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Holly Grace
P.S. I made up some of that about Sue Louise Jefferson, so if you happen to see her next time you're in Wynette, don't mention anything about the Buckeye linebacker.
Dallie smiled to himself, folded the letter into quarters, and tucked it into his shirt pocket, the closest place he could find to his heart.
Chapter
6
The limousine was a 1971 Chevrolet without air conditioning. This was especially irksome to Francesca because the thick, heavy heat seemed to have formed a cocoon around her. Even though her travels in the United States had until that day been limited to Manhattan and the Hamptons, she was too preoccupied with her own misjudgment to show any interest in the unfamiliar landscape they had passed since leaving Gulfport an hour earlier. How could she have blundered so badly in her choice of wardrobe? She glanced down with disgust at her heavy white woolen trousers and the long-sleeved celery-green cashmere sweater that was sticking so uncomfortably to her skin. It was the first day of October! Who could have imagined it would be so hot?
After nearly twenty-four hours of travel, her eyelids were drooping from weariness and her body was covered with grime. She had flown from Gatwick to JFK, then to Atlanta, and from there to Gulfport where the temperature was ninety-two in the shade and where the only driver she'd been able to hire had a car without air conditioning. Now all she could think about was going to her hotel, ordering a lovely gin and quinine, taking a long, cold shower, and sleeping for the next twenty-four hours. As soon as she checked in with the film company and found out where she was being lodged, she'd do exactly that.
Pulling the sweater away from her damp chest, she tried to think of something to cheer herself up until she reached the hotel. This was going to be an absolutely smashing adventure, she told herself. Although she had no acting experience, she'd always been a wonderful mimic, and she would work very hard in the film so that the critics would think she was marvelous and all the best directors would want to hire her. She would go to wonderful parties and have a lovely career and make absolutely scads of money. This was what had been missing from her life, that elusive “something” she'd never quite been able to define. Why ever hadn't she thought of it before?
She pushed her hair back from her temples with the tips of her fingers and congratulated herself on having so neatly cleared the hurdle of finding enough money to cover her air fare. It had been a lark, actually, once she'd gotten over the initial shock of the idea. Lots of socialites took their clothes to stores that bought designer labels for resale; she didn't know why she hadn't done so months before. The money from the sale had paid for a first-class airline ticket and settled the most pressing of her bills. People made financial matters so unnecessarily complex, she now realized, when all it took to solve one's difficulties was a little initiative. She abhorred wearing last season
's clothes, anyway, and now she could begin buying an entire new wardrobe as soon as the film company reimbursed her for her ticket.
The car turned into a long drive lined with live oaks. She craned her neck as they rounded a bend and she saw a restored plantation house ahead, a three-story brick and wooden structure with six fluted columns gracefully set across the front veranda. As they drew nearer, she noticed an assortment of twentieth-century trucks and vans parked next to the antebellum home. The vehicles looked just as out of place as the members of the crew who wandered about in shorts with T-shirts, bare chests, and halter tops.
The driver pulled the car to a stop and turned to her. He had a large round American Bicentennial button affixed to the collar of his tan work shirt. It read “1776-1976” across the top, with “AMERICA” and “LAND OF OPPORTUNITY” at the center and bottom. Francesca had seen signs of the American Bicentennial everywhere since she'd landed at JFK. The souvenir stands were loaded with commemorative buttons and cheap plastic models of the Statue of Liberty. When they passed through Gulfport, she'd even seen fire hydrants painted to look like Revolutionary War minute-men. To someone who came from a country as old as England, all this celebrating of a mere two hundred years seemed excessive.
“Forty-eight dollar,” the taxi driver announced in English so heavily accented that she could barely understand it.
She sifted through the American currency she had purchased with her English pounds when she'd landed at JFK and handed him most of what she had, along with a generous tip and a smile. Then she climbed out of the cab, taking her cosmetic case with her.
“Francesca Day?” A young woman with frizzy hair and dangling earrings came toward her across the side lawn.
“Yes?”
