“Jackie.” Greg pulled back to look me in the eye. “This is not fair to ask because you can go out with other people, and I don't have time. Butâyou will be my girlfriend?”
I almost laughed. Not fair to me? “You are . . . too much,” I breathed. “Too much what?”
I did laugh then, a disbelieving, amazed little sound that bubbled up my throat. “Greg.” I cradled his face in my hands. “I'd rather be your girlfriend and sit home on Saturday nights thinkin' of you than be out with
anybody.”
“Yes!” he cried, then leaned back with his arms folded, grinning like the Cheshire cat. “Oh, wait.” He snatched his sapphire ring off his finger, as if afraid I'd change my mind any second. “Here.” He pressed it into my palm, closing my fingers around it. “Keep this. You can wear it on a chain to tell others you are my girlfriend.”
“Oh, Greg, I can'tâ”
“Yes, take it.”
“But your parents gave it to you. It means so much to you.”
“This is why I want you to keep it. It's the best I can give you. Except maybe when I write you a song.” He smiled again, cheeks glowing with happiness.
I gazed at the ring in my hand. I stared and stared at its gold band with etchings down the side until they blurred, and my throat hurt, and my lips wavered. “Thank you,” I whispered, wishing I could find something more worthy to say. “Thank you.”
I slipped the ring into my purse so I wouldn't lose it, telling Greg I would put it on the gold chain my mother left me. And I wouldn't take it off, ever, even when I slept. I would still have it on when I saw him again at the Lexington concert. Saturday, August 22. I would live and breathe for that day.
When we pulled up to the Matthews' house, both of us silent, already feeling the loss of our separation, Greg kissed me one last, long time. I didn't care that our car sat near a streetlight, that any neighbor nosing out the windowâor even my grandma Westerdahl two houses downâmight see. I just wanted that kiss to last forever.
“I love you, Jackie.”
Tsoky.
“I love you.”
Apprehension creased his forehead as he gazed at me. “You don't forget me when I am gone? And there are other guys here?”
He was thinking of Celia, I realized. The pain she'd caused his brother. But then, hadn't his brother made the first mistake? “No, Greg, I promise. I love
you.
But don't forget
me.”
My fingers sank into his arms at the mere imagining. “With all those girls wantin' you, don't forget
me.”
“No. I won't. Do not think it.” His eyes glistened. He ran his tongue between his lips. “E-mail me every day. I write you and call when I can. And pleaseâpray for me.”
I promised to do all those things.
Five minutes later I trudged into our house, shoulders bent and cheeks wet. Daddy took one look at my face, and his own expression lined with concern for me. Without a word, he hugged me, resting his chin on the top of my head.
Before I dragged into my room, I opened my e-mail on the computer, heart already brimming with words to write Greg. A single e-mail sat in my inbox. A response from Greg, written at 5:30, just before I'd pulled up to the Matthews' door.
>Dear Greg, Will you kiss me tonight?<
Yes.
T
uesday morning. From that day on, my life would forever change.
POP STAR VISITS ALBERTSVILLE.
The headline screamed across the front page of the twice-weekly
Albertsville Journal.
Daddy held the section up for me to see the minute I entered the kitchen, his expression black. “Read it,” he commanded.
I sank into a chair, heart in my throat, and stared at the front page. Right in the middle spread not one picture of Greg and me, but two. The first had been taken at the restaurant as we'd turned in surprise toward the camera, hands clasped over the table. Charlotte must have snapped the second through the window, catching us by the car as Greg hugged me, one of his hands on my back, the other in my hair. Beside the photos, big black letters spelled out the quote, “She's my girl.”
I dropped my head in my hands, mortified. Imagining the gossip already swirling through town, the raised eyebrows at school. I could barely breathe as I forced myself to read.
Greg Kostakis, lead singer of the singing group LuvRush, was spotted at Clayton's Place with his girlfriend from Bradleyville on Saturday night. According to sources in Bradleyville, Kostakis is visiting the town, staying with William and Estelle Matthews, the parents of his sister-in-law, Celia. Kostakis's half brother, Danny, grew up in Bradleyville and moved to Greece after he graduated from high school. All four singers in LuvRush are from Athens, Greece.
