Beth Bauman - Beautiful Girls

“Come on, I’ve got a table reserved.”

Now I was impressed. We weaved through the crowded room, to the cut-off by the bathrooms, where there was a staircase I’d never noticed before blocked off with a velvet rope.

“After you,” he said, lifting the rope. I climbed the stairs, wondering what could be on the second floor of the Chowder Pot. We walked through a wall of beads into a smoky dark room with couches, end tables, fringy lamps, and smooching couples, like an orgy room. I looked at Derek Head and he smiled. “Never been up here?” I shook my head. He led me over to a couch with a reserved sign. He chucked the sign to the other end of the couch and grabbed me and gave me a hearty kiss. I laughed out loud, shaking my head at all of this. In seconds the owner of the Chowder Pot, a Seymour with a last name that sounded like soufflé, whose picture I’d often seen in The Little Silver Herald for sponsoring the Polar Bear Club’s annual April swim or judging the Easter egg hunt, took our drink order. I relaxed into the deep comfy couch. The music was smooth and bluesy, and everyone in the room shined. Derek Head held my hand.

“Is this room a secret?” I felt certain Frankie didn’t know about it.

“Some secret,” he said, waving his hand around the room. “Let’s get lots of appetizers. I’m an appetizers man.”

We ordered fried calamari, a stuffed artichoke, clams casino, and a shrimp cocktail from Seymour Soufflé. Derek Head and I slurped our drinks and kissed. Every time I put down my whiskey sour it seemed to refill itself. I spotted Lord and Lady Anderson several couches away, kissing, the Lord’s hands cupping the Lady’s glossy head. I was mildly buzzed, a pleasant hum moving through my blood. The food came, piles of it, and we spread it around the top of a small chest of drawers and dug in. In between bites and sips, we’d kiss some more. Derek Head took a bite of shrimp, nibbled on my neck, then placed the half-bitten shrimp into my mouth. He’d wait for me to finish chewing and then French-kiss me. I was having, I decided, the greatest time of my life, which made me like Derek Head.

“What’s your story, Fiona? You got a boyfriend?”

“Well, no.” He smiled, and I realized either way was all right with him.

We were working on the stuffed artichoke when he said, “My sweetheart gave me the old heave-ho.” I realized I didn’t care as I scraped a leaf against my teeth.

“Are you sad?” I asked, for something to say.

“Knife,” he said, stabbing himself in the heart with a clamshell.

“A good friend of mine and my boyfriend fell in love with each other.” I wanted to shut him up and get back to the kissing. I didn’t want the appetizers to ever end. Derek Head dipped a piece of squid in cocktail sauce and fed me.

“Well, that’ll take the stars out of your eyes.” He looked into my eyes to see the state of the little universes. I batted them, wondering how I was progressing. I still wasn’t sure. We were making out again, this time falling sideways onto the couch while Seymour Soufflé cleared away our dishes.

After a time, Derek Head brushed hair from my forehead and said, “Let’s go to your place.”

“Can we go to yours?”

“This is mine,” he said. “This is my bed.” When I looked doubtful, he took a key from his jeans and opened a padlock on the chest of drawers, pulling out a pillow and a pair of boxer shorts. “This is the state of affairs after the old heave-ho.”

We ordered a drink for the road, smooching the whole while. Then Derek Head put the reserved sign back on his chest of drawers. “I don’t want anyone on my bed while I’m gone, you see.” Seymour Soufflé nodded to us as we left.

I was happy and tipsy. “Where are you parked?” I asked.

“Baby, my vehicle is impounded like my heart,” he said, growing drunker in the cool air and sounding like a bad Southern novelist. “Where might yours be?”

I led him over to my bike and wiggled my own key in front of his face. Derek Head pedaled while I sat on the handlebars, and we weaved down the dimly lit streets as he sang a few verses of “God Bless America.”

We rode into Frankie’s development. The sycamores seemed welcoming and suburbia such a civil place. Derek Head dropped me off on Frankie and Chuck’s lawn and then proceeded to pop a few wheelies in the street. I peered in the living room window, but there was no Con in sight. I crept along the side of the house and saw her standing in Frankie and Chuck’s bedroom, trying on Frankie’s fancy bras, twirling in front of the mirror, admiring herself. What to do, what to do ? I couldn’t think. Wear the underpants of a good citizen and you won’t have these problems.

Derek Head had fallen off the bicycle and skinned his knee. He came hobbling over, and I yanked him around back and up the stairs to my Five & Dime decorated apartment. We fell onto the little bed, but some of the magic was gone. We reeked of alcohol. Before long we were back in the groove, and the very drunk Derek Head had no problem getting it up and keeping it up. We went at it, and several minutes later we were done. Now that we had gotten to where we were headed I felt terribly lonely and alone. I wrapped my arms around myself.

“What beverages are you offering?”

“No more beverages,” I said.

“Jack Daniels?” Chuck had some under the sink. Derek Head looked me up and down. “You’re fine , Fiona.”

“You’re not bad yourself.” I burped and then he did. We threw on our clothes and went downstairs to the kitchen, where under the sink was a bottle of Jack Daniels. “Here,” I said, pushing him toward the back door.

I walked into the hall and saw that Frankie’s bedroom door was shut. I waited and knocked. “Good God,” I heard my brother-in-law whisper. I teetered on the carpet, letting the situation swish around my brain. Meanwhile my date whizzed past me, flying into the bathroom, guided by some inner antennae. I heard him heave into the toilet, spewing those fine appetizers. My stricken, hairy brother-in-law opened the door, standing in his boxers and socks.

“Where is she?” I said, darting into the room. Constance Poblanski was behind the door, buttoning up.

“This isn’t exactly what it looks like, even though it’s bad,” Chuck said.

Derek Head spewed some more and flushed. “Quit flushing, it’s gonna back up,” I yelled. “You, Chuck, have children sleeping upstairs.”

“They sleep like the dead,” he barely said.

“And no money for you,” I said to Constance Poblanski, corrupted babysitter. I jerked her into the hall.

Chuck slid into his pants. “No, wait,” he said, reaching for his wallet. He handed her a ten.

“You must never, ever speak of this.” I grabbed her wrist. “Never. Understand?”

“I’m not an idiot,” she said.

“Yes, you are.”

“I am,” Chuck said, looking beat and sick. There was more heaving, a wretched noise, and more flushing and finally a watery froth spilled under the door.

“Quit the fucking flushing, you moron,” I said.

“I want this bra,” Constance said, reaching into Frankie’s laundry basket.

“Like hell!” I said.

She turned to me. “I’m not going to say anything.” And she grabbed her see-through purse and walked out into the night.

“Chuck, Chuck,” I wailed. “You dog!”

“Look, Fiona, my ride drops me off. I come in and find her parading around our bedroom in Frankie’s bra. ‘I didn’t hear you come in,’ she tells me. She takes it off right in front of me.” Chuck looked at me with drowning eyes. “We didn’t do it,” he whispered. “I wanted to see if I could…”

“ Chuck ?” I sang.