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“Holy cow! I’ve got boobs.” Did I ever! They were falling out of the top of the dress for God and everyone to see. As short as the skirt was, it looked like my legs went on forever.
The problem was that Bunny’s little dress barely covered the essentials. I didn’t know whether to pull it up or pull it down. As for the rest of it, Bunny was right. I was gorgeous. Could I possibly be a swan?
“Your parents would have a cow if they could see you. You are one bitchin’ chick!” Bunny exclaimed.
She was right. Mama and Daddy would stroke out if they set eyes on me. I loved them dearly, really I did, but being a good girl was tiresome sometimes. I sympathized wholeheartedly with all the preachers’ kids I knew. Living in a fishbowl was hell.
“It shouldn’t take long for your transformation to hit the grapevine.” Bunny giggled, then went into her Captain Bligh impersonation. “Don’t touch a hair on your head. I’ll get dressed and we’ll get rolling.”
When Bunny was right, she was right. Being a foxy mama was quite a high. What was Charlie going to say? And why did I care? Could it be because I was obsessed with someone I couldn’t have?
Conversation ceased when we walked into the party. Guys I’d known since kindergarten stared at me, their mouths hanging open. Pretty cool, huh?
I was reveling in my new state of glamour when Charlie showed up.
“Hey, Sunshine. You’re looking mighty good,” he said, putting his arm around Bunny’s waist. It wasn’t a bad reaction, but it wasn’t especially good, either. What did I think he was going to do, ditch Bunny and declare his undying love for me?
Get real.
I’d driven to the party with Bunny, so I hoped I wouldn’t have to hitch a ride home. That was getting old. And seeing her with Charlie was even more depressing.
“Jazzy, I’m glad you came. I’ve been waiting for you.” Petey grabbed my hand and pulled me across the room. He was the only guy who was immune to my new attractions. The whole sexy thing was fun, but normalcy was good, too.
“I’ve got someone I want you to meet. My cousin is here from Dallas. I told you about him, remember?” Petey kept tugging on my hand. I could have easily pulled him to a halt, but everyone was staring. So I went into docile mode and followed him.
Petey halted in front of the most gorgeous guy I’d ever clapped eyes on. This person was related to Petey— band-geek Petey?
The hunk had dark hair and ice-blue eyes. Oh, wow, was that a deadly combo.
“Jazzy, this is my cousin Clint Whitworth. Clint’s going to be a sophomore at Southern Methodist.”
Only Petey would call SMU Southern Methodist.
“Clint, this is my friend Jazzy.” Petey was grinning as if he’d just won a jackpot. “Her name is really Jasmine but we all call her Jazzy,” he explained, and continued to stare at us as if he was expecting something exciting to happen.
“Miss Jasmine, you are beautiful,” the Adonis said, taking my hand and kissing my palm.
I was almost afraid I’d faint dead away. I didn’t know whether the dizziness came from lust or the waist-cincher that was restricting my blood flow.
“Let’s find a quiet place to get to know each other.” Clint guided me through the crowd to the pool, where we sat in lounge chairs and talked. We interrupted our conversation only to raid the buffet and dangle our feet in the water. It seemed we had everything in common. We enjoyed the same music, books, school subjects, and we even saw eye to eye on politics.
Clint told me he’d just finished his freshman year and that he planned to go to law school. When I explained I wanted to be an architect, he didn’t laugh. I even confided that I’d been drawing houses since I was in elementary school. Very few people were privy to the information that I got off on the idea of designing homes.
Although it was the 1970s, male chauvinism was alive and well in Meadow Lake, and women were not encouraged to step outside the few professions deemed acceptable. Even the school counselors said I should reconsider my choice. What did they know?
Clint, however, said he thought it was a great idea. And that alone sent him to the top of my favorite-people list.
This newfound comradeship was very cool. It felt like I’d known him forever. Petey grinned like a kid in a candy store every time he looked at us. Discretion wasn’t exactly his middle name.