Charlotte Deeks, who took the picture, said Kostakis told her and her friends, who were out for prom night, that the girl he was with (later identified as Jackie Delham), was “his girl” and that he would not allow apicture to be taken of himself with any other girl unless Jackie was also in it.
“You should have seen them,” Deeks said. “They were practically all over each other in the restaurant, and then they left all of asudden. That's when Itook the picture of them in the parking lot.”
Kostakis had alarge bruise on his left cheek, as if he had been in afight. Deeks said he would only explain that he'd had “alittle accident.”
LuvRush is a popular new band, with their single “Hung Up on You” landing at number five on the charts ...
I did not need to read further. I slumped over the table, unable to raise my head to look Daddy in the eye, shame and defensiveness like lead in my stomach. Around my neck, hidden by my pajamas, hung Greg's ring on the gold chain I'd gotten from Mama. I could feel the ring's weight as it swung forward against the cotton fabric of my top.
Daddy raked out a chair opposite me and sat down hard. For a moment he said nothing, the headline glaring between us. I turned the paper over.
“Look at me, Jackie.”
I raised my head, the rest of me still, wooden.
“Huggin' you like that in a public parking lot?” He threw out the words, his voice harsh. “Tellin' perfect strangers âmy girl' on a first date? He was âall over you'?”
“It's not true, Daddy, she lied!”
“You got the pictures right there to prove it!”
“But it's not like it looks, and he wasn't âall over' me in the restaurant, not at all!” My voice pleaded for him to understand. “And Greg didn't mean the thing about âmy girl,' he was just tryin' toâ”
“Didn't
mean
it? Sure looks like he meant it to me. Looks like you
both
meant it.”
“Daddy, you don't know! That girl was awful, and she was puttin' me down, and Greg was tryin' to be nice, but he wouldn't let her get away with it.”
Daddy's jaw worked. “You didn't tell me that someone took pictures. Very private pictures. You didn't tell me that Greg went around brag-gin' about who he isâ”
“He
didn't!”
“Do
not
interrupt me.” Daddy smacked the table. “You did not tell me any of this. Especially about the pictures. All you told meâassured meâwas that I could trust you. It was hard enough for me to let you go out with Greg, you know that. I thought from the beginning he'd cause trouble. Now look what's happened. Your name's in the paper for everyone to see. Your picture's in the paper. Sixteen years old, Jackie, on your first date, and the whole town gets to see the way you behaved. I can't
believe
the way you and Greg paraded yourselves around.”
“We did not parade around!”
“Then just what would you call it?” Daddy pushed back against his chair in disgust. “Jackie, Greg's life is nothin' like ours. He's lookin' to put himself in the limelight, to be famous. Singers thrive on attention. Well, he got his attention all right, and dragged you into it with him. I'm tellin' you, it's a good thing he's gone, because he would not step foot in this house again.”
My head swam with arguments. Greg hadn't left yet, that I knew. He'd be packing, getting ready to drive to the Lexington airport around 11:00. Surely someone at the Matthews' household had seen the paper. I knew he would feel terrible. He'd want to call me, beg my forgiveness. As if he'd done something terribly wrong. Which he
hadn't.
“It's one thing to let you date,” Daddy raved on, “but in Bradley-villeâas you well knowâthat's done with circumspection, despite how exciting it might be. I never dreamed that on your first date you'd act like thisâin front of people who you
knew
were watching you because of Greg. Who would have every reason to spread the news. And now I'm lookin' at what this Charlotte said, and I'm rememberin' how you mentioned you two didn't have dessert. How you left the restaurant far earlier than you came home. And I'm wonderin' exactly where you went, and what you did!”
I dragged in air, my cheeks flushing hot. Dating with circumspection? Wondering what I had done? The mere thought that Daddy would suspect bad things of me or Greg made my blood boil. Who was he to talk, after the mistakes he'd made at my age?
