Old Boyfriends

“You were queen of a Mardi Gras ball?”

“Proteus,” I admitted. “And a maid for two others. But it was a big pain and I wouldn’t wish it on any of my girls.”

“Wow,” Cat said. “And you’re so not a snob.”

“Debutante does not mean snob,” I said. “Check your Funk & Wagnall’s.”

M.J. hadn’t said much, but I could tell she wasn’t just concentrating on her driving. We were in a dry stretch of land now, all sand and dried-out everything

“Would you like some water?” I asked her.

“That would be nice.”

“You know, although we’ve been friends for a long time, we never really told each other about our growing-up years. I know why I never said too much about it, because I didn’t want y’all to think I was some rich snob. But why don’t either of you talk about your childhoods?”

“Because mine was lousy,” Cat said. “And I don’t want to relive it.”

“You already know about mine. I was the beauty queen, from about age two to twenty-one. Then I came to California.”

I stared at the back of their heads, M.J.’s dark shiny ponytail and Cat’s impeccable blond bob. “This isn’t fair. There’s a reason y’all decided to go back to New Orleans now, and it has nothing to do with my high school reunion. So tell the truth.” I crossed my arms. “We’re in this together, aren’t we?”

M.J. glanced at Cat, then back at the road. Finally she caught my eye in the rearview mirror. “Okay. I mean, it’s no secret. I need to get away from Frank’s kids and hide the money and car from their greedy hands. I have a few friends I can visit, and…I need time to think about what I’m going to do next.”

Cat laughed at her. “What Bitsey wants to know—what we both want to know, is who’s the first guy you plan to look up? An old boyfriend. Who’s your Eddie? That football guy you told me about?”

A smile brought out M.J.’s dimples. “I suppose he is. My Eddie is a guy named Jeff. Jeff Cole, star running back for the John Curtis Patriots.”

I shifted to the side and pulled my feet up under me. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”

“Don’t get all excited,” M.J. said. “I doubt he’s in New Orleans anymore. He got a football scholarship to Ole Miss and then played pro ball for a few years. I don’t know where he is now.”

“Is that who you lost your virginity to?” Cat asked.

“Yes,” M.J. admitted.

Then Cat looked at me. “And Eddie was your first?”

Slowly I nodded. Then M.J. and I both looked expectantly at Cat.

“Okay, okay,” she said. “If you must know, I sacrificed my cherry to Matt Blanchard.” She twisted the top off her bottle and took a long drink. “On a picnic blanket on the banks of Bayou Segnette with mosquitoes biting our asses. Classic, don’t you think?”

M.J. laughed. “So why did you two break up?”

Cat shrugged. “Because I couldn’t wait to blow town, and he was planning to stay forever.”

“Who’s the first person you’re going to call when we get there?” I asked her. “Matt?”

She took a long time answering. The tires hummed along the road.

“No. Not Matt. For all I know, he’s married with a houseful of kids. I’ll probably call my sister first.”

“Not your mom?” M.J. asked.

“No. Not my mom.”

“Why not?” I saw Cat’s jaw tense and release. Her mom is a sore point with her, but I wasn’t letting her get away with being evasive anymore.

She let out a long whoosh of a breath. “Okay. If you can admit you were once a debutante, I guess I can admit that I was born trailer trash.”

For a moment I was struck dumb, not from what she said, but how she said it. There was such contempt in her voice. Loathing, even.

“Trailer trash,” M.J. repeated. “You know, I hate that term. It’s like people always have to find a shorthand way to categorize people. Dumb blonde. Trailer trash. Beauty queen. Trophy wife. They categorize you because it makes it easier to dismiss you. Debutante, too,” she added. “Society deb.”

All of a sudden she laid on the horn, I mean mashed it over and over, all the while tearing southeast on the interstate doing at least eighty-five. “Make way for the Trophy Wife, Trailer Trash, Debutante Express! Look out world, ’cause ready or not, here we come!”

We squealed and cheered and laughed until our sides ached. It was a good thing our butch C.H.I.P. wasn’t around, because this time she would have hauled us straight to jail.

“We need to find a rest stop,” Cat pleaded. “I have to pee.”

Which sent M.J. into fresh whoops of laughter. “Well said, trailer trash. You need to pee, but I need the little girls’ room.”

“Oh, you trophy wives are all the same,” I put in. “You never grow up. What this debutante needs is a powder room. And fast.”

