Marriage In Name Only

by Doreen Owens Malek

  The woman waved as the couple climbed into a van and the man started the motor.

  “Joe and Joanie Jensen, sounds like a British comedy team,” Ann said to Heath as he joined her.

  “Yeah, I know, but they’ve been good to me. Joe took me on when I was just a sophomore in high school, didn’t even have working papers, didn’t know a thing. I’ve been here ever since.” He took her hand as naturally as he had kissed her and led her around to the side of the building.

  “Are you the only ones who work at night?”

  “Actually, the place closes at six. They own the marina, so they’re here after hours to do paperwork and bookkeeping, stuff like that. I come in some nights to finish whatever repairs they didn’t get to during the day, and sort of clean up, you know?”

  Ann nodded. She didn’t even care what he was saying, his presence was so overwhelming. He stopped short in front of a huge Harley-Davidson chained to a cement post and said, “You ever been on one of these?”

  Ann shook her head.

  “I didn’t think so,” he said dryly. “Not exactly the mode of transportation favored by the country-club set, is it?”

  Ann surveyed the motorcycle warily.

  “We can just take a walk if you’d rather not get on it,” he said, responding to her expression.

  “No, it’s all right. I want to try it. What do I do?”

  “Just climb on behind me and hang on tight to my waist,” he replied.

  “I think I can do that,” Ann said, blushing.

  “Yeah, I’ll bet you can,” he replied, laughing. He released the chain and then sat on the bike, kicking it into life. Then he unsnapped a helmet from the crossbar and handed it to her.

  “Put this on,” he said to her.

  “Where’s yours?”

  “That is mine. I wasn’t expecting company. I’ll get another one for you tomorrow. Come on aboard.” He held out his hand and she took it confidently.

  Ann felt a glow as she climbed onto the bike and wrapped her arms around Heath’s waist. He was getting her a helmet. There would be more times like this.

  “Okay back there?” he said, turning his head.

  “Fine.”

  “Where to?”

  “I don’t care,” Ann said, and she didn’t.

  They roared off down the incline from the marina to the street, and when Heath reached the road he opened up the bike, traveling at a rate of speed that made the wind whistle in Ann’s ears and the nighttime scenery merge into a blur. She leaned forward and put her head against the back of Heath’s shoulder, closing her eyes and just enjoying the sensation of his warm, muscular body under her hands. When she finally felt the bike slow down she was almost sorry, raising her head to see that Heath was pulling into a clearing above the bay. They were on a height looking out toward the causeway bridge, which twinkled with strings of lights in the warm and fragrant darkness.

  “It’s so pretty,” Ann said as he helped her off the bike. “How did you know about this spot? I’ve lived on Lime Island all my life and have never been here.”

  “I drive around a lot,” he answered shortly. He untied the sweatshirt from his waist and spread it on the ground for her to sit upon in comfort. The innate gallantry of the gesture pleased her, and she sat with great ceremony, curling her legs under her.

  “Where are we?” Ann asked.

  “The hills above Port Lisbon. That’s the commercial dock area down below, where you see the boats.” He lay back on the grass and folded his hands behind his head, staring up at the stars. She could just see the white bandage near his thumb, smaller now. He had replaced the gauze pack from the hospital with a square of white tape.

  Ann waited for him to speak, certain that he would, but curiously not anxious to rush him. Normally she was one of those people who charged in to fill the gap when a silence fell, but already she knew that with Heath, the situation was different.

  He was not a talker.

  He sat up suddenly and she could tell that he was looking at her, even though all she could see in the dim and filtered moonlight was his clean profile.

  “Princess, I have to tell you the truth here,” he said quietly. “I don’t want to scare you, but I’ve never felt like this before, and I want to make sure you feel the same before this goes any further.”

  Ann held her breath, listening.

  “Ever since we met on your father’s boat, I’ve felt so drawn to you... like I have to be with you. Obviously I was fighting it the first day—I didn’t want to make a fool of myself. It was happening so fast, so strong, and I know I have nothing to offer somebody like you.”

