Gabrielle's Bully (Young Adult Romance) (5 page)

She started yanking the same old cutesy dresses off the hangers, but my mother headed for another rack. She was the one who found it.

It was emerald green, simple, tailored, the only fancy touches the see-through, billowy chiffon sleeves, and the row of rhinestone buttons down the front.

As soon as I put it on in the dressing room, I knew I had to have it. I looked beautiful in it, like a model in a perfume ad. The color enhanced my hair and eyes, the covered belt emphasized my small waist. The material was soft, clinging, feminine. Oh, it was lovely.

I looked at the price tag and my heart sank. The dress cost $75.00.

I walked outside to the standing mirror on the selling floor. Everybody stared at me. It was obvious from their reaction that they knew this was it too.

I looked despairingly at my mother. “Seventy-five dollars,” I said.

Barbara was crestfallen, and the clerk chimed in with how well made it was and certainly worth the price. She didn’t have to sell me.

Mom walked over to me and looked at my face in the mirror, the price tag, and my face again. “We’ll take it,” she said.

Barbara yahooed and I felt a big smile splitting my face. Mom was great. I knew I would probably be working this one off for years to come, but it would be worth it.

“You won’t be sorry,” I babbled. “I’ll get a lot of use out of it, I’ll wear it to everything. I’ll get married in it if you want.”

“I don’t think that will be necessary, Gabrielle,” my mother said dryly as the salesgirl carefully wrapped it in tissue and put it in a box. No tossing items in plastic bags at Tricia’s Bridal World. Not at seventy-five smackers a clip. “Just let’s not tell your father about it until he’s had dinner.”

I walked out of the store with the box tucked under my arm like a secret treasure.

* * *

The week seemed endless. I was convinced that Saturday would never come. When I saw Heath in class, he smiled his almost smile at me. On Friday, he waited in the hall for me after the bell. The next period was lunch for both of us, so there was no hurry to get on to another class.

“I’ll see you at eight tomorrow night?” he asked, as if I might have changed my mind.

No way. “Eight o’clock,” I said.

I wondered if he would walk me to the cafeteria, but he just nodded and moved on.

Still shy. Well, that made two of us.

* * *

Barbara was almost as excited as I was on the night of the dance. She was going to the movies with Mike, but had told him to pick her up at my house at seven-thirty.

She arrived an hour before that with an assortment of jewelry and makeup sufficient to stock a small store, in case I needed to “borrow” anything. My father shook his head when he saw what she was carrying and said that it was enough to outfit the Rockettes for a year.

“I have to say one thing for old Heathland,” she mused as she watched me struggling into my slip. “He doesn’t fool around with movies or bowling, he goes straight to the major leagues. The country club, my dear. I’ve yet to see the inside of the place. I’ll have to speak to Michael about that.” She examined the chipped polish on one fingernail. “What time do you have to be home?”

I lifted the dress from my bed. “Midnight. It was a compromise. My father wanted eleven, and I wanted one.”

“Thank God for your mother,” Barbara said. “If it were up to your old man you’d be locked in a tower like Rapunzel.”

I was ready to go at seven-thirty when Mike came for Barbara. She told me to stay upstairs because if Mike saw me he might decide he was dating the wrong girl. Fat chance. Everybody knew he was crazy about Barbara.

I looked at myself in the mirror, and wondered what Heath would think of me. My hair was drawn up and back to reveal Barbara’s drop pearl earrings. I wore just a touch of lipstick and mascara, and the fine gold chain with a tiny diamond that my parents had given me for my sixteenth birthday. The dress looked perfect with sheer stockings and slender heeled shoes. I didn’t worry about the hairdo or the heels because Heath was so tall. It was a relief to know I could be with a boy without scrunching down to appear smaller or sticking to flats. And, in that dress, for the first time I could see what my mother meant about my height being an asset. Barbara could never carry it off.

