Old Boyfriends

“Even I keep instant grits in my pantry,” I threw in. Though I prefer the real thing, microwave grits are better than no grits.

“Frank likes oatmeal. Liked,” M.J. corrected herself. “Liked.”

“Another poor choice,” I said. “Any man who doesn’t like grits should be viewed with suspicion.”

“Did Bill like grits?” M.J. asked.

“Kiss off,” I threw right back at her. Bill was my second husband, now my second ex-husband.

“Jack loves grits,” Bitsey said. “You remember what grits stands for, don’t you?” she added. “Girls raised in the South. Grits.”

That was us all right. Girls raised in the sweet, green humidity of the deep South, and decades later trying our best to get by in the desert that was Southern California—even if that meant burglarizing our best friend’s house.

We worked through the night, stacking paintings, prints, statues and all the silver and china in the garage. By nine in the morning we had a moving van and a storage facility lined up. By noon everything was gone, and by one we were all zonked out at Bitsey’s house. Her husband, Jack, woke us when he came home around six.

“What’s going on around here?” he said from the door to the master bedroom. His voice carried down the hall to where M.J. and I shared the guest room. “What are you doing asleep, Bits? Why are M.J. and Cat here?” He must have seen the Jag. “And where’s my dinner?”

I sat up; M.J. looked at me. We both strained to hear more.

“Honey, I’m home,” I muttered. As I said, I don’t like Jack. I used to. I mean, on the surface he’s a pretty nice guy. Most guys are. But Bitsey was my friend, and more often than not, Jack made her unhappy. That’s all I needed to know.

Apparently he closed the door behind him, because although I could tell they were talking, I couldn’t make out what they said.

“I think it’s time for us to go.”

“Maybe so,” M.J. agreed.

“What’s wrong with the world?” I asked as we slid into yesterday’s clothes. “Bitsey’s husband is a jerk. Your husband was a jerk. Certainly my two ex-husbands are jerks.”

M.J. paused in the process of brushing her hair. “Are you still sleeping with Bill?”

In a weak moment, fueled by margaritas, I’d once revealed that my second ex and I occasionally get together. I didn’t say we slept together, but M.J. and Bitsey had drawn their own conclusions. Accurate conclusions, I might add. I searched for my sandals. “Every now and again.”

“Recently?”

I looked up at her. “Why do you want to know?”

It was her turn to look away. “Because he called me a few days ago.”

“He called you? Bill called you? But why?”

She didn’t answer, which was answer enough.

“You’re kidding. He hit on you, the bereaved widow? My best friend? And he’s trying to get you in the sack?”

“I hung up on him.” M.J. stared earnestly at me. “As soon as I realized what he was leading up to, I hung up. And you’re right. He is a jerk.”

I managed a smile, but my heart was racing. Not from jealousy, though, and certainly not from anger at M.J. Bill was a jerk; I’d always known that. We’d divorced once I realized that he’d never been faithful, not even for one month during the four years we were together. But this was even worse. M.J. was my friend. How could he set his sights on her?

And why did the fact that he was attracted to her leave me so panicked? Any man still breathing is attracted to M.J.

But that sort of logic didn’t matter to me.

M.J. put a hand on my arm. “I’m sorry, Cat. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. Fine. And there’s no reason for you to apologize. It’s not your fault he’s a lowlife asshole.”

I raked my fingers through my hair. I thought I was beyond being hurt by the scumsucker, but my hands were shaking. “I wish I was a lesbian. Women are so far superior to men.”

“Yes,” M.J. agreed. “We are.” She gave me a hug, which I really needed. “But despite Frank and Bill, I have to believe there are still some good guys out there.”

I let out a rude snort. “Yeah, maybe. But they’re all prepubescent. The trouble with men is that they all suffer from testosterone poisoning. It shrinks their brains and swells their balls and they’re never the same again.”

M.J. laughed, but I was serious. “Come on, Cat,” she said. “Surely you’ve known one or two good guys.”

“No. I don’t think so.”

“Well, I have.”

“Yeah? Who?”

“My old high school boyfriend, for one.”

“If he was so great, why didn’t you just marry him?

“M.J. sighed. “I wanted to. But he went away to college on a football scholarship, and Mama had me on the beauty pageant circuit. That was when I really believed I could have a future in the movies. I guess he and I just sort of drifted apart. You know how it is at that age.”

