“With who?”
“Whom,” Angie corrected her. “Francis LaCroix.”
How could that be? “Say what?”
Angie’s delight at Connie’s surprise was obvious.“I went hunting with Francis LaCroix—Mr. LaCroix’s son.”
Connie remained dumbfounded. “Why?”
“I like him.”
“How do you even know him? Mr. LaCroix brought him here once.” Connie glanced at Mamma, curious to see her reaction to this conversation. A reference to the LaCroixs was too much of a coincidence to ignore. Mamma was looking down the table at Angie, apparently waiting to hear what her youngest child had to say.
“He’s been here more than that.” Angie reached for a piece of bread from the plate on the table. “You just haven’t been around.”
Connie was incredulous. Mamma required an act of Congress to let Connie ride to college with a fellow student, but fifteen-year-old Angie could spend the day with Francis LaCroix, a boy three years her senior? Unless…
“Besides, David was there,” Angie said as she buttered her bread.
“Gianna’s David?” The story was becoming more bizarre by the minute.
“Yeah. He knows the LaCroixs.”
That seemed too unlikely to be a coincidence. “How? They live on opposite sides of the state.”
Angie bit into her bread. “Something to do with the museum. Mr. LaCroix brings them specimens or something.”
“Was David hunting?” Somehow that didn’t fit Connie’s image of him.
“Yeah. Did you know he was in the army? He’s a crack shooter. But he prefers water birds. He goes hunting for Canadian geese.”
Connie shook her head and sighed. “I don’t know anything. So, was Gigi there, too, or did she really go to a friend’s wedding shower today?”
“She wasn’t there.” Angie giggled. “Can you see her in camo, sneaking through the woods?”
No, but I can see you. Because you are different somehow. Cat-like where the rest of us resemble sturdy cocker spaniels.
Papa cleared his throat. Too much conversation was taking place at his dinner table. Angie gave him an apologetic smile, and they all went back to eating.
***
Greg was obviously surprised to find two women waiting for him when he wheeled into the Park and Ride on Monday morning. He slid onto the station wagon’s front seat—which Marilyn had left open for him by settling in the back—and twisted around to look over the seat as Connie made introductions.
“Marilyn spent the weekend at my house,” Connie explained as she drove out of the lot. “Her family’s in Brattleboro.”
Greg and Marilyn chatted about UVM and her hometown in southern Vermont, and Connie let her mind wander to other things, like Angie’s unexpected relationship with the LaCroix family. Did she have a crush on Francis LaCroix, and her parents considered it harmless because they knew the family? Angie wasn’t even sixteen yet.
“You’re not listening, are you, Connie?” Greg’s words broke into her thoughts, and she glanced at him. He was watching her with a small smile on his face. “I said, I’m hoping you’ll come with me to Brad and Bunny’s place this Saturday. The people I told you about? Marilyn knows them, too.”
“Bunny’s in my dramatic arts class,” Marilyn said. “She’s wild. Let me rephrase that—uninhibited. A natural-born actress.”
Greg continued to face Connie on the seat, his arm stretched along the back, his fingers inches from her hair. He reached further and twined one of her loose curls around his index finger. “Will you come?”
Connie gave him a quick, frowning glance. He had never been that demonstrative before; was he doing that for Marilyn’s benefit? Turning on the charm?
“I’ll think about it.” She gave him a pinched smile.
Greg withdrew his hand. “Sorry. We can talk about it another time.”
“Have you ever gone to one of their parties?” Connie asked, directing her question to Marilyn.
“Nope. Never been invited.”
“Well, since Greg says they’re open to all comers, consider yourself invited.” Connie glanced at Greg once more. “Right?”
“Whatever you want.” He kept his profile to her and his eyes straight ahead, but she could hear the forced pleasantness in his voice.
“Actually, I’ve got plans for the weekend,” Marilyn said, her voice holding a certain self-satisfaction. “But I want to hear all about it. I know you’ll have a blast.”
