Beards

by Serena J Bishop

  ***

  “Hola chica,” the woman with a fuchsia bandana greeted flirtatiously. “What can I get you?”

  Roni sat on a bar stool in her business suit, fresh from her day of school, and wondered what on Earth she was thinking of coming to this place. Gina was a proven liar and she didn’t know why she had listened to Early’s half-cocked theories that suggested otherwise. But she was sitting at the Box and Whiskers anyway.

  “Um,” Roni started nervously, “could I speak to Jessica, please?”

  “I’ll see if she’s free.” Before leaving, Chloe served up a Diet Coke for Roni to drink while she waited.

  Roni observed the club. It was much different from what she remembered. The insanely loud technobeat was gone and replaced by adult contemporary music at a reasonable volume. People, like her, who were dressed in their work clothes had replaced the scantily clad patrons. The lights weren’t flashing or fluorescent, they were steady and soft incandescent.

  She was so taken by the changes in the club that she didn’t sense Jessica approach her from the other side and sit on the stool adjacent to her. “Hello.” Roni turned as the woman held out her hand, “I’m Jessica Higgins. I heard you’d like to speak to me.”

  Out of habit, Roni shook the hand that was offered and noticed that Jessica’s aesthetic, like the club, was very different this time too. Over time, Roni had contorted Jessica’s image into a pair of bright, collagen-pumped lips and pornstar-esque silicon breasts. But here she was now, shaking her hand, smiling politely, wearing black slacks with an Oxford shirt, with hair and makeup nearly identical to hers. What the hell?

  “Hi, my name’s Veronica Fields. Thank you for stopping what you were doing to speak to me.”

  Jessica smiled and waved off the thanks. “Not a problem. I was doing a monthly budget. That can get tedious and very, very boring.”

  “Oh, I know. I hate doing the budget.”

  “Are you a business owner too?”

  “No, I’m a principal.”

  “Interesting. Why’s a principal coming into Box and Whiskers to talk to me?” She took a pull off of the water bottle she had brought out with her. “If you don’t mind me asking.”

  Roni sipped her drink and hoped that stalling would help her develop the courage she needed for this conversation. “You know what, this was a bad idea. I shouldn’t have come here.” Roni started to push herself off of the bar stool, but a gentle hand on her forearm prevented her.

  “Please stay. If you don’t, I’ll have to go back to doing my budget and obviously, you came here for a reason, a pretty specific reason if you need to speak directly to me.”

  Roni relaxed into her seat and decided to go for it. “I’m pretty sure my ex cheated on me with you.”

  “What?” Jessica exclaimed. “No. I don’t do that. At least, I don’t intentionally do that.” This was a very different conversation than what she had anticipated. She thought that maybe she was going to be asked to buy some raffle tickets. “What would make you think that?”

  “About a year and a half ago, it was the Fourth of July to be exact, I came in here and I saw Gi—”

  “Holy shit. You’re Ronnie?”

  “Yes.”

  “Holy shit.” Jessica took another swig of water. But that wasn’t going to do it for this conversation. She moved out of her seat.

  “Please don’t go, I swear I’m not here to start any trouble.”

  Jessica settled behind the bar. “I’m not leaving. I just have a feeling I’m going to need something stronger.” She made herself a scotch and soda but stayed behind the bar. “You look completely different.”

  “I could say the same about you, but you only saw me for a few seconds before I ran out. How could you remember what I looked like?”

  Jessica sipped her drink. “I watched the parking lot fight on my security footage. I wasn’t sure if I was going to need to call the cops on you.”

  “On me?” Roni asked, surprised.

  “Oh yeah. You were equally drunk as you were angry. Those two things combined are very bad for business.”

  Roni hadn’t thought she was that drunk. She had rationalized all of the nasty physical feelings she had the next day to crying the entire night and the huge volume of emotional stress. “Can I ask you a question? And I’d like you to be as honest as possible.”

  “Okay, but then I should tell you that this is making me feel really awkward.”

