Confessions

So how would Donna react to her only daughter’s request? Nadine’s hands felt suddenly sweaty. She could just drive Hayden into town, show up late at home and take the consequences, but she didn’t want to risk any more trouble.

“I just have to drop off the dog at the house,” she explained, casting him a glance.

“I’m not in a hurry.” But the tension in his body claimed otherwise. From the first moment she’d seen him screech into the sawmill yard, he’d looked like a caged tiger ready to pounce. His muscles were coiled, his face strained. He snapped his sunglasses back over his eyes.

“Trouble with your car?” she asked.

“You could say that.” He stared out the window, his lips compressed together as Nadine turned onto the main road into town.

“It’s...it’s a beautiful car.”

He flashed her an unreadable look through his sunglasses. “I told my old man to sell it.”

“But—it looked brand-new.” The Mercedes didn’t even have license plates yet.

“It is.”

“I’d kill for a car like that,” she said, trying to ease the tension that seemed to thicken between them.

His lips twitched a little. “Would you?” Quickly his head was turned and his attention was focused completely on her. Her hair. Her eyes. Her neck. Nothing seemed to escape his scrutiny and she was suddenly self-conscious of her faded cutoffs and hand-me-down blouse. Holding her chin proudly, she felt sweat collect along her backbone. Her pulse began to throb as he stared at her with an intensity that made her want to squirm.

“I— You know what I mean.”

“Well, my old man didn’t ask me to ‘kill’ for it, but close enough....” He rubbed the tight muscles in one of his shoulders.

“What do you mean?”

“You ever met The Third?”

“What?”

“Hayden Garreth Monroe ‘The Third.’”

She shook her head. “Not really. But I’ve seen him a couple of times. At company picnics.”

“Oh, right.” Nodding, he turned his gaze back to the dusty windshield. “I even went to a couple of those. A long time ago. Anyway, then you know that my father can be—well, let’s just call him ‘persuasive’ for lack of a better word. Whatever The Third wants, he usually gets. One way or another.”

“What’s that got to do with your car?”

“It comes with a price—not in dollars and cents, but a price nonetheless, and I’m not willing to pay.”

“Oh.” She wanted to ask more, to find out what he was really thinking, but he fell into brooding silence again and she knew by the sudden censure in his expression that the subject was closed.

The pickup cruised by dry, stubble-filled fields of grass and wildflowers, and Nadine turned onto a county road that wound upward through the hills to the little house by the river. Never before had she been embarrassed of where she lived, but suddenly, with this rich boy in the pickup, she was self-conscious. It was bad enough that he’d had to share the tattered seat of a banged-up twenty-year-old truck with a smelly dog, after riding in the sleek leather interior of a new sports car, but now Hayden would see the sagging front porch, rusted gutters and weed-choked yard.

She pulled up to the carport and said, “I’ll just be a minute....” Then, remembering her manners, she added, “Would you like to come in and meet my mom?”

He hesitated, but his polite upbringing got the better of him. “Sure.”

As Bonanza streaked across the dry grass, startling robins in the bushes, Nadine led Hayden up the steps to the back porch and through the screen door. “Mom?” she called, as they entered the kitchen.

A pan of apple crisp was cooling on the stove and the small room was filled with the scents of tart apples and cinnamon. Hayden took off his sunglasses, and Nadine was witness to intense blue eyes the shade of the sky just before dusk. Her heart nearly skipped a beat and her voice sounded a little weak and breathless when she pulled her gaze away and again called for her mother. “Are you home?”

“Be right down,” Donna shouted from the top of the stairs. Quick footsteps sounded on the bare boards. “What took you so long? Ben’s got the car and I’ve got groceries to buy and—” Donna, with a basket of laundry balanced on her hip, not a trace of her usual makeup and her hair tied back in a careless ponytail, rounded the corner and stopped short at the sight of her daughter and the boy.

Nadine said quickly, “I’ll pick up whatever you need at the market. I have to go into town anyway. I promised Hayden.” She motioned toward him. “This is—”

“Hayden Monroe?” her mother guessed, extending her free hand while still managing to hold on to the laundry. She forced a smile that seemed as plastic as the basket she was carrying.

“That’s right.” He shook her hand firmly.