I slipped on my shoes and let the subject drop. But her remembered high school passion reminded me of my own. He’d been a skinny Cajun boy and our favorite date had been to go fishing. At least we always took fishing gear when we set off in his flatboat. But we never did catch anything. We were too busy making out.

Despite my cynicism, I couldn’t help smiling at the memory. God, how I’d loved that boy.

“Anyway,” M.J. went on. “Not to change the subject, but I thought of something, or maybe I dreamed it. Anyway, we have to go back to the house.” She smiled like an impish kitten. “Frank kept mad money. I don’t know exactly where, but I remember last year when his grandson had a DUI and they wouldn’t take credit cards at the jail. He went upstairs and came down with a fistful of cash.”

“Is there a safe?”

“Yes, but it’s downstairs, and I already checked it.”

While Bitsey fed her demanding husband, M.J. and I took my car to her house. She’d padlocked the gate so we knew Frank Jr. hadn’t been in yet. But it was only a matter of time. Two hours and twenty minutes later we found a false bottom in the humidor in Frank’s study. It was a large, freestanding piece made of beautiful English oak.

Big humidor equals big hidden panel equals big, big payoff. Frank might have let M.J. collect art, but it was obvious that he collected money. Packets of twenties, fifties, hundreds and five-hundred-dollar bills. In his desk drawer we found three collections of the new state quarters and an odd bag of felt-wrapped coins. Old ones.

M.J.’s eyes lit up as she snatched the bag from the drawer. “These must be valuable or he wouldn’t have kept them.” Then she grabbed a few more of her clothes, filled a garbage bag with boxes of shoes, and we left.

“Aren’t you going to padlock the gate?

“Nope. And I didn’t lock the house, either. I’m outta here, and I’m never coming back.”

“Maybe someone will break in,” I said, “and burn it down. Wouldn’t Bitsey be pleased.”

“Me, too.” M.J. snapped her seat belt on.

I gave her a sidelong look. She meant it. Since Frank’s death, M.J. had spent over a week drunk and less than a day sober. But I could sense some sort of change in her, as if she’d turned a corner, from shock to sorrow to really pissed off. I steered my VW onto the boulevard that led to the gate house for the exclusive neighborhood.

“So. Are we heading back to Bitsey’s?” she asked.

“No. Not there. Tonight you can stay with me. Tomorrow we’ll figure out your next step.”

Bitsey came over around eleven the next day. I was working from home, mostly phone stuff, and I had a meeting at a client’s home at two. M.J. was in the shower. She’d already exercised for an hour and a half, made us a healthy breakfast of OJ, cracked-wheat toast, organic boysenberry jam and melon balls. Bitsey had a Krispy Kreme napkin in her hand and a sprinkle of sugar on the stomach of her olive-green jumper.

Bitsey flung her hobo bag onto the kitchen counter, stepped out of her shoes, then plopped down in my window seat. I looked at her over the rim of my red polka-dot Peepers. “Have you been crying? What did he do?”

She shot me a belligerent glare. “Why do you always assume it’s Jack? You never give him a chance.”

Tread lightly. “Well, since it’s only you and him at home now…” I raised my brows and trailed off.

“I talked to Margaret this morning.”

Margaret was the middle of Bitsey’s three perfect daughters, the one with the most potential for not being perfect. “Is she all right?”

“I don’t know.” Bitsey heaved a weary sigh. “You know she transferred to Arizona State. Well, it turns out she hates it there.”

“The state or the university?” I asked. “Or maybe the state and the university?”

She ignored me. “What if she drops out? Jack says if she does she can’t come home.”

I sat down next to her. “That’s not much of a threat anymore. At her age she probably won’t want to come home.”

Bitsey looked down at her lap and plucked at the Krispy Kreme sugar. She needed a manicure, I thought, then immediately hated myself for noticing. Sometimes I can be so shallow. The last thing Bitsey needed was her friends magnifying her insignificant flaws. Jack was more than up to that task.

She let out another deep sigh. “I wish I didn’t have to go home, either.”

Uh-oh. This didn’t sound good. For all the ups and downs in her marriage, the one thing Bitsey had never done was consider abandoning it. At least not out loud. I might not like Jack Albertson all that much, but I’d been divorced twice and I knew just how hard the process could be. I wasn’t so sure Bitsey was up to it.

“What’s wrong, Bits?”

