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Skeet didn't argue about the distribution of duties. Although he didn't relish the idea of trying to calm down Miss Fran-chess-ka, he knew Holly Grace was the only person with half a shot at handling Dallie when he really kicked up. They quickly crossed the parking lot, and when they reached the struggling pair, Skeet said, “Give her to me, Dallie.”
Francesca let out a strangled sob of pain. Her face was pressed against Dallie's T-shirt. Her arms, twisted behind her back, felt as if they were ready to pop from their sockets. He hadn't killed her. Despite the pain, he hadn't killed her after all. “Leave me alone!” she screamed into Dallie's chest. No one suspected she was screaming at Skeet.
Dallie didn't move. He gave Skeet a frozen stare over the top of Francesca's head. “Mind your own goddamn business.”
Holly Grace stepped forward. “Come on, baby,” she said lightly. “I got about a thousand things I've been saving up to tell you.” She began stroking Dallie's arm in the easy, proprietary manner of a woman who knows she has the right to touch a particular man in any way she wants. “I saw you on television at the Kaiser. Your long irons were looking real good for a change. If you ever learn how to putt, you might even be able to play half-decent golf someday.”
Gradually, Dallie's grip on Francesca eased, and Skeet cautiously reached out to draw her away. But at the instant Skeet touched her, Francesca sank her teeth into the hard flesh of Dallie's chest, clamping down on his pectoral muscle.
Dallie yelled just long enough for Skeet to whip Francesca into his own arms.
“Crazy bitch!” Dallie shouted, drawing back his arm and taking a lunge toward her. Holly Grace jumped in front of him, using her own body as a shield, because she couldn't stand the thought of Dallie getting kicked off the tour. He stopped, put a hand on her shoulder, and rubbed his chest with a knotted fist. A vein throbbed in his temple. “Get her out of my sight! I mean it, Skeet! Buy her a plane ticket home, and don't you ever let me see her again!”
Just before Skeet dragged her away, Francesca heard the echo of Dallie's voice coming from behind her, much softer now, and gentler. “I'm sorry,” he said.
Sorry... The word was repeated in her head like a bitter refráin. Only those two small words of apology for destroying what was left of her life. And then she heard the rest of what he was saying.
“I'm sorry, Holly Grace.”
Francesca let Skeet put her into the front seat of his Ford and sat without moving as he turned out onto the highway.
They drove in silence for several minutes before he finally said, “Look, Francie, I'm gonna pull into the gas station down the road and call one of my friends who works over at the county clerk's office to see if she'll put you up for the night. She's a real nice lady. Tomorrow morning I'll come on over with your things and take you to the airport in San Antonio. You'll be back in London before you know it.”
She made no response and he looked over at her uneasily. For the first time since he'd met her, he felt sorry for her. She was a pretty little thing when she wasn't talking, and he could see that she was hurt real bad. “Listen, Francie, there wasn't any reason for you to get so riled up about Holly Grace. Dallie and Holly Grace are just one of those facts of life, like beer and football. But they stopped making judgments about each other's bedroom lives a long time ago, and if you hadn't gotten Dallie so mad with all that carrying on, he probably would have kept you around a while longer.”
Francesca winced. Dallie would have kept her around— like one of his mongrel dogs. She swallowed tears and bile as she thought how much she had shamed herself.
Skeet stepped down harder on the accelerator, and a few minutes later they pulled into the gas station. “You just sit here and I'll be right back.”
Francesca waited until Skeet had gone inside before she slipped from the car and began to run. She ran down the highway, dodging the headlights of the cars, running through the night as if she could run away from herself. A cramp in her side finally made her slow her pace, but she still didn't stop.
She wandered for hours through the deserted streets of Wynette, not seeing where she was going, not caring. As she walked past vacant stores and night-quiet homes, she felt as if the last part of her old self had died... the best part, the eternal light of her own optimism. No matter how bleak things had been since Chloe's death, she had always felt her difficulties were only temporary. Now she finally understood they weren't temporary at all.
Her sandal slipped in the dirty orange pulp of a jack-o'-lantern that had been smashed on the street, and
she fell, bruising her hip on the pavement. She lay there for a moment, her leg twisted awkwardly beneath her, pumpkin ooze mixing with the dried blood from the scratches on her forearm. She wasn't the kind of woman men abandoned— she was the one who did the abandoning. Fresh tears began to fall. What had she done to deserve this? Was she so terrible? Had she hurt people so badly that this was to be her punishment? A dog barked in the distance, and far down the street an upstairs light flicked on in a bathroom window.
She couldn't think what to do, so she lay in the dirt and the pumpkin pulp and cried. All her dreams, all her plans, everything... gone. Dallie didn't love her. He wasn't going to. marry her. They weren't going to live together happily ever after forever and ever.
She didn't remember making the decision to start walking again, but after a while she realized her feet were moving and she was heading down a new street. And then in the darkness she stumbled over the curb and looked up to see that she was standing in front of Dallie's Easter egg house.
Holly Grace pulled the Riviera into the driveway and shut off the ignition. It was nearly three in the morning. Dallie was slumped down in the passenger seat, but although his eyes were closed, she didn't think he was asleep. She got out of the car and walked around to the passenger door. Half afraid he would slump out onto the ground, she braced the door with her hip as she pulled it slowly open. He didn't move.
“Come on, baby,” she said, reaching down and tugging on his arm. “Let's get you tucked in.”
Dallie muttered something indecipherable and let one leg slide to the ground.
“That's right,” she encouraged him. “Come on, now.”
He stood and draped his arm around her shoulders as he'd done so many times before. Part of Holly Grace wanted to pull away and hope that he would fold up on the ground like an old accordion, but the other part of her wouldn't let him go for anything in the world—not a shot at being southwestern regional sales manager, not a chance to replace her Firebird with a Porsche, not even a bedroom encounter with all four of the Statler Brothers at the same time—because Dallie Beaudine was the person she almost loved best of anybody in the world. Almost, but not quite, since the person she'd learned to love best was herself. Dallie had taught her that a long time ago. Dallie had taught her a lot of good lessons he'd never been able to learn himself.
He suddenly pulled away from her and began walking around the side of the house toward the front. His steps were slightly unsteady, but considering how much he'd had to drink, he was doing pretty well. Holly Grace watched him for a moment. Six years had passed, but he still wouldn't let Danny go.
She rounded the front of the house in time to see him slump down on the top porch step. “You go on to your mama's now,” he said quietly.
“I'm staying, Dallie.” She climbed the steps, then pulled off her hat and tossed it over onto the porch swing.
“Go on, now. I'll come over and see you tomorrow.”
