Lily Rose Read online

  When Jeff arrived at the Paris Grille—again driving the lumbering station wagon, telling Jenny that she was going to meet the girls for a bite—her heart sank. Toward the back she saw several booths occupied by some of the boys from the mixer along with a few local girls (even Amanda Brown!). Then Eric turned to her, with that alluring smile he’d first greeted her with, and Jeff could only think that here she was, with him. That was all that mattered. As she slid into the seat that he’d been saving for her, he draped his arm protectively across the back of the booth. Once again the room became just about the two of them.

  “I’m glad you came,” she said after a while.

  “How could I miss seeing the most beautiful girl in Paris again?” he replied with a lazy grin.

  “Have you ever been to the real Paris in France?” Jeff asked shyly.

  “Yeah, we used to go every year the week before Christmas. My mother loved going to the George V Hotel to see the decorations, and she loved shopping for presents on the Left Bank. She and my dad used to go to lots of parties while my brother and sister. . .” A troubling shadow fell over Eric’s face. “We would just stay in the hotel and eat,” he finished, but something had changed in his voice.

  “It’s great you have siblings, I always wanted brothers and sisters,” Jeff said, hoping to draw him out. “What are their names?”

  “I have an older brother, Christopher. He’s finishing up at Harvard.”

  “And your sister?”

  Eric took a heavy breath. “Her name was Mary. She would have been fifteen this year.”

  “Oh.” Jeff stared down at her hands. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay,” Eric said quickly. “I don’t mind talking about it.” He briefly relayed the details to Jeff in the monotone voice of someone who had to explain a family tragedy too often—three years ago Mary had been in a skiing accident; she’d hit her head and never regained consciousness. His mother, who had grown up in Norway and taught her children to ski as soon as they could walk, had never forgiven herself.

  “She’s become a totally different person,” Eric said. “Before the accident we used to talk a lot. But now she’s impossible to reach. She just sits around all day, drinking and taking pills to calm her nerves, she says. It’s like she’s a stranger.”

  “And your dad?” Jeff asked.

  Eric shook his head. “He’s always been busy with work, but now it’s like he doesn’t want to be around anymore. And with my brother away at school, it’s just me and Mom at home. If she’s really there at all.” He gave Jeff a small, sad smile. “But that’s enough about me. How about your family?”

  “Well, my dad’s not around, either. Literally.” For some reason Jeff felt like she needed to lay herself bare just as Eric had. She told him about the nights when her mother had cried, the days when she had walked the halls at school, hiding the truth that her father had abandoned them. “I don’t know where he is anymore,” she finished. “And I don’t know if I care to see him ever again.”

  All around them boys and girls were eating hamburgers, drinking milkshakes, talking and laughing. Suddenly Eric reached out and took Jeff’s hand in his own. It wasn’t like the night they’d met, when their simple handshake had thrown Jeff’s hormones into turmoil. The same heat was there, but this time there was something else—a shared connection that, for a completely different reason, made Jeff’s entire body tingle. Maybe someone else could really understand her.

  Someone selected a familiar slow song on the old-fashioned jukebox, and now the kids were pairing off. They danced, leaning into each other after days of travel, endless lectures about poverty, and polite, stuffy adult parties. Tonight all bets were off. It didn’t matter who was rich or poor, from Greenwich, Connecticut, or Paris, Kentucky. Time had stopped here.

  His hand never letting go of hers, Eric pulled Jeff onto the dance floor. He took her in his arms and held her as though they had been dancing together forever. Soon their bodies drew so close it seemed like they were hugging rather than dancing. Slowly Eric’s lips closed on Jeff’s, soft and deep, and they swayed in an almost hypnotic haze: two beautiful, young people wrapped up in one another. Jeff had never known happiness like this, and she didn’t want it to end.