We found one, and none too soon. Of course, after we relieved ourselves, M.J. made me walk from one end of the rest stop to the other, the entire time goading me to go faster. Faster. She said it was about a mile round trip, but in the desert heat it felt like five. I did it, though, and when we stopped two hours later for lunch, I gobbled up a huge Cobb salad with fat-free ranch dressing.

Cat drove the next leg. We meant to reach Phoenix by dusk and get a hotel with a nice health club. Three to a room would keep it reasonable. Though I’d consumed probably less than four hundred calories at lunch, I was still halfway into a torpor when Cat said, “So, are we going to visit Margaret?”

I blinked away the beginnings of a nap. “Maybe.”

“Maybe?” M.J. turned around to study me. “The perfect mom doesn’t want to see her daughter whom she hasn’t seen in months?”

Why did that make me feel so guilty? Because it was true. “I’m planning on calling, but she may be too busy to see us. She works evenings. Besides, if I see her I’ll only worry about her.”

“You’ll worry anyway, so I say we go see her. Okay, Cat?”

“Okay with me. We can go to the club where she works. Maybe I can pick up some young studly college boy. I’ve been thinking that what I need is a trophy husband.”

M.J. laughed. “Sorry, darling, but it doesn’t work that way. Trophy husbands are old and wrinkled and very, very rich.”

“Like Frank.”

“Like good old Frank.”

“Is that what you want again, M.J?” I asked. “A trophy husband?”

“I think she should hook up with Mr. Football,” Cat said. “What was his name?”

“Jeff Cole.” M.J. smiled and hugged her knees. Damn, but that girl was limber. “Wouldn’t that be great if my first real boyfriend was rich and still available?”

“We should try to find out,” Cat said. “Bitsey gets to meet up with Eddie at her reunion. You could call Mr. Football.”

“And what about you?” she asked. “Are you going to look up Mr. Stick in the Mud?”

“Matt,” Cat said. “Sheriff Matt Blanchard, according to one of my mother’s infrequent Christmas cards.”

“He’s a sheriff?”

“Of my old hometown. Mais, I tol’ you, he’s a good ol’ boy,” she said, slipping into a thick Cajun accent. “He prob’ly has a passel of kids by now, cher, an’ a kennel of hunting dogs, an’ a gun rack in his pickup truck.”

“I bet he chews tobacco,” M.J. said.

“And has a beer belly,” I put in.

“And hates uppity women,” Cat said. “Maybe I will look him up, just to be mean.”

From the back seat I considered just what we were doing in M.J.’s semistolen Jaguar on our way cross-country to New Orleans. I was going to my high school reunion because I wanted to see Eddie. I couldn’t explain why. I’m happily married, although I’m not so sure my husband is. The fact remained, however, that I wasn’t in the market for another man. But M.J. and Cat, my two very best friends, could each use a decent guy in their lives.

I unfastened my seat belt and scooted forward so that my head was even with theirs. “Listen to us,” I said. “We’ve all admitted that we have these unresolved relationships with our old boyfriends. Maybe there’s a reason we’re making this trip together. Maybe we’re supposed to resolve them. You and Jeff.” I squeezed M.J.’s shoulder. “And you and Matt.”

Cat fixed me with a narrow gaze. “And you and Eddie?”

I sat back. “Maybe.”

“You would cheat on your husband?” M.J. asked.

“I didn’t say that. God, you have your minds in the gutter. What I’m saying is that things are not…wonderful between me and Jack. I just need some perspective.”

“I say go for it,” Cat said.

“I will if you will,” I said right back.

M.J. frowned. “I don’t know if Jeff is even in New Orleans.”

I grinned. “I bet Margaret can find out for us.”

“Margaret?”

“The Internet. If he was a football player and later a coach, she can probably find out where he is now.”

“Maybe there will be something about the good sheriff, too,” Cat said. “And Eddie Dusson.”

It was decided then. Ahead of us the southern tail of the Rockies formed a jagged line on the horizon. But we would be driving over them and through them, and at the end of our journey we would find the girls we used to be—and maybe the boys we once upon a time loved.

CHAPTER 2

Not Without My Daughter

Mary Jo

B ig breasts can be such a curse. They attract attention from everyone, good attention and bad.

Please, don’t misunderstand. I’m not naive enough to believe mine weren’t directly involved in my husband’s interest in me. The odd thing, however, is that Frank was most fascinated by the fact that my breasts were real. Apparently his first wife’s enhancement procedure was the beginning of the end for them. Why couldn’t life be simple? he used to always ask. So I made it my goal to keep his life simple and pure, first as his employee, then as his wife. Bottled water, organic food, nothing synthetic in his clothing.