They rode the rest of the way in relative silence, with just the occasional reference to something one of them observed outside the car. When they reached the commuter lot, Greg went off toward his class alone, and Connie and Marilyn headed in the opposite direction, clutching their books to their chests.
“Traitor,” Connie said, keeping her eyes straight ahead.
Marilyn laughed. “What? The guy wants to take you out.”
“The guy wants to get in my pants. These are pot parties that his girlfriend won’t go to.”
“You control who gets in your pants.”
Connie focused on the bare trees lining the sidewalk ahead, her annoyance with both of them rising. “If he wants to take me out, he can take me on a real date.”
“Okay, so then tell him that.”
“I will.”
Marilyn laughed again as she veered away to cross the street toward her first class. “Maybe you should consider dramatic arts.”
Chapter Ten
Monday, October 7
For the first time since they had begun riding together, Greg would be available to carpool with her on Friday. He told her on their ride home that Monday evening, shortly before they reached the outskirts of Stoneham.
“Is Candy going out of town or something?” Connie asked as she drove.
“I never said I was staying with Candy on Friday nights.”
Connie kept her eyes on the increasing traffic. “I know, but she’s your girlfriend, so—”
“I’ve got friends at Champlain and St. Michael’s. Male friends.” He sounded annoyed at having to explain himself.
“Okay. Hey, it’s none of my business. I was just making conversation.”
Greg twisted in his seat to face her; she could see him out of the corner of her eye. “You were making assumptions. Look, I want us to be friends. I want us to be more than friends.”
More than friends?
He paused to let his words sink in. “But maybe that’s not what you want.”
Not if it meant she filled in when his girlfriend wasn’t available.
“I know you’ve got stuff on your mind right now,” he continued, “so, I don’t want to push it. But I don’t go out with Candy anymore. I don’t see Candy. I don’t even hang out with that crowd anymore.”
Connie swallowed back her surprise. Even more surprising was her growing excitement. He was actually interested in her? “I do want that.”
“Good. And we don’t have to go to Brad and Bunny’s on Saturday if you don’t want to. We can do something else.”
Connie’s mind raced as she turned the car onto Forest Avenue. He was giving her a choice. And suddenly, all she wanted was to please him. “No, that sounds like fun. Really.”
“Okay. Great.”
One small thing niggled at her. Did she dare bring it up? She had to. “You realize, dating means we run the risk of losing our carpool if things don’t work out.” She put a teasing tone in her voice as she glanced at him. “You may want to reconsider, with winter coming and all.”
Greg’s serious expression transformed into a slow smile. “I’ll be sure to give that some thought.”
Connie swung the car into the Park and Ride and parked it in the empty space beside Greg’s Mustang. Instead of pushing the car door open to leave, he turned to her once more. “Are you planning any more guests for tomorrow?”
Connie smiled. “No.”
“Then how about if I pick you up at home? It’s silly for you to drive this short distance.
”
“Isn’t that out of your way? This is closer for you.”
Greg leaned toward her, his solemn eyes trained on hers. “Can you ever just say yes?”
“Maybe.”
His appealing face was so close, his expression so sincere. She impulsively leaned toward him, closing the distance between them to gently press her mouth to his. His lips were warm and soft and responded to hers with just the right amount of pressure to make their first kiss a promise of good things to come.
His eyes were shining with delight as he pulled back. “I’ll be at your house at seven thirty. Okay?”
Connie gave him her most demure smile. “Yes.”
***
Mornings and evenings became Connie’s favorite times of day. She and Greg greeted each other with a quick kiss in the morning and parted with a more prolonged one at school or when she dropped him off at the Park and Ride on the days when she drove. When they were parting on the street in front of her house, they kept the good-bye to a chaste peck.
On Friday he drove, and they stopped for pizza in Barre before he took her home. On Saturday, he would pick her up at six thirty for the ninety-minute drive to northern Vermont where his friends lived.
