Gary gazed at her with flat eyes, his silence a confirmation. Mary Dell kept reading, noting other, smaller changes to the contract, none of which were favorable to her. But it wasn’t until she got to the last page, the signature page, which had already been signed by the people at the network, with spaces for her and Gary, that she noted the absence of one signature line. The realization made her feel suddenly sick and a little weak, as if the blood had drained from her head.
“Howard’s name . . . it’s missing.”
“I know. I’m sorry. You know how I feel about Howard and his contribution. He’s one of the reasons I wanted to sign you in the first place. My niece, Charlotte, has Down syndrome. But there are people at the network who think that Howard is the reason for your ratings slide. Part of it, anyway.”
“And the other part is?” She answered her own question. “Me. They think I’m too old.”
Gary didn’t deny her statement, just said, “They want to get you a new co-host, somebody to attract the under-fifty-five viewership.”
“Let me guess—somebody young, blond, and brainless. Will she even know how to quilt? Or is that optional?”
Mary Dell opened her fingers, letting the contract drop from her grasp like a used tissue.
“Well, if they think I’m going to sign this . . . this”—she stammered, searching for a phrase that was more polite than the one that had popped into her head—“insulting piece of garbage, then they’ve got another think coming! You can take the next plane back to Disneyland and tell them that I would rather cut off my right arm and feed it to a pack of piranhas than cut my own son out of my show!”
“They know that,” Gary said. “The only reason they’re making an offer at all is to give themselves legal cover. This way, they can say they wanted to keep you on but you refused. They’re afraid you and Howard might sue for discrimination.”
“They ought to be! It is discrimination! My good friend Hub-Jay, the man who owns all the hotels, has a team of lawyers working for him. As soon as I get back to Dallas, I’m going to ask him to refer me to the meanest one he’s got!”
“Don’t. You’ll lose. And it’ll cost you a fortune.”
Gary tilted his face toward the ceiling and blew out a long breath.
“Mary Dell, I hate this as much as you do. The only reason I flew out here was to tell you to tell them to shove their contract, that you didn’t need their damned show. But now I can’t say that.”
He lowered his head again, looked her in the eye.
“Because you do need it—or at least a lot of people you care about do. You told me yourself, you’ve got nine full-time employees, including your own niece, and three more part-time. And how many of those women working for you are single mothers or the sole breadwinner?”
“Four.”
Gary bobbed his head. “Four families who directly depend on paychecks from the Patchwork Palace to put food on the table. And remember what you were telling me about Too Much’s renaissance and economic recovery? It’s not the town or the times that caused that recovery, Mary Dell. It’s you! The great big quilting celebrity with the TV show that attracts busloads of tourists out here to the middle of nowhere! The tourists who come to buy fabric and stay to eat pie at Hilda’s, or buy a scarf or dress from Antoinette’s, or get their nails done at the Primp ’n’ Perm. Mary Dell Templeton, you’re a job creator. The ripples you make touch hundreds of lives.
“But if the show is canceled this year, tourist traffic will be down by half next year, and the year after that, and the year after that. Then it will stop completely. Even if it means Howard is off the show, you’ve got to keep Quintessential Quilting on the air for as long as you can. If you can. Furthermore, you’ve got to find a way to get those ratings back up where they used to be, and to attract those younger viewers. If not,” he mused, “a year from now, it’ll all be over.”
Mary Dell was thinking, too, coming to the slow realization that everything Gary was saying was true. If the show went down, it wouldn’t just be the quilt shop that suffered. The whole town would be affected.
Mary Dell felt as if the weight of the world were on her shoulders.
Maybe not the whole world, but her world, her home, the place her heart beat best and where she knew the names and faces and stories of everyone she met, her neighbors. She had to help them if she could. They depended on her. So did her family, her mother and Cady, and Rob Lee, already on a bus, heading home from North Dakota.
How could she help them all?
“There’s this guy,” Gary said after a moment, “Jason Alvarez. I can’t stand him; he’s a little weasel. But you need to set up a meeting, get on his good side. When you get back to Dallas . . .”
