he need rubbers?”
She turned to Pajamae for an answer, but Pajamae only shrugged, shook her head, and bit into a rib.
“Unh-huh. So that’s what your mother told you, Pajamae?”
Pajamae was busy with her food, but she said, “Yeah, that’s what she said. And she said if a president can make ten million dollars for writing a book about getting blow jobs in the White House, she ought to be able to make a hundred dollars for giving one on Harry Hines.” She now looked up from her plate. “Mama talks a lot when she’s sick and takes her medicine…until she falls asleep.”
Boo turned to Pajamae: “What’s a blow job?”
Shawanda sucked the bone dry, then licked her lips. She turned her big brown eyes up to Bobby, smiled, and said, “This here some good cooking.”
Bobby handed her another barbecued rib from Scotty’s party. He had walked out with a dozen ribs, two pints of coleslaw, one pint of baked beans, and two cold beers. He knew he couldn’t get the beers into the federal detention center, so he drank them on the way over. Of course, before Shawanda would eat, he had to tell her all about the pool party and Pajamae, how pretty she looked.
She said, “Mr. Herrin, over last month you bring me food what, five, six time?”
“Seven, but who’s counting. And don’t tell Scotty, okay?”
“Why you come? You sweet on Shawanda?”
Bobby shrugged. “You’re my client…sort of.”
She looked at him like a psychic trying to read his future in his face, then nodded knowingly and said, “You ain’t got no one to eat with, do you?”
Bobby stared down at his paper plate. “No.”
“Well, you awful nice, bring good food for me…’cept that pizza with them little fishes-”
“Anchovies.”
“Yeah, them.” She swallowed some coleslaw, then said, “Mr. Herrin, I’m real sorry.”
“For what?”
“For thinking you ain’t nothin’ but a dud…lawyer.”
Bobby laughed. “That’s okay. I feel that way about myself most of the time.”
“You just poor ’cause you care. You all soft inside for people like me, workin’ for nothin’, that’s why you ain’t a rich lawyer. Can’t make no money givin’ everyone freebies-where I be, I do that? Nope, Mr. Herrin, that just bad business. Mr. Fenney, he rich ’cause he know to only work for rich people.”
“He used to care.”
“So you ain’t mad, me telling the judge I want Mr. Fenney be my lawyer?”
“No. You need him, Shawanda. He’s a lot better lawyer than me.”
“Maybe you make him care again…maybe about me.”
They looked at each other, and Bobby saw the hope in her eyes.
“Maybe.”
The clubhouse at the Highland Park Country Club wasn’t the most expensive building in Dallas or even in Highland Park for that matter, but it was the hardest to get into. To say it was an exclusive club is like saying Michael Jordan was a pretty good basketball player. You don’t buy your way into this club; you’re born into it, you marry into it, or you kiss so many important asses in town to get in that the American Medical Association could board certify you as a proctologist. Scott Fenney had taken the latter route to membership, a privilege available only because he was a local football legend and Tom Dibrell’s lawyer.
Scott stopped the Range Rover under the porte cochere. Before he had cut the engine, the valet had their doors open. Scott gave the boy a twenty, and then walked his family into the club. Boo and Pajamae skipped ahead, giggling like the little girls they were. Scott smiled at the sight. Rebecca did not.
Even when not in the best of moods, as now, Rebecca Fenney was still the most beautiful woman in Highland Park. And Scott felt proud to squire his spouse into the clubhouse at the country club, the tall handsome ex-SMU- football-star-turned-successful-lawyer escorting the gorgeous ex-SMU cheerleader wearing a pale green sundress that showed off her fabulous figure, and to see each man discretely glance at her, wishing that she and not their wrinkled dinosaur wife was going home with them tonight. Rebecca was a big part of Scott Fenney’s perfect life, albeit a severely pissed-off part tonight.
“This is a big fucking mistake,” she said through her teeth.
“Oh, you worry too much. We’re here for the fireworks. No one’s going to pay attention to a little black girl.”
“Yeah, right. The women here notice if your breasts are half an inch bigger or your butt’s half an inch smaller. How am I going to explain her to them? She’s sure as hell not a member’s kid!”
The country club opened its doors to the members’ children twice a year, for the annual Christmas Party featuring Santa Claus and for the fireworks on the Fourth of July. Otherwise, children were banned from the premises. Not that kids would find the place inviting. The average age of the members was seventy-four; Scott and Rebecca were two of the young members, “young” meaning under sixty. The decor was contemporary-for 1952; the members saw no reason to update the club, the only concession to the last fifty years being a big-screen TV in the men’s grill. There was simply no sense in trying to convince a seventy-four-year-old member that change could be good; to a man that age, change could only be bad. No change could make him young again.
So, other than those two annual events, there were no kids at the country club. Or blacks, except for the caddies and the help. Or Hispanics, or anyone else who could qualify for affirmative action. Or Jews. Even though the Bible-beating Baptist members got their medical care at Zale Lipshy Hospital and their wives shopped at Neiman Marcus, they wouldn’t let a Jew join their club. Go figure. Not that there was a written policy to that effect-you don’t write stuff like that down. You just know how it is, like you know not to give a cop the finger: there’s no law against it, but it will get you a ticket for reckless driving just the same.
The Fenneys continued into the clubhouse and down the main corridor, detained briefly by several wrinkled dinosaurs who congratulated Rebecca on her certain selection as the next chairwoman of the Cattle Barons’ Ball-“She’s a Junior League project!” Rebecca blurted out when the women noticed Pajamae-and then out the back doors and to the elevated grassy area behind the eighteenth green where the club had set up lawn chairs so the members could enjoy the club’s fireworks show.
They found four empty chairs next to a group of geriatrics who boasted a combined net worth in excess of a billion dollars. They didn’t blink an eye at Pajamae’s presence; but then, they probably couldn’t see her in the darkness. The two girls sat in front, with Scott and Rebecca behind. Scott leaned into Rebecca.
“See, nobody cares.”
They sat quietly, enjoying the summer evening and the spectacular view of the lights of downtown Dallas. The girls were huddled together and whispering when the first fireworks suddenly exploded, a giant Roman candle- boom! — and Pajamae dove out of her chair and hit the deck like a soldier under incoming attack. Scott jumped to her.
“Pajamae! What’s wrong?”
“Get down, Mr. Fenney! Get down! It’s a drive-by!”
Some nearby kids started laughing, dredging up some bad childhood memories for Scotty Fenney, the poor kid on the block-“Scotty, where’d your mommy buy your clothes, at Sears?”-and jacking up his blood pressure to pregame level. Highland Park kids enjoyed taunting their poorer peers, the most recent occasion being last year’s playoff game at Texas Stadium against a team from a working-class suburb: the Highland Park kids had chanted, “Cold cash versus white trash!” and tossed dollar bills down on their opponents from their daddies’ skyboxes. Scott glared at the snotty brats, fighting an overwhelming urge to slap the bunch of them into the ninth fairway. But smacking the heirs of the richest men in Dallas wouldn’t be good for his law business, so instead he helped Pajamae up.
“Honey, it’s okay, we don’t have drive-by shootings in Highland Park. It’s just the fireworks.”
Pajamae sat up, looked around, and said, “Oh.” Scott helped her back into her chair and sat down behind her. The geriatrics were now staring intently at Pajamae.
Rebecca sighed and said, “Well, that should make the club’s newsletter.”
