“Let’s hold off making a definite decision for a couple of days, Jack.” Tate glanced at his father. Though Nelson was appreciatively demolishing his slice of cake, he was still wearing a frown because his favorite slogan hadn’t met with their approval. “I only glanced at them today. That was just my first impression.”
“Which is usually the best one,” Jack argued.
“Probably. But we’ve got a day or two to think about it, don’t we?”
Jack accepted a plate with a slice of cake on it. Dorothy Rae declined the one passed to her. “We should get those posters into production by the end of the week.”
“I’ll give you my final decision well before then.”
“For God’s sake. Would somebody please…” Fancy was waving her hand toward Mandy. Getting the cake from plate to mouth had proved to be too much of a challenge for the three-year-old. Crumbs had fallen onto her dress and frosting was smeared across her mouth. She had tried to remedy the problem by wiping it away, but had only succeeded in getting her hands coated with sticky icing. “It’s just too disgusting to watch the little spook eat. Can I be excused?”
Without waiting for permission, Fancy scraped her chair back and stood, tossing her napkin into her plate. “I’m going into Kerrville and see if there’s a new movie on. Anybody want to go?” She included everybody in the invitation, but her eyes fell on Eddy. He was studiously eating his dessert. “Guess not.” Spinning around, she flounced from the room.
Avery was glad to see the little snot go. How dare she speak to a defenseless child so cruelly? Avery scooped Mandy into her lap. “Cake is just too good to eat without dropping a few crumbs, isn’t it, darling?” She wrapped a corner of her linen napkin around her index finger, dunked it into her water glass, and went to work on the frosting covering Mandy’s face.
“Your girl is getting out of hand, Dorothy Rae,” Nelson observed. “That skirt she was wearing was so short, it barely covered her privates.”
Dorothy Rae pushed her limp bangs off her forehead. “I try, Nelson. It’s Jack who lets her get by with murder.”
“That’s a goddamn lie,” he exclaimed in protest. “I’ve got her going to work every day, don’t I? That’s more constructive than anything you’ve been able to get her to do.”
“She should be in school,” Nelson declared. “Never should have let her up and quit like that without even finishing the semester. What’s going to become of her? What kind of life will she have without an education?” He shook his head with dire premonition. “She’ll pay dearly for her bad choices. So will you. You reap what you sow, you know.”
Avery agreed with him. Fancy was entirely out of control, and it was no doubt her parents’ fault. Still, she didn’t think Nelson should discuss their parental shortcomings with everybody else present.
“I don’t think anything short of a bath is going to do Mandy any good,” she said, grateful for the excuse to leave the table. “Will you please excuse us?”
“D
o you need any help?” Zee asked.
“No, thank you.” Then, realizing that she was usurping the bedtime ritual from Zee, who must have enjoyed it very much, she added, “Since this is my first night home, I’d like to put her to bed myself. It was a lovely dinner, Zee. Thank you.”
“I’ll be in to tell Mandy good night later,” Tate called after them as Avery carried the child from the dining room.
* * *
“Well, I see that nothing’s changed.”
Dorothy Rae weaved her way across the sitting room and collapsed into one of two chairs parked in front of a large-screen TV set. Jack was occupying the other chair. “Did you hear me?” she asked when several seconds ticked by and he still hadn’t said anything.
“I heard you, Dorothy Rae. And if by ‘nothing’s changed’ you mean that you’re shit-faced again tonight, then you’re right. Nothing’s changed.”
“What I mean is that you can’t keep your eyes off your brother’s wife.”
Jack was out of his chair like a shot. He slapped his palm against the switch on the TV, shutting up Johnny Carson in midjoke. “You’re drunk and disgusting. I’m going to bed.” He stamped into the connecting bedroom. Dorothy Rae struggled to get out of her chair and follow him. The hem of her robe trailed behind her.
“Don’t try to deny it,” she said with a sob. “I was watching you. All through dinner, you were drooling over Carole and her pretty new face.”
Jack removed his shirt, balled it up, and flung it into the clothes hamper. He bent over to unlace his shoes. “The only one who drools in this family is you, when you get so drunk you can’t control yourself.”
Reflexively, she wiped the back of her hand across her mouth. People who had known Dorothy Rae Hancock when she was growing up wouldn’t believe what she had become in middle age. She’d been the belle of Lampasas High School; her rein had lasted all four years.
Her daddy had been a prominent attorney in town. She, his only child, was the apple of his eye. The way he doted on her had made her the envy of everybody who knew her. He’d taken her to Dallas twice a year to shop at Neiman-Marcus for her seasonal wardrobes. He’d given her a brand new Corvette convertible on her sixteenth birthday.
Her mother had had a fit and said it was too much car for a young girl to be driving, but Hancock had poured his wife another stiff drink and told her that if he’d wanted her worthless opinion about anything, he would have asked for it.
After graduating from high school, Dorothy Rae had gone off in a blaze of glory to enter the University of Texas in Austin. She met Jack Rutledge during her junior year, fell madly in love, and became determined to have him for her very own. She’d never been denied anything in her life, and she didn’t intend to start with missing out on the only man she would every truly love.