

"Don't I?" she murmured in that bored-little-rich-girl voice of hers. "How naughty of me."

She was rubbing her breasts against him, kissing his ear, deliberately driving him crazy. He decided it was long past time he showed Miss Fancy Pants who was the boss of the family. Pushing open the car door, he climbed out, taking her with him.

"Dallie…" she protested.

He wrapped his arm around her waist and hoisted her up off the ground. As he carried her toward the trunk of his New Yorker, she delighted him by starting to struggle, although he did think she could have put a little more effort into it if she'd concentrated harder.

"I'm not the kind of woman you make love to on the back of a car," she said in a voice so haughty she sounded like the queen of England. Except Dallie didn't imagine the queen of England would be moving her hand up and down the front of his jeans in quite the same way.

"You can't fool me with that accent of yours, ma'am," he drawled. "I know exactly how you red-blooded American girls like to make love."

As she opened her mouth to reply, he took advantage of her parted lips to give her the kind of kiss that guaranteed him a few minutes of silence. Eventually she began to work at the zipper on the front of his jeans, which didn't take her long at all-Francie was magic with anything that had to do with clothes.

Their lovemaking started out raunchy, with a little bit of dirty talk and a lot of shifting around, but then everything turned tender and sweet, exactly like their feelings for each other. Before long, they were sprawled across the trunk of the New Yorker, lying right on top of the pink satin Porthault sheet that Francesca kept stored in the car for just such an emergency.

Afterward, they looked into each other's eyes, not saying a word, just looking, and then they exchanged

a kiss so full of love and understanding that it was hard to remember that any barriers had ever existed between them.

Dallie took the wheel to drive back to Wynette. When he turned out onto the main highway, Francesca was cuddled up against him and he was feeling lazy and contented, pleased with himself for having had the good sense to marry Miss Fancy Pants. Just then the Bear made one of his increasingly rare appearances.

Looks like you re in real danger of making a fool of yourself over this woman.

You've got that right, Dallie replied, brushing the top of her head with a kiss.

And then the Bear chuckled. Good work, Beaudine.

On the opposite side of Wynette, Teddy and Skeet sat next to each other on a slatted wooden bench, the mulberry trees overhead shielding them from the summer sun. They sat quietly, neither of them having any need to talk. Skeet gazed off down the gently rolling slope of grass, and Teddy sipped at the dregs

of his Coke. He was wearing his favorite pair of camouflage pants belted low on his hips, along with a baseball hat sporting an American flag. A No Nukes button occupied a place of honor in the exact center of his Aggies T-shirt.

Teddy thought that this summer in Wynette had been about the best time in his life. He had a bike here, which he couldn't have in New York, and him and his dad had built this neat solar collector in the back yard. Still, he missed some of his friends and he didn't absolutely hate the idea of going back to New York in a few weeks. Miss Pearson had given him an A on the social studies project he'd done on immigration. She said the story he'd written about how his mom had come to this country and everything that had happened to her once she got here was the most interesting student report she had ever read. And his gifted teacher next year was the nicest one in the whole school. Also, there were lots of museums and stuff in New York that he wanted to show his dad.

"You about ready?" Skeet said, getting up from the bench where they had been sitting.

"I guess." Teddy noisily drained the last of his Coke and then got up to toss the empty cup into the trash can. "I don't see why we have to make such a secret out of this," he grumbled. "If this wasn't such a big secret, we could come here more often."

"Never you mind," Skeet replied, shielding his eyes to look down the grassy slope toward the first green. "We'll tell your dad about this when / decide we're going to tell him and not before."

Teddy loved coming out on the golf course with Skeet, so he didn't argue. He took the three-wood from

a bag of old clubs that Skeet had cut down for him. After drying the palms of his hands on the legs of his pants, he set up the ball, enjoying its perfect balance on the red wooden tee. As he took his stance, he gazed down the grassy slope toward the distant green. It looked so pretty sitting there, all sparkly with sunlight. Maybe it was because he was a city kid, but he loved golf courses. He took a little sniff of

clean air, balanced himself, and swung.

The club head hit the ball with a satisfying thwack.

"How was it?" Teddy asked, peering down the fairway.

"About a hundred and eighty yards," Skeet said, chuckling. "I never saw a little kid hit a ball so far."

Teddy was aggravated. "It's not a big deal, Skeet. I don't know why you always make such a big deal

out of it. Hitting a golf ball is easy. It's not like trying to catch a football or hit a baseball or something really hard like that. Anybody can hit a golf ball."

Skeet didn't say anything. He was carrying Teddy's clubs down the fairway and he was laughing too

hard to talk.