  “That isn’t true,” Ann protested. He held up his hand to stop her.

  “Let me finish. When you came to see me tonight, I realized that you must be feeling the same thing.”

  “I am,” Ann said softly.

  “Okay. Then you should know about me. You’re going to hear things from people—Lime Island is small and Port Lisbon is even smaller. Even though you didn’t go to school here, you’re going to be around all summer and Luisa Sanchez, who lives two blocks away from me, works in your house. I want you to know the facts.”

  “All right.”

  He sighed and stared off into the distance. “My father is the town drunk. He hasn’t worked at all in about ten years, lives off welfare and has a buzz on by about eleven in the morning. In the afternoon he passes out on the sofa and gets up to stagger around a few hours in the evening before crashing into bed. Or in a chair, or on the floor. Whatever’s handy.”

  Ann said nothing.

  “His daddy was a full-blooded Seminole, and he says it’s the Indian blood in him that makes him drink, but I think he’s just a lazy bastard who likes to lap up the sauce. As for my mother, she took off when I was nine, about the time my father really started to go downhill. I have no idea if his decline was the cause or the result of her leaving. We don’t know where she is, and I don’t care. Before she left she was an embarrassment, anyway, the friendly type, if you get my drift. She was especially friendly to anyone passing through who might have a few bucks to spend on her. I guess she wasn’t getting much attention from the old man, but it’s all water under the bridge now.”

  He was relaying all this in a dispassionate voice, obviously unwilling to be the object of sympathy, but Ann couldn’t help saying, “But who took care of you when she left? You were only a little boy.”

  “My older sister did what she could when she was still home. She would have been twenty-five now. She got into drugs, easy enough to do in my neighborhood, and wound up going to Miami to support her habit. She died of an overdose about ten months ago.”

  Although Ann had already gotten most of this from Amy, hearing it come from his mouth as though he were discussing the weather had a chilling effect on her. She sat in silence for so long that he finally said flatly, “If you’re sorry you came up here with me, I’ll take you home now.”

  Ann ran to fling herself on him, wrapping her arms around his torso and burying her face against his chest. His arms came around her immediately in response, and she heard him sigh, whether in relief or gratitude at her reaction it was impossible to say.

  “You know,” he said above her head, with a catch in his voice, “you should be more careful. You don’t really know me, Princess. I could have brought you up here to rape and murder you.”

  “Ever since I saw your face when you locked the door of the office at Jensen’s garage, I wasn’t afraid of you,” Ann replied softly. “Only of what I might do because of the way I feel.”

  His grip tightened and she felt him kiss the top of her head lingeringly.

  “Shouldn’t I tell you something about me now?” Ann inquired comfortably, closing her eyes.

  “I already know about you. Henry Talbot is your father, that’s enough.”

  “Don’t you want to know if I have a boyfriend?”

  “If you did, you now have a new one,” he said confidently, adjusting h
is position to draw her even closer.

  Ann giggled. He might be insecure about his family’s varied problems, but regarding his appeal to women he knew that he was on firm ground.

  “My friend Amy says that all the girls in Palm High were after you,” Ann said.

  “Who the hell is Amy?”

  “We go to Winfield Academy together. Her cousin, Carol Brady, graduated with you.”

  “Carol Brady?”

  “She was on the cheerleading team. Her father runs the hardware store in Laguna.”

  “Oh, yeah. Long brown hair, glasses, big mouth.”

  “That’s Carol.”

  “Well, don’t believe everything you hear. People exaggerate. I was never with anybody like you, that’s for sure.”

  Ann sat up and took his hand, lightly tracing the calluses on his palm with her index finger. “But you’ve had lots of experience, and I haven’t had any,” she said.

  “How old are you, Princess?” he asked quietly, after a thoughtful pause.

  “Seventeen. I’ll be eighteen in January.”