“But that’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” she said, her ears perking up at the mention of Big D. “Gary, I don’t want to go back to Dallas. I want to come home. The reason I kidnapped you was to show you how picturesque the town and the shop are, what great locations they would make . . .”
As he figured out what she was trying to say, Gary’s brows drew together into a single line.
“Mary Dell, the network isn’t going to let you film all the way out here in Too Much. There’s just no way, especially not now, with your ratings in a slump.”
“There has to be a way. There has to! And you’ve got to help me find it, Gary, because this is personal. I have got to come home. My family needs me.”
Opening up to him in a way she rarely opened up to anyone, Mary Dell told him about the call from Pearl, about her mother’s growing instability and the weight of Cady’s grief, the circumstances of Nick’s death, as well as the injuries, physical and emotional, that Rob Lee was suffering in the aftermath of the explosion. When she finished, Gary’s face fell.
“Oh God. That poor kid. And the little girl too. No wonder Cady ran off when I asked about Linne’s dad. I feel terrible.”
“You didn’t know,” Mary Dell said, and touched him lightly on the forearm.
“And your nephew too? Poor guy. My older cousin, Mark, was in Vietnam. Lost a couple of buddies and was never really the same. But losing your brother-in-law? Surviving the explosion that left your sister a widow and your niece fatherless?” He shook his head. “That’s rough.”
“Rob Lee needs me,” Mary Dell said. “They all do. I’ve got to come home.”
Gary covered her small hand with his bigger one and squeezed it. “You really are a helluva woman, Mary Dell.”
“Thank you.” She leaned closer, fixing him with her gaze. “Now will you help me talk the network into letting us film in Too Much?”
“They’ll never go for it. But,” he said after a long pause, “I’ll still help you.”
He picked up the contract, flipped through some pages, then took a pen out of his pocket and started crossing things out and writing things in.
“What are you doing?”
“Writing my own execution orders,” he mumbled. He placed his initials next to the changes he’d made, then clicked his pen closed and looked up. “Sorry. Just a little gallows humor.”
“Gallows humor? Gary, what are you talking about?”
“The gallows. The place they hang you. Which is where I will most surely be headed after I amend and sign this contract. Don’t worry,” he said calmly. “I was headed there anyway. I just hadn’t been willing to admit it to myself until now.”
He placed the beer bottle to his lips and tipped it high to get the final drops.
“I am fifty-eight years old, Mary Dell. In the television business, that means I have ten years on Methuselah. They brought in this young guy, this Jason . . .”
“The weasel?”
“That’s him. Supposedly he works for me, but he’s been nipping at my heels for months. Always talking in meetings without my permission, blabbing about how we can up our ad revenue by bringing in younger viewers, pitching shows without my input. He wants my job and, quite frankly, I’m ready to let him have it. I was going t
o try to hang on for a couple more years, then take early retirement. But there’s been a rumor going on about restructuring that is sounding like more than a rumor.
“To borrow a line from a show that the little weasel is constantly holding up as the ideal, ‘In this business, you’re either in or you’re out.’ I am about to be out, and there’s nothing I can do about it. Oh, well. I had a good run.”
He turned to the signature page, signed his name, and then handed her the pen. “Your turn.”
Mary Dell touched pen to paper, then hesitated. “Gary, are you sure? Really sure?”
“I’m getting the ax anyway. Might as well help out a friend before the blade falls. Though,” he said, “I’m not sure if I’m really doing you a favor. The weasel is as bad as I’ve painted him, worse even. But you’ve got to find a way to either work with him or get around him. Otherwise . . .”
“I know. I’ll be in this exact same place next year.”
Mary Dell signed her name, put down the pen, and took Gary’s hand.
“Thank you. I don’t know what else to say. This is such a load off my mind.”
“Yeah? Then why do you still look so worried?” Gary lifted his brows. “Afraid of the weasel? You can handle him.”
Mary Dell shook her head. “Uh-uh. Afraid of telling Howard he’s off the show. It’s just going to break his heart.”
