Truth or Dare (5 page)

     Her mother nodded slightly.  “What could happen after all?”

     “Oh thank you!”  Rivka grabbed her mother and hugged her fiercely.

     There were two clubs in town.  There was the new one over by the highway that was all beige carpeting and crystal chandeliers and admitted anyone who had enough money to join. Then there was Beacon Hill on Colt Road with its polished wooden floors, fading Oriental carpets and stricter standards.   

     Pamela’s family belonged to both of them, Mary’s neither, and Deirdre’s had managed to afford the new one by the skin of their professionally whitened teeth.

     Rivka's family had no interest in country clubs at all.  "Pretension," her mother sniffed when they dropped Rivka off in front of the main entrance of Beacon Hill. 

     Rivka looked up the long, carpeted stairs to where they disappeared under the immaculate green and white striped awning.  She'd wanted to get a ride with Mary or Deirdre, but her parents had insisted on bringing her themselves. 

     Which meant she had to walk in all by herself.  She took a deep breath to quell the butterflies that were rampaging under her ribs.  This was so out of her league.  Pamela was out of her league.  For a moment she wondered what on earth she was doing here?

     Pamela had loaned her a gown and shown her how to do her make-up, and her mother had reluctantly counted out enough money for her to get her hair done at one of the chain salons downtown.  Rivka put a hand to her head.  She’d flipped through fashion magazines far into the night and had finally settled on a simple chignon centered low on her head.     

The dress was simple, too—a waterfall of peach silk with a deep-vee neckline and plunging back.  Her mother had raised her eyebrows and made that clucking noise with her tongue but miraculously, she hadn’t said anything.  She’d even scurried to fetch the camera to take some pictures to show Bubbeh and Zayde and Aunt Ruth later on.

Rivka took a deep breath and started up the stairs. 

“Care for an hors d’oeuvres, miss?”  The waiter brandished a silver tray under Rivka’s nose.  She jumped.  She’d been scanning the room for any sign of Pamela, Mary or Deirdre.

“Oh.  Thank you.”  She looked at the tray and hesitated.

“Foie gras.”  He said and smiled at her.

“Oh.”  Rivka took a cracker uncertainly.  She had no idea what foie gras was. It looked like liverwurst to her.

“They’re good,” he confided, winking at her.  “I stole one in the kitchen.”  

Rivka laughed.  “Okay.” She nibbled on the end of the cracker.  “Mmmmmm, this is really good.”

“Care for another?”   He waggled the tray under her nose.

Rivka shook her head.  “I have to go find my friends.”

He bowed deeply from the waist and turned to serve an older couple standing nearby.

     Before Rivka could get any further, someone came up behind her and draped an arm around her shoulders.  
     “You’re Pamela’s new friend aren’t you?”  

     "Yes."  Rivka tried to inch away.  She recognized him as Pamela's father.  She'd seen him roaring down Miller Lane in his Mercedes.  

     He tightened his grip on her shoulders and grinned at her.
     Rivka squirmed.  She didn't want to seem rude, but she smelled the liquor on his breath, and it was disgusting.

     She looked around the room hoping to spot Mary or Deirdre.  She saw Lance talking to an older woman in a black dress and quickly turned her head.  She didn't want Pamela to think she was going after him deliberately when she'd promised she wouldn't.    Pamela's father took her glass from her and sniffed it.  “Nothing in here,” he mumbled, weaving slightly.  “Got to get you something real to drink.”  He snapped his fingers at the nearest waiter.
     “No, really, I can’t—“
     “Get this girl something to drink.  Champagne.”
     “Yes, sir.”  The waiter practically clicked his heels as he turned and walked toward the bar.
     “He’s going to bring you a real drink.”  He pointed at the retreating waiter.
      “I can’t drink, I promised my parents—“
      “Nonsense.”  He lowered his face toward hers again.  “You hold the glass up to your lips like this…”  He held a pretend glass toward Rivka’s mouth.
     “I see you’ve met Pammy's new friend.  I’m jealous. She refused to introduce me.”   Lance appeared from behind them and took his father's arm.  “I think Mother is looking for you.

