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“You're the best woman in the world.”
He began telling her about Danny and Jaycee Beaudine and the feeling he'd gotten early in life that he wasn't going to amount to much. It was easier not to try too hard, he had discovered, than to have all his shortcomings proven to him.
Francesca said that Jaycee Beaudine sounded like a perfectly odious person and Dallie should have had enough sense early on to realize that the opinions of unsavory people like that were completely unreliable.
Dallie laughed and then kissed her again before he asked when they were getting married. “I won you fair and square,” he said. “Now it's time for you to pay up.”
They were dressed and sitting in the living room when Consuelo and Teddy returned several hours later. The two of them had spent a wonderful evening at Madison Square Garden, where Dallie had sent them earlier with a pair of ringside tickets to see the Greatest Show on Earth. Consuelo took in Francesca's and Dallie's flushed faces and wasn't fooled for a minute about what had been going on while she and Teddy were watching Gunther Gebel-Williams tame tigers. Teddy and Dallie eyed each other politely but warily. Teddy was still pretty sure Dallie was only pretending to like him because of his mom, while Dallie was trying to figure out how to undo all the damage he'd inflicted.
“Teddy, how about taking me to the top of the Empire State Building tomorrow after school?” he said. “I'd sure like to see it.”
For a moment Dallie thought Teddy was going to refuse. Teddy picked up his circus program, rolled it into a tube, and blew through it with elaborate casualness. “I guess it'd be okay.” He turned the tube into a telescope and looked through it. “As long as I get back in time to watch The Goonies on cable TV.”
The next day the two of them went up to the observation platform. Teddy stopped well back from the protective metal grating at the edge because heights made him dizzy. Dallie stopped right at his side because he wasn't all that crazy about heights himself. “It's not clear enough today to see the Statue of Liberty,” Teddy said, pointing toward the harbor. “Sometimes you can see it over there.”
“Did you want me to get you one of those rubber King Kongs they're selling at the concession stand?” Dallie asked.
Teddy liked King Kong a lot, but he shook his head. A guy wearing an Iowa State windbreaker recognized Dallie and asked for his autograph. Teddy was an old hand at waiting patiently while grown-ups gave autographs, but the interruption irritated Dallie. When the fan finally walked away, Teddy looked at Dallie and said wisely, “It goes with the territory.”
“How's that again?”
“When you're a famous person, people feel like they know you, even though they don't. You have a certain obligation.”
“That sounds like your mama talking.”
“We get interrupted a lot.”
Dallie looked at him for a moment. “You know these interruptions are only going to get worse, don't you, Teddy? Your mama'll be upset if I don't win a few more golf tournaments for her, and whenever the three of us go out, there'll be that many more people looking at us.”
“Are you and my mom getting married?”
Dallie nodded his head. “I love your mama a lot. She's about the best lady in the world.” He took a deep breath, charging in just as Francesca would have. “I love you, too, Teddy. I know that might be hard for you to believe after the way I've been acting, but it's true.”
Teddy pulled off his glasses and submitted the lenses to an elaborate cleaning on the hem of his T-shirt. “What about Holly Grace?” he said, holding the lenses up to the light. “Does this mean we won't see Holly Grace anymore, because of how you and her used to be married?”
Dallie smiled. Teddy m
ight not want to acknowledge what he'd just heard, but at least he hadn't walked away. “We couldn't get rid of Holly Grace even if we tried to. Your mama and I both love her; she'll always be part of our family. Skeet, too, and Miss Sybil. Along with whatever runaways your mom manages to pick up.”
“Gerry, too?” Teddy asked.
Dallie hesitated. “I guess that's up to Gerry.”
Teddy wasn't feeling so dizzy now, and he took a few steps closer to the protective grating at the edge. Dallie wasn't quite as eager to move forward, but he did, too. “You and I still have some things to talk about, you know,” Dallie said.
“I want one of those King Kongs,” Teddy declared abruptly.
Dallie saw that Teddy still wasn't ready for any father-son revelations, and he swallowed his disappointment. “I have something to ask you.”
“I don't want to talk about it.” Teddy mutinously laced his fingers through the metal grating.
Dallie laced his fingers through, too, hoping he could get this next part right. “Did you ever go to play with a friend, and when you got there you found out that he had built something special when you weren't around? A fort, maybe, or a castle?”
Teddy nodded warily.
“Maybe he made a swing when you weren't around, or built a racetrack for his cars?”
“Or maybe he built this neat planetarium out of garbage bags and a flashlight,” Teddy interjected.
