Heartstopper

by Joy Fielding

  And he wanted her.

  Except he was getting restless. She could feel it. The play was over. The game they’d been playing for over a month was getting old. Kate and Petruchio had left the building. Only Greg and Megan remained. And how long could Megan keep Greg waiting? Why was she keeping him waiting? the music asked, the relentless beat pounding the question into her brain. Because her mother wasn’t ready?

  It’s just that it’s easy to get lost in the moment, Sandy had warned.

  I won’t get lost.

  Promise?

  Megan suddenly snatched the bottle of beer from Greg’s hand and downed half its contents in one prolonged gulp. She hadn’t promised her mother anything.

  “Wow. Would you get a load of that!” Joey exclaimed. “The girl’s a pro.”

  Stop worrying. I’m a big girl. I can take care of myself.

  Megan fought the urge to gag as a spontaneous burst of applause broke out around her. Soon bodies began swaying away from her, curious eyes retreated, then glazed over, lost in the insistent thud of the bass guitar. She turned to see her brother watching her from a nearby corner, caught the worry in the tilt of his head, and she purposefully took another swig. The beer spilled from the bottle and dripped down her chin. Greg’s tongue was immediately at her throat, licking it up.

  “Hey, Meg,” Tim cautioned, approaching, Amber right behind him, her fingers tucked into the back pocket of his jeans, “go easy with that stuff. Okay?”

  “What if she doesn’t like it easy, faggot?” Joey asked.

  “Fuck off,” Tim said.

  Megan’s eyes widened in alarm. Had her brother really just told Joey Balfour to fuck off?

  Joey stumbled backward, clutching his heart, as if he’d been shot. “Excuse me? What did you say to me, faggot?”

  “He said, everybody dance!” Amber interceded, pulling Tim into the middle of the room, where they were quickly surrounded and absorbed by the other dancers.

  “That’s the sheriff’s daughter, buddy,” Greg reminded Joey, who looked poised to take the room apart. “Wouldn’t want her calling her daddy, now would we?”

  Greg’s warning sunk slowly into Joey’s dull eyes. “Your little brother’s got a big mouth,” he told Megan.

  “He’s just kidding around,” Megan said, purposely using Greg’s earlier words. “He doesn’t mean anything by it.”

  Greg smiled.

  “What the hell are you smiling about?” Joey demanded, clearly itching for a fight.

  “Take it easy, man,” Greg said. “You’re getting paranoid.”

  “Yeah? Well, you’re starting to get on my nerves. You and the little princess here.”

  The front door opened and in walked Delilah Franklin.

  “Good God. What’s that horrible smell?” Joey asked, sauntering toward her. “Hey, Deli. Forget to use toilet paper?”

  Delilah ignored Joey in much the same way the other kids were ignoring her. “Hi, guys,” she said, although only Brian Hensen and Perry Falco smiled in response, and those smiles were tentative at best. “Hey, Megan,” Delilah said when she spotted her.

  Megan felt her heart sink as Delilah made her way across the room. What was the matter with her, for God’s sake? Was Delilah purposely trying to make her life miserable? Why had she come here? Couldn’t she sense she wasn’t welcome? It was bad enough Megan had had to put up with her every day at rehearsals. Did she have to endure her presence now as well? Be nice, she heard her mother say, so since she was already feeling guilty, Megan said, “I thought you had to take your grandmother home.”

  “I did. She even made me wait until she fell asleep before I could leave. Every time I tried to sneak out, she’d open one eye and tell me to stay put.”

  “Grandmother, Grandmother, what big ears you have!” Joey sang out, swooping back toward them.

  “Joey …” Megan warned.

  “It’s all right. She does have big ears,” Delilah agreed with a wobbly laugh.

  “What’s her problem anyway?” Greg asked.

  “Congestive heart failure,” Delilah said.

  “What’s that?”

  “Her heart is failing—congestively,” Delilah said with a smile, and both Megan and Greg laughed.

  “Hey,” Joey said. “The Deli made a funny.”

