She Walks in Beauty Read online

  Back in the other direction, Harry was yelling at Wayne. “I think you’re a hotel burglar, that’s what I think.”

  Nawh, Gloria was about to tell him. Wayne’s lots of things, but I don’t think he’s that, when Wayne hauled off and punched Harry right in the mouth.

  Awwwwh, thought Big Gloria. Such a pretty mouth too.

  Harry reeled back and put up his dukes, but before he could do any good, Wayne turned tail and ran right down to the other fire door and disappeared.

  “You dirty rotten bastard!” Harry shouted.

  He looked just like Junior when he was little, having a temper tantrum, thought Gloria.

  Harry was cute as heck when he was mad.

  That was a thought Sam had had more than once, though Gloria didn’t know that. Gloria also didn’t know that Harry was really mad with himself because it hurt his pride to get sandbagged like that. If there was one thing his friends like Lavert Washington had taught him when Harry was the Only White Boy at Grambling, a historically black university, was how to handle himself in a tight spot.

  Losing it, man, was what Harry thought. You turned 30, fell in love, your reflexes turned to mush.

  Oh, yeah, Harry thought. Miss Samantha had herself a couple of warriors, all right. A silly little dog who wouldn’t bark if Attila the Hun were at the door. And a slow boyfriend with a busted lip.

  It was a good thing there was nothing on their agenda heavier than hanging out and making love, lying on the beach, watching a bunch of young things twitch their fannies up and down a runway while Sam took a few notes.

  Or so Harry thought.

  3

  Sam was lounging poolside on the roof of the Monopoly, waiting for Harry. Halfway through the afternoon of the first day of this nonsense, and already she needed a break. Following the press conference, she’d interviewed Rae Ann Bridges—Miss Georgia, Hoke’s flame, and the raison d’être for her being there in Wackoland. The intensity of these people was unbelievable. They were serious as death about this beauty business. It was pretty terrifying.

  Take the press conference. She was still feeling like a fool, playing contestant before the entire press corps.

  “Now you understand,” Eloise Lemon, the former Miss America, had said after they’d whisked Sam out of the pressroom, brought her back, and watched her plunk herself down (she lost points right there) in a straight-backed chair facing the judges, “this would be a smaller space with thousands of TV lights and a passel of other people watching. Hello, Samantha.”

  “Hello.” Sam had giggled. Giggled! She winced now at the memory. And then the barrage had begun.

  If you had to balance the national budget today, how would you approach it?

  Why do so few women run for high political office?

  You’re from a border state with thousands of illegal aliens crossing. What to do?

  The press’s responsibility to watchdog the president and Congress?

  Participating in the Miss America Pageant, so frivolous in the face of the Middle East crisis?

  The most interesting book you have read recently, and why?

  Public education in shambles?

  The single most important event in the history of man?

  And so on. Even for a reporter who kept up, this wasn’t easy. As Sam had leapfrogged from one question to the next, she’d asked herself, How do those airheads do this? Then, “Time!” and it was over. Her peers had cheered and stomped their feet. Maybe she hadn’t been a complete washout.

  Just outside the door, Mimi Bregman, the judge in the red tent dress, had patted her on the shoulder. “At least an eight.”

  “Eight? A nine!” Sam had protested. But that was bravado.

  “Let me buy you a drink, I’ll give you a ten.” That had been Kurt Roberts, right in her face.

  Mimi had looked down her nose at him. No love lost there. And there’d been that question Miss A had powered right at him. What gave?

  “Mr. Roberts has his own agenda,” Mimi answered.

  Oh, really? Handsy with the girls? Pressing them for favors? Was there scandal in the wind?

  “He’s a little forward, that’s all.” Mimi had squeezed Sam’s arm good-bye and escaped to join the other judges—they traveled in a pack—and Barbara Stein, who’d been giving Mimi the eye.

  Poolside now, Sam thought about Kurt Roberts while she scanned the contestants’ headshots in the Official Miss America Pageant Program. Which one was Roberts bird-dogging? The blondes all looked alike. How could he decide? Or maybe he didn’t. Maybe he just hit them up scattershot, working the percentages.

