First Love

  “Thick as thieves, if you ask me.”

  “You don’t know him. He’s not—” A swift glance from her mother cut her justification short and she quickly bit her tongue. What did she know about Hayden and why did she feel compelled to defend a boy who had mortified her? She remembered the look on his face as he’d tried to pay for her company. He was clearly surprised that she wouldn’t take the money. Her mother was right. All Hayden had ever learned was that anyone who did him a favor expected money in return. People were commodities and could be bought…if the price was right. “He’s not like that,” she said lamely.

  “What he’s ‘not’ is our kind. There have been rumors about him, Nadine, and though I don’t believe every piece of gossip I hear in this town, I do know that where there’s smoke there’s fire.”

  “What kind of rumors?” Nadine demanded.

  “Never mind—”

  “You brought it up.”

  “Okay.” Her mother wiped her hands on her apron and turned to face her daughter.

  Nadine’s heart began to thud and she wished she hadn’t asked.

  “Hayden Monroe, like his father before him, and his grandfather before him, has a reputation.”

  “A reputation?”

  “With women,” her mother said, cheeks flushing slightly as she forced her attention back to her bowl. “I’ve heard him linked with several girls…one in particular….”

  “Who?” Nadine demanded, but her mother shook her head and added a pinch of salt to the meat. “Who?” Nadine repeated.

  “I don’t think I should spread gossip.”

  “Then don’t accuse him of doing anything wrong!” Nadine said with more vehemence than she had intended.

  For a moment there was silence—the same deafening silence that occurred whenever her mother and father were having one of their arguments. Donna’s lips pinched as she greased a loaf pan and pressed her concoction into the bottom. “I thought you were going out with Sam.”

  Nadine wanted to know more about Hayden and his reputation, but she knew that once her mother decided a subject was closed, there was little to do to change her mind. She lifted a shoulder at the mention of Sam Warne. She and he had dated a few times. He was fun to hang out with, but she wasn’t serious about him. “We might go over to Coleville and see a movie Friday night.”

  The ghost of a smile touched her mother’s lips. She approved of Sam—a nice boy from a good family in town. His father was employed with Fitzpatrick Logging and his mother came into the library often where Donna worked a few afternoons a week. As far as Donna was concerned, Sam Warne had all the right criteria for a future son-in-law. Sam was good-looking. Sam was middle-class. Sam was only a year older than Nadine. Sam was safe. He probably would make a good husband; but Nadine wasn’t planning to marry for a long while. She had high school to finish and college—if not a four-year school, at least a two-year junior college.

  Though she couldn’t get Hayden from her mind, Nadine held her tongue. Her curiosity was better left alone, she decided, as she spent the next few hours vacuuming the house and helping her mother weed the garden where strawberries, raspberries, beans and corn grew row by row.

  An hour before her father’s shift was over, Nadine took a quick shower and combed her red hair until it fell in lustrous waves to the middle of her back. She slipped into a sundress and glossed her lips, thinking she might see Hayden again. Her silly heart raced as she dashed to the pickup with Bonanza leaping behind her. Guiltily she left the dog behind. She couldn’t take a chance that he would soil or wrinkle her clothes in his enthusiasm for a ride.

  A few minutes before quitting time, Nadine turned the old truck into the lot of the mill. Other workers were arriving for the next shift and men in hard hats gathered near the gates, laughing, smoking or chewing tobacco as they talked and relaxed for a few minutes between shifts.

  From the cab of the Ford, Nadine scanned every inch of the parking area, but discovered the sleek Mercedes was gone. Her heart took a nosedive. She looked again, hoping to see signs of the car or Hayden, but was disappointed. Her brows drew together and she felt suddenly foolish in her dress.

  “Don’t you look nice!” Her father opened the pickup’s passenger door. Smelling of sawdust and sweat, he shook out his San Francisco Giants cap, squared it onto his head and climbed into the warm interior. “Goin’ out?”

  “Nope.” She stepped on the throttle. “I just wanted to get cleaned up.”

  He smiled at her and she felt foolish. “I thought maybe you and Sam had decided to go somewhere.”

