He stroked the brush along the smooth curve of the wood. "My best piece of advice, Francie, is that

you use those brains of yours to figure out how to get him to play better golf."

She was completely mystified. "What are you trying to tell me?"

"Just exactly what I said, is all."

"But I don't know anything about golf, and I don't see what Dallie's game has to do with Teddy."

"The thing about advice is-you can either take it or leave it."

She gave him a searching look. "You know why he's being so critical of Teddy, don't you?"

"I got a few ideas."

"Is it because Teddy looks like Jaycee? Is that it?"

He snorted. "Give Dallie credit for having more sense than that."

"Then what?"

He propped the club head on a rod to dry and put the brush in a jar of mineral spirits. "You just concentrate on his golf is all. Maybe you'll have better luck than I've had."

And he wouldn't say anything more than that.


* * *

When Francesca went upstairs, she spotted Teddy playing with one of Dallie's dogs in the yard. An envelope lay on the kitchen table with her name scrawled across it in Gerry's handwriting. Opening it,

she read the message inside.

Baby, Sweetie, Lamb Chop, Love of My Life,

How's about you and me tie one on tonight? Pick you up for dinner and debauchery at 7:00. Your best friend is the queen of the morons, and I'm the world's biggest chump. I promise not to cry on your shoulder for more than most of the evening. When are you going to stop being so lily-livered and put me on your television show?

Sincerely, Zorro the Great

P.S. Bring a birth control device.

Francesca laughed. Despite their rocky beginning on that Texas road ten years ago, she and Gerry had formed a comfortable friendship in the two years since she'd moved to Manhattan. He had spent the first few months of their acquaintance apologizing for having abandoned her, even though Francesca told him he'd done her a favor that day. To her astonishment, he had produced an old yellowed envelope containing her passport and the four hundred dollars that had been in her case. She had long ago given Holly Grace the money to repay Dallie what she owed him, so Francesca had treated the three of them

to a night on the town.

When Gerry came to pick her up that evening, he was wearing his leather bomber jacket with dark brown trousers and a cream-colored sweater. Sweeping her into his arms, he gave her a friendly smack on the lips, his dark eyes sparkling with wickedness. "Hey, gorgeous. Why couldn't I have fallen in love with

you instead of Holly Grace?"

"Because you're too smart to put up with me," she said, laughing.

"Where's Teddy?"

"He conned Doralee and Miss Sybil into taking him to see some horrid movie about killer grasshoppers."

Gerry smiled and then sobered, looking at her with concern. "How're you really doing? This has been rough on you, hasn't it?"

"I've had better weeks," she conceded. So far, only her problem with Doralee was any closer to solution. That afternoon Miss Sybil had insisted on taking the teenager to the county offices herself, telling Francesca in no uncertain terms that she intended to keep Doralee until a foster family could be found.

"I spent some time with Dallie this afternoon," Gerry said."

"You did?" Francesca was surprised. It was difficult to imagine the two of them together.

Gerry held the front door open for her. "I gave him some not-so-friendly legal advice and told him if he ever tried anything like this with Teddy again, I would personally bring the entire American legal system down on his head."

"I can just imagine how he reacted to that," she replied dryly.

"I'll do you a favor and spare you the details." They walked toward Gerry's rented Toyota. "You know, it's strange. Once we stopped trading insults, I almost found myself liking the son of a bitch. I mean, I hate the fact that he and Holly Grace used to be married, and I especially hate the fact that they still care so much about each other, but once we started talking, I had this weird feeling that Dallie and I had known each other a long time. It was crazy."

"Don't be fooled," Francesca said, as he opened the car door for her. "The only reason you felt comfortable with him is because being with him is a lot like being with Holly Grace. If you like one of them, it's pretty hard not to like the other one."

They ate at a cozy restaurant that served wonderful veal. Before they had finished the main course, they were once again embroiled in their standard argument about why Francesca wouldn't put Gerry on her television show.

"Just put me on once, gorgeous, that's all I ask."

"Forget it. I know you. You'd show up with fake radiation burns all over your body or you'd announce

on the air that Russian missiles are on their way to blow up Nebraska."

"So what? You have millions of complacent androids watching your show who don't understand that we're living on the eve of destruction. It's my job to shake up people like that."

"Not on my program," she said firmly. "I don't manipulate my viewers."

"Francesca, these days we're not talking about a little thirteen-kiloton firecracker like the one we dropped on Nagasaki. We're talking megatons. If twenty thousand megatons hits New York City, it's going to do more than ruin one of Donald Trump's dinner parties. It'll send fallout over a thousand square miles, and eight million fried bodies will be left rotting in the gutters."

"I'm trying to eat, Gerry," she protested, setting down her fork.

Gerry had been talking about the horrors of nuclear war for so long that he could demolish a five-course meal while he described a terminal case of radiation poisoning, and he dug into his baked potato. "Do you know the only thing that has any chance of surviving? The cockroaches. They'll be blind, but they'll still be able to reproduce."

"Gerry, I love you like a brother, but I won't let you turn my show into a circus." Before he could launch his next round of arguments, she changed the subject. "Did you talk to Holly Grace this afternoon?"

He put down his fork and shook his head. "I went over to her mother's house, but she ducked out the back door when she saw me coming." Pushing away his plate, he took a sip of water.