  Like Hoke. Sam had once heard him say to a young reporter on the sports desk, Don’t bother with fancy lines. Just keep asking, You wanta do it? You’ll get lucky, you give it enough time.

  Sam looked down at the picture of Miss Georgia. Miss Rae Ann Bridges, she said to the blue-eyed blonde’s big smile, is that what Hoke asked you when they voted you Miss Dogwood Festival? Wanta do it?

  She doubted it. The young lady whom she’d interviewed for the first time immediately after the press conference was hardly the Wanta Do It type.

  *

  Rae Ann had waved at her from the bench on the Boardwalk where they’d agreed to meet. She was shaking hands and signing autographs for passersby. Even prettier than her picture, she had those Dresden-doll looks—peach and cream and baby-blue eyes—you found only in southern girls. Rae Ann never stopped smiling, and she touched each person.

  “It’s just all been one big whirl,” she’d gushed. “Since I won Miss Dogwood Festival, I’ve made over two hundred personal appearances. It’s been wonderful practice for coming here, meeting all those people, sharpening my speaking skills. I tried out different hairdos and makeup each time, and also it’s been a chance for me to witness.”

  Witness what?

  Rae Ann’s face glowed even brighter. “So many people don’t understand about the pageant system. They think it’s just a beauty contest, but physical beauty is the least of it.” Her chaperone, a pageant hostess decked out head to toe in navy and green sports togs, nodded.

  Uh-huh. Sure. So what was this about makeup and hairdos?

  “Now, physical beauty is part of it.” Someone had coached away much of Rae Ann’s Georgia accent, but she still, once she warmed up, underlined and raised the inflection at the end of her sentences. “Just like Queen Esther, in the Bible, rose from obscurity to hold the most prominent position a woman could in her land, based in part on what she looked like? She, and all the other girls, were best we possibly can by looking into our own hearts and souls to make that script a good one, or we can take a peek over God’s shoulder at the master script He’s written for us and follow that one.

  “We need to triumph over circumstances. We need to learn to look down on those circumstances from above.”

  *

  Nawh. Poolside, Sam closed the program on Rae Ann’s smile. Wanta do it? wasn’t the way to go with this girl. Sam couldn’t wait to hear her sing tonight. “Don’t Cry Out Loud” was her big number. Cheryl Ann Prewitt had won Miss America with it in 1980. It had already proved lucky for Rae Ann in the Miss Dogwood Festival and Miss Georgia. She was counting on it one more time.

  A shadow fell across Sam’s deck chair. “Hi!”

  She jumped. She’d been visualizing Rae Ann on that big stage just like Rae Ann herself did every night before she said her prayers and went to sleep. It was only Harry. But what was wrong with his lip?

  Before she could ask, someone was hailing her from across the pool.

  “Hello, there. Hello!” It was Kurt Roberts over at the outdoor bar. Wearing his perpetual tan and white swim trunks, Roberts looked like he’d spent years in the gym. He would. “Doing your homework?”

  Sam nodded, with a pained smile. What a jerk. Harry, still standing with his poofy lip curled into a tight little grin, glanced at Roberts, then back at her. He didn’t look happy.

  “Do you like my picture?” Roberts was so
loud. “It’s in the program.”

  Sam shook her head, rolled her eyes at Harry.

  “Your new best friend?”

  “A judge. A real turkey.” She took his hand. “What the heck happened to your lip, sweetie?”

  He flopped down in the chair beside her. “I ran into a door.”

  “Kurt! Kurt!” That was Cindy Lou Jacklin, his fellow judge, waving from the entrance to the pool. She was a long drink of water in a baby-blue bikini beneath an open man’s shirt, those Miss Ohio curves hanging in there like she was still a contender.

  Kurt crooked a finger at Cindy from his barstool, patted the seat beside him. Cindy Lou jogged over, wriggling with gratitude.

  Sam looked back to Harry. “Now, about your lip. Why do I not believe you?”

  “Because you’re a very suspicious woman. Hey, I talked with Lavert. He’s coming in tonight in time for the show.”

  “You’re changing the subject.”

  “You noticed. What do you think that means?”