Daddy glowered at me, waiting, watching my face. I glared back at him. In the next minute, his breath ebbed. He drew back, the lines on his forehead unraveling as he understood my unspoken words. Instantly, then, his expression creased with fresh anger. We faced off, silently spewing.
“Hi, Dad,” Clarissa's voice floated from behind me.
“Clarissa, go get dressed,” Daddy barked, not taking his eyes from me. I sensed the momentary pause of Clarissa's confusion, then heard her rustle away.
“You care to tell me what's on your mind?” Daddy dared, his voice flint-edged.
I swallowed hard, frayed nerves causing my sense of betrayal over Celia and him to rise bitterly in my throat. Tears pricked my eyes.
“Well?”
I inhaled raggedly. “We didn't do anything wrong, Daddy, please believe that. We were just tryin' to talk in the restaurant, but this girl recognized Greg, and then she wouldn't leave us alone. She was real snotty to me. So Greg put her in her place. That's why she lied. He stood up for me, Daddy, just like he stood up for you the night before. We didn't know she was goin' to take our picture. The minute she took it, we left. Greg hugged me for a second because I was so upset. How could I know she'd take another picture, and go to the papers with them?”
“Greg should have known,” Daddy declared. “Maybe at first we all thought he could get by without bein' recognized here. But he's chosen the public life, and he should know how to handle it. The minute that picture was taken, he should have realized what would happen. And you should have told me. The
last
thing you should have done was hug in the parking lot for everyone to goggle at!”
I dropped my gaze, whispering, “I'm sorry.”
“Where did you go after you left that restaurant?”
“Nowhere.”
“Jackie!”
I heard the fear and mistrust in his voice, and it made me sick.
“We just drove somewhere and parked so we could talk, that's all. Where we wouldn't have to deal with people!”
Daddy's face blanched. “You sat in a parked car, just the two of you, long after dark? What did you do?”
“Nothing! Just talked.”
He glared at me, mouth pressed.
“What's wrong with that?” I cried. “What'd you want us to do, stay at the restaurant so they could take more pictures?”
“You should have come home, that's what!”
“It wasn't time to come home!”
Daddy rose from his chair, leaning over the table to sear me with his eyes. “Jackie, you don't go parking with some boy for hours after dark. You know I'd never allow that.”
“We didn't do anything wrong.”
“Like you âdidn't do anything' at the restaurant?”
“We didn't
do anything!”
“How can I believe that,” he shouted, “when you've surprised me as much as you already have?”
“Because Greg's not
you,
Daddy!”
The words shot from my mouth like heat-seeking missiles. Instantly, I wanted them back. They hit their mark. Daddy hung over the table, lips parted, no words coming, slow pain filling his eyes. Carefully, he lowered himself into his seat.
I could not believe what I had done. Apologies struggled to form on my tongue, then died away. An aching, deep longing for Mama surged through me. This wouldn't have happened if she had been alive.
Some of the longest moments of my life passed before either of us spoke.
Daddy cleared his throat. “People make mistakes, Jackie,” he uttered. “And the smart ones learn from those mistakes.”
No,
I cried inside,
no.
Already I knew where he was headed. It wasn't fair, his using his past to shatter my present.
“Let's talk about you, shall we?” He pointed at me for effect. “I let you see Greg while he was hereâeven though I never liked the idea. Now he's gone. Hear me when I say I'm fully expecting that will be the end of it. I know you're sad. But this”âhe pressed a finger against the paperâ“just shows that you are far better off without him. Your lack of judgment and his is goin' to cost us all. I don't want to hear that you're writin' or callin' him. And I don't want to hear about your goin' to any concerts. Is that clear?”
I let my eyes drift, unable to respond. Hugged my arms against my chest, feeling Greg's ring press against my skin.
“As for your going out in the future,” Daddy added, “I will watch you far more closely. And it's goin' to be with somebody whose family I know.”
The phone rang. Daddy ignored it.
“Do you hear me, Jackie?”