  “I understand, but if you can remember, what happened that night with you and Gina?”

  Jessica pointed at Roni, drink in her hand, “You’re not with Gina anymore?”

  “No. We broke up that night.” Roni could have sworn she saw Jessica’s shoulders relax after that piece of information. “Why do you look so relieved to hear that?”

  “We did go on a couple of dates this past summer,” Jessica explained. “But we didn’t really click and stopped seeing each other.” She waited a beat before asking, “Are you sure you want to know what happened?”

  Roni took a deep breath. “Yes. Please just tell me. I have to know the truth.”

  So, Jessica did. She told Roni everything, from the moment Chloe alerted her of Gina’s presence to what they discussed in her office. “Then, okay, I did kiss her. I know I shouldn’t have, but part of me thought, ‘she’s never kissed a woman so I’ll show her how it feels’.”

  Surfacing through Roni’s conflicted emotions was a laugh that bubbled out of her. “You thought Gina had never kissed a woman?” She laughed again. “That’s priceless.”

  “I didn’t know! I thought you were a man. You know, ‘Ronnie’.” Jessica adamantly defended while Roni chuckled. “I assumed, again incorrectly, that I was having a coming out talk with her and maybe kissing her would grease the wheels a little bit. When I kissed her on the lips, she didn’t react at all, so my buzzed Scotch brain said, ‘kiss her again’. And I did, but I guess that’s when she realized what was happening, because she jumped off of the couch, thanked me for the drink, and left my office. You know the rest.”

  “So, you weren’t fooling around?”

  “Oh no! Not by a long shot.”

  Roni wasn’t angry anymore, just perplexed. “But she had so much lipstick on her face?”

  “I don’t really wear a lot of makeup so when I buy some, it’s usually really cheap and comes off easily. Plus, I had really slathered it on that night to look the part.”

  “What part would that be?”

  “The high femme, busty bartender. It’s good business.” Roni was deep in thought connecting all of the dots when Jessica asked, “You need any rum in that Coke? You look like you might need it.”

  “Please.” Jessica smiled and Roni watched as a stream was poured into her drink. “How much?”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  Roni sipped her drink while Jessica returned to sit by her at the bar. Roni removed her straw and tossed it on the napkin in front of her. “I feel like such an incredible asshole.”

  “No,” Jessica put a comforting hand on Roni’s knee, “don’t beat yourself up. People say and do hurtful things when they breakup and if you thought she was cheating on you, it’s no wonder you reacted the way you did. I probably would have jumped to the same conclusion.”

  “That helps a little, but meeting you and talking to you...while it makes me feel guilty for blowing that night out of proportion, I can understand why Gina confided in you. You’re very easy to talk to.”

  An hour and another Diet Coke (without the rum) later, Roni returned to her car. Jessica was a great conversationalist and fun. She had no idea that there were so many lesbian activity groups in the area that were just typical gatherings with no flying rainbow flags or political campaigning involved. Roni could actually see herself becoming involved with some of them and the thought gave the pang of guilt she had already been feeling even more weight. They were activities Gina had wanted to do years ago.

  Plus, the club that once terrified Roni
was, in reality, a safe, efficiently run establishment owned and managed by a lovely woman whom she could see shopping or getting a pedicure. And it was the same lovely woman Roni had, up until two hours ago, vilified in her brain as a wanton temptress who seduced Gina into forgetting her commitment to her.

  You’re not nearly the victim you make yourself out to be. Gina had said that to her and now it finally made sense. Gina tried to explain what had happened, but Roni shut her down and demanded she leave their home. She had called Gina a cheater to her face and so much crueler behind her back. To make matters worse, while she was doing this, Gina had scrambled to find a new place to live, had to file for the divorce, and jump through hoops so she could get any time she could with Stevie.

  Roni could no longer pretend that their breakup was only Gina’s fault. Waves of nausea rippled through her as she realized that they both were to blame for the ugliness that had caused their once beautiful relationship to implode.

