First Loves: A Loveswept Contemporary Romance

by Stone, Jean

  “The limo will pick you up at nine-thirty, okay? At your place?”

  The limo. God. The partners. Avery had served as a buffer between Meg and the others—the ones who resented Meg as a woman, who fought with Avery when he made her a partner in the Park Avenue good-old-boys firm. “No, Danny,” she said. “I don’t want to go in the limo. I want to go with you.”

  “I’m just a hired hand, honey. You need to go with the other partners.”

  He was right and she knew it. She rubbed the back of her neck. “It’ll be a huge funeral.”

  “Yeah. A big event. For the richest and the most powerful.”

  “And they’ll all be there,” Meg said.

  “Not to mention the politicians. From the DA’s office to the White House. The place will be crawling with them.”

  Meg sighed. “Avery told me once that his dream was to be appointed to the Supreme Court.”

  “He might have made it. If the Republicans had stayed in office.”

  They talked for a few more minutes. After she hung up, Meg paced around the suite. Avery. Dead. She stopped at the window and stared outside. Her hands began to tremble. Her legs began to ache. Avery. Dead.

  Then something else Danny had said came back to Meg’s mind, and a slow, sickening feeling spread through her.

  The politicians, he’d said. The place will be crawling with them.

  They were on their second bottle of wine. Meg had reluctantly joined Zoe and Alissa: she’d wanted to rush home to New York to mourn Avery, the mentor–advisor–father figure she’d now lost. But Alissa had insisted Meg stay until the following day. “You’re in no condition to travel,” Alissa had said when Meg had tearfully told them the news. “You’re far too upset. You need to be with your friends tonight.”

  And so she had stayed.

  She looked around the restaurant, a dark publike room filled with thick square pine tables set with red paper place mats. There were only a few patrons: Prince Charming didn’t appear to be among them. Beside her, Zoe and Alissa were talking; Meg was feeling oddly comforted by their presence, as though the sound of their voices alone was easing her grief. She wondered why she had never let herself have any close friends until then. And how was it possible that she felt close to these women? She had, after all, known them only a few days.

  After tomorrow they would go their separate ways: Meg back to New York, Alissa to Atlanta, and Zoe, eventually, back to L.A. But something inside Meg hoped they’d stay in touch. In the last couple of weeks she’d learned that female friends—not just male lovers—were missing from her life.

  Through the haze of the wine Meg actually convinced herself that Avery’s funeral might not be so bad: maybe Senator Steven Riley wouldn’t be there, after all.

  She took another sip as a waiter appeared beside their table.

  “What’ll it be, ladies? Ready to order?”

  All eyes turned to Meg. In the past few hours her appetite had dwindled. But Zoe and Alissa were trying so hard to help, it didn’t seem fair to let them think their efforts were in vain. “I’m ready,” she said as she sat up straight in her chair. “I’ll have a big, juicy cheeseburger.” And, she promised herself, she would stop thinking of Avery, she would stop anticipating the funeral. She would have a good time now, here, tonight with her friends. The way Avery would have wanted her to.

  “Fries?”

  “Sure. Why not?”

  Zoe smiled.

  “Make mine the same,” Alissa said.

  Meg would believe Alissa could eat that much when she saw it.

  “Not me,” Zoe said. “I’ll have the scallops. Broiled. No butter. And salad. No dressing.”

  “What a good girl,” Alissa said. Her words, Meg noted, were a little slurred. She wouldn’t have thought Alissa was the type to drink too much, to let down her guard.

  Zoe smiled. “Got to look good enough to be with a leading man.”

  Alissa slammed down her glass. “Don’t do this for any man, honey. Leading or otherwise. You make yourself look good for you. Nobody else. ’Cuz nobody else matters. Besides, the last thing a woman can depend on is a man.”

  Meg knew that Alissa was right, yet she was surprised at the hostility in her voice.

  “Sometimes,” Zoe said as she ran her finger around the rim of her wineglass, “I wonder if I had paid more attention to my appearance, well, maybe William would have been happier.”

  “And then what?” Alissa asked. “Maybe he wouldn’t have killed himself?”