My mother came in and handed me a cup of tea, smiling tenderly. “Wait ‘till your father sees you.” She set her own mug on my mirrored dresser tray, and fussed with the skirt, tugging it around my legs. Then she straightened and put her hands on my shoulders, blinking rapidly, her smile trembling on her lips. “You are going to be a beauty like my mother,” she said. “She was tall, like you, and had that same lovely hair. If you want to know what your grandmother Dillon was like, all you have to do is look in the mirror.” She turned abruptly and left the room.

I stood still, moved by her little speech. She rarely mentioned her mother, who had died from blood clots in the lungs after the birth of my Uncle Leo. My mother had been ten. We had a few pictures of her, one clear one, which showed her in her early thirties, a year before she died. It was a black and white shot, enough to see the similarity of her features to mine, and her height.
 

My mother remembered her younger, and in color.

When I went downstairs a few minutes later, my father was in the den watching the news with Mom.

He looked up and said, “Ellie, who is this dazzling creature? She can’t be the same Gaby who was wearing my sweatshirt this afternoon.” He stood and put one arm around my mother and one around me. “I’m quite a lucky fellow, to be living with two such beautiful girls.”

My mother said, “Go on back upstairs, Gaby. I’ll call you when Heath comes.”

As I left the room I heard my father say in a funny, uneven voice, “She’s growing up so fast.”

* * *

I jumped a foot when the doorbell rang. My palms were wringing wet and I wiped them on my quilt before I picked up my purse.

I’ll never forget the look on Heath’s face as I came down the stairs. He was standing in the hall, watching me descend. He didn’t say a word, but he didn’t have to. It was all there in his eyes.

I couldn’t believe how handsome he looked. Somehow the clipped hair and erect bearing that made him seem out of place at school went very well with the navy blazer and gray slacks he was wearing. He had a square white box in his hands.

His father was standing behind him, a distinguished- looking man with gray hair, older than my parents.

Heath introduced everybody, sounding like an etiquette book. I realized that part of what made him seem different was that he was more grown up and mature than the other boys I knew.

He handed me the box. “This is for you, Gaby.”

It was a single dewy white camellia on a bed of tissue paper. My mother took it and pinned it in my hair.

“Come along, son,” Heath’s father said. “Lois is waiting in the car.”

My mother picked up on that, and I knew she would ask me about Lois later. Oh, well. Heath’s mother was dead, after all. I wouldn’t say that his parents were divorced before she died. Mom might never find out.

Heath helped me into my coat, and we said goodbye to my parents and followed Mr. Lindsay outside.

The car was big and square, not the one Roger drove but some foreign model I didn’t recognize. Lois was a dark shape in the front seat, exuding perfume. She said hello as we got in the back, and then we were on our way.

The drive was short, just to the other side of town. It felt strange to sit next to Heath in the dark. He turned to me and whispered, “I have my license, but I thought your parents would like it better if we went with my father.”

He was right. I doubted very much if I would be accompanying him on this little adventure if my parents hadn’t heard that his father was going. That seemed to reassure them that their precious darling was in good hands. The way they immediately trusted other adults amazed me. They didn’t know Heath’s father. He could have been Bluebeard. Their logic defied comprehension.

The country club was brightly lit. There was a long drive past rolling lawns and elaborate gardens, and attendants to park your car when you pulled up at the door. I had passed the entrance many times, but had never been inside the gates. My parents weren’t members.

One of the men in uniform took Mr. Lindsay’s car, and we went up the wide white steps, under the overhanging portico, and through the massive glass doors.

Inside, a huge chandelier illuminated us as we stood on a patterned Oriental carpet that covered most of the marble floor in the hall. A hatcheck girl took our things, and the pause gave me a chance to look at Lois. She was a very pretty champagne blonde, much younger than Heath’s father. I’m bad with ages once people get past twenty, but I would guess her at about thirty. Heath’s father was fifty-five, at least. Once again, I felt a stab of sympathy for Heath. I tried to imagine my father with a girlfriend who was closer to my age than his, and couldn’t do it.