She was blinking hard. “What if…” She swallowed hard, then turned to look at me. “What if Jack’s having an affair? If Frank could cheat on M.J.—you know how beautiful she is and he was just this wrinkled old man—if he could cheat on her, then what do you suppose Jack is doing to me?”

“Oh, Bitsey, I’m sure he isn’t doing anything of the sort,” I lied. For friends like Bitsey, you lie even if it tastes like gall.

She stared me straight in the eye. “You’re lying. I know you don’t like Jack. He’s critical and demanding, and he takes me for granted. You’ve pointed that out a hundred times.”

“That doesn’t mean he’s cheating.”

She pressed her lips together and blinked several times. “Maybe. Maybe not.”

M.J. came into the kitchen, her hair in a towel. “I don’t think Jack’s the type to cheat,” she said. Obviously she’d overheard our conversation.

Bitsey heaved that same, desolate sigh. “Did you think Frank was the type?”

M.J. shoved her hands deep into the robe’s pockets and shrugged. “I tried to pretend he wasn’t, but I knew he was. After all, he was married when we met.”

M.J. had been a trophy wife. Before that she’d been a twenty-three-year-old beauty pageant winner and aspiring actress, working as a hostess in Frank Hollander’s restaurant. He had kids almost her age, and when he’d dumped wife number one for her it must have been as bad as any cliché out there: a middle-aged man and his sex kitten.

Of course, I can understand why he’d fallen for her, and it’s not just how she looks. M.J. is one of those good-hearted, loving women who always tries to please the people she loves. And she’d really loved Frank.

There’d been no pleasing Frank’s kids, though. Some would say she’s getting what she deserves now, and I admit I even thought it. But not for long. To know M.J. is to love her. And I do love her.

“I used to be thin,” Bitsey said. “When Jack and I met I wore a size eight. Then I had all those kids.”

“I wish I had kids,” M.J. said in a quiet voice. “Tight buns and great abs are no substitute for a real family.”

“What about me?” I put in. “I don’t have kids or tight buns. By rights y’all should be feeling sorry for me.”

Neither of them laughed. Bitsey made coffee and we went out into the courtyard.

“That’s new,” Bitsey said of the plant nestled beside the pond.

“Louisiana Blue Iris,” I said.

That made M.J. smile. “There used to be drifts of those back home in the marshy area behind our house. Where’d you get it?”

“That specialty florist on San Pedro Avenue.” I stroked the deep purplish-blue flower. “A little taste of home, but without all the aggravating people.”

We were silent for a minute, then Bitsey looked at M.J. “Have you considered going home for a while?”

M.J. frowned. “Home? You mean like to Louisiana?”

“Don’t talk like that around me,” I said. “It gives me hives and I’ve got a very important meeting this afternoon.”

Bitsey didn’t spare me a glance. “Now that you’re out of that house and have a little money, you could go home to see your mother.”

“She moved to Florida,” M.J. said. “But maybe…”

“Does that mean you don’t have anybody left in New Orleans?”

“Not really. I mean, I have an aunt and two cousins. But I think maybe they’ve moved, too. The cousins, I mean.”

Bitsey stared into her half-empty coffee mug. “My dad’s still there, and it’s been three years. I guess I ought to go visit him. And I was planning to go,” she added. “But now…”

“Now what?” I asked when M.J. didn’t. You have to understand that Bitsey isn’t the sort to come right out and reveal her feelings. Maybe if she’s angry, but not if she’s sad. Right now she was seriously down in the dumps.

M.J. reached out and squeezed Bitsey’s hand. “Hey, Bits, what’s going on?”

Bitsey shook her head and put on her “it’s nothing” smile. “I got this invitation. That’s all. I was halfway thinking of going…”

“What, to a wedding?” M.J. asked.

“To my high school reunion,” Bitsey admitted. “My thirtieth.”

“Oh, you should go,” M.J. said. “I went to my twentieth and it was so much fun.”

Bitsey slowly shook her head. “I don’t know. Reunions can be hard and Jack can’t get away.” She sent me a quick, guilty look.

To my credit I kept my mouth shut and didn’t roll my eyes. But there was no way I would be able to restrain myself for long, so I changed the subject. “You never finished telling me what Margaret had to say.”

Bitsey gave me a grateful look.

“That’s right,” she began. “Well, like I said, Margaret’s not happy in Tempe. Five years, three majors, and now she’s thinking of taking a year off from school.”