“Sorry, Mary Dell. There’s nothing I can do about that. Wish I could.”
“I know.”
Gary waved at the waitress. “Hey, can I get another round?” To Mary Dell, he said, “You have one too. We’ve got to toast my soon-to-be-announced departure from the House and Home Network.”
“All right,” she conceded. “One more.”
Somebody dropped some money in the jukebox. George Strait started singing about all his exes in Texas.
Mary Dell grinned. “Gary, do you know how to do the two-step?”
CHAPTER 7
Hubbell James Hollander, called Hub-Jay, sat at his usual corner table near the window at Spurs, one of Dallas’s most fashionable eateries, located in the Hollander Grand Hotel, waiting for Mary Dell to arrive for their weekly Friday lunch date.
She was late, which was unusual. In the four years since he’d known Mary Dell, he could count the number of times she’d been late to lunch on one hand. But because this was the first moment he’d had to himself all day, he didn’t mind.
However, his peace and quiet was disturbed when Sallie Moffat spotted him from the other side of the dining room and started plowing her way through the maze of white-clothed tables with a stride that made him think of icebreakers in the Antarctic. Cornered, Hub-Jay put aside his napkin, rose to his feet, and kissed her on the cheek.
“Nice to see you.” He was stretching the truth, but good manners were Hub-Jay’s default mode. “You’re looking lovely. As always.”
This part was true. People seeing her on the street might have taken Sallie Moffat for a retired cover model. She had perfect teeth, perfect hair, impeccable clothes, jewelry, and taste, and the finest plastic surgeon that money could buy. Several women in Dallas were nearly as beautiful, but none was quite as dull.
That was something Hub-Jay hadn’t given much consideration when becoming briefly involved with her three years before. He’d been thinking with his eyes, among other body parts. Before a week was out, he realized that Sallie’s conversation was limited to fashion, dieting, gossip, and her life goals of maintaining a size-zero figure and finding a wealthy husband. That was about the time he realized that the same could be said of nearly every woman he’d dated in the previous decade.
“Aren’t you sweet,” she murmured, returning his peck. “Haven’t seen you at the club lately. You missed the gala too.”
“Work has been keeping me pretty busy.”
“So I’ve heard,” she chirped, opening her eyes wider. “Breaking ground on another Hollander Grand in Fort Worth. How many hotels will you own now, Hub-Jay?”
“We’ve got seven Hollander House properties, the smaller boutique hotels, but this will only be our third Hollander Grand.”
“My goodness! Ten hotels! Hub-Jay Hollander, when you bought that first run-down motel in Abilene, did you ever imagine you’d be a chain?”
“Always.”
She laughed softly and took a step toward him. “I just bet you did. I do admire a man who knows what he wants and how to get it,” she said, making her voice a little breathy. “But don’t you think you’re working too hard? Isn’t it time you settled down and had a home? Someone to take care of you?”
“I’ve got an entire staff of people taking care of me. Living in the hotel not only makes it easy to keep an eye on business, it makes for a short commute.”
“But I worry about you, Hub-Jay—always working. And look at you.” She clucked her tongue and gestured toward his empty table. “Eating all alone. That’s just sad. You know what they say, all work and no play . . .”
“Makes Jack a very rich boy. Sorry I’m late, Hub-Jay. My meeting ran long.” Mary Dell gave him a peck on the cheek before circling to the other side of the table and being seated by David, the handsome young manager of Spurs.
“That’s all right. I hadn’t ordered yet. Sallie, you’ve met Mary Dell?”
Sallie furrowed her brow, “Actually, I don’t think I’ve . . .”
“Actually, you have. A couple of times,” Mary Dell said with a smile. When David offered her a menu, she said, “Oh, I won’t need that. I’ll have my usual.”
David nodded and recited from memory. “Large Dr Pepper, extra ice, jalapeño pulled-pork sliders, extra-crispy shoestring fries, and a side of steamed spinach.”