  “Thanks for asking,” Delilah said to Greg, who turned away self-consciously.

  “Smells like that’s not all she made,” Joey continued, waving his hand back and forth in front of his nose, as if to banish an unpleasant odor. “Granddaughter, Granddaughter, what a big ass you have!” Joey slapped Delilah’s backside.

  “Ouch,” Delilah yelped, trying to elude a second slap, even as Joey’s hand made sharp contact with the denim of her jeans.

  Megan felt the sting of Joey’s fingers without being touched. She flinched.

  “Better wash your hands,” Ginger warned, laughing as she and Tanya walked by.

  “I think I broke my wrist,” Joey joked, doubling over and grabbing his hand.

  Tears filled Delilah’s eyes. She looked toward the ceiling, as if trying to prevent them from falling.

  “Okay, that’s enough,” Greg said.

  “What’s your problem tonight?” Joey shot back. “The princess got you pussy-whipped already?”

  “You’re being an asshole.”

  “Yeah? Better than a pussy.”

  “Come on, guys. Chill,” someone said. “It’s a party, remember?”

  “People should remember who their friends are” came Joey’s instant retort.

  “I’m out of here,” Greg said. He took Megan’s hand, began leading her from the room.

  “Catch you later, faggot,” Joey called after them.

  “Where are we going?” Megan asked.

  “You’ll see.”

  Megan said nothing as they reached the front door. She was trying to decide what to do. On the one hand, this was her big chance to be alone with Greg. On the other hand, this was Greg’s big chance to be alone with her. And as much as she relished the former, she wasn’t sure she was ready for the latter. Greg could be a real sweetheart. He could also be a real … a real jerk. He’d been both in the last ten minutes alone.

  She felt Greg’s tug on her arm and looked back toward the living room, trying to locate her brother in the middle of the dance floor. At the very least she should tell him she was leaving, she thought, remembering the fallout from Liana’s wake. But she knew he’d look at her with their mother’s eyes and urge her not to go, which would ruin not only her evening but his, and what a night this was turning out to be for both of them. She’d call him later on his cell to assure him of her safety, she decided, making up her mind to go with Greg.

  But instead of whisking her out the front door, Greg was heading up the staircase that led to the second floor. Holding her breath, Megan allowed herself to be led up those stairs, past a wood-paneled den, a blue marble bathroom, and another room on the right, from which the pungent smell of marijuana was leaking from underneath its closed door. “Maybe we shouldn’t be up here,” Megan whispered, the words painful against her throat.

  “Ssh.”

  They continued down the hall to a large room, the center of which was occupied by a canopied, four-poster, king-size bed. “Greg, I don’t think—”

  “That’s right. Don’t think.” He pulled her inside the room, closing the door behind them.

  “What are you doing?”

  “This.” He took her in his arms and kissed her. Megan felt herself go weak in the knees. Then she heard a click behind her and realized he’d locked the door. “Greg, don’t …”

  “Don’t what?” He pulled her toward the bed.

  “I don’t think we should be in here.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it isn’t our house.” Megan glanced around the room, casually absorbing its details: the cream-colored walls covered with family photographs, the golfing and fishing trophies that sat across the top of the ornat
e, hand-painted dresser, the dozen beige-and-gold-striped pillows that rested on the thick, cream-colored bedspread, the lush satin drapes that hung on the four-poster, the two beige chairs hugging a small, round table in front of the large bedroom window overlooking the backyard.

  “You never heard the old saying, make yourself at home?”

  “I don’t think this is quite what they had in mind,” Megan said as Greg pulled her down beside him. She heard the hard mattress squeak, like crickets, beneath the soft bedspread.

  “Who’s they?” Greg asked, kissing the side of her neck.

  Her arm brushed against one of the satin pillows, dislodging it. Were they in any special order? she wondered, trying not to panic. Would anyone notice if their arrangement was disturbed? “Maybe we should sit over there.” With her chin, she indicated the two chairs by the window.

  Greg took the opportunity to plant a series of soft kisses along the strong line of her jaw. “Maybe you should stop talking,” he suggested gently.

