by Sorbe, Lisa
And my father? Well, maybe if I had been such a wonderful little human, he’d have stuck around.
Sighing, I acquiesce. “Okay, maybe it’s fine to worry, like, once in a while. But you? Man, you fret over that kid constantly.”
Okay, so maybe I’m being too direct. After all, we’ve only known each other for a short time, and it’s probably not my place to be telling her how to “mom”. But for Christ’s sake, the woman displays no backbone whatsoever when it comes to that kid.
Marla’s lower lip starts to tremble.
Shit. Now I’ve gone and made her cry.
I suck at this girls’ night thing.
Then again, I’ve never really had one, so how am I supposed to know how to behave?
An apology is perched on the tip of my tongue when Marla beats me to the punch.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” She shakes her head, and I look at her in shock, because I’m not quite sure why she’s the one apologizing.
“Mar—”
But she holds up a hand, stopping me. “Nope. This night is about you, Becky. You. I mean, shit. After what you’ve been through, the last thing you need is listening to me worry about Belle.”
A, she’s right. Two, she’s being a total wet rag. And III, she doesn’t even know the half of what I went through with Randall. There was no way I could tell her the whole story: that I’m actually married with a boyfriend on the side and this creep was trying to blackmail me into having sex with him. Admitting that sort of dirt would lessen me in her eyes, lose the trust I’ve been working so hard to build. So I simply told her that the guy who lives next door to the house I’m sitting made a dirty pass at me, and that it left me uncomfortable enough to need a night away from the place.
Marla was horrified, of course. Absolutely stunned and disgusted that someone could behave in such a manner. Because in Marla’s world, in the precious little bubble she’s lucky enough to inhabit, bad stuff like that doesn’t happen. Not to people she knows, anyway. And certainly not to her.
She’d probably have a coronary if I told her the real story. If I admitted to letting the bastard touch me in the most intimate of ways just so I could gain his trust and get my eyes on that video again.
Even now, knowing that I’m in the clear and there’s nothing else he can do to me, it’s hard to revel in my victory. Because I can still feel him, like a stain on my skin. Feel his fat fingers needing, groping, exploring.
Without thinking, I take Marla’s shot and down it.
“Don’t worry about it,” I tell her. The second (or third?) shot is working its magic, hotter than hot and chasin’ those blues away. I focus on Marla again, remind myself of the reason I befriended her in the first place and, using my words as a chisel, concentrate on widening her cracks. “You just need to step out of your mom bubble for a night. One fucking night. The ki – Belle – is always with you. And that’s all fine and dandy for her, but what about you? Do you even have a life outside of her? Outside of…your husband?”
“I…” Marla scrunches her brow, and I don’t have to be telepathic to know what thoughts are running through her head. Her life is splashed on her Instagram page, and even though I haven’t looked at it lately, I clearly remember the vibe. (The first time she tried to take a selfie with me and the kid, I ducked out of view, claiming an intense phobia to having my image on the Internet.) Aside from our little lunch dates, where she photographs meals like they’re art rather than greasy diner food served on cheap ceramic plates, everything she does is for her daughter. Dance classes, gymnastic classes, play dates and toy stores and story time at the local library. The kid is like a parasite, always attached to her, day after day, month after month, year after year… siphoning her energy, her very life force.
It’s fucking sick, is what it is.
Marla looks me square in the eye. “No,” she says, her voice firm. “I don’t.”
I can’t help but grin. “Well, then. Let’s get you one.”
Marla is hammered.
Tee-hee! And maybe, maybe I might be a little ducking frunk, too.
We moved on from our neighborhood bar hours ago, taking an Uber to a hot dance club across town. I mean, I think it was hours ago; it kinda feels like we just got here. But there are too many empty glasses at our table – shot and full-sized – to support that theory.
Yeah, noooo. I’m fairly certain we’ve been here for hours.
At my suggestion, Marla’s blouse is tied around her waist, and the only thing she’s wearing is the tiny little tankini she had on underneath along with a worn pair of army green shorts and clunky ankle boots. She looks cute rather than beautiful, almost like a college girl on break, and the guys at the little round cocktail table next to ours keep throwing glances in her direction.
And mine, of course. Though, that’s to be expected. I’m wearing skintight pants and a shiny red halter top that leaves very little to the imagination. I’m used to this kind of attention.
Marla? Not so much.
I give her a look before tilting my head slightly in their direction. “Don’t look now, but those guys are staring at you.”
She giggles, her face flushed. “What? No, no they aren’t.” And then, ignoring my words, she turns and looks right at them.
They perk up, giving the guy version of a wave: three lift their chins and one gives a two-finger salute.
“Subtle,” I say, and then laugh.
Marla is far more fun when she’s drunk.
If she wasn’t married to the love of my life, my fucking soul mate, I might even like her. You know, as a friend.
I’ve never had a real friend before. Even back in grade school, I failed to connect with the girls in my class. They seemed to be aware of some secret code that I wasn’t privy to, and no matter how much I tried to fit in, I never could.
And then Hollis came into my life. He blew in like a sweet breath of fresh air and told me how much better I was than those small-town tramps, and I never thought about those bitches again.
“They’re looking at you, Becky. Not me.” She points a finger at me, leans forward, and almost falls off her stool. “You’re sexy hot. I’m just a frumpy mom.”
