Ashley was a slightly different story. She wasn’t on the pill and hadn’t planned to have sex with me. But then Ashley had gotten into it while watching Scarlet and me. Since Ashley had
The net result was that after the start of the fall semester, they’d both realized they were pregnant.
Neither of the girls was a dummy. Thanks to the extra summer classes they’d taken, they were able to graduate early after finishing the fall semester. They’d only started to show just before Thanksgiving. With a lot of loose clothing and sweatshirts, and everybody worrying about finals and term papers, they’d managed to make it through the semester without starting any kind of scandal.
Ashley and Scarlet had remained close and managed to hide their conditions from their respective parents until that became impossible. They made sure that by the time their parents found out, it was way too late for abortions. They’d been able to weather the inevitable family storms by supporting and being there for each other.
The problem was that they were from old, moneyed, religious families; an unmarried daughter with a child was not something either of their daddies was willing to put up with. Both girls were being pressured to marry. The only reason they hadn’t been pushed to marry before the babies were born was that they were both visibly pregnant. Those kinds of wedding pictures in the society pages were not something their parents wanted.
“Why didn’t you talk to me as soon as you knew?” I asked.
Ashley’s gaze was steady as she looked me in the eye.
“We were talking about it, and then you were in the news for raping a high school girl. That made us pause. We’d gotten up the nerve to call you when your movie came out. We were sure our families would think you were a playboy. And then there were those two women who tried to make you out to be bad news for any woman. Of course, we knew the women were just making trouble. That was quickly pretty clear.
“We kept putting it off and putting it off, and wouldn’t tell our families who you really were. Even when we had the babies and put your name on the birth certificates, they never made the connection to David Dawson, the movie star, model, and athlete.
“The final reason is you are so much younger than we are. Our dads want us each to marry someone who’s stable and ready to raise our children. To be honest, until last night, I was sure they weren’t going to let us come today and tell you,” Ashley said.
That was quite a bit to absorb. Smearing someone in the media really did have an effect on people’s lives, it seemed. I absolutely could not fault the girls for their decisions. Yes, this made my life more complicated, but I was happy they’d decided to tell me. I guessed that there had to be some concern that tilted the decision to let me know.
“So, what changed to make you finally decide to get in touch with me?”
“Two guys named Brett and Clay, and our daddies,” Ashley replied with a bit of a sour expression.
It turned out Brett was a rising star on the management team at one of Mr. Kincaid’s warehousing businesses. He’d shown his ambition, and everyone felt that someday he would work his way into upper management at the company headquarters. According to Ashley, he was a player as well. I’d sort of guessed the player aspect.
“Brett sees me as his ticket to job security and advancement,” she said dryly. “He comes from a decent family. He’s about 25 years old now, but I doubt Brett ever did a lick of honest work in his life before he graduated from college. When my father started talking him up and began to make excuses to throw us together, I smelled a rat and checked Brett out. He’s living a bit higher than his paycheck would allow, so I figure he’s getting some money from his family.
“The girlfriend and female-employee networks also don’t have very much positive to say about him. He cut himself a swath through the girls who work for the warehouse company. Some of the girls are pretty upset with the way he’d wine and dine them and then stop dating them as soon as he got what he wanted.”
Ashley looked at me apologetically.
“With you, we didn’t use a condom for all the reasons I told you, and because we figured you were safe as far as diseases go. With Brett, I’d make him use a condom even after we’re married.”
That last comment was telling. Ashley knew that Brett would never be faithful.
According to Ashley, her father was looking more at Brett’s family than he was looking at Brett. The family checked out, so Mr. Kincaid just figured everything would be great with Brett, and he’d been pushing Brett on her harder and harder.