  “Not tonight,” she replied, irritated at the mention of Sam. Yes, she dated him, but that was all. Everyone assumed they were going together—even her family.

  “Boy, am I glad it’s quittin’ time,” he said, rubbing the kinks from the back of his neck. “Hardly had time for lunch, today.” He leaned against the back of the seat and closed his eyes as Nadine drove him home.

  It wasn’t until later, during dinner, that Hayden’s name came up. The Powell family, minus Kevin who was working the swing shift at the mill, was seated around the small table. Over the scrape of forks against plates, the steady rumble of a local anchorman’s voice filtered in from the living room. From his chair at the head of the table, George could glance at the television and despite his wife’s constant arguments, he watched the news. “It’s a man’s right,” he’d said on more than one occasion, “to know what’s goin’ on in the world after spending eight hours over that damned green chain.”

  Donna had always argued, but, in the end, had snapped her mouth shut and smoldered in silence through the evening meal while her husband had either not noticed or chosen to disregard his wife’s simmering anger.

  But this night, George hardly glanced at the television. “You shoulda seen the fireworks at the mill this afternoon,” he told his wife and children. Smothering his plate of meat loaf and potatoes with gravy, he said, “I was just punchin’ in when the boss’s kid showed up.” He took a bite and swallowed quickly. “That boy was madder’n a trapped grizzly, let me tell you. His face was red, his fists were clenched and he demanded to see his father. Dora, the secretary, was fit to be tied. Wouldn’t let him in the office, but the old man heard the commotion and he came stormin’ out into the reception area. Old Garreth takes one look at Hayden and the kid tosses a set of keys to his father, mutters some choice words not fit to repeat at this table, turns on his heel and marches out. Damn, but he was mad.”

  “What was it all about?” Ben asked, buttering a slice of bread and looking only mildly interested.

  “I didn’t stick around to find out. But the kid didn’t want his car—a honey of a machine—Mercedes convertible, I think.”

  “Why not?” Ben asked, suddenly attentive.

  “Hayden claimed he was old enough to see who he wanted, do what he wanted when he wanted, with whom he wanted—you know, that same old BS we hear around here. Anyway, the gist of it was that he wasn’t going to let Garreth tell him what to do. Said he wasn’t about to be…just how’d he put it?” Her father thought for a minute and chewed slowly. “Something to the effect that he couldn’t be bought and sold like one of Garreth’s racehorses. Then he just flew out of there, leaving me and Dora with our mouths hangin’ wide open and old Garreth so mad the veins were bulgin’ big as night crawlers in his neck.”

  “Sounds like Hayden finally got smart,” Ben observed as he reached for a platter of corn on the cob. “His old man’s been pushing him around for years. It was probably time he stood up to him. Although I, personally, would never give up a car like that.”

  “Maybe you would if the price was too high,” Nadine interjected.

  “Hell, no! I’d sell the devil my soul just to drive a Mercedes.”

  “Ben!” Donna shot her son a warning glance before her knowing eyes landed on Na
dine again. For a second Nadine thought her mother would tell the family about Hayden’s visit, but she couldn’t get a word in edgewise.

  “I’ve never seen Garreth so furious,” George said. “The old man looked like he was about to explode, and I hightailed it out to the yard and got to work. None of my business anyway, but it looks like Garreth’s got his hands full with that one.”

  Donna shot her daughter a glance. “Nadine gave Hayden a ride into town.”

  Squirming in her chair, Nadine caught Ben’s curious stare. “Is that right?” Ben asked.

  Her father’s eyes, too, were trained in her direction.

  “What’d he say?” Ben wanted to know as he tried to swallow a smile.

  “About the same thing that Dad overheard.”

  Ben snorted. “If you ask me, the whole fight isn’t about a car, it’s over Wynona Galveston.”

  “Galveston?” Donna picked up her water glass. “Dr. Galveston’s daughter?”

  “I think so,” Ben replied. “Anyway, I heard something about it from his cousin Roy.”

  “I wouldn’t trust anything Roy Fitzgerald said,” Nadine cut in.

