he suspected that her movies were hardly late show fare.
"This other beautiful young thing is her good friend, Molly." Molly nodded dully and glanced at the clock above the bar. Her eyes were slightly glazed and T.S. was not at all sure that Molly even knew where she was. Or, possibly, who she was.
"Sit down. Do please sit down. Where are my manners?" Worthington actually hurried around the table and escorted Lilah to a seat by his side, booting his "good friend" Sally over one chair. He must really be desperate for money, T.S. thought. Even for a toadying moneygrubber, his obsequiousness was excessive.
"Please excuse me," the blonde named Molly announced suddenly. She stood abruptly and walked toward the back, disappearing inside the ladies' room.
"I'll just be a teensy minute myself," Sally St. Claire added, snatching a small gold pocketbook from the tabletop before hurrying after her friend.
Worthington chuckled as if they had just told a particularly amusing joke. "Girls. What do they do in there? Always got to go in pairs. Makes you kind of wonder, huh?" The guffaw that followed was so incredibly crass and forced that both Lilah and T.S. were thrown for a loop. How were they supposed to behave? Should they laugh along or be above it all? Better get a grip on your character, T.S. told himself. Remember, you've got money. Lots and lots of it.
T.S. compromised and smiled politely. He would be slightly above it all. After all, he was rolling in the dough.
It was the right choice. Within seconds, Worthington was expertly pumping both of them—under the guise of friendly questions—for information on where they lived, how many houses they owned, had they ever been to a particular restaurant in the Hamptons and wasn't the Virginia squire country marvelous in the spring? Didn't they think that the best available property bargains today could be found in the Caribbean? None of his questions were innocuous. They were economic land mines carefully laid in an attempt to strip their net worth bare. T.S. quickly found himself in over his head. He detested name-dropping, whether it was a person or place being dropped, and could not follow the rapid-fire probing. Lilah was good, though, very good. All of the hours spent listening to her boring friends chat on endlessly now paid handsome dividends. By the time the girls returned from the bathroom, Lance Worthington was convinced that both Lilah and T.S. were eager to share their wealth.
What followed was dinner and a painfully detailed description of a musical based on Davy Crockett's life. And damned if Lilah didn't actually convey enthusiasm about such monstrosities as a chorus line of dancing Indians paying homage to the great white pioneer.
During the producer's tedious recounting of the plot, the blondes excused themselves frequently, shunned food of any kind, and spent most of their time in the ladies' room, only to return and sit together giggling inanely over whispered comments that T.S. could not hear. Once they erupted in loud laughter and Worthington leaned over to mutter sharply in Sally St. Claire's ear. She immediately straightened up and her mouth clamped down in a thin line. She shrugged a small apology toward Lilah and T.S., then cast a quick, darting glance at her girlfriend.
Fortunately, the dinner was not quite as bad as the show's concept and T.S. was able to find some solace in the sole almondine. He had just worked his way over to the turnip puree when, to his total astonishment, he felt a small foot begin to probe his own. It could not have been Lilah, she was seated across the table next to Worthington, so it had to be the blonde named Molly. It was all T.S. could do to keep from choking and sending flecks of turnip spraying across the tabletop. The small foot had on a remarkably sharp-toed shoe and the hard tip pressed gently on his instep then insinuated its way up his leg. Without even glancing at her, T.S. flushed a deep scarlet and removed his leg from her vicinity. This necessitated sitting practically sideways in his chair, but he had no other ideas on how to repel the attack.
Worthington turned his attention back to a chattering Lilah, who was glibly holding forth on how hard it was to find an investment that gave her a good return on her money these days and how she just hated having everything parked in municipal bonds. She was really pulling out the stops