elegance.' At the time he'd been amused. Russellville, Alabama-population 10,000-seemed ill-chosen as a town to be availed of dashing elegance. Nonetheless, she'd brought a touch of it here. Above and beyond this, Rachel was an astute businesswoman. The store had succeeded, then thrived.
Poised, well dressed, genteel, she'd set a fine example for the ladies of the town. By now, every woman in Russellville knew who Rachel Hollis was. She was the pretty one, the soft-spoken one, the one in the Evan Picone suits and the Vidal Sassoon nail polish, the one who gave something from her store to every fund raiser, attended the First Baptist Church on Jackson Avenue, drove a sedate four-door sedan, had her hair done regularly in Florence, and lived in an elegant home on the east edge of town. She was the wife of that nice young man who worked at the bank with Rachel's
daddy. She was Everett Talmadge's 41 daughter.
As Tommy Lee drove past Panache, he saw Verda McElroy approach the front door and open up for the day. For a moment he thought she'd turn and see the white Cadillac cruising past, and he breathed a sigh of relief when Verda brushed inside and closed the door without turning around. He drove two blocks farther, swung over to Washington and returned to his own office at the south end of Jackson.
He drew up before a small brick building with white shutters, the home of TLG Enterprises, Ltd. Tommy Lee really didn't need an office; he could easily have run his business affairs out of his home. But renting the building got him out of the empty house and gave him somewhere to go during the day. It also provided a place for Liz Scroggins to answer the phone and carry on the secretarial duties he required.
Liz was thirty-five and divorced, and one of the few women who'd ever sent out signals Tommy Lee had ignored. Oh, she'd never sent them overtly, probably never even realized she'd
sent them at all, for Liz was a perfect lady. She was a looker, all right, but too damn good a worker to risk losing at the end of a messy affair. So Tommy Lee always got his poon tangin' someplace else.
He gave her a smile as he sauntered in and stopped before her desk. Though he drove like a wild man, he never appeared to be in a hurry when on foot.
'Well, good mornin', Liz.'
'Mornin', Mr. Gentry.'
'Don't you look like a li'l azalea blossom today.' His eyes scanned her neat pink dress and he saw her blush.
'You say that every morning, I swear.'
He laughed, unaware of the inborn Southern charm he exuded as he idled before her desk. 'Well, then, it must be true.' He did, in fact, admire the way Liz dressed, never in slacks, her golden hair always freshly fluffed and curled, her makeup conscientiously applied. There were times when he thought it was a shame she was his secretary. 'I'm expecting some quotes from Hensley in the mail today. Let me know when they come in.'
She nodded and leafed through three written 43 messages, handing them across the desk, one at a time. 'Muldecott called from the Florence Bank. A Mr. Trudeau called from Sheffield Engineering.' Liz kept her eyes carefully downcast as she slipped the last message across to him. 'And your daughter called and asked to have you call her as soon as you got in.'
As he took the yellow slip of paper, Tommy Lee's eyebrows drew into a frown. 'Thank you, Liz.' Already he was moving toward his private office. The door was rarely closed between the two rooms, and he left it open now as he picked up the phone and dialed Muscle Shoals.
'Hiya, baby, it's Daddy.'
'Ohhh, Daddy, you'll never guess what's come up. Marianne Wills is having this pool party and I've been invited, but Mother refuses to let me go because there are gonna be boys there, too. She says I'm too young, but everybody I know is going, Daddy, and they're all fourteen, the same as me. Will you talk to her and get her to change her mind?'
'Baby, you know your mother won't change her
mind because of anything I say.'
'Pleeease, Daddy.'
Tommy Lee rocked forward in his chair and wearily rubbed his forehead. 'Beth, if I take your side it'll only make things worse. You and your mother will just have to fight it out.'
'That's all we ever do is fight!'
'I know, I know…'
There followed a brief silence, then Beth's voice again, softer, more pleading. 'Daddy, I hate it here. Why can't I come and live with you?'
'We've been over that a hundred times before.'
'But, Daddy, she-was
'Your mother won't allow it, Beth. You know that.'
Beth's voice suddenly turned accusing. 'You don't want me. You don't want me any more than she does!'
Pain knifed through Tommy Lee's heart. 'That's not true, Beth. You know I'd have you with me in a minute if I could.' He knew Beth was manipulating him again, but the pain was real, nevertheless. As he always did, he sought an antidote. 'Listen, honey, just in case she breaks down and lets you go to the party after all, how
would you like a brand-new bathing suit?' 45
'Really, Daddy?' By the quick brightness in his daughter's voice it was apparent to Tommy Lee that he was only adding to her problem by trying to buy her off, but he felt helpless, and the offer of a new suit eased his guilt. 'There'll be a nice crisp fifty-dollar bill in the mail tomorrow. Now, will you try to make peace with your mother, and don't buck every decision she makes?'
'I'll try, Daddy, but she's-was
'She's doing the best she can, baby. Try to remember that.'
Why did I defend Nancy? he wondered after he'd hung up. She's a nagging bitch and Beth has done well to live with her for this long.
Liz appeared in his doorway, leaned one arm against it, and studied him with a sympathetic expression on her face. 'You know you shouldn't send her the fifty dollars again, don't you?'
He turned from the window, his unsmiling face masking a thousand hidden emotions. 'I know. Don't nag me, Liz.'
'If I don't, who will? My ex-husband pulls that on me, and for days after the boys visit
him, I'm the bad guy around home. Nothing I can do or say is right. The boys keep saying, but Daddy does this, and Daddy lets us do that. Sometimes I want to tell them, If you want to go live with your father, go.'
He sighed. 'Maybe I wish that's what Nancy would say.'
'Do you?' she asked quietly. A man with your life-style-her expression seemed to say-what would you do with a fourteen-year-old daughter?
'That house is so big and so damn empty it echoes.'
She assessed him silently for several seconds before adding softly, 'When you're in it alone.'
Surprisingly enough, Tommy Lee had the grace to blush. His relationship with Liz was unlike any he shared with any other women. They were aware of each other's availability, and a fine sexual tension hummed between them at moments like this. Yet they both understood that if it ever snapped, she'd lose the best job she'd ever had-and the friendship of a man whose life-style she should abhor, but for whom she instead felt a great deal of pity, because she could see beyond the ceaseless chasing to the
loneliness it masked. 47
Liz pulled away from the door frame. 'You wanted me to remind you that you were going to meet at eleven this morning with the people from the city about the zoning regulations on that apartment complex.' The tension eased and they became merely boss and employee again.
'Thanks, Liz.'
He watched her pink dress disappear around the corner and wondered what he lacked that he couldn't marry some nice woman like her and settle down companionably and work toward building a home with some permanent love in it, and think about approaching old age. Wasn't one woman enough for him?
His eyes swayed back to the window. Across the street and half a block away he could see the corner of the First State Bank of Russellville, the one Rachel's daddy ran, the one Tommy Lee shunned in favor of taking his business to the town of Florence, twenty-three miles away. He lit a cigarette without even realizing he was doing it,