  Shrugging, Ben said, “All I know is that Roy said Hayden’s supposed to be gettin’ engaged to her and she’s the daughter of a famous heart surgeon or something. Roy was bragging about how rich she was.”

  “Well it seems Hayden isn’t interested.” George glanced to the television where the sports scores were being flashed across the screen. Conversation dropped as he listened to news of the Oakland A’s and the San Francisco Giants, and Nadine was grateful that the subject of Hayden Monroe had been dropped. She picked up her plate and glass, intending to carry them both into the kitchen, when she caught a warning glance from her mother. See what I mean, her mother said silently by lifting her finely arched eyebrows. Hayden Garreth Monroe IV is way out of your league.

  * * *

  THE NEXT TIME she saw Hayden was at the lake on Sunday afternoon. Nadine and Ben had taken the small motorboat that Ben had bought doing odd jobs for neighbors to the public boat launch. They spent the afternoon swimming, waterskiing and sunbathing on the beach near the old bait-and-tackle shop on the south side of the lake.

  Several kids from school joined them and sat on blankets spread on the rocky beach while drinking soda and listening to the radio.

  To avoid a burn, Nadine tossed a white blouse over her one-piece suit and knotted the hem of the blouse under her breasts. She waited for her turn skiing and watched the boats cutting through the smooth water of the lake.

  From the corner of her eye she saw Patty Osgood and her brother, Tim, arrive. Patty carried an old blanket and beach basket. A cooler swung from Tim’s hand.

  “I didn’t think we’d make it!” Patty admitted as she plopped next to Nadine and began fiddling with the dial of the radio.

  “I wonder how she escaped,” Mary Beth Carter whispered into Nadine’s ear. “I thought Reverend Osgood preached that ‘Sunday is a day of rest.’”

  “Maybe he thinks hanging out at the beach is resting,” Nadine replied. Though she and Mary Beth were friends, they weren’t all that close. Mary Beth had an ear for gossip and an eye for the social ladder at school. She was already trying to break into the clique with Laura Chandler, and as soon as she was accepted by Laura, a cheerleader, and Laura’s crowd, Mary Beth would probably leave her other friends in her dust.

  Patty found a soft rock station and, humming along to an Olivia Newton-John song, began to smooth suntan oil onto her skin. “Your brother here?” she asked innocently, and Nadine bristled inside. Lately she’d had the feeling that Patty was interested in Ben, and had been searching out Nadine’s company just to get close to her brother.

  Patty tucked her straight blond hair into a ponytail and took off her blouse to reveal a pink halter top that, Nadine was sure, would have given the Reverend Osgood the shock of his life.

  “He’s in the boat,” Nadine said, though she suspected that Patty, already scanning the lake, knew precisely where Ben was.

  Her pretty lips curved into a smile at the sight of Ben’s little launch. “Umm. I wonder if he’d give me a ride.”

  “Probably.” Nadine turned her attention to the water. The day was hot and sunlight glinted on the shifting surface of Whitefire Lake. Several rowboats drifted lazily, as fishermen tried to lure rainbow trout onto their lines. Other, more powerful motorboats, sliced through the water, dragging skiers and creating huge wakes that rippled toward the shore.

  A candy-apple-red speedboat careened through the water at a furious pace. Nadine’s breath caught in her throat. Hayden was at the helm. Her throat closed in upon itself and she tried to ignore the funny little catch in her heartbeat as she watched him.

  Wrapping her arms around her knees and staring at the red boat as it streaked by in a blur, Mary Beth clucked her tongue. “So he’s back this summer.” Her eyes narrowed a fraction. “I thought he’d never show his face around here again.”

  “His family comes back every year,” Nadine pointed out, wondering why, once again, she felt the need to defend him.

  “I know. But after last summer, I thought he’d stay away.” Mary Beth and Patty exchanged glances.

  “Why?” Nadine asked, nudging a rock with her toe.

  “Oh, you know. Because of Trish,” Patty said with an air of nonchalance.

  “Trish?”

  “Trish London,” Mary Beth hissed, as if saying a dirty word. “You remember. She left school last year.”