“Maybe that’s not such a bad thing,” I said. “Maybe she needs more time to figure out what she really wants to do. “

“Tell that to Jack,” Bitsey muttered. Then she shook her head. “The thing is, there’s something else going on. I can feel it. I don’t know what it is exactly, but she’s so unsettled. So unfocused. Something’s wrong. I can hear it in her voice. But she won’t say what.”

Kids and how to deal with them were the one thing M.J. and I had no experience with—unless you count our mutual hatred of Frank’s awful kids. Generally we tried to be sympathetic with Bitsey’s situation, but we’d learned long ago not to be too forceful with our opinions. I could rag on Jack, but when it came to her kids, Bitsey was very sensitive.

A cloud passed over us, blocking the sun. It was such a rare occurrence that we all paused and looked up at the sky.

“What I wouldn’t give for a real thunderstorm,” I said. “Remember when you were a kid in the summertime and there was a storm, seems like every afternoon?”

“That’s the only time Mama used to let us play in the attic, when it was raining and we couldn’t go outside,” Bitsey said.

“We used to play under the house.” I said. Actually, it was a trailer up on cinder blocks, but they didn’t need to know that. Bitsey was a product of a Catholic elementary school and one of the best private high schools in New Orleans. M.J. was a suburban beauty queen. But I’d grown up in one of those spontaneous trailer parks that used to sprout up along the river road above New Orleans. To look at the three of us, we seemed pretty much the same. But we were a blue blood, a nouveau riche, and a redneck. And though we all visited our families now and again, we’d never all been back in New Orleans at the same time—which was just fine with me.

M.J. put her legs up on a wicker footstool. “You know, Bits, you ought to go to your reunion anyway. You could go with one of your old girlfriends.”

“Oh, I couldn’t do that.”

“Yes, you could,” I said. “Why should you have to miss your reunion because of Jack?”

“I’m not missing it because of him,” she said in this defensive voice. “He told me I could go.”

“Big of him,” I muttered.

“Be nice,” M.J. said.

“Look, Cat. The reason I don’t want to go…it’s because of my weight. Okay? Are you happy now? I’m fat and I don’t want my old boyfriend and all my cheerleader pals to see me like this.”

Why am I so stupid? As long as I’ve known Bitsey, you’d think I could have figured that out myself. Trying to backpedal I said, “Come on. You don’t think anybody else has gained a few pounds?”

She shook her head and looked away. “It’s a rule. Only thin people or the really successful, filthy rich ones go to their reunions.”

“Actually,” M.J. said, “I’d been thinking you looked a little thinner lately, especially around your face.”

For the first time since she’d arrived, Bitsey smiled. “Really? I’ve been dieting,” she admitted. “I told myself that if I lost twenty pounds I’d go to the reunion.”

“Good idea. So, how many have you lost?”

“Nine.” Her smile faded. “In two months only nine pounds. Even with the Meridia I didn’t make a dent.”

“But nine pounds is a good start,” M.J. said. “Really, it is. When is this reunion anyway?”

“Three weeks.”

The wheels were spinning; I could see it in M.J.’s eyes. “What if you and I took a little trip down south together?” she began. “I could get out of here—I don’t mean your apartment, Cat. I mean this town. Southern California. The desert.” She leaned forward to grab Bitsey’s arm. “I could use a change of scenery, and you could go to your reunion—”

“But I don’t want to go—”

“And in between, I’ll be your personal trainer.”

Bitsey started laughing. “My personal trainer? You mean, like, exercise? I don’t think so.”

“Come on, Bitsey. I need to practice on someone. Think about it. I have to either get a job or get a husband. And since I’m not ready for marriage—I don’t even have a boyfriend—it’ll have to be a job. But what kind of job am I eligible for? I suppose I could teach ceramics, but somehow I don’t think that would even pay for my manicures. But I could be a personal trainer. I could.”

She was right. I leaned forward. “You know, that’s a good idea. You’re already an expert in all sorts of exercises, and God knows you’re a walking advertisement.”

“Please, Bits, let’s do this,” M.J. said. “Let me practice on you and get you gorgeous. We could have a really good time down in New Orleans. By the time I’m through with you, you’ll make all your old girlfriends jealous and wow that old boyfriend of yours.”

“Hey? What about me?” I asked. Despite my aversion to them ever meeting any of my seedy family, I was beginning to feel left out. Besides, without them here to keep me sane, I might murder Bill. Accidentally, of course. “I could use a little making-over myself, and I could definitely stand to run into one of my old boyfriends, so long as he’s single and rich and not allergic to commitment.”