  “You’re embarrassed that I let you out of my sight for a couple of hours, and you got into a barroom brawl.”

  “God, you’re so good. And perceptive.”

  “You’re not going to tell me.”

  “And smart.”

  They grinned at each other, Harry wincing. His lip hurt. Then a man behind them yelled, “Hey! You! Jerkoff! If it’s not too much trouble, could we get a little service over here?”

  *

  The young waiter stopped dead in his tracks. Fury stained his cheeks.

  Harry licked his cut lip and knew just how he felt.

  Sam recognized the speaker’s voice even before she turned. If you’d ever heard it once, you had it.

  Sure enough, it was Bill Carroll, host of The Big One!!!—the TV game show. The man couldn’t have been 5′5″ even with his lifts. He was wearing flip-flops poolside.

  Sam had met him once in San Francisco at a museum benefit. Her impression then: She’d rather buy her used cars from Richard Nixon.

  “Billy!” the woman at the table with Carroll snapped. “You don’t have to be so rude.”

  The look Carroll shot at the woman said he’d like to give her the back of his hand.

  Sam saw that even when he did a quick turn like that, Billy Carroll’s hair didn’t move. Did he take off his blond-gray helmet when he got in bed, or did it stay that way when he bounced around?

  Of course, with Billy’s attitude, his wife probably didn’t go in much for bouncing—at least with Billy. Now, she was quite something in her gold lamé swimsuit. She sported mega-diamonds on her fingers and wrists. And she was wearing high-heeled sandals and lots of makeup. You hardly ever saw anybody with that look anymore—pale lipstick, dark lip liner, multicolored hair twisted up into curls on top, falling in a wave over one eye á la Betty Grable—except in LA. But your eyes didn’t stay on her face long. They slid down to her chest, her nice little fanny, still-good legs, brightly painted toes.

  “I hope you two aren’t going to start.” That had to be the daughter. Take the mother back to 15, dress her all in black, make her up like Vampira, tease her frosted blond hair out to Delaware.

  Sam knew the waiter thought the daughter was quite something, even if her father was a horse’s patoot. He was shifting from one foot to the other, standing there.

  “We’re not gonna start. We’re gonna eat.” Then Billy Carroll chuckled.

  “It’s the laugh track on TV,” Harry said out of the corner of his mouth. “Makes him think he’s really funny.”

  “Since when do you watch daytime TV?”

  “You’d be amazed what I have to do when I’m tailing somebody.” Harry was still working part-time for his Uncle Tench as an insurance investigator while he and Lavert put together their restaurant. “I’ve caught his show. He sucks eggs. You want some more water when this young man gets the use of himself?”

  But their waiter had taken the Carrolls’ order and dematerialized. Harry said he’d go get his beer and her San Pellegrino himself.

  Sam loved watching Harry walk. He had an athlete’s broad-shouldered, strong-legged gait. Not too cocky, but like he knew where he was going, knew how to get there. He knew how to get to her, that was for sure.

  Over to her right, the Carrolls began warming up again.

  “So, are you going to see her?”

  “Darleen, I’m warning you.”

  “Well, are you?”

  “It’s nothing. I told you.”

  “You always say that.”

  “We were just talking.”

  “Standing and moving to the music. I’d call that dancing.”

  “Okay, we were dancing. What’s wrong with that?”

  “They’re not supposed to be dancing. They’re supposed to be locked in their rooms getting their beauty sleep. They’re not even supposed to be talking to men.”

  “You’re crazy, Darleen. They can talk. And I’m TV, for Christ’s sake. They know me.”

  “TV. Ha! Does that mean you checked your dick at the desk?”

  “Darleen!”

  “I’m outta here.” That was the daughter.

  “Sit down, Rachel Rose! You’re not going anywhere.”

  Billy Carroll was wrong. The daughter was already strolling off to the left down toward Jail, not even pausing for Just Visiting. The whole Monopoly board was reproduced in tile around the pool. Rachel Rose turned the corner, headed up toward the bar, Free Parking.

  “You could have left it downstairs, for all I know.” Darleen wasn’t going to drop the subject.

  “What?!”

  “Your dick, darling.”

