hour.”
“Mama makes almost that much and she didn’t go to school.”
“Awesome. Anyway, these students think if they hire on with A. Scott’s law firm they’ll get dates with beautiful girls like these, but they really won’t.”
“If they pay enough, they will. Mama says it’s just a question of pricing.”
On brutally hot days like today, Bobby would often grab a beer, go out back of his two-bedroom, one-bath lean-to in East Dallas, and sit in a six-inch-deep inflatable pool-his version of a pool party. This pool party was a lot better. For one thing, the pool was bigger. And for another, his eyes weren’t closed and he wasn’t dreaming of a backyard full of beautiful girls in bikinis; his eyes were wide open and the girls were real. He was really happy Scotty had invited him.
Bobby was standing alone at one corner of the pool, a beer in one hand and a long pork rib in the other, dripping barbecue sauce on his bare belly and trying not to appear too obvious as he ogled the girls. He was wearing only swim trunks. His pale body was not lean and tanned and muscular like Scotty’s. Still, compared to the law students, he was feeling like a regular goddamned Adonis when an incredible looking girl in a white bikini sidled up to him, close enough that he could feel the warmth emanating from her skin. Without thinking, Bobby sucked in his gut-a little.
“Noticed you’re not wearing a wedding ring,” she said.
“That’s because I’m not married.”
“What a coincidence,” she said, turning her big eyes up to him. “Neither am I.”
Bobby had already downed several beers, so his courage was operating at its maximum level.
“So what’s a gorgeous single girl like yourself doing at a party like this?”
“Looking for a rich lawyer like you.”
You can’t fault honesty, Bobby thought, as she leaned into him and her breasts pushed together and rose as one until he thought they might pop out of her bikini top. The mere touch of her skin against his raised a distinct feeling in Bobby’s trunks.
“Well, just so you know, I don’t have a home like this, I’m not a rich lawyer, and chances are pretty good I’m never gonna be a rich lawyer. But, hey, we can still slip inside, find a quiet place, and screw ourselves silly.”
She pulled back as if she had suddenly discovered poison ivy all over his body. She gave him a thin smile and said, “I don’t think so.”
And she was gone. Bobby closed his eyes and inhaled her scent one last time. But it was soon gone, too, as was the rise in his swim trunks. He walked over to the only two girls who weren’t looking for a rich lawyer that day. Boo and Pajamae were sitting on the edge of the pool, dangling their feet into the water.
“Hey, Bobby,” Boo said.
“Girls.”
Pajamae said, “Whereas, Mr. Herrin.”
Scotty had introduced Bobby to the girls earlier. Bobby now joined them, dropping his feet into the cool water.
“Where’s your mother?” he asked Boo. “Haven’t seen her since I first got here.”
“Back inside,” Boo said. “She hates these parties.”
“What about you?”
“Oh, I love them. I try to guess what these people’s lives are like when they’re not sucking up to A. Scott for a job.”
Bobby laughed. “Scotty said you’re nine going on twenty-nine.” He pointed the pork rib at one of the male students. “Okay, tell me about his life, the skinny one with the black glasses.”
Boo studied the student for a moment and said, “He’s incredibly smart. He went to law school only because his dad is a lawyer, but he wants to do computer stuff. He’ll graduate top of his class, hire on with A. Scott’s firm, and quit after one year. He’s never had a date, he’s terribly shy, and he’s wishing right now he was back home at his computer, where he’s happiest. He’s always going to be alone.”
Bobby stared down at the child in amazement. “That’s pretty good. Okay, Pajamae, your turn. What about her, the blonde over there with the, uh…”
“Store-bought boobs?”
“Uh, yeah, that one. What’s her story?”
“She’s way dumb, but she doesn’t know it. She’ll marry a rich lawyer and live happily ever after.”
Bobby found himself nodding in agreement.
“You girls are good. Okay, Boo, what about this guy?”
Boo moved her eyes about, scanning the pool crowd.
“Which guy?”
Bobby was now pointing the pork rib at himself.
“Me.”
Boo considered him for a moment, then dropped her eyes to the water and shook her head.
“Hey, come on, tell me.”
Boo looked back up; her eyes seemed sad.
“No, Bobby.”
Bobby laughed and said, “What? I’m a big boy, I can handle it,” figuring she was going to say he was a pathetic loser and always would be. Hell, no surprise there. He told himself the same thing every morning in the mirror.
But Boo was quiet. Then, without looking at him, she said: “You secretly loved my mother, but she married A. Scott. You’ve never gotten over it. You’ve always wondered what your life would’ve been like if she had married you instead.”
Bobby hadn’t figured on that. He had to take a deep breath. He pushed himself up but looked down at her.
“How?”
“I saw how you looked at her when you got here. Your eyes went all over the crowd, kind of frantic like, until you saw her. Then you just looked at her for a long time. Like, forever.”
Bobby walked directly to the beer cooler.
From the windows of the master suite on the second floor Rebecca Fenney was looking down on the backyard scene at two of the three men who loved her: Scott, surrounded by law students and cheerleaders and one buxom blonde in a black string bikini giving him the come-on; and Bobby, alone by the beer cooler. Poor Bobby. She had known he loved her back when he and Scott were in law school, but he had kept it to himself, never one to challenge for any of Scott’s possessions. Not that he could have won her; everyone knew Bobby Herrin wasn’t going places, just as everyone knew Scott Fenney was. So Rebecca Garrett had signed on for the Scott Fenney ride. And it had been quite a ride: eleven years ago she had been living in a sorority house, driving a used Toyota, and leading cheers for the SMU Mustangs; today she was living in a mansion, driving a Mercedes, and vying to be chairwoman of the Cattle Barons’ Ball. But now she found herself feeling anxious and afraid and wondering: Is the ride coming to an end?
Rebecca Garrett had grown up in a working-class suburb of Dallas. She hated having less; she wanted more. So for her college education she looked no further than SMU. For poor Dallas kids, SMU was their entree to a better life. It was a way in to Highland Park.
Rebecca was a smart student, in and out of class. In fact, when she drove her old car up and down the streets of Highland Park and fancied herself the woman of the house at one of the fabulous mansions, she was smart enough to acknowledge a fact of life: she would never have a Highland Park home on her own, by using her brain, by pursuing a career. No woman would.
Her future lay in her looks, as it always had. From the time she was ten, other children’s mothers would stop and say, “My, what a remarkably beautiful child”; and when she was sixteen and her body had become a woman’s, her friends’ fathers would stare; and when she was twenty-one and the most beautiful girl at SMU and she interviewed for jobs, men’s eyes lit up when they saw her beauty-they wanted it and they would pay for it.
But she would not sell her beauty by the hour or by the night or even by the job. Rebecca Garrett would sell her beauty for community property, for half of everything her husband would acquire over the course of their marriage. As every Texas girl knows by the time she graduates high school, in Texas wives don’t have to beg for
