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Gerry held the front door open for her. “I gave him some not-so-friendly legal advice and told him if he ever tried anything like this with Teddy again, I would personally bring the entire American legal system down on his head.”
“I can just imagine how he reacted to that,” she replied dryly.
“I'll do you a favor and spare you the details.” They walked toward Gerry's rented Toyota. “You know, it's Strange. Once we stopped trading insults, I almost found myself liking the son of a bitch. I mean, I hate the fact that he and Holly Grace used to be married, and I especially hate the fact that they still care so much about each other, but once we started talking, I had this weird feeling that Dallie and I had known each other a long time. It was crazy.”
“Don't be fooled,” Francesca said, as he opened the car door for her. “The only reason you felt comfortable with him is because being with him is a lot like being with Holly Grace. If you like one of them, it's pretty hard not to like the other one.”
They ate at a cozy restaurant that served wonderful veal. Before they had finished the main course, they were once again embroiled in their standard argument about why Francesca wouldn't put Gerry on her television show.
“Just put me on once, gorgeous, that's all I ask.”
“Forget it. I know you. You'd show up with fake radiation burns all over your body or you'd announce on the air that Russian missiles are on their way to blow up Nebraska.”
“So what? You have millions of complacent androids watching your show who don't understand that we're living on the eve of destruction. It's my job to shake up people like that.”
“Not on my program,” she said firmly. “I don't manipulate my viewers.”
“Francesca, these days we're not talking about a little thirteen-kiloton firecracker like the one we dropped on Nagasaki. We're talking megatons. If twenty thousand megatons hits New York City, it's going to do more than ruin one of Donald Trump's dinner parties. It'll send fallout over a thousand square miles, and eight million fried bodies will be left rotting in the gutters.”
“I'm trying to eat, Gerry,” she protested, setting down her fork.
Gerry had been talking about the horrors of nuclear war for so long that he could demolish a five-course meal while he described a terminal case of radiation poisoning, and he dug into his baked potato. “Do you know the only thing that has any chance of surviving? The cockroaches. They'll be blind, but they'll still be able to reproduce.”
“Gerry, I love you like a brother, but I won't let you turn my show into a circus.” Before he could launch his next round of arguments, she changed the subject. “Did you talk to Holly Grace this afternoon?”
He put down his fork and shook his head. “I went over to her mother's house, but she ducked out the back door when she saw me coming.” Pushing away his plate, he took a sip of water.
He looked so miserable that Francesca was torn between the desire to comfort him and the urge to smac
k some sense into him. Gerry and Holly Grace obviously loved each other, and she wished they would stop camouflaging their problems. Although Holly Grace hardly ever talked about it, Francesca knew how badly she wanted a child, but Gerry wouldn't even discuss the matter with her.
“Why don't the two of you try to come up with some sort of compromise?” she offered tentatively.
“She doesn't understand the word,” Gerry replied. “She's got it in her head that I've been using her name, and—”
Francesca groaned. “Not this again. Holly Grace wants a baby, Gerry. Why won't either of you admit what the real problem is? I know it's none of my business, but I think you'd make a wonderful father, and—”
“Christ, have you and Naomi been taking nagging lessons together or what?” He abruptly pushed his plate away. “Let's go on over to the Roustabout, okay?”
The Roustabout was the last place she wanted to go. “I don't really—”
“The high school sweethearts are sure to be there. We'll walk in, pretend we don't see them, and then have sex on top of the bar. What do you say?”
“I say no.”
“Come on, gorgeous. The two of them have been tossing a ton of shit our way. Let's toss a little back.”
True to form, Gerry ignored every one of her protests and hustled her from the restaurant. Fifteen minutes later, they were walking through the door of the honky-tonk. The place looked much as Francesca remembered, although most of the neon Lone Star beer signs had been replaced with signs for Miller Lite, and video games now occupied one corner. The people were the same, however.
“Well, look who just walked through the door,” a throaty female voice drawled from a table twenty feet to their right. “If it isn't the queen of England herself with the king of the Bolsheviks walking right next to her.” Holly Grace sat with a beer bottle in front of her, while at her side Dallie sipped a glass of club soda. Francesca felt another of those queer little jumps in her middle at the sight of those cool blue eyes studying her over the rim of the glass.
“No, I'm wrong,” Holly Grace went on as she took in the black and ivory print Galanos dress Francesca was wearing with an oversize cinnabar red jacket. “She's not the queen of England. She's that lady mud wrestler we saw down in Medina County.”
Francesca grabbed Gerry's arm. “Let's go.”
Gerry's full lips were growing thinner by the minute, but he refused to move. Holly Grace tilted back the brim of her Stetson, studiously ignoring him while she scrutinized Francesca's outfit. “Galanos in the Roustabout. Shit. You're liable to get us all kicked out. Don't you get tired always being the center of attention?”
Francesca forgot about Gerry and Dallie and looked at Holly Grace with genuine concern. She really was acting bitchy. Letting go of Gerry's arm, she walked over to her and slipped into the chair at her side. “Are you all right?” she asked.