  “Would you stop? I told you we’re just friends.”

  “I find that difficult to believe since you have zero, zilch, no, nada, niente buddies, Billy. So now you’re practicing the art of friendship with a twenty-two-year-old girl with great lungs? Puh-leeze.”

  Over at the bar, Harry was signing a check, nodding at Kurt Roberts, who was saying something to him. Cindy Lou tossed in her two bits. Laughing, she threw her head back, all the while holding on for dear life to Roberts’s arm. Rachel Rose was walking very slowly with her cute little body in a black bikini, chewing gum, pulling even.

  Just about then a gorgeous black youngster, Sam would put him at about 16, skated into the pool area at the entrance designated B&O Railroad. Wearing black spandex shorts and nothing else but his bright red rollerblades and a headful of braids, he was built for a kid. Rachel Rose stopped dead in her tracks, only her jaws moving.

  Harry nodded to the kid, then started past him. Cindy Lou leaned over, her breasts leading, and said something to the kid, who grinned and answered. Whatever he said, Roberts didn’t like it. He came off his barstool, arms waving.

  Harry was still moving away with his back to the action.

  Rachel Rose was into it now, laying some opinions on Roberts, stabbing a little hand with lacquered black nails in the air for punctuation.

  The kid said something else, was backing off, or was he? With the skates to-ing and fro-ing, it was hard to tell. The kid was off balance now. He reached out to steady himself.

  Roberts grabbed him like he was helping him straighten up, but no, he wasn’t. He gave the kid a big push. The kid rolled right off into the deep water. Kersplash. Then nothing but bubbles.

  Sam’s head snapped up toward the lifeguard’s chair. It was empty. He’d gone to grab a soda, call his girlfriend, tell her some lies.

  The kid was well over his head, weighted down by his skates, and who knew if he could swim anyway?

  Harry had turned around at the splash and Rachel Rose’s yelp. Now he squatted, lowered his beer and Sam’s bottled water to the pool apron, and then, continuing in one graceful motion, dived in from the side. He hardly made a ripple.

  One, 1000, two, 2000, three, 3000, Sam counted to seven before Harry and the kid were back on top, the kid snuggled in a life-saving hold, but fighting.

  And it was all over but the
shouting.

  The lifeguard raced up. He and Harry turned the kid over. One, two, up came the water—and lunch.

  Cindy Lou was yelling something at Roberts.

  Rachel Rose was right in his face. “You could have killed him, you jerk! Why don’t you pick on somebody your own age? Are you crazy?”

  Darleen raced around the other side of the pool, passing Go, but not stopping for her $200. Now she had her hands on her daughter’s shoulders. “Come on, Rachel Rose!”

  “Jesus Christ!” muttered Billy Carroll, still beside Sam, watching the action. He and his hair hadn’t moved. “Jesus H. Christ. If it’s not one thing, it’s another. They hear about this, my sponsors, they’ll hate it. Notoriety is not good.”

  The kid was coming around with Rachel Rose down on her pretty knees bent over him. She was saying something to him, then looking back up with stars in her eyes.

  Roberts, white-faced, stalked away with Cindy Lou following.

  And here was Harry, dripping wet, holding two drinks on a small tray. “Your San Pellegrino, signorina.” He bowed.

  “Bravissimo.” She reached up and gave him a big kiss, remembering at the last minute to be careful of his lip. “You’re a hero, Harry.”

  Harry shrugged off the compliment, but now he felt a lot better about having taken the sucker punch in the lip.

  Over at the other side of the pool, two plainclothes security men and a hotel manager were talking with the roller-skater who was sitting in a chair now, swaddled in hotel towels. One of them was taking notes. Rachel Rose was still hanging in there, explaining 90 miles a minute how it all happened, while her mother was trying to tear her away. The skater said something, and the three men broke up laughing. Then one patted the boy on the shoulder, closed his notebook. It looked as if they knew him. Another was reaching for his walkie-talkie, speaking into it.

  “Maybe they’ll send for the cops, arrest that Kurt Roberts for attempted manslaughter,” said Sam.

  “I doubt it. It’d look bad for the hotel. They’ll call it an accident, since nobody was hurt.”