“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.
Ann went into her bedroom, slammed the door, and flung herself down on her bed, rigid and dry eyed. She was too numb to cry.