Except for his children and our lack of children together, I would have described our marriage as perfect. We were in balance, each with our own area of responsibility. Frank made the big decisions and paid for everything; I made all the small decisions and kept our life calm and organized. But then he died.

Even more drastic than Frank’s actual death was the way he died. It made our entire life together a lie—messy, complicated and nasty.

How could he want a man pretending to be a woman, when he had me, real breasts and all?

Thank God for Cat and Bitsey. Those two saved me, and I mean that literally. I don’t know what I would do without them, my Grits sisters. And now here we were, cruising through the desert with Cindy Lauper blaring from a Phoenix radio station.

Funny as it seems, my enthusiasm for this trip slipped a bit when we first started off this morning. I was leaving California for good. I knew it and I wasn’t really sorry. But I didn’t know where I was supposed to go, or what I was supposed to do.

Then we were pulled over for speeding, and for some reason that changed everything. It sounds ridiculous, but when that cute lesbian cop gave me the once-over, it gave me just the boost I needed. Not that I’m interested in women sexually; men are definitely my first choice. But I realized then that no matter the stumbling blocks thrown at me, I can find a way through—at least as long as Cat and Bitsey are on my side. I promised not to speed anymore, the cop let us go, and we were on our way. Best of all, I was back to feeling great.

The sky had begun to turn coral, aqua and rose in the rearview mirror when we exited I-10.

“My butt is numb,” Cat muttered, shifting in her seat. “Just find the nearest hotel and let me out of here.”

I had visions of a Motel Six. “There must be a Sheraton or Doubletree here. They usually have great spas.”

“How about a Marriott?” Bitsey asked, pointing to a billboard. We followed the signs to the Marriott and within a half hour we were checked in, with Cat and Bitsey fighting for first dibs on the shower.

“But what about our workout?” I asked Bitsey.

“Not today, M.J. Please? I’m just too worn-out for any workout more strenuous than searching for a restaurant. But I promise to be a good girl about it tomorrow.”

“Yeah, M.J. You’re on vacation,” Cat said, taking advantage of Bitsey’s preoccupation with me to slip past her and into the bathroom. “What do you say we play first—and play later?”

“Fine.” I shouldn’t have been annoyed, but the idea of helping Bitsey get in shape had become a real challenge to me. A mission. And now she wasn’t cooperating. “While you two freshen up here, I’ll get in a couple of miles on the bike. You’ll be sorry,” I added to Bitsey, “When I can have a drink—”

I broke off when she raised her eyebrows sternly at me. “Okay. Okay, Mother,” I amended. “You’ll be sorry when I can have dessert and you can’t.” I flounced out, but by the time I reached the elevator I was already reconsidering my behavior. Not the exercising, but the flouncing. How old was I anyway?

An hour and a half later we were dressed and out the door, looking pretty good, if I do say so, and ready to take on Tempe.

“Where does Margaret live?” Cat asked Bitsey.

“I have the address in my wallet. But she’s probably not there.”

“So where’s this bar she works at?”

The waitress at the restaurant gave us directions to it, and we decided to go.

Tavernous was nothing like what we expected. The neighborhood was seedy, the building listed drunkenly to the left as if it were about to collapse, and the windows were papered over with posters for bands and music shows. The bouncer, a hairy-chested behemoth with one gold tooth and a shaved head, carded me.

Bitsey scowled at him. She was already upset by the look of the place, and this didn’t help. “Young man, you should be more respectful.”

Cat laughed. “Uh-oh, the jig is up, M.J.” To the grinning goofball she said, “She’s only seventeen, you know, trying to pass for forty-two.”

I elbowed her. “Shut up.” She didn’t have to announce my age to the whole world. Anyway, I was used to guys carding me. It was their awkward way of starting a conversation, of flirting with me. Of staring down my blouse while I was searching for my driver’s license.

“Okay, Mary Jo,” he said, handing me my license and flashing his gold cap. “You have a nice time, you and your friends.” He held open the door for us, letting a wall of noise crash over us. “And just call for Donnie if anybody gives you any shit.”

Cat led the way, but I had to practically push Bitsey inside the place. I could feel the poor thing trembling. “What’s wrong, hon?” It was so noisy I could hardly hear myself, but she heard.