“Cousin Petey is a matchmaker,” Clint said. “He’s been trying to introduce us for over a year. He claims we’re made for each other.”
“Really?” Sounds lame, I know, but what else could I say to his comment?
“Yeah, imagine that.”
What did that mean?
I glanced around and didn’t see either Charlie or Bunny. Darn it! “This has been great, it really has, but it looks like Bunny went off with Charlie so I need to hit up someone for a ride home.” I wasn’t hinting for him to take me home, honestly I wasn’t. Uh-uh.
“I’ll take you whenever you’re ready to go.”
I hated to admit my social shortcomings to a college guy, especially one with Paul Newman eyes. “Midnight is my curfew,” I finally admitted, although it took a few false starts for me to get it out.
“Oh.” Although he looked a bit nonplussed, he recovered quickly. “I’ll tell Petey we’re going.”
And that’s how we ended up parked out by the river in his new Datsun 240Z.
“Petey showed me this place. I thought since we had half an hour to kill, we could talk.”
If that was his euphemism for necking, it seemed like a great idea to me. I couldn’t think of anything I’d like better than to get into a good lip-lock with him. Obviously Charlie would be my first preference, but that wasn’t going to happen. Not now, not ever.
“Sure,” I said.
So there we were, sitting in the moonlight with the cicadas creating their own brand of soft music. It was romance at its best—if you discounted the damned stick shift between us. I leaned my head back against the soft leather seat and fantasized about what would happen next.
Guess what? Nothing happened, because Clint kept yakking on and on about freshman English.
Freshmen English! I was about to melt into a puddle of hormonal angst and he was analyzing Hemingway?
Enough was enough. If he wasn’t going to make the first move I’d have to take matters into my own hands.
Ignoring everything ladylike that Mama had tried to drill into my head, I launched myself at him.
It took about half a second to realize I’d made a terrible mistake.
As a virgin I wasn’t familiar with erotic sounds; however, even I knew that a yelp wasn’t a harbinger of lust.
After he disentangled our body parts, he planted a kiss on my forehead. Nope, that definitely wasn’t lust.
“Um, Jaz, um, there’s something I need to tell you.”
If it was possible to die from embarrassment, I was about to expire on the spot. By that time I had managed to wiggle back into my seat. Something was drastically wrong.
“What?”
He sighed as if the weight of the world was on his shoulders. “I’m sorry. I should’ve told you sooner.”
Oh, my God, he thought I was too skinny, or maybe he thought I was butt-ugly. Or worse, I had a stray piece of spinach in my teeth.
“Told me what?” I managed to squeak.
“I, uh…” He paused. “Crap, this is hard.”
This time I didn’t interrupt him.
“I have a good friend who’s a guy.”
So what? “Some of my best friends are guys.”
He stared at me in amazement and then lapsed into a heartfelt chuckle. “Sometimes I forget about life in a small town.” He gave me one of those looks that said hey, dummy, I’m saying something important here. “He’s a really good friend.”
Oh. My. God! If they gave out stupidity awards I’d have a blue ribbon. “You mean you’re…” Somehow I couldn’t finish the sentence, especially considering the fact that I’d almost ravished him.
“Yeah, I am.” He leaned over the console and looked me in the eye. “I’ve really enjoyed being with you tonight. I hope we can be friends.”
“Sure, I’d love to be your friend.” He was smart, he was funny, he was a great conversationalist—and unfortunately, this major dreamboat wasn’t interested in girls.
If that didn’t beat all!
Chapter 4
“Jazzy, is he as scrumptious as I heard?” Misty plopped down on the dock where I was sunbathing. “Can you believe that nerdy Petey has a cousin who looks like a movie star?”
She scooted to the edge of the dock and put her feet in the water. “And I was having dinner with my parents! Are you going to see him again and does he have any friends?”
Oh, yeah, he had friends. But I wasn’t planning to share that even with my good friend. Whether he told anyone or not was his business.