“This is my mom, Donna Powell.”

“Nice to meet you,” he said, and her mother’s lips tightened at the corners as she drew back her hand.

“You, too.”

Nadine was mortified. Her mother was usually warm and happy to meet any of her friends, but despite her smile, Donna Powell exuded a frostiness she usually reserved for her husband.

“You should offer your friend something to drink,” she said, her suddenly cold gaze moving to her daughter. “And, yes, you can get the groceries. The list is on the bulletin board and there’s a twenty in my purse....” She glanced back at Hayden again, opened her mouth to say something, then changed her mind. “Don’t be long, though. I need the eggs for the meat loaf.” She set the laundry on the table and tucked an errant lock of hair behind her ear before walking crisply to the kitchen closet where she kept her handbag. From within the folds of her wallet, she pulled out some money and handed the bill to her daughter.

“I’ll come right back!” Nadine was grateful to be leaving. She grabbed a couple of cans of Coke from the refrigerator, then snagged the grocery list as they headed outside. Hayden said goodbye to her mother and paused in the yard to scratch Bonanza behind the ears before he yanked open the passenger side of the pickup and settled into the seat.

Nadine was so nervous, she could barely start the engine. “You’ll have to excuse my mom. Usually she’s a lot friendlier...but, we, uh, surprised her and—”

“She was fine,” he said. Again his blue eyes stared at her, and this time, without the sunglasses, they seemed to pierce right to her soul. She wondered what he thought of their tiny house by the river. Was he laughing at a cottage that must appear to him a symbol of abject poverty? He seemed comfortable enough in the truck, and yet she suspected he was used to riding in BMWs, Ferraris and limousines.

“Hold on to these,” she said as she handed him the cans of soda, then backed the truck around, heading into town. She knew she should keep the question to herself, but she’d always been quick with her tongue. Her brother Ben had often accused her of talking before she thought.

“What did you mean about a price you weren’t willing to pay—for the Mercedes?”

He flipped open both cans of cola and handed one to her. His gaze was fastened to the view through the windshield—dry, windswept fields. Propping an elbow on the open window, he said, “My father wants to buy my freedom.”

“How?”

His lips twisted into a cold smile and he slipped his sunglasses back onto the bridge of his nose. “Many ways,” he said before taking a long swallow of his drink. Nadine waited, but Hayden didn’t elaborate, didn’t explain his cryptic remark as he gazed through the windshield. She noticed his fingers drumming on his knee impatiently. It was as if she didn’t exist. She was just providing transportation. She could as well have been a gray-haired man of eighty for all he cared. Disgusted at the thought, she juggled her can of soda, steering wheel and gearshift, driving along the familiar roads of the town where she’d grown up.

“Where do you want me to take you?” she asked as they reached the dip in the road spanned by the railroad trestle. They were in the outskirts of Gold Creek now, and houses, all seeming to have been built from the same three or four floor plans in the late forties, lined the main road.

“Where?” he repeated, as if lost in thought. “How about Anchorage?”

“Alaska?”

“Or Mexico City.”

She laughed, thinking he was making a joke, but he didn’t even smile. “Don’t have that much gas,” she quipped.

“I’d buy it.” He said the words as if he meant every one of them. But he wasn’t serious—he couldn’t be. He rubbed a hand across the pickup’s old dash with the rattling heater. “How far do you think this truck would get us?”

“Us?” she said, trying to sound casual.

“Mmm.”

“Maybe as far as San Jose. Monterey, if we were lucky,” she said nervously. He was joking, wasn’t he? He had to be.

“Not far enough.”

He glanced at her, and through the mirrored glasses, their gazes locked for a second, before he snaked a hand out, grabbed the wheel and helped her stay on the road. “I guess if we wanted to go any farther, we should have just taken the damned Mercedes!”

She grabbed the wheel more tightly in her shaking hands. He was talking like a crazy man, but she was thrilled. She found his rebellious streak fascinating, his irreverence endearing.

Flopping back against the seat, he shoved his dark hair off his face. They drove past the park and hit a red light.

The truck idled, and Nadine slid a glance at her passenger. “Since we don’t have the Mercedes and since the truck won’t make it past the city limits, I guess you’re going to have to tell me where you want to go.”