  And then he was kissing her on the side of her mouth, then directly on her lips, just as he’d said he was going to do that afternoon under the tree in the school yard when he was telling her how he would go about seducing her, and now that’s exactly what he was doing, he was seducing her, and if she wasn’t careful, if she wasn’t very careful, he’d succeed, and as much as part of her wanted him to succeed, as much as a big part of her was, in fact, rooting for him, another part of her, a teeny part, albeit an important part nonetheless, because it was the part that had promised her mother she wouldn’t lose herself in the moment—well, no, she hadn’t exactly promised—the part that her mother still held claim to and was apparently refusing to let go of without a knockdown, drag-out fight, that part was telling her not to do this, that it wasn’t the right time, that there must be better places than Lonny Reynolds’s parents’ bedroom to make love for the first time, with its cream-colored bedspread that was undoubtedly a major stain magnet, and a bunch of smiling strangers watching her from framed photographs on the walls. Not to mention the looks that would greet her when she and Greg finally returned to the party. Enough people had seen them going up the stairs. Surely everyone would know what they’d been doing. Were they even now gathering outside the door, listening at the keyhole?

  It’s just that it’s easy to get lost in the moment.

  I won’t get lost.

  Promise?

  She tried to block out her mother’s voice, to block out her own voice, but it was no use. She couldn’t do it.

  Greg’s hand slipped inside her blouse.

  Oh, God. Had anything ever felt so good? She had to stop this. She had to distract him. She had to distract herself. She had to think of something unpleasant, something to counteract the sublime feel of his fingers as they danced across the lace of her bra. “Do you think they have termites?” she asked, the first thing that popped into her head.

  His hand froze on her right breast. “What?”

  “I was just wondering if they have termites.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I only wonder because my uncle and aunt had a house that looked a lot like this one—this was back when they lived in Rochester—and they had termites. It was really awful. They had to fumigate the whole house. Everybody had to move out. I remember because they moved in with us for about a week, and I had to share my room with my cousin, Sasha, who’s a real slob, and I didn’t like that at all.”

  “Megan …”

  “They moved to California about ten years ago when the whole dot-com business exploded. My uncle’s a whiz at that sort of thing. He’s my mother’s brother.”

  “Megan …”Greg’s hand found the clasp at the front of her bra, and in the next second, his fingers were pushing the delicate lace aside to caress her bare flesh.

  “Anyway, they covered the house with this big, blue tent. Well, not a tent exactly. It was more like a huge piece of blue cellophane—well, no, not really cellophane, it was more like heavy plastic wrap, like the covers they put on swimming pools, at least up north. You don’t have to cover your pools down here because it never gets very cold. Oh, God,” she said as his fingers began circling the nipple of her right breast. God, that felt amazing. “Anyway,” she tried to continue between kisses that grew ever more urgent, “they got rid of the termites, but my aunt never felt the same way about the house after that. She said that even though she knew they were gone, she still imagined them chewing away at night, and it freaked her out, so they moved. Not to California. At least not right away.”

  “Ssh,” Greg said as his hand left her breast.

  No, she thought. Don’t go. Come back. Come back.

  Except it didn’t come back. It moved to her thigh. Then up her thigh and between her legs. The jolt of electricity she experienced almost knocked her on her back, and she struggled to remain upright. “Greg, I really don’t think—”

  “Ssh.” His fingers began tugging at the zipper of her jeans.

  “No. Stop. I don’t want—”

  “Ssh.”

  It was the last “Ssh” that did it. It was one thing for her to ignore the voice in her head; it was quite another for him to ignore it, especially when it was telling him, loudly and clearly, to stop. She pushed his hand away, jumped to her feet, began zipping up her jeans. “Stop telling me to ssh! I don’t want to ssh!”

  “What the hell do you want?” He grabbed a pillow from the bed, threw it angrily in her direction.

  Megan watched the pillow fly by her head, then plummet to the ivory-carpeted floor. “I want to go back downstairs. I want to dance. I want to have fun.”