  * * *

  Eric’s last day in Paris was Sunday. Since that Wednesday night at the Paris Grille, Jeff and Eric had spent almost every evening together. She had told her mother that she was busy with cheerleading practice or studying with her friends. To her friends, she said she had to help her mother out at the boutique after hours. What was happening between her and Eric felt enough like a dream, and Jeff was afraid that if anyone else knew about it, it would fade away altogether.

  She had no idea what Eric was telling his friends—they were probably ribbing him about his “Kentucky filly.” She had heard nasty stories about these kinds of flings. But what she and Eric had was special; she just knew it.

  Eric invited Jeff to the poverty tour’s last event, a fireside supper on Sunday night at Red Rose Farm, one of the oldest bloodstock farms in the region. Not only would the other boys be there, but so would some of the top horse breeders from the area, no doubt hoping to get some business from the boys’ wealthy fathers. Jeff was flattered to be invited—this was going to be no high school mixer.

  Since Eric had told her event was informal, Jeff was relieved she didn’t have to ask her mother to borrow another dress from the boutique. But that afternoon, when they were coming home from church, Jeff asked Jenny if they could stop by McAlpin’s for just a second.

  “I forgot my math textbook,” she explained.

  “I’ll just wait in the car,” Jenny said. “Don’t be too long.”

  Jeff rushed into the store. She knew every inch of the lingerie department because over the past two years she had worked in every department. Heading straight to the lacy white bras and panties, she hoped that none of the sales clerks she knew were there that day. She had never worn anything but a plain cotton bra and unflattering cotton panties, but not tonight. She paid in cash, hurried out of the store, and ran back to the old station wagon.

  “Did you find it?” asked Jenny.

  “Yes!” Jeff waved her school bag with the bra and panties tucked inside. Thankfully her mother started toward home without asking any more questions.

  That night, her new underwear hidden beneath a white angora sweater and crisp blue jeans, Jeff walked up the long drive lined with oak trees that led to the main house at Red Rose Farm. It was a Federal-style mansion of painted white brick with wood-shuttered windows, flanked by beds of red roses in their last bloom. In the sitting room, the boys and men were sharing some Kentucky bourbon and Rebel Yell whiskey. The only other female Jeff could see was an older woman elegantly dressed in black, sitting in a wheelchair, a handsome man standing protectively behind her. They must be the owners of the farm, she figured. Sternly watching from the side was a man dressed in neat work clothes—a servant, she presumed, acting as sergeant-at-arms this night to make sure the rich boys didn’t get out of hand.

  “Hi.” Eric materialized by her side. “You look great.”

  “So do you,” Jeff said. Like the other boys, he had opted for casual jeans, a cashmere sweater, and brown loafers.

  “You smell great, too,” he whispered into her ear, and then in front of everyone, he kissed her. The other boys were having such a grand time, though, they didn’t notice.

  The stern-looking man announced supper was ready and everyone filed into the dining room. On the old wooden table sat bowls of autumn’s reddest apples and bouquets of blood-red roses, and more roses were wreathed around the plates. Along the walls hung photographs of famous racehorses, including the most recent Kentucky Derby winner. After a meal of luscious beef stew and Kentucky corn bread, finished off with butterscotch pie topped with fresh whipped cream, the guests headed into the sitting room for more drinks by the fire.

  Eric held Jeff back and took her hand. “Come with me,” he said. />
  “Where are we going?” she asked.

  “Let’s explore.”

  After they went upstairs, though, Eric didn’t seem that interested in exploring. He checked the first door to make sure the room behind it was unoccupied and led Jeff into it. The room was spacious, with walls covered in what looked like ivory satin and adorned with oil paintings of majestic Thoroughbreds. The floor-to-ceiling windows, framed by burgundy velvet drapes, had a view of the curving front driveway. In the center of the room stood a dark oak, four-poster bed that had been turned down, revealing pure ivory sheets embroidered with tiny red roses and monogrammed with the farm’s crest. An enormous Oriental rug covered the floor, and the air smelled faintly of orange peels and roses. Jeff supposed that this was a guest room, although it was the nicest bedroom she had ever seen, better than the ones she had seen in the magazines she thumbed through as she waited for her mother to finish work at the boutique.