“Where I want to go,” he repeated, shaking his head. “Just drop me off at the bus station.”

“The bus station?” She almost laughed. The boy who’d given up the keys to a Mercedes was going to buy a ticket on a Greyhound?

“It’ll get me where I have to go.”

The light turned green and she turned left. “And where’s that?”

“Everywhere and nowhere.” He fell into dark silence again. The bus station loomed ahead and she pulled into the lot, letting the old truck idle. Hayden finished his Coke, left the empty can on the seat and grabbed his jacket. Digging into the pocket, he pulled out his wallet. “I want to pay you for your trouble—”

“It was no trouble,” she said quickly.

“But for your gas and time and—”

“I just gave you a lift. No big deal.” She glanced up at his eyes, but saw only her own reflection in his mirrored lenses.

“I want to.” He pulled out a ten and started to hand it to her. “Buy yourself something.”

“Buy myself something?” she repeated, burning with sudden humiliation. All at once she was aware again of her faded cutoff jeans and gingham shirt and hand-me-down sneakers.

“Yeah. Something nice.”

He pitied her! The bill was thrust under her nose, but she ignored it. “I can’t be bought, either,” she said, shoving the truck into gear. “This was a favor. Nothing more.”

“But I’d like for you—”

“I’d like for you to get out. Now.”

He hesitated, apparently surprised by her change in attitude.

“If you’re sure—”

“I’m positive.”

Scowling, he jammed the bill back into the wallet. “I guess I owe you one.” Lines creased his forehead. “I don’t like being in debt to anyone.”

“Don’t worry about it! You don’t owe me anything,” she assured him, her temper starting to boil. For a minute, with all his talk about driving away from Gold Creek, she’d thought he’d shown an interest in her, but she’d been wrong. Humiliation burned up her cheeks. What a fool she’d been!

“Thanks for the ride.” He opened the door and hopped to the dusty asphalt.

“No problem, prince,” she replied, then stepped on the gas before he had a chance to close the door. She didn’t care. She had to get away from him. The old truck’s tires squealed. Mortified, she reached over and yanked the door shut, then blinked back tears of frustration. What had she been thinking? That a boy like that—a rich boy—would be attracted to her?

“Idiot!” she told her reflection, and hated the tears shining in her eyes and the points of scarlet staining her cheeks. She took a corner too quickly and the truck skidded a little before the balding tires held. “Forget him,” she advised herself but knew deep inside that Hayden Monroe wasn’t the kind of boy who was easily forgotten.

Chapter Two

NADINE’S MOTHER WAS waiting in the kitchen. Running a stained cloth over the scarred cupboard doors, Donna glanced over her shoulder as Nadine opened the door. She straightened and wiped her hands as Nadine set the sack of groceries on the counter. The scent of furniture polish filled the room, making it hard to breathe.

“Running with a pretty rich crowd, aren’t you?”

“I’m not running with any crowd.” Nadine dug into the pocket of her cutoffs, found her mother’s change and set four dollars and thirty-two cents beside the sack.

“So how’d Hayden Monroe end up in our truck?”

“I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Nadine admitted.

“I thought you took your father to the mill.”

“I did.” As she began to unpack the groceries, she gave her mother a sketchy explanation of how she’d met Hayden. Donna didn’t say a word, just listened as she folded her dust rag and hung it inside the cupboard door under the sink.

“And he just left a brand-new Mercedes in the lot of the mill?” She twisted on the tap and washed her hands with liquid dish detergent.

“Yep.”

Shaking the excess water from her fingers, she said, “You know, it’s best not to mingle with the rich folks. Especially the Monroes.”

“I thought the Fitzpatricks were the people to avoid.”

“Them, too. They’re all related, you know. Sylvia Monroe, Hayden’s mother, is Thomas Fitzpatrick’s sister. They’ve had money all their lives—and lots of it. They don’t understand how the other half lives. And I’ll bet dollars to doughnuts your friend Hayden is just the same.”

Nadine thought of the ten-dollar bill Hayden had tried to hand her and her neck felt suddenly hot. But her mother probably didn’t notice her embarrassment. Donna was already busy cracking eggs into a bowl of hamburger, bread and onions.

“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 Nadine 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.