Beth Bauman - Beautiful Girls

“That S.O.B.,” the flirty guy said. The clerk was mouthing: three, four, five. “Where’s the alarm?” the flirt asked, taking charge and unpeeling his toasted almond bar. “We have to stay, we’re witnesses,” he said to me with a smile, as if being held up in Wawa was a regular occurrence for him, and he extended his hand and introduced himself as Derek Head.

My brother-in-law Chuck was the first on the scene, weighted down and jingly with the crackly radio, the billy club, the handcuffs, the gun and the holster. “Hey, look who it is,” he said, coming up beside me. “Causing trouble?”

“Just a regular stickup in suburbia,” I said.

Chuck and his partner took down our accounts, but when they wanted a physical description I was at a loss.

“He had a blockish head, don’t you think?” Derek Head said.

“Mmmm,” I said. Somehow staring at the gunman didn’t seem to be the right etiquette, and then I had spotted the Toblerone bar in front of me and was thinking that under the circumstances, which seemed like life or death ones, there was no reason I shouldn’t indulge my urge. I hardly noticed the guy.

While we talked, I returned my ice pop to the freezer and reached for the Toblerone, opening its nifty box and beginning to eat the luscious chocolate. “The guy sounded irritated,” I volunteered. “Like maybe he was ready for a new line of work.” Derek Head and I laughed. He had a wet mouth and shiny teeth and was pretty handsome, even with vanilla ice cream dotted on his chin. Chuck watched me tolerantly, his radio emitting small squawks.

We rode in the back seat of Chuck’s squad car—neither of us having paid for our purchases, I’d realized—to look at pictures at the station house. As Derek talked to me, he touched my hand, my arm. Chuck was enjoying this, looking from me to Derek Head in the rearview mirror.

I didn’t think I’d be much help, so I ate the chocolate while my eyes glazed over page after page of assorted criminals. When Derek Head cried, “Here’s the little weasel,” I had to admit he was right; it was as if my brain had filed him away in some lower chamber and when the trigger came he was released back into memory. The guy was young and friendly-looking, and his mug shot easily could have been a yearbook photo. His previous arrests were for petty larceny, breaking and entering.

When Derek Head got ready to leave, he leaned in close to me and asked for my number. I scribbled away, as happy as a lark while Chuck pretended to shuffle papers. When Derek left, Chuck let loose a laugh. “You like old lizard eyes?”

“I’d call them bedroom eyes. You know him?”

“Nope,” Chuck said, “But I’m gonna check him out.” A snapshot of Frankie was pinned to the bulletin board next to Chuck’s desk. She was squinting in the sun, her face hopeful and blameless and ten years younger. She wore, I realized, a similar expression to the gunman. I placed her photo next to his.

“Malcontent,” I said, making up her crime. I waited for Chuck to smile.

Chuck watched me. “Fiona, does Frankie like me?”

I tacked the photo back to the board and looked at him.

“I know she loves me…” he said.

On Friday, I took two hours getting ready for my date—showering, air-drying, and dancing naked to the Eurythmics, “Sisters Are Doin’ It for Themselves.” The kids banged on my door, and I shooed them away. I was looking forward to a whiskey sour and a little action, and I felt my body temperature rise. I had hung posters of flowers and bees and vines over the silvery insulation, but the apartment still looked crappy and messy, and everything that belonged in a drawer, on a hanger, or on a shelf, I threw into the cockeyed closet. I hoped we could go to his place, but then again you could never foresee what the evening would bring.

I went downstairs in my robe, and as I came up the back steps of the house, I heard Frankie say, “Fiona wants to get laid.”

She and Chuck seemed to be murmuring sympathetically when I stepped through the back door. “What time is he picking you up?” Frankie asked.

“He’s not. I’m meeting him at the Chowder Pot.” Frankie and Chuck shared a look. They had the same ideas about mating rituals—the male is supposed to pick up the female in his swanky car.

“Bring a credit card, Fiona, or plan on washing dishes,” Chuck said.

“Oh, come on,” I said. “Did you get anything on him anyway?”

“Old bedroom eyes has a couple misdemeanors. Minor traffic violations. Lewd conduct, way back.”

“Have Fiona tailed,” Frankie suggested. “What if this character drags her into the woods and puts her in a pot?”

“Nah, Fiona wouldn’t make good soup.” He smiled.

“I didn’t realize living in suburbia could be such an adventure,” I said. What could Derek Head have done? Pissed in public?

“This is as good as it gets.” Frankie removed her eye makeup with a tissue. “I’m going to have my top layer of epidermis sanded off, and did you know all this dipping, sanding and steaming takes four and a half hours?” she said, reading off a brochure from the salon. “I’ll be as smooth and as sleek as a seal.”

“I look forward to it,” Chuck said. “You need money, Fiona?” He dug through his wallet.

“Give her fifty,” Frankie said.

“Listen to you two!” I said. “I’m fine, I’m fine .”

A horn tooted out front. “That’s my ride. A good evening, all,” Chuck said, planting a kiss on Frankie’s head. I wondered if the support group chatter was all penis-based and I wondered what Frankie knew about it, but she looked almost pleased reading her brochure so I left her in peace and went up to the apartment to get changed.

When I was leaving for my date, Constance Poblanski was perched on Frankie’s couch, and Melody and Marcus were in their shorty pajamas, slumped over the recliner. “Hey,” I said, walking through the living room. Constance grunted hello. She had one of those plastic see-through purses, and I could see all her stuff. She had little pots and tubes and wands of makeup, a copy of Sense and Sensibility , some dollar bills and coins, a super tampon, and a packet of birth control pills, missing its lid. I could see that she had five of the white pills left before she’d take the brown ones; five days until her period, hence the super tampon. Constance Poblanski was a girl prepared.

“Is babysitting cramping your style, Constance?” I said in a friendly way.

“Con, I go by Con,” she said, running her fingers through that hill of hair. She narrowed her eyes. “My mom’s got that dress.”

The thought of the squat and mustached pierogie-making Mrs. Poblanski in my little sundress, purchased with one of Frankie’s coupons, brought an uninspiring picture to mind. “ Con , don’t flush your super tampon or you’ll be in for a super mess. The toilet backs up.” I made a sad face and waved goodbye.

The kids followed me to the door. “I hope he’s not a dork-a-matic,” Melody said, pressing her nose up against the screen.

“Thank you, honey.”

As I rode my bike the setting sun cast shades of pink and purple across the sky. It was a mild April evening and my flouncy sundress didn’t interfere with pedaling. I might never return to New York, I decided. I might stay here in the Garden State forever. Cars passed me silently and fresh air blew across the sea.

I locked up my bike and walked into the noisy Chowder Pot, where the tables were packed and a small, ornery crowd waited by the hostess station. I spotted Derek Head at the bar, drinking a martini, and he spotted me too and moseyed over. “I’ve been waiting,” he said, giving me a squeeze.

“Here I am.” I smiled. He smiled back, half-lit.