“I don’t know when I’ll be home, Mamma, so don’t worry,” Connie said as she helped clear the dinner table before he arrived. “It’s a three-hour round trip, so it will probably be after midnight.”
Mamma stood at the kitchen sink rinsing plates. “I do not sleep until you are home.” Her expression was stern. “And you make sure he comes to eat tomorrow.”
“He said he would.” Connie kissed her on her soft cheek. “He’s a gentleman, Mamma. Don’t worry.”
“He’s a man.”
Connie smiled at her predictable harangue. “Did you date a lot of men before Papa?”
Mamma swiped a sponge across the dish in her hand. “We knew each other since we were children. There was no need.”
“So, I take it he wasn’t always a gentleman.”
In an instant, Mamma’s free hand grabbed the bar of hand soap and thrust it toward Connie. Her dark eyes flashed angrily. “Wash out your mouth! Why do you say that?”
“Because you say bad things about men, like they’re animals. But the only man you know personally is Papa.”
Mamma set down the soap. “I know what I see. I know what they want.”
“It’s not what Greg wants that matters. It’s what he does.”
A knock on the kitchen door ended their conversation. Mamma hastily wiped her hands on her apron and smoothed back her curly hair as Connie went to the door and let Greg in.
He was dressed casually in jeans and a denim jacket as fit the occasion, and Mamma looked momentarily taken aback, no doubt expecting something more formal. But when he extended his hand and gave her his winning smile, Mamma responded in kind, her eyes lighting up with approval.
No matter what she might say, Mamma wasn’t immune to a good-looking man.
Gianna was out with David, but Angie and Papa were home, seated at the dining room table, sharing one of the bruised pears Papa had culled from the store. Connie brought Greg in to greet them. Angie’s wide-eyed reaction as she shook his hand was priceless.
He helped Connie slip a sweater over her peasant blouse, and
she ushered him outside into the cold night air, anxious to have him to herself. They kissed in the darkness under the stairs before heading for the waiting warmth of his car.
***
Brad and Bunny’s small ranch house, on an obscure country road, was unremarkable on the outside. At least a dozen cars and pickup trucks, plus three motorcycles, were parked, seemingly randomly, across the lawn and side yard.
Inside, the place was everything Connie had imagined. The smell of marijuana hung heavy in the air, and at first, she found it hard to see because the lights were so low. Whining sitar music from a reel-to-reel tape recorder near the front door provided a backdrop to the buzz of conversation. As her eyes adjusted, she realized the rooms they entered were full of people with barely visible faces. Many stood in small groups, some with drinks in their hands, but just as many were seated on the floor, leaning into pillows or propped against the walls in spaces surprisingly devoid of furniture. Yellow-green lava lamps and clusters of flickering candles in glass candleholders on a few low tables provided the only illumination, while blacklights mounted on the ceiling turned white fabric vibrant and caused the psychedelic graphics on randomly placed artwork to leap outward into the general duskiness. Here and there, small points of glowing red light were being passed from person to person.
A young woman in a long, tiered skirt passed by as they moved into what might have been dining room. As the woman stepped into the glow of a nearby lava lamp, Connie’s eyes were drawn to the soft fabric of her blouse where the woman’s well-rounded breasts showed off their prominent, fully hard nipples. Going braless was popular among college women, but Connie had yet to embrace it herself. The clear sexuality of it made the practice seem inappropriate in a school setting, plus she would never get out of the house that way. Here, however, it fit the feel of the room and the people, and the realization filled her with a mixture of exhilaration and momentary dread. What if this really was everything she had feared? What if, for Greg, it was all about free love and sex?
Greg took her hand and led her into the kitchen, which was more brightly lit than the other rooms. People there were standing, pouring beverages into paper cups and reaching into bowls of chips or popcorn while they talked. Most of the women were dressed similarly to Connie, with gauzy Indian tops or peasant blouses, ankle-length skirts, and boots or sandals. The majority had long, unfettered hair, some more wildly bushy than Connie’s on a bad day. The men wore all types of smocks and tunics and a variety of loose trousers as well as jeans. Many had long hair pulled back into pony tails or trailing down to their shoulders, and several had full beards. Connie smiled to herself, thinking a number of them could have played Jesus in The Greatest Story Ever Told.