  Meg was startled. “Alissa, that’s not a very nice thing to say.”

  “No. You’re right. I’m sorry, Zoe. But what you’ve got to understand is that you can never really understand what goes on inside a man’s head.”

  “That’s an understatement,” Zoe said, and seemed unruffled at Alissa’s cruel remark. Meg wondered where Zoe got her strength.

  “Men,” Alissa continued. “They really are scum, you know.”

  “Maybe it’s partly our fault,” Meg said quietly. She wondered if Avery’s late wife had thought he was scum. She wondered if Steven Riley was scum. She’d never given herself the chance to find out.

  “Are you nuts?” Alissa asked. “Besides, what do you know about men? You’re not even married.” She took another sip of wine. “Bet you have a boyfriend, though. Some equally successful power attorney, perhaps? Or maybe that private investigator? What was his name?”

  “His name is Danny. And no, he’s only a friend. A good friend. But right now there’s no one special in my life.”

  Alissa set down her glass. “See? If someone as beautiful and clever and smart as you doesn’t have a boyfriend, it proves they’re all scum. I rest my case.”

  Though she knew Alissa’s words could be considered a compliment, Meg suddenly found old feelings resurfacing, the feelings of being the kid with no father, the one who was different, inadequate. “I’ve had a lot of boyfriends—men friends,” she stuttered.

  “But how about relationships?” Alissa pressed. “Real relationships?”

  In her mind Meg saw his face, his eyes, his lips. She felt his touch. “Once,” she replied quietly, “a long time ago.”

  Alissa leaned back in her chair. “Yeah, I guess you could say I had one once, too. But it sure as shit wasn’t with my husband. It was before him.” She drained her glass and poured another. “God, it was good.”

  Meg was relieved to have the focus of the conversation off herself. “What happened?”

  “His name was Jay. Jay Stockwell. Our parents had summer homes next to each other.”

  “You were childhood sweethearts?” Zoe asked, then added wistfully, “I think they’re the best. Everyone involved is so innocent.”

  Alissa shook her head. “This wasn’t innocence. It was love. Real love.”

  They grew quiet. Meg thought of Steven Riley, about their affair. That was real love. But it had been years ago. A lifetime ago.

  The waiter arrived and set their dinners on the red paper place mats. Meg stared at the cheeseburger. Again she had no appetite.

  After he left, Zoe spoke. “What is real love, anyway? How do you know? William took good care of me and of Scott. But I can’t honestly say I loved him. Not like I’d loved the boy back home.”

  “Ah,” Alissa said, “the boy back home. For me that was Jay. The trouble was, he didn’t want to stay home. He had things to do, a world to save.”

  “Where did he go?”

  Meg was glad Zoe was encouraging Alissa to talk. Her sad thoughts of Avery were sliding into lonely, depressive thoughts of Steven. She could feel her walls closing around her, her need to escape into herself. For some reason she thought about the cat she’d had when she and Steven had been together—a gray tiger named Socrates. For the longest time after Steven was gone, she’d closed Socrates out of her bedroom. She’d not been able to stand hearing him purr; the sound was too close to the soft snores of Steven beside her, at peace in his slumber after their lovemaking.

&
nbsp; “First, Jay went to San Francisco,” Alissa was saying, and Meg snapped back to the present. “It was in the early seventies. He’d been deferred from the draft. From Vietnam.”

  “Was he sick?” Zoe asked.

  “No,” Alissa said. “He was rich. Rich boys didn’t have to go. Jay’s family owned—and still do—a megabroadcast conglomerate. TV stations. Radio stations. All over the country. Jay loved broadcasting, but not business. He was a born journalist.” She pushed the plate with her untouched cheeseburger and fries aside. “When he went to San Francisco, he gave his family the finger.”

  “And you never saw him again?” Zoe asked.

  Alissa laughed. “Never saw him again? Honey,” she said, as she took another sip of wine, “I went with him.”

  “You went with him?” Even Meg was surprised at this. She couldn’t picture Alissa following anyone, anywhere.

  “I was eighteen. Love seemed more important than trust funds or appearances or social standing.”