  “I thought we were having fun. I thought you liked me.”

  “I do like you, Greg. I like you a lot. I’m just not ready to—”

  “—be more than a cock-teaser.”

  The word slapped at her cheek. She felt it grow red. “I’m not a … That’s not what I am.”

  “Then you’re an even better actress than I thought.”

  Megan took a deep breath, straightened her hair, tucked in her sweater, and checked the zipper of her jeans. He didn’t mean the things he was saying, she told herself. He was just angry and upset and more than a little drunk. He’d apologize later. She’d accept. They’d spend the summer getting to know each other better. They’d take things nice and slow. “I’m going downstairs.”

  “So, go. What are you waiting for?”

  “Aren’t you coming?”

  Greg remained seated on the bed, refusing to look at her. “Just send in whoever’s next in line.”

  Megan’s heart did a somersault inside her chest. She felt sick to her stomach. Her whole body ached. This is how Delilah must feel every day of her life, she thought, swallowing whatever protest was forming in her mouth, and walking to the bedroom door. She unlocked it, the loud click sounding like the cocking of a gun at the side of her head. Then she ran from the room.

  She raced down the stairs and out the front door without a backward glance. She thought she heard someone say, “Megan? Is something wrong? Wait up!” But she didn’t wait. Instead she ran. She ran out into the empty street, the noise of the party spilling out after her, chasing her down one block and then the next until, finally, she didn’t hear it anymore.

  It wasn’t until she stopped to catch her breath and wipe the tears from her eyes that she realized someone was behind her. “Megan,” a voice said, and then she heard nothing.

  THIRTY-ONE

  Sandy! Over here.”

  Sandy peered through the dim light of Chester’s, trying to ascertain the direction of Rita’s voice. She finally located her at a large, round table around the far side of the bar, sitting between a morose-looking John Weber and his obviously intoxicated wife, Pauline.

  “I didn’t think you were coming,” Rita said, her forced smile a sign of just how grateful she was to see her.

  Sandy sank into one of the three empty chairs around the table, making a conscious effort to ig
nore the obvious tension between the sheriff and his wife. She counted at least a dozen glasses, most of them in front of Pauline.

  “These aren’t all mine,” Pauline said defensively, noting the direction of Sandy’s gaze. One hand fluttered nervously over the top of the table; the other clung tightly to her gin and tonic.

  “Avery and Lenny were here. Avery left about half an hour ago,” Rita explained. “You just missed Lenny by not more than five minutes.”

  “Good.” Sandy decided she’d had quite enough of the staff of Torrance High for one night. She signaled for the waitress. “A green-apple martini,” she told her. “Please.”

  “You sure?” Rita asked. “Remember what happened the last time you had a green-apple martini.”

  “Trust me. That was nothing compared to what happened tonight.”

  “What happened tonight?” Rita leaned forward on her elbows. Pauline began tracing the rim of her glass with her right index finger.

  “Do I want to hear this?” John asked. The look on his face said that three women in varying degrees of distress were simply too much for one not-quite-sober-but-not-nearly-drunk-enough man to bear. Especially when he was off-duty.

  “Probably not,” Sandy told him.

  John pushed himself to his feet. He walked quickly to the poolroom, struck up an easy conversation with several of the guys gathered around the closest table.

  Sandy heard one of the men mutter something about the disappointing score of tonight’s baseball game. Man talk, she decided, uncomplicated and impersonal. She looked back at the two women at her table. Their eyes told her they were hoping for the exact opposite. Girl talk—as complicated and personal as it gets. Sandy obligingly filled them in on the events of the evening.

  “You’ve got to be kidding,” Rita exclaimed at the conclusion of Sandy’s story. “Gordon?”

  “Mr. Lipsman?” Pauline echoed. “Amber’s drama teacher?”

  “He actually attacked you?”

  “Well, he tried. He was all over me.” She dusted invisible cat hairs off her beige sweater.

  “That’s what they always say in the tabloids,” Pauline said with a laugh. “He was all over her. She was all over him. They were all over each other.”