Лорен Кейт: The Betrayal of Natalie Hargrove

Note: In case you’re reading this from another planet, the Jessamine is not just the South Carolina state flower; it’s also the longtime corsage of choice for Palmetto High School dances. Of course, somewhere along the line, the tacky southern flair for design infiltrated that tradition, and today’s Jessamine is like a nouveau riche distant cousin of its former self.

In the old days, guys just picked fistfuls of the golden wild-flower and pinned them to a brooch. But today’s Jessamine can only be ordered from the Duke of Jessamines, and all the flowers look like they’re on steroids. They’re silk, about the size of a Frisbee, and decorated with all the bells and whistles (and ribbons and stickers and photo buttons and school spirit emblems — and I swear I saw one last year that lit up and played music) that your date can afford.

Guys custom-order them weeks in advance, and girls sport their Jessamines to school on the day before the dance. It’s the only time of year you’ll see cheerleaders in overalls — the denim bib holds up the weight the best. Jessamine Day has gotten to be so huge that if you’re unlucky enough not to get asked to the Ball, you basically call in sick. It’s better to flake than to show up flowerless.

I know it sounds intense. The Duke of Jessamines even has to hire a team of seasonal employees to help him make the corsages this time every year. Which is how my mother got her current job — and her current benefactor. . I mean, boyfriend.

“Nat?” Mike brushed his thumb on my cheekbone, interrupting my thoughts. “I said I was going to order it tomorrow.”

“MIKE!” I jumped up in horror. Picking out the right Jessamine was the biggest, most public display of commitment a guy could make toward his girlfriend. “The dance is a week away! You know they run out of the best flowers.”

Mike wrapped his leg around me. He tried again for a kiss, but I sucked in and pursed my lips.

“Have I ever let you down?” he asked.

I crossed my arms, and I couldn’t decide whether I was fake-pouting or real-pouting. “Not yet,” I responded.

“I never will,” he said.

“I’ll believe that when you beat J.B. for Prince.”

Mike rolled his eyes and grinned. “Your one-track mind is very sexy. But I’ve told you, Balmer’s cool now. He was just showing me his costume for the party this weekend.”

Oh my God, in all the excitement, I’d completely forgotten about Rex Freeman’s infamous Mardi Gras soiree.

It was the one time a year when every kid at Palmetto, save a few of the most self-righteous youth groupers, cut loose and got a little crazy. All the typical girls would be wearing feathered masks and fishnets, but I was determined to come up with something that stood out in the crowd of wannabe sluts. The boys would be all Panama hats, flasks in their jackets, and barely buttoned French-cut shirts. Often, they ended up looking more scandalous than the girls.

I did love to pick out costumes for us to wear every year, but I think my favorite part of Mardi Gras was seeing everyone all showered and appropriate at church the next morning, when you’d still be picturing them flashing for beads. It was something I looked forward to every year, but today, the thought of Rex’s party was just one more thing getting under my skin.

“So what?” I asked Mike huffily. “You and J.B. were swapping beads in the locker room?” Mike and I had already agreed to keep our costume concept this year a surprise until we showed up at the party.

“Course not,” Mike shrugged. “Just his. Dude’s gonna wear a feather boa. It’s hilarious.”

“I doubt it,” I said. The mental image of J.B. stumbling around drunk in a hot-pink feather boa did nothing for me — unless that feather boa could be used to publicly humiliate/ annihilate him.

Then Mike put his thumb on my lip. “Hey,” he said softly. “If I promise to get you the Jessamine to shame all other Jessamines, will you kiss me already?”

I leaned into him and tried to gauge the look in his eyes. He looked totally earnest. I wondered if that would change if I clued him in on a few unsavory details about J.B. That would involve divulging some information about my past that I’d banished to the recesses of my mind, but you know what they say about desperate times.

“Come on,” he coaxed again. “Kiss me.”

I pulled Mike to me so that our lips just barely brushed when I spoke. “If I kiss you, will you promise to keep your costume plans a secret from J.B. until Saturday night?”

Mike’s brow furrowed the way it did when he couldn’t quite keep up with my logic but trusted me enough not to question it. His strong hands folded around me, and he pressed his lips to mine. His tongue parted my mouth, and when I opened up to him, I could feel a new kind of power moving in.

W hen you’re dating southern royalty, always pack a change of clothes.

There’s the daytime getup (string bikini and gauzy black cover-up) that you bring to your boyfriend’s bayside villa for the after-dinner jaunt on his state-of-the-art cigarette boat. . and then there’s the lavender-jersey tennis dress and impeccably white cardigan that you threw in your bag in case his blue-blood parents pop by the house unexpectedly for dinner. . again.

“Look who’s in the neighborhood!” Diana King trilled as she stepped into the foyer of the King family’s weekend house. I listened for the thwunk of her alligator-skin duffel landing on the Persian rug in the middle of the massive foyer. Then I heard the rapid-fire clicking of her stilettos on the opalescent marble as she beelined up the stairs toward her youngest son’s boudoir door, on which she patently refused to knock.

“That’s my cue,” I groaned, rolling off of Mike on the navy quilted bedspread. It was a sure bet that she’d be up here sniffing around before Mike could even collect himself after all the hard work I’d been doing.

“To be continued,” Mike said, pulling on my earlobe with his lips. “Hi, Mom,” he called loudly, crossing the room to rifle through his nautical mahogany trunk for some clothes.

I managed to shut my scantily clad self inside Mike’s Jacuzzi-equipped bathroom exactly one nanosecond before Diana took over the bedroom. I could smell her signature Shalimar perfume as she stood in the doorway. And from the hurried rummaging in the next room, it sounded like Mike was still scrambling into his shirt. Perfect. As if Diana needed more ammunition to play Ice Queen with me.

“I didn’t realize you were coming out today,” Mike said smoothly, probably standing to give her the double-cheeked kiss she always insisted on. “What’s the occasion?”

“Tsk tsk,” I heard Diana say, recalling my own mother’s favorite zinger about that annoying blue-blood habit of speaking in onomatopoeias: like they’re not rich enough to buy a vowel?

“Darling, don’t act so surprised,” Mike’s mother was saying. “You can’t think Natalie’s the only one who likes to make use of our villa. She’s here with you, no doubt?”

Sniff sniff. I envisioned her rhinoplastied — excuse me — deviated-septum-altered nostrils flaring with thinly veiled suspicion.

“She’s, uh, in the shower,” Mike covered for me, and I promptly turned on the faucet. I hadn’t been planning on showering until after we finished what we’d started in the bedroom and squeezed in a couple hours of sunset tubing on the boat. But then again, whenever Mike’s mother made a cameo, it wasn’t unusual for our plans to go to hell in one of her designer handbags.

Huffily, I resigned myself to shampooing my hair. Minutes later, when I felt the waft of cold air from the shower curtain being pulled back, I jumped.