As soon as she was inside, she leaned back against the door and took a deep, shaky breath, trying to suppress her nervousness at what she was committing herself to do. This was it. This was her chance to cement Dallie to her, to make certain he didn't kick her out, to be sure he kept feeding her and taking care of her. But it was more than that. Having Dallie make love to her would let her feel like herself again, even if she was no longer quite sure who that was.
She wished she had one of her Natori nightgowns with her. And champagne, and a beautiful bedroom with a balcony that looked out over the sea. She caught sight of herself in the mirror and moved closer. She looked terrible. Her hair was too wild, her face too pale. She needed clothes, she needed makeup. Dabbing toothpaste on her finger, she swished it inside her mouth to freshen her breath. How could she let Dallie see her in those dreadful dime-store underpants? With trembling fingers, she tugged at the fastening of her jeans and stripped them down over her legs. She let out a soft moan as she saw the red marks on her skin near her navel where the waistband had pinched her too tightly. She didn't want Dallie to see her with creases. Rubbing at the marks with her fingers, she tried to make them go away, but that only made her skin redder. She would turn out the lights, she decided.
Quickly, she peeled off her T-shirt and bra and wrapped herself in a towel. Her breath came quick and fast. As she pulled off her cheap nylon underpants, she saw a small patch of downy hair near her bikini line that she'd missed when she'd shaved her legs. Propping her leg up on the toilet seat, she slid the blade of Dallie's razor over the offensive spot. There, that was better. She tried to think what else she could do to improve herself. She repaired her lipstick and then blotted it with a square of toilet paper so it wouldn't smear when they kissed. She bolstered her confidence by reminding herself what a superb kisser she was.
Something inside her deflated like an old balloon, leaving her feeling limp and shapeless. What if he didn't like her? What if she wasn't any good, just like she hadn't been any good with Evan Varian or the sculptor in Marrakech? What if- Her green eyes looked back at her from the mirror as a dreadful thought occurred to her. What if she smelled bad? She grabbed her atomizer of Femme from the back of the toilet, opened her legs, and spritzed.
'Just what in the goddamn hell do you think you're doing?'
Spinning around, she saw Dallie standing inside the door, one hand on his towel-covered hip. How long had he been standing there? What had he seen? She straightened guiltily. 'Nothing. I-I'm not doing anything.'
He looked at the bottle of Femme hanging like a weight in her hand. 'Isn't there anything about you
that's real?'
'I-I don't know what you mean.'
He took a step farther into the bathroom. 'Are you test-marketing new uses for perfume, Francie? Is that what you're doing?' Resting the palm of one hand against the wall, he leaned toward it. 'You got your designer blue jeans, your designer shoes, your designer luggage. Now Miss Fancy Pants has got her
some designer pussy.'
'Dallie!'
'You're the ultimate consumer, honey-the advertising man's dream. Are you going to put little gold designer initials on it?'
'That's not funny.' She slammed the bottle down on the back of the toilet and clutched the towel tightly in her hand. Her skin felt hot with embarrassment.
He shook his head with a world-weariness that she found insulting. 'Come on, Francie, get your clothes on. I said I wouldn't do it, but I can't help myself. I'm taking you with me tonight.'
'What accounts for this magnanimous change of heart?' she snapped.
He turned and walked out into the bedroom, so that his words drifted back over his shoulder. 'The truth of it is, darlin', I'm afraid if I don't let you see a slice of the real world pretty soon, you're going to do yourself some actual harm.'
Chapter 12
The Cajun Bar and Grill was a decided improvement over the Blue Choctaw, although it still wasn't the sort of place Francesca would have chosen as the site for a coming-out ball. Located about ten miles south of Lake Charles, it rested beside a two-lane highway in the middle of nowhere. It had a screen door that banged every time someone came through and a squeaky paddle-wheel fan with one bent blade. Behind the table where they were sitting, an iridescent blue swordfish had been nailed to the wall along with an assortment of calendars and an advertisement for Evangeline Maid bread. The placemats were exactly as Dallie had described them, although he had neglected to mention the scalloped edges and the legend printed in red beneath the map of Louisiana: 'God's Country.'
A pretty brown-eyed waitress in jeans and a tank top came to the table. She inspected Francesca with a combination of curiosity and ill-concealed envy, then turned to Dallie. 'Hey, Dallie. I hear you're only one stroke off the lead. Congratulations.'
'Thanks, honey. The course has been real good to me this week.'
'Where's Skeet?' she asked.
Francesca gazed innocently at the chrome and glass sugar dispenser in the middle of the table.
'Something wasn't sitting right in his stomach, so he decided to stay back at the motel.' Dallie gave Francesca a stony look and then asked her if she wanted something to eat.
A litany of wonderful foods flicked through her head- lobster consomme, duckling pate with pistachios, glazed oysters-but she was a lot smarter than she had been five days before. 'What do you recommend?' she asked him.
'The chili dog's good, but the crawfish are better.'
What in God's name were crawfish? 'Crawfish would be fine,' she told him, praying they wouldn't be deep- fried. 'And could you recommend something green to go along with it? I'm beginning to worry
about scurvy.'
'Do you like key lime pie?'
She looked at him. 'That's a joke, isn't it?'
He grinned at her and then turned to the waitress. 'Get Francie here a big salad, will you, Mary Ann,
and a side dish of beefsteak tomatoes all sliced up. I'll have the pan-fried catfish myself and some of
those dill pickles like I had yesterday.'
As soon as the waitress had moved away, two well-groomed men in slacks and polo shirts came over to the table from the bar. It was quickly evident from their conversation that they were touring golf pros playing in the tournament with Dallie and that they had come over to meet Francesca. They positioned themselves on either side of her and before long were giving her lavish compliments and teaching her how to extract the sweet meat from the boiled crawfish that soon arrived on a heavy white platter. She laughed at all their stories, flattered them outrageously, and, in general, had them both eating out of her hand before either had finished his first beer. She felt wonderful.
Dallie, in the meantime, was occupied with a couple of female fans at the next table, both of whom said they worked as secretaries at one of Lake Charles's petrochemical plants. Francesca watched surreptitiously as he talked to them, his chair tilted back on two legs, navy blue cap tipped back on his blond head, beer bottle propped on his chest, and that lazy grin spreading over his face when one of
them told him an off-color joke. Before long, they had launched into a series of nauseating double entendres about his 'putter.'
Even though she and Dallie were involved in separate conversations, Francesca began to have the feeling that there was some connection between them, that he was as conscious of her as she was of him. Or maybe it was just wishful thinking. Her encounter with him at the motel had left her shaken. When she curled into his arms, she had sent them flying across some invisible barrier, and now it was too late to turn back, even if she was absolutely certain she wanted to.
Three brawny rice farmers whom Dallie introduced as Louis, Pat, and Stoney pulled up their chairs to join them. Stoney couldn't tear himself away from Francesca and kept refilling her glass from a bottle of bad Chablis that one of the golfers had bought her. She flirted with him shamelessly, gazing into his eyes with an intensity that had