“Because a girl can’t keep her figure on pulled pork and fries alone. And isn’t that too bad? On second thought, could you cancel the Dr Pepper and bring me a glass of white wine? Whatever kind is sweetest.”
“Of course.” He glanced quickly toward Hub-Jay. “The Trimbach 2012?”
Hub-Jay curled his lip and gave a short shake of his head. “Let’s have a bottle of the Martinborough Gewürztraminer 2006.”
“Right away, Mr. Hollander,” David replied, and walked away.
Sallie, who was still standing near the table, finally said, “Well. I’ll just leave you two to enjoy your lunch. Nice to meet . . . to see you, Mary Dell. Hub-Jay.”
She gave them a studied, slightly icy smile and walked away.
“Thank you for rescuing me,” Hub-Jay said after she left.
Mary Dell took a corn muffin from the bread basket. “Hub-Jay, it wouldn’t be Friday if I didn’t rescue you from one of your girlfriends.”
“Sallie Moffat isn’t my girlfriend.”
“No, but she wants to be. Along with half the other women in this town. I swear the only reason you keep me around is to serve as a human shield against all the gals who’d like to erase your name from the list of Dallas’s Twenty Most Eligible Bachelors. When are you going to put them out of their misery and get hitched?”
“Why would I want to do that?”
“I see. Why buy a cow when milk is free; is that it?” Mary Dell shook her head disapprovingly as she buttered her muffin. “You are a scourge to womankind, you know that? If I had any loyalty to my sex, I’d quit hanging around with you.”
Hub-Jay was used to Mary Dell’s teasing. They’d met at an art museum gala during which a date with Hub-Jay, as well as dates with the other nineteen Most Eligible Bachelors, was auctioned off for charity.
Mary Dell didn’t bid on him, but he called and invited her to the hotel for lunch the following week anyway.
When she countered that he’d better think twice if he thought she was going to pony up five thousand dollars just to eat a chicken sandwich with him, Hub-Jay laughed. She’d been making him laugh every Friday ever since. She had become Hub-Jay’s best friend, probably his only friend.
Of course, he wouldn’t have been lacking for female companionship if he’d wanted it, but that was the t
hing—he didn’t want it. He hadn’t for the last three years, after he’d woken up next to Sallie Moffat, looked at her sleeping form, and couldn’t think of one single thing he wanted to say to her or to hear from her, except good-bye.
He hadn’t woken up with a woman in his bed since.
At first, he’d chalked it up to his getting older—he’d turned sixty that year. Then to losing interest in the thrill of the chase, because these days, there wasn’t any chase. Since making the Twenty Most Eligible list, inclusion on which required a hefty net worth, luring women to his bed required little more than a smile and maybe a round of drinks. Then he decided the problem was the women—they were all just like Sallie: beautiful, attentive, available, and boring. And maybe that was just as well. With nine hotels to run and another under construction, he had plenty to keep him busy.
He still went out with women because he still had social obligations; Dallas was a very social sort of town. But when the party, gala, or benefit was done, he escorted them home and kissed them good night at the door. The next day, he’d send a very nice bouquet of flowers. He never invited them home.
But Mary Dell didn’t know that. There were some things a man just didn’t discuss, not even with his friends, especially if the friend was female. Besides, she enjoyed teasing Hub-Jay about his playboy image, his “string of fillies,” as she sometimes called them, and he didn’t dissuade her from doing so. Why spoil her fun? Or his image?
Except, today, it didn’t seem like she was having fun. Today, Mary Dell seemed distressed. That wasn’t like her. Neither was ordering wine at lunch.
After David uncorked the Gewürztraminer and made his silent exit, Hub-Jay topped up her glass. “Rough day?”
“Rough week, rough day, rough hour.” She lifted the wineglass to her lips and drained it by a third.
“Want to talk about it?”
“No, sir, I do not,” Mary Dell replied, and then started talking about it anyway. “You know, this should be a happy day. I’m finally getting what I’ve wanted for so long, the chance to move home to Too Much, but the way that this—”
From Here to Home Page 6