  He sighed heavily. “That’s what I thought. You’re underage in this state.”

  “You won’t stop seeing me!” Ann said in a panic, clutching his hand.

  “No, no,” he said, pulling her into his arms again. “We just have to go slow and be careful.”

  “How slow?” she asked, running her lips along the firm line of his throat, feeling powerful and womanly with newfound desire. “How careful?”

  He rolled her under him and kissed her wildly, until she was sinking her fingers into his lush hair and wrapping her legs around his hips, urging herself against him. He finally pushed her away and stood abruptly, walking a short distance to lean against a nearby tree, breathing harshly.

  “This is going to be tougher than I thought,” he said at length, when he was under control again.

  “I know I’m not helping,” Ann said, not quite ashamed of herself. “I can’t keep my hands off you.”

  “The feeling is mutual.” He sat a few feet away from her and said, “I have to ask you a question.”

  “Anything.”

  “Did you call Jensen’s earlier tonight and ask for me?”

  “That was my friend Amy. I wanted to make sure you were there and I was nervous about calling myself.”

  “Why?”

  “I thought you might recognize my voice.”

  “I would have, I think. But why didn’t you just admit that it was you?”

  “I wanted the chance to back out if I got cold feet.”

  “I’m glad you didn’t, Princess.”

  “So am I.” She hesitated a moment and then said, “Why do you always call me ‘princess’?”

  “Because that’s what you look like to me, all golden hair and big blue eyes, creamy skin. Like what’s her name... with the dwarfs. Snow White.”

  “Snow White had black hair,” Ann said laughing. “At least in the movie, she did.”

  “Well, then, Sleeping Beauty. Or that other one in the tower, Rapunsa.”

  “Rapunzel.”

  “Right. I know she was a blonde—I saw the cartoon.” He was laughing with her. He stood, pulled Ann to her feet, and enfolded her tenderly.

  “What are we going to do, Rapunzel?” he said into her ear. “I would go over to your house and talk to your father man to man, if I thought it would do any good....”

  “Promise me you won’t do that, Heath!” Ann cried, seizing his arms. “Promise me!”

  “All right, Annie, all right. Take it easy.”

  “You don’t know what he’s like. He’ll do something awful to you, I know he will. You have to believe me.”

  “I believe you. I believe you. Relax. Whew! Your old man must be some piece of work.”

  “I’m supposed to cover his name with glory by marrying some millionaire. He will regard it as a failure on his part if I wind up with anything less.”

  “Like me, for example.”

  “I didn’t mean it that way. I’m just trying to tell you that talking to him reasonably won’t work. I’ve tried it for years. My older brother has been going crazy trying to live up to the Talbot name since he was born. It’s worse for him, being a boy, because he has to inherit the business and prove himself worthy to be chairman of the board.”

  “And all you have to do is marry well?”

  “You got it.”

  “I didn’t know you had a brother.”

  “He lives in Massachusetts with his mother, my father’s first wife. He’s in college now, spending the summer as an intern at the Harvard Business School. Usually he’s down here this time of year.”

  “So I guess this discussion means that we have to sneak around, huh?” Heath said bluntly.

  “We have no choice. Amy will help, she’s very clever. Speaking of Amy, I have to get to her place by midnight, that’s her curfew. Her parents will be back home by then and I’m supposed to stay the night at her house.”

  “Where does she live?”

  “Cocoa Boulevard, by the golf course. Her family is moving to Largo in the fall.”

  “I’ll drop you off there,” Heath said.

  Ann moved back to look at him. “When will I see you again?” she asked him.

  “I’m off Tuesday night,” he said. “Can you meet me in the parking lot of the Lime Island Inn? So many people come and go there, we won’t attract any attention. We’ll take a ride out of town and drive someplace where nobody will see us.”

  “Eight o’clock?” Ann said.

  “Seven. That will give us more time together.” He kissed her forehead and then said, “Come on, Princess, back up in the saddle again. I have to get you back to town.”