“That would be even better!” M.J. exclaimed. “All three of us together.” She caught my hand in hers, then took Bitsey’s in her other. “Let’s do it. We all have reasons to visit, so why not go together? We can make it a road trip, and along the way we’ll all get gorgeous. We’ll look up our old boyfriends, and we’ll have a terrific time. Come on, Bits, what do you say?”

Bitsey wanted to do it; I could see it in her sweet, yearning expression. But she was afraid. Well, damn it, so was I. Bad enough to go back there and deal with my mother and her other lousy kids, but last night after my conversation with M.J., I’d dreamed about making out in a flat aluminum boat with a lanky Cajun boy. Sure as anything, I was setting myself up for disappointment.

But it didn’t matter, because suddenly I wanted this trip in the worst way. “I’m in. I’m going with M.J. to Louisiana.” I grabbed Bitsey’s other hand and stared challengingly at her. “It’s on you, Barbara Jean. Are you in or are you out?”

Bitsey

I have been on and off diets for the past twenty-two years.

I diet before every single holiday, before we go on vacation, before every major social event, and afterward, too. My closet is organized with size eights in the back, then tens, and so on and so forth. I wore the eights and tens during the eighties when Jack and I first came to California. During the nineties I graduated to twelves and fourteens. The millennium ushered in the sixteens. Now I’m in eighteens, but I’ve taken a stand. I refuse to go into size twenty. It’s getting mighty tight, though.

When the invitation came from my high school reunion committee, it seemed like an ideal way to motivate myself. I made an appointment with my doctor, started taking Meridia, and vowed that this time I would succeed. And at first I did. I lost nine pounds the first month. That’s pretty good. But since then I’ve lost nothing. I’m stalled. Nine pounds is not enough to return to New Orleans. Nine pounds is not enough to face Eddie.

Eddie, Eddie, Eddie. What is wrong with me? I wouldn’t be behaving like an insecure fifteen-year-old if a different name had been listed on the reunion committee. But there it had been: Edward Dusson, Cochair. Eddie Dusson. Harley Ed, I used to call him. Dangerous Dusson, the other cheerleaders had said. My heart hurts just to remember how much I loved him in high school, and how much he’d loved me. But if I walked up to him today, would he even recognize me?

Then again, who’s to say that he hasn’t gained a hundred pounds himself?

I can’t imagine that, though. Not Eddie. Besides, if he’s on the reunion committee, he must still be fit and trim, still good-looking, and probably rich by now, too.

If only I could go see him and yet not have him see me. It was almost a relief when Jack said he couldn’t get away from work. I didn’t have to decide; he’d done it for me. I could be angry with Jack and hide at home, and on the weekend of the reunion, I could sit two thousand miles away and pig out on Oreo and Jamoca Almond Fudge.

But I have more pressing problems than Eddie’s weight and his bank account. This morning I telephoned Margaret, and her roommate informed me that Margaret had moved out. I must have sounded like an utter fool, a mother too stupid to know what her own child was up to. “Yes. Two weeks ago,” her roommate had said in this “you poor, pathetic thing” voice. The snooty little brat.

It turns out my middle child, the one with the highest IQ but the lowest level of ambition, is living with some guy she’s never even mentioned to me.

I knew something was wrong. I knew it. I should never have let her live off campus. I should have made her stay at an in-state university. I should have realized that even at twenty-two she wasn’t responsible enough for college. Junior college maybe, but not a big liberal arts school.

I called her on her cell phone, and after three tries reached her. She was in a bad mood already, because I’d awakened her. She is so much like her father, a total grump until he’s had his coffee. But it was ten o’clock in the morning. On a weekday most people are up by then.

Except that cocktail waitresses aren’t like most people. A cocktail waitress! It turns out that she works a late shift from six until two in the morning, and sometimes even later. But she makes great tips, she told me, so she thinks it’s worth it.

Oh, and his name is Gray. “He’s a bass player, Mom, in a roots rock band.”

A roots rock band. What is that supposed to mean? And what kind of musical roots does Tempe, Arizona, have anyway?

I shouldn’t have gone to Cat’s house after that call. I should have just crawled back into my bed. After all, Jack wouldn’t be home until after eight. All I had to do was order dinner from Gourmet Wheels, put it into my own pans, and he’d never know the difference.