“Hi. I'm Sally Calaverro. Welcome to the end of nowhere. I'm afraid I'm going to need you in wardrobe right away.”
The driver set the Vuitton suitcase at Francesca's feet. She took in Sally's rumpled India print cotton skirt and the brown tank top she had unwisely chosen to wear without a bra. “That's impossible, Miss Calaverro,” she replied. “As soon as I see Mr. Byron, I'm going to the hotel and then to bed. The only sleep I've had for twenty-four hours was on the plane, and I'm frightfully exhausted.”
Sally's expression didn't change. “Well, I'm afraid I'm going to have to hold you up a little longer, although I'll try to make it as fast as possible. Lord Byron moved up the shooting schedule, and we have to have your costume ready by tomorrow morning.”
“But that's preposterous. Tomorrow's Saturday. I'm going to need a few days to get settled in. He can hardly expect me to start working the moment I arrive.”
Sally's pleasant manner slipped. “That's show biz, honey. Call your agent.” She glanced at the Vuitton suitcases and then called to someone behind Francesca's back. “Hey, Davey, take Miss Day's stuff over to the chicken coop, will ya?”
“Chicken coop!” Francesca exclaimed, beginning to feel genuinely alarmed. “I don't know what all this is about, but I want to go to my hotel immediately.”
“Yeah, don't we all.” She gave Francesca a smile that bordered on being insolent. “Don't worry, it's not really a chicken coop. The house where we're all staying sits right next to this property. It used to be a convalescent home a few years back; the beds still have cranks on them. We call it the chicken coop because that's what it looks like. If you don't mind a few cockroaches, it's not bad.”
Francesca refused to rise to the bait. This was what happened, she realized, when one argued with underlings. “I want to see Mr. Byron at once,” she declared.
“He's shooting inside the house right now, but he doesn't like being interrupted.” Sally's eyes flicked rudely over her, and Francesca could feel her assessing the mussed clothes and inappropriate winter fabric.
“I'll take my chances,” she replied sarcastically, staring at the wardrobe mistress for one long, hard moment before she pushed her hair back and walked away.
Sally Calaverro watched her go. She studied that tiny, slim body, remembering the perfect makeup and the gorgeous mane of hair. How did she manage to flip her hair like that with just a little shrug? Did gorgeous women take hair-flipping lessons or what? Sally tugged on a lock of her own hair, dry and frizzed at the ends from a bad perm. All the straight males in the company would start behaving like twelve-year-olds when they caught sight of that woman, Sally thought. They were accustomed to pretty little starlets, but this one was something else, with that fancy-schmansy British accent and a way of staring at you that reminded you your parents had crossed the ocean in steerage. During countless hours in too many singles bars, Sally had observed that some men ate up that superior, condescending crap.
“Shit,” she muttered, feeling like a fat, frumpy giantess firmly entrenched on the wrong side of twenty-five. Miss High-and-Mighty had to be suffocating underneath her two-hundred-dollar cashmere sweater, but she looked as cool and crisp as a magazine ad. Some women, it seemed to Salty, had been put on earth just for other women to hate, and Francesca Day was definitely one of them.
Dallie could feel the Dread Mondays descending on him, even though it was Saturday and he'd shot a spectacular 64 the day before playing eighteen holes with some good ol’ boys outside Tuscaloosa. Dread Mondays was the name he'd given the black moods that seized him more frequently than he wanted to let on, sinking sharp teeth right into him and sucking out all the juice. In general, the Dread Mondays screwed up a hell of a lot more than his long irons.
He hunched over his Howard Johnson's coffee and stared out the front window of the restaurant into the parking lot. The sun wasn't up all the way and other than some sleepy-eyed truckers the restaurant was nearly empty. He tried to reason away his lousy mood. It hadn't been a bad season, he reminded himself. He'd won a few tournaments, and he and PGA Commissioner Deane Beman hadn't chatted more than two or three times on the commissioner's favorite subject—conduct unbecoming to a professional golfer.