I glanced up from painting my toenails and gave a heartfelt sigh. “He was, uh—he was nice.” I shook my head, pondering the abominable luck I had with boys. That led me straight back to Charlie and my unrequited love. I hated that term. It sounded like something out of a Jane Austen novel.
Oh, Mr. Darcy, my love for you is unrequited.
“So, are you going to see him again? Is he coming back anytime soon?”
“Get a grip, Misty,” I snapped. Uh-oh, losing my cool was a big mistake, especially with our budding attorney. I was never grumpy, not even when it was that time of the month. Now Misty would definitely know something was up.
“What?” She had that crafty look I hated so much.
“Nothing.”
“Don’t you nothin’ me, girlie. You’re keeping a secret and I want to know what it is.”
“Hey, y’all.” Those dulcet tones came from Bunny.
I was saved by my bleached-blond friend. She strutted down to the dock in the shortest, tightest pair of cutoffs I’d ever seen. “Aren’t those uncomfortable?” I had to ask.
“Nope.” She slipped her sandals off and sat down on the dock. “Let’s go riding.”
Cruising was our favorite hobby. Of course, in Meadow Lake, cruising was one of the few things a kid could do for entertainment.
“Sounds good to me,” Misty said. “I don’t have to be home for dinner until seven.”
“And I don’t have to go to work until tomorrow.” In my summer gig as a lifeguard, I worked a couple of days a week. It was a hard job—yeah, right—but someone had to do it.
“Where’s Mary Alice?” Bunny asked.
“Her dad’s holding a revival meeting. She told me they’re going down to the river to do some baptizing,” Misty answered.
Bunny laughed. “I guess riding around with us is out, huh?”
“Yep.” Mary Alice missed quite a few things the rest of us called fun.
Even though it was hotter than hell, we had the convertible top down. We were willing to sacrifice anything in the name of being “cool,” and believe it or not, that included scorched thighs.
We circled the Pink Pig several times. At three o’clock in the afternoon the pickings were slim.
“I have an idea,” Bunny said.
It wasn’t so much what she said as how she said it. The way my skin prickled, I knew we were heading for a mess of trouble. But before my good sense could issue a stern warning, Misty piped up.
“What?” she asked.
Bunny wore her “we’re gonna be oh, so grounded if anyone catches us” grin.
“We’re going skinny-dipping in the park.”
“No!” I shouted, almost causing her to run into a stop sign.
“Why not?” Bunny put on her affronted act.
“Because my daddy’s the police chief and if we get caught I’ll be a hundred and ten years old before I’m allowed to leave the house again.”
“Don’t worry about it. I have everything under control.” She turned the car toward the park.
Misty didn’t say a word. She was probably wondering whether she could survive jumping from a moving vehicle, because if that girl got nabbed with her drawers down in a public place, her parents would hustle her off to a boarding school that would make Oliver Twist’s look plush.
Our friend batted away our objections as if they were pesky gnats. So off to the river we went, the three of us like lemmings to the sea.
The park had a long winding roadway between the golf course and the water. River Road was popular with the high-school crowd for a couple of reasons—most of which made my daddy cranky. The Indy 500 wannabes used it to hone their racing skills, and the “parkers” favored the secluded areas to do whatever it was lovers did, not that I was an expert on that, being a virgin and all.
For this particular exploit we had to have privacy. My bare butt was not appropriate viewing material.
Bunny pulled into the small lot adjacent to a picnic area at the end of the drive. At that time of day, in that heat, the chances of running into a family were pretty slight. Anyone with a lick of sense was inside enjoying the air-conditioning.
“You guys coming? You’ll love it.”
Bunny was out of the car and halfway down the hill before Misty and I could decide what to do. Darn it, she started flapping her arms up and down making clucking noises. Who could ignore a challenge like that?
“I hate being manipulated,” I muttered. And that’s what my friend was doing, in spades.