She and Greg poured white wine into paper cups and carried them out of the kitchen, back into the dimly lit front rooms. They sat cross-legged on the floor, side by side, their knees touching, and absorbed the wildly colorful, definitely weird atmosphere around them. When a joint or a hash pipe came their way, they both took a toke and passed it on. Before long, Connie was relaxed, slightly high, and very hungry.
They worked their way around the rooms, finding salty snacks but avoiding the baked goods, then sat wherever they found room and enjoyed being together, taking the occasional smoke when it was offered. People around them came and went, but the size of the crowd never seemed to change, and they never connected personally with anyone else in the room, including their hosts. Around eleven o’clock Greg looked at his watch and stood up, then pulled her to her feet. She stood facing him in the darkened room, slightly tipsy as she looked into his eyes. She and he were almost the same height when she wore boots with heels, and kissing him came naturally as they stood face to face. After a few minutes, he whispered, “Let’s go,” and led her toward the front door. Most of the candles had burned out, and she was thankful for his firm hand, for she could barely see the bodies sprawled on the floor as he guided her around them. The shock of cold air that hit her as they stepped outside brought a welcome clearing of her head.
The October night was clear and crisp, the temperature hovering around freezing as the cloud cover thinned and moved away in wisps, revealing a brilliant full moon. Greg deposited her in the Mustang’s passenger seat, then slipped in behind the wheel to start the engine. He reached around to the backseat and brought forward a striped wool blanket that he handed to her, then stepped out of the car to scrape the light film of frost that was forming on the glass. Connie unfolded the blanket and spread it over her lap, then pulled the remainder up to her chin and settled in under its welcome warmth, content and at peace with the world. She was dozing off when Greg returned to the driver’s seat, and sh
e woke to see him blowing on his fingers and rubbing his hands together.
“Damn, it’s cold out there. Are you warm enough?” he asked.
“I am.” She gave him a big smile. “Here, give me your hands. I’ll warm them up.” She reached out and took his cold hands in hers, closing her fingers around his and pulling them beneath the blanket, pressing them to the nubby sweater she wore over her peasant blouse. “Wow, they really are cold.”
Greg leaned toward her, laughing as she pulled him off balance, and covered her mouth with his. Connie closed her eyes and let his kisses carry her to a wonderful place where all she wanted was for him to never stop. To her disappointment, he pulled back and withdrew his hands, placing them on the steering wheel and putting the car in gear. “We need to get you home on time.”
Connie settled into the warmth beneath the blanket once more, her eyes wide open as he drove off the lawn and onto the gravel road. She suddenly realized she had no idea how to get home or even where she was; if she had to describe her location in an emergency, she wouldn’t be able to do it. A sudden, unexplainable panic gripped her, but she mentally talked herself through it. She was with Greg. She knew Greg after all these weeks of traveling together. She trusted Greg. She had no reason to fear him or the fact that she had no idea where she was or how to find help if she needed it.
She drew a deep breath and watched for signs that might tell her where they were as he drove to the end of the unmarked road, then took a right down another gravel road. At least the full moon was illuminating what would have been totally black surroundings on a different night, shedding its silvery light on trees and rock walls and the occasional darkened house with a car in the driveway—all still and lifeless, fake-looking in the odd light, but real, nonetheless. Houses and farms were few and far between, but at least she wasn’t totally alone as she rode through the night with a man who was basically a stranger.
She fought the building paranoia within her and told herself to stay calm. She didn’t want to have him think she was some kind of schizophrenic freak. But this probably wasn’t the smartest thing she had ever done, coming so far from home with someone she barely knew, not knowing where she was. Her parents had no idea how to find her. All she knew was that it had taken over an hour to get there, but she really didn’t know where “there” was.
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