He looked so miserable that Francesca was torn between the desire to comfort him and the urge to smack some sense into him. Gerry and Holly Grace obviously loved each other, and she wished they would stop camouflaging their problems. Although Holly Grace hardly ever talked about it, Francesca knew how badly she wanted a child, but Gerry wouldn't even discuss the matter with her.

"Why don't the two of you try to come up with some sort of compromise?" she offered tentatively.

"She doesn't understand the word," Gerry replied. "She's got it in her head that I've been using her

name, and-"

Francesca groaned. "Not this again. Holly Grace wants a baby, Gerry. Why won't either of you admit what the real problem is? I know it's none of my business, but I think you'd make a wonderful father, and-"

"Christ, have you and Naomi been taking nagging lessons together or what?" He abruptly pushed his

plate away. "Let's go on over to the Roustabout, okay?"

The Roustabout was the last place she wanted to go. "I don't really-"

"The high school sweethearts are sure to be there. We'll walk in, pretend we don't see them, and then have sex on top of the bar. What do you say?"

"I say no."

"Come on, gorgeous. The two of them have been tossing a ton of shit our way. Let's toss a little back."

True to form, Gerry ignored every one of her protests and hustled her from the restaurant. Fifteen minutes later, they were walking through the door of the honky-tonk. The place looked much as Francesca remembered, although most of the neon Lone Star beer signs had been replaced with signs

for Miller Lite, and video games now occupied one corner. The people were the same, however.

"Well, look who just walked through the door," a throaty female voice drawled from a table twenty feet to their right. "If it isn't the queen of England herself with the king of the Bolsheviks walking right next to her." Holly Grace sat with a beer bottle in front of her, while at her side Dallie sipped a glass of club soda. Francesca felt another of those queer little jumps in her middle at the sight of those cool blue eyes studying her over the rim of the glass.

"No, I'm wrong," Holly Grace went on as she took in the black and ivory print Galanos dress Francesca was wearing with an oversize cinnabar red jacket. "She's not the queen of England. She's that lady mud wrestler we saw down in Medina County."

Francesca grabbed Gerry's arm. "Let's go."

Gerry's full lips were growing thinner by the minute, but he refused to move. Holly Grace tilted back the brim of her Stetson, studiously ignoring him while she scrutinized Francesca's outfit. "Galanos in the Roustabout. Shit. You're liable to get us all kicked out. Don't you get tired always being the center of attention?"

Francesca forgot about Gerry and Dallie and looked at Holly Grace with genuine concern. She really was acting bitchy. Letting go of Gerry's arm, she walked over to her and slipped into the chair at her side. "Are you all right?" she asked.

Holly Grace scowled into her beer glass, but otherwise remained silent.

"Let's go to the bathroom so we can talk," Francesca whispered, and when Holly Grace didn't respond, she added more forcefully, "Right now."

Holly Grace gave her a rebellious look that resembled Teddy at his worst. "I'm not going anywhere with you. I'm still mad at you for not telling me the truth about Teddy." She turned to Dallie. "Dance with me, baby."

Dallie had been regarding them both with interest. Now he unwound himself from his chair and looped

his arm over Holly Grace's shoulders as she stood up. "Sure, honey."

The two of them began to walk away, but Gerry took a step forward, blocking their path. "Isn't it interesting the way they grab on to each other?" he said to Francesca. "It's the most fascinating case of arrested development I've ever seen."

"You go ahead and dance, Holly Grace," Francesca said quietly, "but while you're doing it, think about the fact that I might need you right now just as much as Dallie does."

For a moment Holly Grace hesitated, but then she turned into Dallie's arms and together they moved out onto the dance floor.

At that moment, one of the patrons of the Roustabout came up to ask Francesca for her autograph, and before long she was surrounded by fans. She chatted with them while inwardly she was filled with frustration. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Gerry talking to a buxom young thing at the bar. Holly Grace danced past with Dallie, the two of them moving together like one single, graceful body, their casual intimacy so absolute they seemed to shut out the rest of the world. Her cheeks began to ache from smiling. She signed more autographs and acknowledged more compliments, but the patrons of the Roustabout refused to let her go. They were accustomed to having the star of "China Colt" in their midst, but seeing the glamorous Francesca Day was something else entirely. It wasn't long before she spotted Holly Grace slipping out the back door by herself. A hand touched her from behind.

"Sorry, folks, but Francie promised me this dance. You still remember the two-step, honey?"

Francesca turned toward Dallie and, after a moment's hesitation, went into his arms. He caught her against him, and she had the unsettling feeling that she'd been pitched back ten years to the time when

this man had formed the center of her world.

"Damn, it feels funny to be dancing with somebody who's wearing a dress," he said. "You got shoulder pads in that jacket?"

His tone was soft, gentle with amusement. It felt so good to be close to him. Much too good.

"Don't you let Holly Grace hurt your feelings," he said quietly. "She just needs some time."

Dallie's sympathy, under the circumstances, surprised her. She managed to reply, "Her friendship means

a lot to me."

"If you ask me, the way that old commie lover has taken advantage of her is bothering her more than anything."

Francesca realized that Dallie didn't understand the true nature of the trouble between Holly Grace and Gerry, and she decided it wasn't her place to enlighten him.

"Sooner or later, she'll come around," he went on. "And I know she'd appreciate it if you'd be there waiting for her. Now, how 'bout you stop worrying about Holly Grace and concentrate on the music so we can get down to some serious dancing?"