The band was already playing, and couples were on the dance floor. The dining area consisted of an array of small tables with round lace cloths. Each one had a crystal vase of fresh flowers and a hurricane lamp with a candle inside to cast a romantic glow. The people were all well dressed, beautiful. It was like an enchanted fairyland.

I was relieved to see that we were seated by ourselves across the aisle from Heath’s father and Lois. I wanted to be alone with Heath, and also didn’t relish the thought of trying to make conversation with Mr. Lindsay. He looked like the President of General Motors or the Chairman of the New York Stock Exchange, and I wouldn’t know what to say.

“It’s all so lovely,” I said to Heath after we sat down. “Have you been here before?”

Heath shook his head. “My father joined when we moved here, and he’s been bugging me to come with him to one of these things, but I never did.” He looked across the table at me, his eyes shining in the flickering candlelight. “I didn’t know anyone I wanted to ask to go with me.”

That comment made me glow like the candle between us. He had asked
me
. And his directness surprised me. Most boys would try to be cool about it and give the impression they had lots of dates.

Heath called the waiter and asked for two Cokes, and we ordered dinner. Most of the dishes on the menu were unfamiliar, but I muddled my way through it with shrimp cocktail and prime rib. I didn’t care what I ate anyway.

As soon as the waiter left, Heath asked me to dance. My heart began to pound. I hoped I wouldn’t trample on his feet.

He took my hand and led me to the floor. When I stepped into his arms my head only came to his shoulder, which was a nice feeling. He smelled wonderful, too, clean and . . . manly.

He knew how to dance. He led strongly, sort of pushing my feet with his, and was remarkably easy to follow. I had been worried about dancing to this music, which was a far cry from the blaring rock numbers which were featured at our school dances. I had always thought of this type of music as the sort of thing old ladies with afghans on their knees listened to on
Lawrence Welk
. But I found I was enjoying it, drifting along, Heath’s arms tight and warm about me. I didn’t think about tripping over him, or anything else. The song was
Moon River
, which never failed to make me think of a small boat sailing peacefully into the sunset, like Henry Hudson’s
Half Moon
beginning that last voyage from which it never returned.

Heath gradually pulled me closer as we danced, and I pressed my cheek against the coarse material of his jacket, closing my eyes.

The band stopped playing and took a break. Heath and I stood looking at each other in the middle of the floor, his hands still clasping my waist.

“You’re a good dancer,” I said softly.

“They made us take ballroom dancing at the Academy,” he said, leading me back to our table. “I never thought I’d use it.” He smiled. “It was pretty embarrassing, all of us guys dancing with one another.”

I laughed. He pulled out my chair and I sat in it.

Heath walked to his side of the table and sat too. “I can’t do the dances the kids at school do, but if you want a waltz, a tango, a mambo, or a cha-cha, I’m your man.”

“I’ll teach you the other stuff,” I said. “It’s mostly just jumping around, anyway.” The mention of school had reminded me uncomfortably of Jeff Lafferty, and Heath saw it in my face.

“Gaby, what is it?”

I felt a little thrill every time he said my name. “I can’t forget what I did that day outside the gym with Jeff,” I blurted. “I still feel terrible about it. Are you sure you have forgiven me?”

He took my hand and separated the fingers with his. “Of course. I know Jeff Lafferty is a force to be reckoned with at your school.”

He always referred to it as “your” school to me, as if he didn’t belong there. “You reckoned with him, all right,” I said. “I’ll bet that’s the only time His Imperial Highness has been decked.”

Heath shrugged. “There’s a first time for everything.” He didn’t seem particularly proud of what he’d done.

“I guess you took boxing at the Academy, too,” I said.

He nodded. “Yup. They taught us about everything, except life.” He turned my hand over and studied the palm, as if about to tell my fortune. “Nobody taught us about life.”