Page 15 of Fancy Pants (Wynette, Texas 1)

Dallie yawned and wondered whether he was going to be able to hit his two-iron worth a damn. He'd been off the day before, but he couldn't figure out why. Since last year's disaster at the Orange Blossom Open, he'd been playing better, but he still hadn't managed to finish higher than fourth place in any big tournament this season.

Skeet held the tabloid closer to the glove compartment light. “You remember I showed you a picture a while back of that little British girl, the one who was goin’ around with that prince fella and those movie stars?”

Maybe he was shifting his weight too fast, Dallie thought. That might be why he was having trouble with his two-iron. Or it could be his backswing.

Skeet went on. “You said she looked like one of those women who wouldn't shake your hand unless you was wearin’ a diamond pinky ring. Remember now?”

Dallie grunted.

“Anyway, seems her mama got hit by a taxicab last week. They got a picture here of her comin’ out of the funeral carryin’ on something terrible. ‘Bereft Francesca Day Mourns Socialite Mom,’ that's what it says. Now where do you think they come up with stuff like that?”

“Like what?”

“Bereft. Word like that.”

Dallie shifted his weight onto one hip and dug into the back pocket of his jeans. “She's rich. If she was poor, they'd just say she was ‘sad.’ You got any more gum?”

“Pack of Juicy Fruit.”

Dallie shook his head. “There's a truck stop coming up in a few miles. Let's stretch our legs.”

They stopped and drank some coffee, then climbed back into the car. They made it to Hattiesburg in plenty of time for Dallie to tee off, and he easily qualified for the tournament. On their way to the motel later that afternoon, the two of them stopped off at the city post office to check General Delivery. They found a pile of bills waiting for them, along with a few letters—one of which started an argument that lasted all the way to the motel.

“I'm not selling out, and I don't want to hear any more about it,” Dallie snapped as he ripped his cap off and threw it down on the motel-room bed, then jerked his T-shirt over his head.

Skeet was already late for an appointment he'd made with a curly-haired cocktail waitress, but he looked up from the letter he held in his hand and studied Dallie's chest with its broad shoulders and well-defined muscles. “You're just about the stubbornest sumbitch I ever knew in my life,” he declared. “That pretty face of yours along with those overdeveloped chest muscles could make us more money right now than you and your rusted-up five-iron have earned this entire season.”

“I'm not posing for any faggot calendar.”

“O. J. Simpson's agreed to do it,” Skeet pointed out, “along with Joe Namath and that French ski bum. Hell, Dallie, you were the only golfer they even thought to ask.”

“I'm not doing it!” Dallie yelled. “I'm not selling out.”

“You did those magazine ads for Foot-Joy.”

“That's different and you know it.” Dallie stalked into the bathroom and slammed the door, then yelled from the other side. “Foot-Joy makes a damn fine golf shoe!”

The shower went on and Skeet shook his head. Muttering under his breath, he crossed the hallway to his own room. For a long time it had been obvious to a lot of people that Dallie's looks could have given him a one-way ticket to Hollywood, but the fool wouldn't take advantage of it. Talent agents had been placing long-distance calls to him since his first year on the tour, but all Dallie did was tell them they were bloodsuckers and then make generally disparaging remarks about their mothers, which wouldn't have been so bad by itself, except he pretty much did it to their faces. What was so terrible, Skeet wanted to know, about earning some easy money on the side? Until Dallie started winning the big ones, he was never going to pick up the six-figure commercial endorsements that guys like Trevino could get, let alone the sweethear

t deals Nicklaus and Palmer made.

Skeet combed his hair and exchanged one flannel shirt for another. He didn't see what was so damned wrong with posing for a calendar, even if it did mean sharing space with pretty boys like J. W. Namath. Dallie had what the talent agents called sexual magnetism. Hell, even somebody who was half blind could see that. No matter how far down in the pack he was, he always had a full gallery following him, and eighty percent of that gallery seemed to be wearing lipstick. The minute he stepped off the course, those women surrounded him like flies after honey. Holly Grace said women loved Dallie because they knew he didn't own any color-coordinated underwear or Wayne Newton records. What we have with Dallas Beaudine, Holly Grace had insisted more than once, is the Lone Star State's last genuine Ail-American he-man.

Skeet grabbed the room key and chuckled to himself. The last time he'd talked to Holly Grace on the telephone, she'd said that if Dallie didn't win a big tournament pretty soon, Skeet should just go ahead and shoot him to put him out of his misery.

Miranda Gwynwyck's annual party, always held the last week of September, was in full swing, and the hostess surveyed the platters of Mediterranean red prawns, baby artichokes, and lobster in phyllo with satisfaction. Miranda, author of the well-known feminist work Woman as Warrior, loved to entertain well, if for no other reason than to prove to the world that feminism and gracious living weren't mutually exclusive. Her personal politics would not permit her to wear frocks or makeup, but entertaining gave her an opportunity to exercise what she referred to in Woman as Warrior as the “domestica”—the more civilized side of human nature, whether male or female.

Her eyes swept over the distinguished group of guests she had gathered between the stippled walls of her living room, newly redecorated that August as a birthday present from Miranda's brother. Musicians and intellectuals, several members of the peerage, a sprinkling of well-known writers and actors, a few charlatans to lend spice—exactly the kind of stimulating people she loved to bring together. And then she frowned as her gaze fell on the proverbial fly in the ointment of her satisfaction—tiny Francesca Serritella Day, spectacularly dressed as always and, as always, the center of male attention.

She watched Francesca flit from one conversation to another, looking outrageously beautiful in a turquoise silk jumpsuit. She tossed her cloud of shining chestnut hair as if the world were her personal pearl-filled oyster when everyone in London knew she was down to her last farthing. What a surprise it must have been for her to discover how deeply in debt Chloe had been.

Over the polite noise of the party, Miranda heard Francesca's generous laughter and listened as she greeted several men in that breathless, wait-until-you-hear-this voice, carelessly emphasizing the most unimportant words in a manner that drove Miranda wild. But one by one the stupid bastards all melted into warm little puddles at her feet. Unfortunately, one of those stupid bastards was her own beloved brother Nicky.

Miranda frowned and picked up a macadamia nut from an opalescent Lalique bowl printed with dragonflies. Nicholas was the most important person in the world to her, a wonderfully sensitive man with an enlightened soul. Nicky had encouraged her to write Woman as Warrior. He had helped her refine her thoughts, brought her coffee late at night, and most important, he had shielded her from their mother's criticism over why her daughter, with a yearly income of one hundred thousand pounds, had to meddle with such nonsense. Miranda couldn't bear the idea of standing idly by while Francesca Day broke his heart. For months she had watched Francesca flit from one man to another, running back to Nicky whenever she found herself between admirers. Each time he welcomed her return—a little more battle-scarred, perhaps, a little less eagerly—but he welcomed her just the same.

“When we're together,” he had explained to Miranda, “she makes me feel as if I'm the wittiest, brightest, most perceptive man in the world.” And then he added dryly, “Unless she's in a bad mood, of course, in which case she makes me feel like a complete shit.”

How did she do it? Miranda wondered. How did someone so intellectually and spiritually barren command so much attention? Most of it, Miranda felt certain, was her extraordinary beauty. But part of it was her vitality, the way the very air around her seemed to crackle with life. A cheap parlor trick, Miranda thought with disgust, since Francesca Day certainly didn't have an original thought in her head. Just look at her! She was both penniless and unemployed, yet she acted as if she hadn't a care in the world. And maybe she didn't have a care, Miranda thought uneasily—not with Nicky Gwynwyck and all his millions waiting patiently in the wings.

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