Something about some new arrivals…”
    Lance’s father obediently stumbled off in the direction of the main entrance.

     “Sorry about that.  He’s really quite harmless.”

     "Oh, that's all right," Rivka said, trying to sound as if she were used to going to parties and being pawed by adult men.   Lance put his hand on her waist.  "It’s stuffy in here, isn’t it?"  He ran a finger under the collar of his crisp, pleated-front shirt.
      Rivka had never seen anyone her own age in a dinner jacket before.  He looked like a model in one of those advertisements in the New York Times.
      "Do you mind if we go outside for a moment?  I’m going to die if I don’t get some air.”  He led her toward a set of tall French doors draped in gauzy white fabric and gestured for her to go first.

     "I can't—"

     "Please?  Just for a minute?"  He caught her hand and held it.  "I still don't know your name."

     Rivka looked over her shoulder.  She didn't see Pamela anywhere or Mary or Deirdre either.

     She followed Lance out to a patio ringed with fragrant rosebushes and scattered with plump-cushioned chairs and chaise longues.          

     Lance took a deep breath.  “Much better. It was getting really hot in there."

     He took her hand again, and led her to one of the chaises.  Rivka perched on the end, and Lance sat down beside her.
     Rivka took a deep breath.  She smelled Lance's aftershave and the starch in his shirt.  She sat very still. She didn’t want to disturb the moment.  She didn’t want it to ever end. She was having all these weird feelings and realized, with dismay, that she was falling in love with Pamela's brother.
      “You’re very pretty, you know.”  Lance turned his head to look at Rivka.
      “Thank you.”  She clenched her right hand beneath the folds of her dress.  If only she were more experienced and knew how to act!

     "You know my name, but I don't know yours.  I don’t think that's fair do you?"

     Rivka shook her head.

     "Well?  What is it?"  He pretended to pout, and Rivka laughed.

     "It's Riv--, I mean it's Becky."  She'd almost said Rivka.  Rivka closed her eyes.  She felt her face getting hot.  She knew she was going to blow it.  She'd been out of her league all night, and Lance was no exception.  He was probably being polite. 

     "Maybe we could hang out sometime?"

     Panic made Rivka stutter.  What could she say?  Every single beat and fiber of her heart wanted to scream "yes."    

     But if she said yes, Pamela would find out. Despite what her mother thought, Rivka had no illusions about Pamela. It would be ugly, and she would lose.

     "I'll take that as a yes."  Lance lowered his gaze to Rivka's lips.  He kissed her.

Rivka drowned in a jumble of impressions and sensations-—the softness of his lips, the heat of his hands on her bare shoulders, the roughness of his jacket fabric under her own hands.  Surely, she was dreaming, and this wasn't really happening?  She'd wake up in her own bed with her mother shaking her and telling her it was time for school.

He moved his lips to the corner of her mouth, then to the side of her neck by her ear and finally back to her lips.

Rivka sighed.  She'd never kissed a boy before.  Was she doing it right?  Was it possible to do it wrong and have it feel so wonderful?

They heard someone clear their throat and drew apart, startled.

“Well, well, well.  What do we have here?” a female voice drawled.

Chapter 6

     Rivka pulled away from Lance and jumped to her feet.  “You won’t tell Pamela will you?”

     Mary shrugged.  “Tell her what?  It’s a free country isn’t it?”

     The French doors opened, and Rivka jumped again. 

     Lance's mother stuck her head out. 

     "Lance, be a dear would you, and come talk to Mrs. Gelman?  She's all on her lonesome, and she's following me around, and it's getting tiresome."

     Lance glanced at Rivka, and she shrugged.

     Lance disappeared through the French doors, and Rivka turned to Mary.  "Seriously, you won't tell Pamela will you?  She doesn't want me to have anything do with her brother."

     Mary snorted.  "I don't see what business it is of Pamela's, but if that's the way you want it, that's fine with me."