  Returning to Port Lisbon with her arms planted securely around Heath’s middle, Ann knew she was the happiest she had ever been in her life.

  * * * *

  During the next six weeks Heath spent every waking minute he wasn’t working with Ann. She, in turn, spent sleepless nights thinking up excuses to explain her absences to her parents, called on friends who hadn’t heard from her in months to have them cover for her dates with Heath, and even invented a part- time job in Laguna to account for some evenings away from home. She knew she was pushing the limit when her mother began to acquire that “worried” look, common to all parents who suspect their teenage offspring of duping them. But Ann was ecstatic and walking on clouds, and so, deliberately ignored the warning signs.

  Reality would not dare interrupt her dream.

  She and Heath covered the Keys on his bike, playing pool and pinball and miniature golf, dancing in out-of-the way joints and eating in roadside cafes, generally having a wonderful time. Ann found Heath endlessly interesting; he had led a completely different life from the one she knew and she never tired of listening to his stories. He kept her on the move, because too much time spent alone was dangerous. She was wildly infatuated with him physically, in love for the first time and eager to experiment. He, of course, was more experienced, but also young and in love, and as the broiling summer days passed, his defenses began to weaken and they came closer and closer to the point of no return.

  Ann was preparing to leave for her bogus job one evening when her father called her into his study. She knew she was in trouble when she saw her mother hovering anxiously in the hallway and Henry Talbot wearing his no-nonsense, Chief-Executive-Officer-of- ScriptSoft look. Ann walked meekly behind him into the paneled den and sat in the chair he indicated across from his desk.

  “What is it, Daddy?” she asked innocently.

  “Don’t bat your eyelashes at me, young lady. That may work with your hot-blooded, swamp-trotter boyfriend, but it will cut no mustard in this room.”

  Ann could feel the perspiration begin to trickle down her legs and into her shoes.

  “What do you mean?” she said quietly.

  “I mean that I know you do not have a job in Laguna. I also know that you have abused my trust, not to mention your mother�
�s trust, by inventing stories to explain your whereabouts while you’ve been flitting all over these islands with that grease monkey straight from the trash heap—Heath Bodine.”

  “Heath isn’t trash.”

  “I don’t care what he is, young lady, he is not for you. I know his father. I know his family. A worse bunch of layabouts, substance abusers and mendicants never lived. And you have taken up with the very flower of the next generation.”

  “You can’t stop me from seeing him.”

  “Oh, I beg to disagree. I know where you’ve been going, who you’ve been spending time with—”

  “You’ve been spying on me?”

  “You’re my child, Ann, I have to look out for you.”

  “What did you do, hire a private detective?”

  “I already had security men working for my business. It was easy enough to assign them elsewhere.”

  Ann stared at him until he looked away.

  “I love him, Daddy,” she said desperately.

  “You do not love him—the very idea is preposterous. You come from one of the finest families on this island and he.. .well, it doesn’t merit consideration. I grant you that he is a handsome boy and possesses a certain raffish charm, that’s apparent even to me. But I will not have you throw away your future on a person without education, breeding or the slightest chance of ever making a decent living.”

  “That isn’t true!” Ann protested. “Heath is talented and has lots of plans—”

  “I am not going to discuss this with you any further, Ann!” her father said abruptly, interrupting her. “You are not to see that Bodine boy again. If I find out that you have disobeyed me, I promise you that the consequences for this young man will be dire.”

  “What would you do?” Ann whispered, her fingers gripping the seat of her chair, her eyes huge.

  “You would be wise not to push me to the point of finding out,” her father said crisply. “I trust we understand each other. You may go now.”

  Ann rose like an automaton and walked out of his den to face her mother waiting in the hall.

  Margaret Talbot put her hand on her daughter’s shoulder, but Ann shrugged it off miserably. She knew her mother would never disagree with her father about anything, no matter what her private feelings were on the matter.