  “So what happened?” Zoe asked.

  She shrugged. “I realized I was wrong.”

  The women were quiet again. Meg felt sorry for Alissa. Something in the eyes of this aggressive little blonde now spelled sorrow. Sorrow for a life gone by. Sorrow for love relinquished. She knew the feeling only too well.

  “God, he was handsome,” Alissa said. “He still is.”

  “Still is?” Zoe asked. “You mean you still see him?”

  Alissa shook her head. “I left him standing on the corner of Haight-Ashbury. It seemed appropriate at the time. He was working for one of those liberal underground newspapers. I went home to Atlanta, married Robert, had the kids. Then one day I turned on the TV and there he was. Reporting from Cairo.”

  “So he went back into broadcasting,” Zoe said.

  “Full steam ahead apparently. Delivering stories on the oppressed people of the world. Over the years I’ve seen him standing against backdrops in Lebanon, Ethiopia, Iraq, you name it. He was on the air for days during that Tiananmen Square thing in China or wherever that is.”

  “Oh,” Zoe said, “Jay Stockwell. Sure. I’ve seen him, too. His stories have real sensitivity.”

  Alissa shrugged. “I never paid much attention to his stories. I was too busy looking at him. Wondering.”

  Zoe picked at her scallops, then set down her fork. “Wondering what would have happened if you’d stayed together?”

  “Sure. Haven’t you ever done that? Wondered about your boy back home?”

  “You mean, the man I could have married?” Zoe asked.

  “Or should have,” Alissa said.

  Should have, Meg thought. Should I have? Could I have?

  “Sure I’ve wondered about him,” Zoe said. “All the time.”

  “What about you, Meg? What about your one and only? Don’t you ever wonder how your life would have been different? How it would have been better?”

  Meg silently wished she could say, No. My life wouldn’t have been better. It would have been worse. And besides, my life is just fine the way it is. But she couldn’t seem to say anything. She couldn’t seem to lie.

  There was silence around the table. Meg looked at Zoe, who was watching Alissa. Meg turned to Alissa, just in time to see her surreptitiously wipe a lone tear from her cheek. Alissa caught Meg’s eye and quickly cleared her throat. Then she raised her glass toward them both. “I think we should find them,” Alissa said. “I think we should find the men we once loved and show them what they’ve missed.”

  Meg wished she’d brought along something to help her sleep. She lay on her back, staring up at the dark ceiling, with one primary thought: Steven Riley. She felt a little guilty—she should have been thinking about Avery, doing some kind of grieving, detached or otherwise. But now she could think only of the past.

  She rolled onto her side and tried to shut out the memories. That first day she’d met him, that first class in criminal law. He was the instructor, the charismatic, powerful attorney from New York City, guest lecturing at Harvard for the semester.

  Their first cup of coffee, in the coffee shop across the square. Talking with passion about the law, waving his hands as he spoke. It was then that he’d first touched her. A light touch on her hand. A gesture of speech. Yet his hand had stayed there a beat too long. Their eyes had met.

  She turned onto her stomach, fluffed the pillow, and could almost feel his touch again, this time on her back, in the little hollow at the base of her spine. She could feel his lips there. Kissing softly.

  It hadn’t bothered Meg that Steven was already married. The fact that he had three small children had helped. For Meg knew—long before she’d left home for college, long before her mother had died in their small, smoke-filled house—Meg knew that she would never marry. Marriage was for other people, not for her. She was not worthy of being loved.

  “If it hadn’t been for you,” she could still hear her mother cry, still envision her sitting at the metal kitchen table in her stained bathrobe, though it was the middle of the day, drinking black coffee and coughing that cigarette cough, “if it hadn’t been for you, your goddamn father would have never left. If it hadn’t been for you, he would have divorced his wife and married me. He will never come back to me now. And it’s all your fault.”

  Meg turned onto her other side.

  Steven had loved her. And worse, she had loved Steven. For thirteen weeks they had held hands, touched, looked into each other’s eyes, made love. For thirteen weeks Meg Cooper had been happy. Thirteen weeks. A semester that would last a lifetime. And end another.

