Confessions: He's The Rich Boy / He's My Soldier Boy

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.

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.”