“So now what?” Carter asked. “After Lisa graduates from high school, what then?”
“Sophie got the girl into State on a partial scholarship. And once Lisa leaves in the fall, Sophie is out of here. No more waitressing for her.”
“What did she study in school?”
“You mean in college?” He sounded as though he were talking of an alien establishment.
“Yes. What did she study in college?”
“I have no idea,” the man said, then got up and left.
The more Carter heard about Sophie, the more he liked her. She had a college degree but she hadn’t abandoned her sister.
That summer his father was often away, and when he did return, his anger was so violent that he appeared to be oblivious to everything around him. All he cared about was getting possession of the Palmer canning plant.
“That bastard,” Carter’s father, Lewis, said at dinner. “If you knew what he’s demanding—” He broke off as he looked at his son. Carter was tall and handsome and looked as healthy as a human could be. And why not? He’d never done drugs, had always eaten well, and played sports. That he was going to be married off to a girl like Traci Palmer was a shame. The girl had been doing drugs since she was a kid. Last year her nose had had to be rebuilt from all the cocaine she’d snorted.
But Lewis knew it couldn’t be helped. Old man Palmer was saying that his daughter needed stability, that she’d clean up her ways if she was married to an upstanding, honorable boy like Carter.
Lewis knew that old saw wasn’t true, but he also knew that men can become desperate when it comes to their children. His own hope was that a marriage with some conflict in it might make a man of his son. As it was, all Carter wanted to do was read his fancy books and give away the Treeborne fortune. Lewis well knew that his son no longer did any work for the company, but the people he’d hired to replace him were so damned good that he wasn’t about to fire them.
“So who’s the town girl you’re seeing?”
Carter nearly choked on his food.
“You didn’t think you could keep a thing like that a secret from me, did you?”
Carter knew better than to lie. “Sophie Kincaid, and I’m not really seeing her. I asked her out, but she said no.”
“Did she?” Lewis asked. “When I was a boy there wasn’t a pretty girl in town who said no to me.”
Carter wanted to say, And I have the half siblings to prove it, but he didn’t. “She’s just here until her sister graduates from high school.”
“Didn’t that girl get into trouble a few years back?”
“That’s what I heard,” Carter said, “but Sophie straightened her out.”
“Sounds good,” Lewis said and Carter looked at him with hope in his eyes. “Just so you understand that this is just a summer romance. I want you engaged to the Palmer girl by Halloween. Got it?”
Carter knew that he should stand up to his father, but he didn’t. He didn’t have
any money of his own, and he’d never trained for a career. He couldn’t see himself working in a shop somewhere and making minimum wage. Living in a fourth-floor walkup, buying his shirts out of a bin, his shoes on sale. No, he couldn’t imagine any of that. If he’d been born with a talent or a passion for something, that would be different. But so far he’d found neither of them within himself.
His father was staring at him, as though waiting for a reply.
Carter put his head down. “A summer romance. I got it.”
For a second a look of what appeared to be disappointment flashed across Lewis’s face. Maybe he wished his son would stand up to him, call his bluff, but Carter was like his mother. Nothing had ever made her lose that cool, aristocratic calm that had at first fascinated him and that he’d later come to despise. “And don’t parade her around in public. I don’t want Palmer to hear any gossip.”
Carter kept his head down and nodded. In a way he knew his father had just given him permission to have one last fling before . . . Carter didn’t want to think what autumn would bring. But meanwhile he planned to make use of the freedom that he had.
It hadn’t been easy to win Sophie’s trust. The evening after his father’s marital decree, Carter had been waiting for her outside the restaurant.
“Hello,” he said from the dark.
Sophie turned around so fast he thought she was going to hit him. Instead, she gave him a look that told him to drop dead, then she headed round the corner to the poorly lit parking lot and her car. It was a rattletrap old thing that he couldn’t believe even ran.
Later he thought it was an omen that it didn’t. She got in, started the engine, but it did nothing. He stood outside in the heat and dark and watched her hit her fist against the dashboard. “Gas or battery?” he asked through the open window.