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“Over here, Dallie!” one of the women called out. “We're going to bob for apples in a bucket of draft.”
Dallie slammed the front legs of his chair down to the floor, grabbed Francesca's arm, and muttered, “Christ, that's all I need. Quit talking, dammit. I want to dance.”
She hadn't been talking, but his expression was so grim that she didn't bother pointi
ng that out. She just got up and followed him. As he dragged her across the floor toward the jukebox, she found herself remembering the first night he'd brought her to the Roustabout. Had it only been three weeks ago?
Her memories of the Blue Choctaw had still been fresh that night, and she was nervous. Dallie had dragged her onto the dance floor and, over her protests, insisted on teaching her the Texas two-step and the Cotton-Eyed Joe. After twenty minutes, her face had felt flushed and her skin had been damp. She had wanted nothing more than to escape to the rest room and repair the damage. “I've danced enough, Dallie,” she had told him.
He had steered her toward the center of the wooden dance floor. “We're just warming up.”
“I'm quite warm enough, thank you.”
“Yeah? Well, I'm not.”
The tempo of the music had picked up and Dallie's hold on her waist had tightened. She had begun to hear Chloe's voice taunting her over the country music, telling her that no one would love her if she didn't look beautiful, and she had felt the first flutters of uneasiness spread out inside her. “I don't want to dance anymore,” she had insisted, trying to pull away.
“Well, that's just too bad, because I do.” Dallie had snatched up his bottle of Pearl as they passed by their table. Without losing a beat, he had taken a drink, then pressed the bottle to her lips and tilted it up.
“I don't—” She had swallowed and choked as beer splashed into her mouth. He had raised the bottle to his own mouth again and emptied it. Sweaty tendrils had clung to her cheeks and beer had run down her chin. “I'm going to leave you,” she had threatened, her voice rising. “I'm going to walk off this floor and out of your life forever if you don't let me go right now.”
He had paid no attention. He had held on to her damp hands and pressed her body up against his.
“I want to sit down!” she had demanded.
“I don't really care what you want.” He had moved his hands high up under her arms, right where the perspiration had soaked through her blouse.
“Please, Dallie,” she had cried, mortified.
“Just shut your mouth and move your feet.”
She had continued to plead with him, but he ignored her. Her lipstick had disappeared, her underarms had become a public disgrace, and she had felt absolutely certain that she was going to cry.
Just then, right in the middle of the dance floor, Dallie had stopped moving. He had looked down at her, dipped his head, and kissed her full on her beery mouth. “Damn, you're pretty,” he had whispered.
She remembered those gentle words now as he pulled her none too gently through the orange and black paper streamers toward the jukebox. After three weeks of posturing, posing, and trying to work miracles with dime store cosmetics, she had only once wrung a compliment about her appearance out of him—and that had been when she looked terrible.
He bumped into two men on his way to the jukebox and didn't bother to apologize. What was the matter with him tonight? Francesca wondered. Why was he acting so surly? The band had taken a break, and he dug into the pocket of his jeans for a quarter. A chorus of groans rang out along with a few catcalls.
“Don't let him do it, Francie,” Curtis Molloy called out.
She tossed him a mischievous smile over her shoulder. “Sorry, luv, but he's bigger than I am. Besides, he gets dreadfully ornery if I argue with him.” The combination of her British accent with their lingo made them laugh, as she'd known it would.
Dallie punched the same two buttons he'd been punching all night whenever the band stopped playing, then set his bottle of beer on top of the jukebox. “I haven't heard Curtis blabber so much in years,” he told Francesca. “You really got him going. Even the women are starting to like you.” His words sounded more grudging than pleased.
She ignored his bad mood as the rock tune began to play. “What about you?” she asked saucily. “Do you like me, too?”
He moved his athlete's body to the first chords of “Born to Run,” dancing to Springsteen's music as gracefully as he did the Texas two-step. “Of course I like you,” he scowled. “I'm not so much of an alley cat that I'd still be sleeping with you if I didn't like you a whole lot better than I used to. Damn, I love this song.”
She had hoped for a somewhat more romantic declaration, but with Dallie she'd learned to settle for what she could get. She also didn't share his enthusiasm for the song he kept playing on the jukebox. Although she couldn't understand all of the lyrics, she gathered that the part about tramps like us who were born to run might be what Dallie liked so much about the song. The sentiment didn't fit well with her own vision of domestic bliss, so she shut out the lyrics and concentrated on the music, matching her body movements to Dallie's as she was learning to do so well in their own deep night bedroom dance. He looked into her eyes and she looked into his, and the music swept up around them. She felt as if some kind of invisible lock had snapped them together, and then the mood was broken as her stomach gave one of its queer pitches.
She wasn't pregnant, she told herself. She couldn't be. Her doctor had told her very clearly that she couldn't get pregnant until she started having her menstrual periods again. But her recent nausea had worried her enough that the day before at the library she'd looked through a Planned Parenthood pamphlet on pregnancy when Miss Sybil wasn't watching. To her dismay, she had read the exact opposite and she found herself desperately counting back to that first night she and Dallie had made love. It had been almost a month ago exactly.
They danced again and then went back to their table, the palm of his hand cupped over the small of her back. She enjoyed his touch, the sensation of a woman being protected by the man who cared about her. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if she actually was pregnant, she thought as she sat down at the table. Dallie wasn't the kind of man who would slip her a few hundred dollars and drive her to the local abortionist. Not that she had any desire to have a baby, but she was beginning to learn that everything had a price. Maybe pregnancy would make him commit himself to her, and once he made that commitment everything would be wonderful. She would encourage him to stop drinking so much and apply himself more. He would begin to win tournaments and make enough money so they could buy a house in a city somewhere. It wouldn't be the sort of fashionable international life she'd envisioned for herself, but she didn't need all that running about anymore, and she knew she would be happy as long as Dallie loved her. They would travel together, and he would take care of her, and everything would be perfect.
But the picture wouldn't quite crystallize in her mind, so she took a sip from her bottle of Lone Star.
A woman's voice with a drawl as lazy as a Texas Indian summer penetrated her thoughts. “Hey, Dallie,” the voice said softly, “make any birdies for me?”