  He had bought them matching sweatshirts: crimson and gray. Meg had washed them when he went home on weekends, then snuggled against his for hours after it came out, warm and cozy, from the dryer.

  He had bought her a bouquet of bright paper flowers. “Like our love,” he’d said, “these will never die.”

  He had taught her how to make clam chowder; how to play backgammon; how to make love.

  Then came the photo. “Students cavorting with faculty.” And suddenly the risk had become too great, the stakes too high. And Meg knew what she had to do.

  The night of the final exam they had met in the coffee shop.

  “I cannot go back to New York,” Steven had said. “I want to stay in Boston with you. I want to divorce my wife. I want to marry you.”

  Meg had stared into his eyes. “No,” she’d answered. It was not supposed to have come to this. She couldn’t let him leave his wife. She couldn’t let him leave his children. She could not let him risk the political career he was being so carefully groomed for. It was not going to be her fault.

  Meg got out of bed now and went into the sitting room. She curled up on the sofa and hugged her knees tightly to her chest. Loneliness squeezed around her. She wondered if Alissa was sitting, sleepless, on the sofa of her suite, thinking about Jay Stockwell. She wondered if Zoe was thinking about her boy back home.

  She glanced at the clock. One forty-five. She got up and went into the bathroom, where she found a couple of aspirin, quickly downed them, and returned to bed. All this nonsense was getting her nowhere. She pulled the comforter around her and clenched her eyes shut, forcing herself to think of something else. How Raggedy Man would survive being cared for by the neighbor. When to leave tomorrow. What to wear to Avery’s funeral. She did, after all, want to look her best. Not because Steven might be there. No, that had nothing to do with it.

  We should show them what they’ve missed. Alissa’s words echoed, an unwanted ghost in her mind.

  Finally Meg drifted off to sleep.

  And then he was there. Standing on a podium. Red, white, and blue balloons floated above him, around him. Giant balloons. The size of beach balls. Music blared. Trumpets. Saxophones. She could not see them, but Meg could hear the crowd. Shouting. Cheering. Steven waved both hands to them. His smile was huge. Bigger than Meg had ever seen it. His teeth were straighter, whiter that she’d ever known. He must have had them capped, she
thought. Sometime, over the last fifteen years, he must have had them capped.

  He brought his arms down and stepped closer to the microphone. “I, Senator Steven Riley, accept your nomination for the candidacy of the office of President of the United States.” His words reverberated. The shouts, the cheers, grew louder. He reached his left arm out to his side. Meg stepped forward, into it. She was dressed in a tailored bright-red suit. He encircled her waist, leaned down, and kissed her. A long, slow, sensual kiss. For all the world to see.

  He broke away and waved back at the crowd again. The roars were deafening. Meg spotted the two of them as they were projected on the huge video screen. They were gorgeous together, perfect. The next President. The next First Lady. Then, on the screen, she watched as he outstretched his other arm. His wife stepped forward, into it. She was dressed in a tailored bright-red suit. Just like Meg’s. He encircled his wife’s waist, leaned down, and kissed her. A long, slow, sensual kiss. For all the world to see.

  He put his other arm around Meg again. Meg was smiling, watching the video screen. The three of them stood there, proudly, arm in arm.

  “But where are your children?” Meg shouted into his ear.

  “They didn’t come,” he answered.

  “Why not?”

  His wife leaned across him. “You know why.” She smiled. “They didn’t come because it’s all your fault.”

  Meg nodded and looked back to the faceless crowd. Of course, she thought to herself. I knew that.

  The lights of the television cameras were warm. Meg was beginning to sweat. She started to wipe her brow. Her heart started to pound.

  She awoke. Her hand was on her forehead. It was damp. Her heart was thumping wildly. She sat up in bed, then buried her face in her hands. It had been years since she’d dreamed of Steven. It had been years since she’d let herself even think of him. It had been years. Hadn’t it?

  “What time are you flying out?” Zoe asked Meg as they lay by the indoor pool the next morning. They were the only ones there. Mornings were active for seminars, group workouts, and those activities whose participants did not have the advantage of a personal-fitness guru named Alissa.