“What’s wrong? What’s wrong!” She stared around, appalled. “I didn’t raise any of my girls to work in an awful place like this!”

“You have to look at it in a positive light,” I yelled over the thunder of drums and the squeal of guitars. The three skinny guys on the stage made more noise than the Rolling Stones, the Beatles and the Who together could do. “Working at a lousy job for lousy pay is the best incentive she’ll ever get for going back to school.”

“Over here!” Cat called, dragging Bitsey by the arm. She’d found two stools against the wall. Bitsey wiped off her stool with a tissue before sitting down. Cat perched eagerly on hers, craning her neck, probably looking for Margaret. As for me, I wanted a drink and I wanted to dance. That’s what my talent had always been in the pageants. Dancing. Sometimes ballet, sometimes tap, later on, modern dance. I loved to dance and I was better at dancing than singing.

I tapped the arm of a waitress going by. “Is Margaret here?” She looked at me askance. I smiled sweetly at her. “Margaret, one of the cocktail waitresses.”

“I don’t know any Margaret. Wait, d’you mean Meg?”

“Meg. Of course. Could you send her over to us?”

“I could. But this is my zone. You gotta order from me.”

I gave her a twenty. “Just send her over, okay?”

She went off smiling, I started dancing in front of the two stools, and in less than a minute Cat’s face lit up. “There she is. Look, Bits.”

Neither Bitsey nor Margaret was smiling when they spied one another. Bitsey’s reaction I understood. Margaret’s thick blond hair was now short and black with a Day-Glo red streak over her left brow. She had on a T-shirt made for an eight-year-old, too tight and too short. Sort of like my Pilates outfit, but in a bar it invited all kinds of trouble. Her eyes were ringed with kohl, her lips were maroon red, and her nose was pierced. So much for the sunny California girl she used to be.

But it was the frown she directed at her mother that most bothered me. “Mom? What are you doing here?” Her horror obviously included me and Cat, too.

“We’re on our way to New Orleans,” Cat said when Bitsey didn’t answer. “And we decided to stop and see you.”

“Yeah? Well, you should’ve called first. You should’ve let me know you were coming.”

“Why?” Bitsey finally spoke. “Aren’t you happy to see me?”

Margaret’s—Meg’s—eyes slid away, like a feral cat trapped inside the house and searching out an escape route. Finally she looked at her mother. “It’s not that, Mom. It’s just that…I’m working. I can’t like visit or even chat right now. I have to work.”

“Okay. But…” Somehow Bitsey managed to smile. “How about we take you to breakfast tomorrow?”

Meg’s sullen gaze slid away. “Why? So you can rag on me about working in a place like this?”

“Because I want to visit with you,” Bitsey answered. “Because you’re my daughter and I love you.”

I’d known Margaret since she was twelve or so, and though she’d always been an independent child, I’d never seen her challenge her mother. Plead and cajole, perhaps, even whine. So the hostility I now saw was something entirely new.

Fortunately this new Meg person hadn’t totally taken control of sweet Margaret. For although Meg wanted to say no to the breakfast date, Margaret couldn’t quite pull it off. With a sigh she nodded. “Okay. Fine. But not till lunchtime. Or even later.”

“She needs her beauty sleep,” Cat said as Margaret melted back into the sweaty noise of the crowded club.

Bitsey didn’t laugh, and Cat sent me a look that said, “Do something.”

I put my arm around Bitsey’s shoulder. “She’s just stressed out, hon. I mean, look at this place. Working here has got to be tough.”

Bitsey was back to trembling again. “I wonder if her boyfriend is here. The one with the ‘roots rock’ band,” she added, a sneer in her voice. Then she sniffed and wiped her eyes, ruining the effect of her sarcasm.

“I think you ought to cut off her allowance,” Cat said. “The brat didn’t even notice your new haircut.”

Bitsey smiled, but Cat and I knew it was forced. “Let’s get out of here,” she said. “If I can’t drink or eat, I might as well sleep.”

“Or exercise.” My jest was no more successful than Cat’s. To make matters worse, on the way back to the hotel, Bitsey called Jack, only there was no answer, not at home or at his office. She left messages both places and tried to shine a good light on it. But later I heard her crying in the bathroom.

We went to bed somber and woke up little better. But at least we had the whole morning for exercise.

“You’re doing good,” I said as Bitsey attacked the stair-climber as if it were Mount Everest. Her eyes were puffy and her short hair stuck out in a punky kind of way.

Across the room Cat pedaled a stationary bike very, very slowly. “You’re looking buff, Bits,” she said.