     "You don't understand," Rivka pleaded.  "You don't know what it's like."  She twisted her hands in her skirt.  "You don't have a weird name and foreign parents, and…and…" 

     Mary laughed.  "No, I just have a mother who everyone knows has been locked up in the looney bin more than once."  She wandered over toward the swimming pool.  There were tiny white lights woven into the adjacent trees, and they flickered reflectively from the depths of the pool. 

     Mary slipped her sandal off and dipped her toes into the water.  "You can be one of Pamela's victims, or you can fight back," she said over her shoulder.    

     "It's not like that," Rivka began when Pamela came bursting through the door. 

     “There you are.  I wondered where you'd gotten to.”  The straps of her designer gown had slipped off her shoulders, and her hair was coming out of its French knot.  “Becky.”  She pointed at Rivka, “truth or dare.” 

     Rivka jumped.

Without waiting for an answer, Pamela continued.  “Dare.”  She pointed at Rivka again.  “I dare you to go steal us a bottle of champagne from the bar and bring it back here.”

Mary raised an eyebrow.  “Great idea.”

“How am I going to do—“

Pamela snapped her fingers.  “Do it.  Now.  Go.”

There was no one waiting at the bar when Rivka got there. She inched closer.  The bartender was leaning over, the seams of his short black jacket straining over his broad back as he sliced open some cartons.  He obviously didn’t realize Rivka was standing there.  Rivka looked around and spied a silver bucket at one end of the bar.   The necks of several bottles of frosted champagne stuck out of the ice at odd angles.  All she had to do was grab one while the bartender wasn’t looking.  She inched closer and reached out a hand toward the bucket.

“Give me a whiskey and soda would you?” 

The voice came from behind Rivka, and she jumped. 

“So sorry, didn’t see you there, you go first.”  The man motioned to her to go forward.  His black bow tie was starting to slip to one side, and his white pleated shirt had wilted in the humidity.

Rivka shook her head and eased back into the shadows next to a large, potted fern.

The bartender filled a clean glass with ice, poured a shot of golden liquid over it, and squirted in soda from a siphon.  He put the sweating glass on a napkin and slid it across the bar.  The man took the drink, and the bartender turned back to his boxes. 

Rivka’s heart was pounding so hard she felt light-headed.  She waited for a moment then sidled closer.  And then closer. The bartender grunted, put a hand to his back and started to straighten up.  Rivka scurried back toward the shadows of the friendly fern.

But the bartender merely rubbed a hand to the small of his back before bending to his task again.  Rivka marched forward.  It was now or never.  She reached out a hand and grabbed one of the bottles from the bucket.  Icy rivulets of water ran down her arm, and she shivered.  She was turning to flee when she ran smack into a solid, masculine chest.

“I see you’ve finally gotten yourself something decent to drink,” he drawled.

It was Pamela’s father. 

“Yes.”  Rivka smiled brightly and tried to hide the bottle behind her back. 

“Ssss excellent.  Help yourself.  Want my guests to have a good time.”  He raised an unsteady hand toward Rivka, but she ducked and bolted back through the French doors and the safety of the darkened terrace.

“I’ve got it.  I’ve got it.”  Rivka held the bottle aloft. 

“Good girl,” Pamela clapped her hands.  “Give it to me.”

Rivka held the bottle higher, and Pamela jumped toward it, trying to grab it.  The heel of one of her navy silk pumps snagged on the edge of her dress, and they heard the sound of fabric tearing.

“Shit!  Look what you made me do.”  Pamela whirled around to examine the damage.

“I’m sorry.”  Rivka’s moment of triumph was over.  She held the bottle out meekly and Pamela grabbed it.

Mary sat by the pool with her dress hiked up and her legs dangling in the water.   “Want me to open it?”

Pamela shook her head.  She inched the cork up out of the bottle with her thumbs, her lower lip caught between her teeth in concentration.  They all jumped when the cork popped loudly and went flying.  It landed in the pool and sank from view.