  Eric closed the door and pulled Jeff onto the bed. They leisurely kissed, lingering on each other’s lips and tongues. Eric let her long, soft hair slip through his fingers as he pressed his body hard against hers. Something inside of Jeff began to throb, a sweet, exquisite pain that made her breath quicken. Eric started to unbutton her jeans. He looked up at her, as if trying to confirm that this was what she wanted.

  “Jeff?” he asked.

  All she could do was nod as the ache in her belly continued to throb. Eric helped her take off her clothes until all she wore were her new lacy bra and panties. Thank the Lord she wasn’t wearing her cotton briefs.

  Eric stood back for a moment to gaze at her and a questioning look crossed his face. In a panic, Jeff wondered what about her body displeased him.

  “What happened here?” With a light finger he touched the faint, yellowing bruise on her thigh from when she had fallen during the pep rally a little over a week ago. It seemed like a lifetime had passed since then, before she had met Eric.

  “It’s nothing,” she stammered, then sucked in her breath as Eric knelt down and kissed the bruise with a tenderness she had never felt from any other boy.

  “Anna James Jefferson, you are the most beautiful girl I have ever seen,” he said in a husky voice.

  He continued to kiss his way up her body until, reaching her bra, he pushed her breasts out of the lacy cups and sucked her nipples until they were stiff. Then his hands traveled down to caress her bottom before he slipped off her panties. Jeff half turned away but couldn’t help peeking as Eric removed his own clothes. His body was as hard and chiseled as she had imagined. She liked touching his chest, but when he guided her hand lower, she hesitated.

  “I don’t know what to do,” she confessed, not wanting to tell him this was her first time.

  “Don’t worry,” he said, spreading her legs apart. “Just lie back.”

  He gently slid into her, moving back and forth with a slow but steady rhythm. Jeff couldn’t quite muffle her cry of pain, but fortunately either Eric didn’t hear or thought it was a sign of passion. And after a while, as she grew used to the deep, stroking motion, she started to enjoy the act. It made her feel alive.

  Their bodies glistening with sweat, Eric and Jeff became lost in each other. A strange feeling was building inside of Jeff and starting to overtake everything else. Her entire body clenched, and then an uncontrollable sensation came over her like warm, undulating waves, again and again. With a final thrust, Eric collapsed next to her. After a moment he reached for her and they lay in each other’s arms, their melded bodies cooling down together.

  “Do you really have to leave tomorrow?” Jeff asked.

  Eric kissed her forehead. “I wish I didn’t have to, but yes.”

  “I wish you could stay,” Jeff said. “At least long enough for the grass to turn blue in the spring.”

  Eric didn’t respond. In a while, Jeff rose to use the adjacent bathroom to clean up. When she came out, she found a nervous Eric dressed and sitting on the bed. “We should go back downstairs before anyone notices we’re missing,” he said.

  Reluctantly, Jeff agreed.

  In the sitting room, the boys were saying good night to the older Kentucky gentlemen, who by now had switched to sipping single-malt scotch and smoking Cuban cigars. One of the men said, “You’re a fine bunch of young men, even if you are Yankees. Tell your daddies John Henry Clayton the Third said so!” The boys laughed politely.

  Eric and Jeff quickly exchanged addresses and promised to call weekly, then Jeff headed out the door. Walking to her car in the moonlight, looking at the white fences and the gentle turning of the leaves to red and gold, she knew that she too had turned. She was no longer a little girl. She was a young woman, and she was in love for the first time.

  All she could think, as she drove away from Red Rose Farm, was that she had to see Eric Langvin again. She could hardly wait.

  Chapter 2

  TWO WEEKENDS BEFORE CHRISTMAS, McALPIN’S department store was bustling. In the fine china department where Jeff worked, sparkling crystal vases and gilt ornaments were flying off the shelves. Of course, it was just the time for her to get the stomach flu. She had thrown up that morning at home, and thought it was the chili dog and fries she’d eaten at the Paris Grille the night before, but whatever the cause, she knew it wasn’t going to be a good day.

