Rexanne Becnel - Old Boyfriends

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.