The Alibi

She ran her tongue over her lips to savor the taste of the wine. “You may be right. Maybe champagne should only be drunk at weddings.”

When she lifted her gaze to him, Hammond felt his face turn warm. Discerning exactly what he was thinking, she laughed.

It was the same laugh he remembered her laughing on a July night years before when both had been attendants in a mutual friend’s wedding. Gardenias, Casa Blanca lilies, peonies, and other fragrant flowers had been used to decorate the garden of the bride’s home where the reception had been held. The heady scent of the flowers was pervasive and as intoxicating as the champagne he had guzzled in a vain effort to keep cool within the constraints of his tuxedo.

As though they’d been cast by a talent agency, all eight bridesmaids had been gorgeous, matching blondes. In the frothy pink floor-length gown with a deep décolletage, Davee had been even more dazzling than the others.

“You look good enough to eat,” he had told her outside the chapel moments before the wedding. “Or drink, maybe. You look like you should have a paper umbrella sticking out the top of your head.”

“A paper umbrella is all this getup needs to be thoroughly revolting.”

“You don’t like it?” he asked, egging her on.

She flipped him the finger.

Later at the reception, when they came off the dance floor after a rousing dance to Otis Day and the Knights’ “Shout,” she fanned her face, complaining, “Not only is this dress too foofy to be believed, it’s the hottest fucking garment I’ve ever had on my body.”

“So take it off.”

The Burtons and the Crosses had been friends before either Davee or Hammond was born. Consequently, his first memories of Christmas parties and beach cookouts included Davee. When the kids were shuttled upstairs to bed while the adults continued partying, he and Davee played tricks on the babysitters unlucky enough to be in charge of them.

They’d smoked their first cigarettes together. With an air of superiority she had confided to him when she started menstruating. The first time she got drunk, it was his car she threw up in. The night she lost her virginity, she had called Hammond as soon as she got home to give him a detailed account of the event.

From the time they were kids sharing their vocabulary of nasty words, all the way into adolescence, they had talked dirty to each other. First because it was fun, and they could get away with it. Neither would tattle on the other or take offense. As they progressed into young adulthood, their banter became more sexually oriented and flirtatious, but it was still meaningless and therefore safe.

But leading up to that July wedding, they had been away at their respective un

iversities—he at Clemson and she at Vanderbilt—and hadn’t seen each other in a long while. They were more than a little drunk on champagne and caught up in the romanticism of the occasion. So when Hammond issued that naughty challenge, Davee had looked at him through smoky eyes and replied, “Maybe I will.”

While everyone else gathered around to watch the cutting of the bridal cake, Hammond stole a bottle of champagne from one of the bars and grabbed Davee’s hand. They sneaked into the neighbor’s backyard, knowing that the neighbor was at the reception. The lawns of the two houses were divided by a dense, tall hedge that had been cultivated for decades to guarantee the kind of privacy Hammond and Davee were seeking.

The popping champagne cork sounded like a cannon blast when Hammond opened the bottle. That caused them to giggle hysterically. He poured them each a glass and they drank it down. Then a second.

At some point into the third, Davee asked him to help her with the back buttons on her bridesmaid dress, and off it came, along with her strapless bra, garter belt, and stockings.

She hesitated when she hooked her thumbs into the elastic waist of her underpants, but he whispered, “Dare you, Davee,” which was a familiar refrain from their childhood and youth. Never had she backed down from a dare. That night was no exception.

She removed her panties and allowed him to stare his fill, then backed down the swimming pool steps into the cool water. Hammond shed his tuxedo in a fraction of the time it had taken him to get into it, scattering studs that were never seen again—at least not by him.

As he stood on the edge of the pool, Davee’s eyes widened in astonishment and appreciation. “Hammond, honey, you’ve come along nicely since that time we got caught playing doctor.”

He dove in.

Beyond some experimental kissing as youngsters when they had agreed that it was too “totally gross” to even consider opening mouths and touching tongues, they had never kissed. They didn’t that night, either. They didn’t take the time. The danger of getting caught had heightened their excitement to a point where foreplay was unnecessary. The moment he reached her, he pulled her onto his thighs and thrust into her.

It was slippery. It was quick. They laughed through the whole thing.

After that night, he didn’t see her for a couple of years. When he did, he pretended that the escapade in the swimming pool had never happened, and she did likewise. Probably neither had wanted that one sexual experiment to jeopardize a lifetime friendship.

They had never mentioned it until now. He didn’t even remember how they had got back into their clothes that night, or how they had explained themselves to the other people attending the wedding reception, or if they were even required to explain themselves.

But he vividly remembered Davee’s laugh—gutsy and lusty, seductive and sexy. Her laugh hadn’t changed.

But her smile was almost sad when she said, “We had fun as kids, didn’t we?”

“Yes, we did.”

Then she lowered her eyes to the bubbles in her glass, watching them for a moment before drinking them down. “Unfortunately, we had to become grown-ups and life started to suck.”