“What I need is a punching bag.” Bitsey huffed the words out.

Cat hooted. “Damn, the girl’s getting tough inside and out. You really are good at this personal training stuff, M.J.”

I grinned. It was nice being good at something. “Watch out world, ’cause here comes Bitsey, killer bunny.”

“All I want is to not kill them when I sit on them,” she muttered. “Except for Margaret. Meg.” She made a face as she stretched out the word. “I wouldn’t mind squashing that brat.”

We went to the brat’s house without calling beforehand. The first sign of trouble was the broken front step. Then the porch had an old couch on it.

“My, my. Looks like home,” Cat quipped. “You don’t need a trailer to live like trash, I guess.”

Bitsey’s face took on a pinched expression. “Maybe y’all better wait out here.”

I grimaced. “Are you sure, hon?”

When she nodded, Cat and I hung back. We didn’t like it, though, especially when, after her third knock we heard a loud, angry male response. “Who the fuck is it?”

I thought Bitsey would fold, but I guess I underestimated the power of maternal love. “Margaret!” she cried. “Open the door. It’s your mother!”

Margaret came to the door, but she only opened it a crack before closing it.

Bitsey trudged down the steps. “She’s coming,” was all she said. Two minutes later Margaret hurried out. She had on jeans, a T-shirt and a pair of chunky sandals, clothes the old Margaret would have worn. But the pale face with the sunglasses, and the blue-black hair with its blood-red streak were jarring in the unrelenting sun of high noon.

“Hi, sweetheart,” I said, giving her a hug, wanting to make her smile, but not succeeding.

Cat ruffled her hair. “So. Where’s a good place to eat around here?”

Bitsey was the only one who didn’t touch her, and Margaret kept her distance, too.

We found a Shoney’s. Once we were all settled with our buffet lunches Bitsey asked, “Do you like my hair?” forcing Margaret to look at her.

Margaret stared at her through the dark glasses for a long moment before the difference seemed to register. “You cut it. It looks good. It makes your face look thinner.”

“Her face is thinner,” Cat said.

“You look thinner, too,” Bitsey said to her daughter.

Margaret shoved her mixed greens around with a fork. “I’ve been working a lot.”

“How’s school going?” I asked.

Her fork clattered down onto her plate. “Look. I don’t want to be grilled, so let’s just get it over with. Here’s the deal. I dropped out of school and I’m not going back.” She glared at her mother. “So if you want to cut off the money, fine. I’m doing just great at Tavernous.”

“Yeah,” Cat said. “And you’re living in the lap of luxury, too.”

“Fuck you!” She stood up but Bitsey grabbed her arm before she could storm off.

“Margaret Anne Albertson! What kind of way is that to speak to someone who loves you? We all love you and we’re all worried about you.”

“I don’t need you to worry about me. Okay?”

The people at the next table were trying not to notice us, but without much success. I don’t like scenes and I know Bitsey hates them, but Cat is a different story. Once you rile her up, it wouldn’t matter if the pope himself was watching. Without warning she stood and snatched the sunglasses off Margaret’s nose.

The girl froze. So did Bitsey. The bruise around Margaret’s left eye was faint and probably old, but there was no mistaking what it was.

“I thought so,” Cat said as she sat down, picked up her fork, and began calmly to eat. “She has that same belligerent attitude I used to have in my first marriage. I couldn’t stand up to him, but I sure as hell stood up to everybody else.”

“Fuck you,” Margaret repeated, only it came out a shaky, little-girl whisper. Not very sincere.

Bitsey caught her by the hand. “Margaret, honey. Sit down. Are you all right? Let me see—”

“Mom, no!” Margaret shrugged her off. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to talk about it. It was just once and I’m okay. I can handle it. I did handle it. He said he was sorry, and I know he is. So just…just eat your breakfast and…and have a good trip.”

She scooped her glasses off the table and put them on.

“Wait,” Bitsey pleaded.

“No, Mom. I have to go. Tell Grandpy hello when you see him.” Then she walked away and left us, three women sitting in a Shoney’s booth with a brand-new trouble on the table to worry about.

She walked across the parking lot and headed down the street. She was so thin, but it wasn’t that strong willowy thinness. She looked skinny and brittle, ready to break. Though it was only eight or ten blocks to her house, the choice she’d made, to leave the security of our love and reenter the danger zone of that apartment, made the distance seem enormous, a chasm impossible for us to cross.