  “She moved to Portland to live with her sister,” Nadine said, trying to decipher the silent code between the two girls. Trish London was a girl who was known to be fast and easy with the boys, a girl always on the edge of serious trouble, but Nadine had never heard Trish’s name linked with Hayden’s. In fact, she was certain that most of the rumors about Trish were gross exaggerations from boys who bragged about sexual deeds they’d only dreamed about. The rumor with Hayden was probably nothing more than malicious gossip.

  “You mean you don’t know why she left?” Patty asked innocently, though her eyes seemed to glimmer with spiteful glee.

  Nadine’s guts twisted and she wanted to hold her tongue, but she couldn’t suppress her curiosity. “I never thought about it.”

  “She was pregnant!” Mary Beth said, lifting her chin a fraction. “She went to Portland to have the baby and give it up for adoption without anyone from around here knowing about it.”

  “But—”

  “And the baby was Hayden Monroe’s,” Patty insisted, a cruel little smile playing upon her lips.

  “How do you know?”

  “Everybody knows! Hayden’s father caught him with Trish in the boathouse last summer. Garreth was furious that his son was with a girl from the wrong side of the tracks and he shipped Hayden back to San Francisco so fast, he didn’t even have time to say goodbye to her. Not that he probably wanted to. Anyway, a few weeks later, Trish moved to Portland. Very quick. Without a word to anyone. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what happened.” One of Patty’s blond eyebrows rose over the top of her sunglasses.

  Nadine wasn’t convinced. “Just because they were together doesn’t mean that—”

  Patty waved off her argument while glancing at her reflection in a hand mirror. Frowning slightly, she reached into her beach bag and dragged out a lipstick tube. “Of course it doesn’t mean that he’s the father. But Tim knows Hayden’s cousins, Roy and Brian. The Fitzpatrick boys told Tim that old man Monroe put up a ton of money to keep Trish’s family from talking.”

  “Roy and Brian Fitzpatrick aren’t exactly paragons of virtue themselves,” Nadine pointed out.

  “Believe what you want to, Nadine. But the story’s true,” Mary Beth added with a self-righteous smile. “And it doesn’t surprise me about Trish. She’s following in h
er mother’s footsteps and everyone in town knows about Eve London!”

  Nadine’s stomach turned over. Eve London had earned a reputation as the town whore. With three ex-husbands and several live-in lovers, she’d often been the talk of the town. Trish had grown up in her mother’s murky shadow.

  Patty touched the corner of her lips where she’d smeared a little lipstick. “But that’s old news. I heard that Hayden’s about to get engaged to some rich girl from San Francisco. I wonder what she would say if she found out about Trish.”

  “She’ll never know,” Mary Beth predicted.

  Patty lifted a shoulder. “She’s supposed to come and visit Hayden at the summer cabin. There’s always the chance that she’ll overhear some of the gossip.” With a wicked little grin, she reached for the radio again and fiddled with the dial. “I wonder what she’d say if she found out Hayden was a daddy.”

  “You don’t know that—”

  “Oh, Nadine, grow up!” Mary Beth interjected. “What is it with you? Why won’t you believe that Hayden Monroe made it with Trish?”

  “Maybe Nadine’s got a crush on the rich boy,” Patty said as she found a country station. Settling back on her blanket, she turned her attention to Nadine. “Is that it?”

  “I don’t even know him.”

  “But you’d like to, I’ll bet,” Mary Beth said. “Not that I blame you. Sexy, handsome and rich. Yeah, I can see myself falling for a guy like him.”

  Nadine had heard enough. She didn’t like the turn of the conversation and she didn’t want to believe any of Patty and Mary Beth’s gossip. The fact that her own mother had hinted about some sort of scandal revolving around Hayden just a few days before bothered her, but she’d lived in Gold Creek long enough to know that gossip swept like wildfire through the small town. Sometimes it was true, other times it was just people starting rumors to add a little spice to their own boring lives.

  Slinging her towel around the back of her neck, she walked to the edge of the dock, plopped down and dangled her feet over the edge until her toes touched the water. The sun was hot, intense rays beating against her scalp, the bleached boards of the deck warm against her rear end. Squinting, she watched as Hayden drove his boat flat-out, the engine screaming, the prow slicing through the water.