  At lunch, since she didn’t feel hungry, she decided to call Eric. In the two months since he’d left, they’d talked at least once a week. Jeff would tell him about cheerleading practice and school parties, while Eric spoke about some fancy place called Brunswick Prep. Imagining him meeting up after school with pretty girls in expensive clothes, Jeff couldn’t help feeling jealous. Toward the end she would try to steer the conversation toward how they might see each other again, but Eric would become vague and say he had to get off the phone. It took all of Jeff’s self control to resist telling Eric that she loved him. He must feel the same, right? She hadn’t lost her virginity to him for nothing.

  Sometimes at night, she would run her hands over the worn sheets of her narrow twin bed, pretending they were the luxurious ivory bedding she had lain on with Eric. Closing her eyes, she’d move her hands to her own body. He’d stroked her here; he’d kissed her there. Her nipples were especially sensitive but she touched them anyway, remembering how he’d put his mouth on them. When she couldn’t stand it anymore, she slid a hand between her legs, trying to recapture the sudden surge of pleasure she’d felt with Eric. Each time she did, she missed him more than ever. She just had to hear his voice.

  Jeff went to the department store’s phone booth, put coins into the slot, and waited for the phone to ring.

  “Langvin residence,” a woman answered in a refined British accent.

  “This is Anna Jefferson calling for Eric. May I speak with him please?” Jeff used her most dignified voice.

  “Young Eric is not at home at the present, but I will certainly give him the message that you rang. Does he have your number?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Jeff said, wanting to end the conversation as quickly as possible.

  “Good day then, miss.”

  As Jeff hung up, her heart felt heavy. Why did she think Eric would be home on a Saturday? He was probably out with his friends—or, she shivered—some girl, driving around, grabbing a bite to eat, going to the movies. She yearned to know what he was doing at that moment without her, but knew she couldn’t call him again for a while. She would just have to wait and see how long it took for him to call her back.

  The rest of the day was a blur of wrapping gifts and trying to hold back her nausea. When she stepped through the front door that evening, the smell of the lasagna her mother had made for supper almost made her head straight for the bathroom.

  Jenny took one look at Jeff’s pale face and asked, “What’s wrong with you? Don’t you feel well?”

  Jeff flopped down on the worn living room couch and confessed, “I feel terrible.”

  Jenny tucked her into bed with soup and crackers, and
after nibbling a few, Jeff did feel a little better. But she was so exhausted that before she could take a sip of soup, she fell asleep, without thoughts of Eric or anything else.

  The next morning, Jeff begged off from going to church, telling Jenny that she needed to rest. Once alone, she lay back in bed and tried to remember when she’d last had her period. Definitely before the whirlwind week in which she’d met Eric, because she was relieved that it wasn’t going to be a problem. But since then?

  Jeff hadn’t thought much about her period since it had started when she was twelve, as it showed up faithfully every month. At the time, Jenny had given her a box of Kotex and a book called Becoming a Woman. “This book will tell you all the things you need to know, now that you’re a young lady,” she’d said. That was the extent of Jeff’s mother teaching her how a woman’s body functioned.

  Jeff had thrown the book in the corner and forgotten about it. When she’d told her friends, they’d laughed together over the words Becoming a Woman. Later, Jeff thought that becoming a woman meant falling in love and having sex, preferably in that order. Now that she’d slept with Eric, she definitely felt she was a woman. But was there more to that? As little as she knew about periods, Jeff did know that missing one could mean something monumental . . . something that could upend her life.

  She needed to see a doctor. Jenny had mentioned taking her to see their family physician that Jeff had known since she was knee high to a grasshopper, but she certainly wasn’t going to see that old geezer, or for that matter, take the chance of being seen by anyone in Paris. She’d have to make a trip to Lexington, and as soon as possible. Looking through the phone book, she found a women’s clinic and planned to call them first thing the next morning to make an appointment.