  Her cell phone rang, interrupting her wallow of self-pity. She hadn’t told Steven of her plans to go to the club after work. She picked up the phone, not bothering to read the caller identification, “I’ll be home in—David?”

  ***

  Steven had been watching Stevie’s swing progress nicely, but despite his own athleticism, his shoulder was feeling a little too sore from throwing pitches at Stevie for an hour the day before. “You know, Stevie. I was thinking,” he waited until his son looked up from the pizza on the dining table, “maybe this weekend I could take you to the batting cages.”

  “No way! That’d be awesome! Can Devin come too?”

  Steven needed to give that some serious consideration. Devin was still very small for his age and Steven wasn’t so sure any helmet would fit him. The front door to the house opened, saving him from answering. A very exhausted Roni staggered inside. “Look what the cat dragged in.”

  “You’re home real late, Mom. Did you have to drive a kid home from detention?”

  Roni more collapsed, than sat, into her dining room chair. “No. I ran an errand after work and then talked to my brother.” She did not want to share any of what she had learned in the past few hours. What she wanted to do was take a bath, drink some wine, and cry until eternity was over.

  “You were talking to Uncle David?” Stevie asked. His tone made it quite clear that even he thought that was odd.

  “He doesn’t want us donating to that loony church again, does he?” Steven asked, as he cut more slices.

  Roni declined an offered piece. Unless the pizza had wine in it, she wasn’t interested. “No, we didn’t talk about that. It’s Mom...she’s...”

  The tears she promised herself she’d hold back until her alone time wouldn’t be dammed anymore. The news that Gina wasn’t a cheater, she was a monster, and her mother had stage-four breast cancer, was too much to bear.

  ***

  Nine-thirty Sunday morning came more quickly than Roni would have liked. She had planned on concocting a masterful speech to Gina. One could even call it an apology to a certain degree, but she had spent the hours of her week focused on anything that wasn’t her personal life. The result was that she had caught up on everything at work and the house had never been cleaner.

  The doorbell rang and she felt summoned to confess, but couldn’t bring herself to do it just yet. “Hey,” Roni said both tired and pleasantly, “come on in. Stevie had a wardrobe malfunction and will be down shortly.”

  Gina was shocked—not by Stevie’s clothing issue, but that she had been invited inside. “Um, okay. Thanks.” Gina followed Roni into the living room and sat across from her while she listened to Stevie shuffle around upstairs.

  “Stevie found out a classmate of his also goes to our church.” Roni smiled, “Her name is Lisa and she is apparently very good at dodgeball.”

  Gina returned the grin. “You don’t say?”

  Roni nodded and tucked her legs underneath of her. “He made her a very special cupcake for the party they had at his school and wants to look ‘extra nice’ today in case there’s a run in.”

  “I’ll get a basic description regarding Lisa and report back my findings.”

  “I’d appreciate that, Detective.”

  Gina nodded and marveled at how good she felt over this exchange—friendly, calm, and mildly flirtatious. Although, she decided she was most likely dreaming of the last one. Just because Roni was nice didn’t mean she was flirting with her.

  I think I’m flirting with her. The idea gave Roni pause. It had been less than a week since she found out that Gina had never cheated on her and now she felt like she was back in her apartment in Harrisburg trying to determine if Gina was interested in her. But based on Gina’s body language—eyes looking anywhere but her, hands in pockets, and her shoulders slumped—Gina wasn’t reciprocating.

  “Roni?”

  Gina’s question shook her out of her analysis. “Yes?”

  Gina brought her sincere brown eyes up to meet her green ones. “I’m really sorry to hear about your mom.”

  Roni cast her eyes down and started idly playing with a loose thread on her sweater. “I guess Steven told you.” Gina nodded and Roni continued, “Apparently, after months of coughing and shortness of breath, Dad finally convinced her to go to the doctor. She just thought it was a cold and that it would go away. By the time she finally saw someone, the cancer had metastasized into both lungs and, well, you know the rest.”

