Mean Woman Blues

sense of failure, and she hadn’t even been on yet. Worse, she had no means of distraction. She hadn’t realized she was going to have half an hour to cool her heels, or she’d have brought a book.
    There was a phone. She could call Isaac. But that seemed ridiculous; she’d call him on her cell phone after the show, when they could rehash it. She tried to remember if she knew anyone in Dallas. Actually, now that she thought of it she had a friend here— Jessie Newman, a girl she went to high school with, who’d married some guy from Dallas. What was his name? Kincaid, that was it; like some Son of the Confederacy. Donaldson Kincaid. Two last names.
    She looked it up in the phone book that lay on the rickety, scarred table next to the phone.
    Curiously, he wasn’t listed, but a Jessie Kincaid was. Terri thought,
Uh-oh. Divorce
. She wasn’t sure she should call at all.
    But in the end, it beat the hell out of sitting there wanting a cigarette. When a message answered, she was disappointed but reassured actually to hear Jessie’s voice. They’d been good friends; she wondered why they lost touch. At the beep, she said, “Jessie? Here’s a voice from your past. It’s Terri Whittaker. Remember me? I’m just in Dallas for a day, and I thought I’d give you a call.”
    There was a click on the line, and Jessie said, “Terri Whittaker! How come you never wrote me?”
    “I thought you were the one who never wrote me.”
    “Oh, forget it. It’s a treat to hear from you. Boy is this town
not
New Orleans. How the hell are you?”
    “Today, fine. But something pretty bad happened to me. I’m here to be on this television show,
Mr. Right
. Do you know it?”
    “Same old Terri.” Jessie laughed long and loud at that one, which put the fear of God in Terri. She wondered if she’d done something really stupid.
    “Jessie, that’s not reassuring. What in hell’s so funny?”
    “You can always be trusted, that’s all, to be in on the hot new thing. You’re the first person I know who had acupuncture. You were always first at every new club and restaurant and you were onto a fashion trend six months before it hit
Vogue
.”
    “Hey, I’m kind of flattered by that.” Terri wondered if she’d just learned something about herself. “But
Mr. Right
’s this low-rent cable show where poor sad people go to cry. It’s not like, uh, crayon-colored hair or something.”
    “Terri, you are
amazing
. You do it without even knowing you’re doing it, don’t you?
Mr. Right’
s the hottest thing in Texas. It’s a
phenomenon
. They just went to an evening format and everyone in town’s talking about it. Hey, have you met David Wright? He’s kind of sexy, don’t you think? He met his wife on the show. She was one of his first guests— girl from a prominent family that disowned her when she married a boy they didn’t like. She hit the skids and embarrassed them in front of the whole town by going on the show. It might seem like a grandstanding thing to do, but Terri, she was desperate, just a sweet innocent kid who didn’t know what else to do. It really put the show on the map.”
    “I can imagine.”
    “So the family had no choice but to welcome her back into the fold— again in front of the whole town— and then she married Mr. Right. Talk about creating a sensation!”
    Tracie appeared and mouthed: “Five minutes.”
    “Oh, gosh. The producer’s calling me.”
    “Okay, I’m tuning you in right now. My husband’s out of town, by the way. You here alone?”
    “Oh, good. That’s a relief.”
    “What?”
    “I couldn’t find his name in the phone book. I thought you might be divorced.”
    She laughed again. “Oh, hell, no. He’s completely wireless these days— only uses his cell phone. Listen, where are you staying? Can you have dinner with me?”
    “The Bluebonnet Motor Lodge.”
    “Ughhh. Terri, you can’t stay there. I’m shocked that’s where they put you. You’ll
have
to stay with me. Will you? I’ll get a babysitter, and we’ll go someplace nice for dinner.”
    Terri had actually given some thought to where she was going to find a restaurant. The thought of the depressing motel, of a night alone in a slightly scary neighborhood, had been weighing on her. “Jessie, you know what? You’re cheering me right up. I’d love to stay with you.”
    “Get them to take you back to the Bluebonnet to get your stuff. I’ll pick you up there.”
    The next few minutes were a blur. Someone