  “I’m still really sorry. If you need any extra help with Stevie during the week or weekends so you can go visit, let me know. I could always drop off dinner or something. But I did volunteer for some undercover work. I think we’re starting in the next few months. I won’t be able to help during that, but I’ll keep you posted so you’ll know when you can count on me.”

  She still thinks I view her as a scoundrel, yet she’s still willing to go out of her way to help. “Gina, I—”

  “I’m ready!” Stevie ran down the stairs in his Christmas photo outfit: polished black shoes, black trousers, and a dark green sweater. “I think I need new shoes, Mom. They’re really tight.”

  “Of course, they are. You’re growing so fast we should look into renting your clothes instead of buying them.”

  “What’s the occasion for looking so sharp?” Gina winked at Roni.

  “Early says that everyday is an occasion to look handsome.”

  “Of course, he does,” Gina said, as she and Roni shared a look. “You know, Roni, you can always come with us to church if you’d like. I know you practically go every day at school, but...”

  “Thank you for the offer, but I’m actually going over to Becky and Gretchen’s to do some picture sharing. I’ll see if I can get you some.”

  “I’d really appreciate that. Thank you, Roni, and take care of yourself.”

  “I’ll try.”

  ***

  Becky and Roni sat in the middle of the living room floor and dealt pictures like a card game. Both of them laughed at the ridiculous faces and poses their sons had created in roughly four years of friendship. Even more shocking was how much their boys had changed. Devin had started kindergarten incredibly small for his age with hardly any teeth. Now, he almost had an entire set and had at least grown to a point where people stopped wondering if he had some sort of hormone deficiency. Stevie, always taller, was starting to add muscle to his frame and had a wardrobe that consisted almost entirely of sports apparel.

  Becky fanned out a new selection of pictures and Roni’s hand snatched one just as it hit the beige carpet. The picture showed Stevie, Devin, and Gina with serious faces, armed and geared like they were members of a SWAT team. They were also all covered head to toe with bright splashes of paint.

  “I guess you haven’t seen that one,” Becky commented while Roni held the photo. “Devin and Stevie had so much fun that day. Gina taught them military hand signals and everything. It was cute.” Roni stared at the picture until her eyes started to shimmer. Becky knew something was amis
s and reached for her, “Roni, what is it?”

  Roni pulled a tissue out of a nearby tissue box. “Gina never cheated on me.”

  “What?” she asked surprised. “What about what happened with Tits McCleavage?”

  Roni shook her head as she dabbed her eyes. “I went to the Box and Whiskers and talked to Jessica. That’s Tits’s name. She told me about what happened. She told me everything. I asked her to.”

  “And you believe her?”

  Roni nodded. “She’s a really good listener. I can see why Gina talked to her. I ended up having a drink at the bar. We’re thinking about starting a lesbian book club.”

  Becky didn’t even know where to start with this news. “When did you find all of this out?”

  Roni sniffled. “About an hour or two before I found out my Mom’s going to die.”

  “Roni, that’s...that’s...”

  “Awful? Yeah, I know. And do you know what I did? As soon as I found out about Gina not being a cheating skank, I caught myself flirting with her and she couldn’t have acted less interested in me.”

  “Well, her heart was completely broken by the way you two ended things and...she’s started to move on. She’s dating.”

  “It’s okay. Jessica told me they went out.”

  “Gina’s been dating more women than just Jessica.”

  Roni sniffled. Gina deserved to find someone who didn’t treat her like a criminal, but the news still hurt to hear. “I bet she’s having sex too. I haven’t had sex in over two years. I should probably just buy stock in Duracell. At least that way I can turn my self-pleasure into a lucrative investment.” Roni balled her tissue and pursed her lips as she thought about Gina’s budding romantic life. “I bet it’s the motorcycle. She looks so hot on that thing.”

  “I didn’t want to be the one who said it,” Becky admitted. “It’s even better when you get on it with her. The vibration is...quite fun.”