“You are not just a frumpy mom,” I say, surprised to find that I mean it.
But Marla shakes her head. “Nope. I have stretch marks and, you know,” she lowers her voice, as if what she’s about to say is too foul even for this bump and grind meat market, “mom tits.”
“Mom tits?”
Marla cups her breasts and pushes them together. “Saggy. Used and abused.”
“Honey, every woman our age who hasn’t had a boob job has saggy tits. Kids or no kids.” I motion to my chest, indicating my designer backless bra. “It’s all in the hardware. And these ladies are held up by the best.” I make a funny face and, wiggling my shoulders, perform a little shimmy. My tits sway and bob with the movement, looking a lot riper than they really are.
Marla laughs, and then snorts, and proceeds to laugh harder.
Which makes me laugh. Again. For, like, the millionth time tonight.
“This is so fucked up,” I say, cackling so hard a snort pops out.
Marla and I lock eyes and burst into giggles.
And perhaps that’s the most fucked up thing. Rebecca Cabot Crane, aka Becca Cabot, aka Beautiful Savage, is giggling. Uncontrollably. With another woman.
And it feels fucking amazing.
“Oh, I’ve missed this.” Marla gulps at her empty glass and then looks at it, confused.
“You already finished that one,” I snort (again).
Marla looks crestfallen until she remembers that she can just order another. She throws her arm in the air, waving her hand at the waitress, and accidently smacks a dude walking by. “Ope! Sorry, sorry!”
Then she turns back to me, and we laugh some more.
This is surreal.
After putting in our orders, I bring up something she said that stuck with me. “When you said that you m
issed this, what did you mean?”
She waves between us. “This. Girl time. Getting out and having fun. No kids, no husbands, no responsibilities. Losing every single one of my fucking inhibitions.”
She practically shouts this last part, and the guys next to us shift in their seats.
“When we first met, you said that it’s been awhile since you’ve hung out with friends.” I know she lived in Minneapolis for a time, and before that Austin, but I’m interested in learning more about her life. Like, for instance, when and how did she and Hollis meet?
“Yeah. Like forever and ever ago.” She waves her hand drunkenly, almost knocking another guy in the head. “And ever ago. You’re the only friend I have up here. You know, in Duluth.”
“I bet your sisters down in Austin miss you.”
Chisel, chisel.
Her eyes grow glassy, though I can’t tell if it’s from drink or emotion. “It sucks being so far away from them.”
“So, how long have you and your husband been together?”
“Hollis?”
I give her a look. “Um, yeah. Unless you have another husband that I’m not aware of.”
Marla sighs, cringes, and drunkenly blurts, “I kinda sorta do.”
And my eyes just about fly out of my fucking head.
Marla, you little dev—
“Ex-husband,” she clarifies, when she sees my shock. “We were high school sweethearts. Totally in love.”
I lean in closer. This is news worth lapping up with a spoon. “What happened?”
The waitress brings our drinks, and the conversation pauses as I hand over a couple of twenties. “Keep the change,” I say, hoping the large tip will get her to skedaddle. Turning back to Marla, I lift my brows.
She takes a drink of her martini and puffs out a breath. “We grew apart, I guess? It’s like, one day we just woke up and decided we didn’t want to be married anymore. We were young, though. So young. Too young, really. I guess we just grew apart.”
“Wow.” This doesn’t give me a ton to work with, but I shoot from the hip anyway. “First loves are hard to let go of. Do you still think about him?”
Marla shakes her head adamantly. “No, not at all.” But then she presses her lips together, like she’s holding something in.
I cross my arms and lean my elbows on the table. “I sense a but.”
She unpeels her lips, takes another drink, and then one more. “Maybe. Sometimes.” Another deep drink. “You know what? Fuck it. Becky, I…I think about him all the time.”
Holy-goodness and oh-my-stars! I feel like throwing my hands up to the heavens and singing sweet, glorious praise.
But I don’t. I control myself, nodding like she just told me something as mundane as tomorrow’s weather forecast.
“We were going to move to Texas.” She divulges this quickly, as if revealing some forbidden secret. “Andy,” she says, stumbling over the name, “was going to move to Texas for me.”
I’ve struck gold. Pure, one hundred percent fucking gold.
“Jesus, Marla,” I say, feigning astonishment. Then, shooting her a look of sympathy, I shrug. “Well, it sounds like your ex-husband was willing to go that extra mile for you, at least.”
We both know what I’m implying here.
“C-can you keep a secret?” Before I can answer, she rushes on. “I…well, sometimes…I really miss him. So much it hurts.”
I feel as if a weight has been lifted from my shoulders; the burdens that have been holding me down, holding me hostage for so many years, have evaporated like *snap* that.
“You still love him.” It’s a statement, not a question, and my stomach does a happy little flip when I see the look on Marla’s face as she grasps this realization.
“I-I don’t know,” she stammers.
Oh, but I do, Marla. I do.
I shove my giddy smile into my drink, so she doesn’t notice.
A silence falls over the table; moody, it lingers in the air like a foul smell. Across from me, Marla stares into her glass, no doubt thinking about a future that never came to pass.
I tuck this gem away in my mental Marla file, then reach across the table. I can’t have her being mopey all night. After all, I still have my needs, and my needs are to forget. Taking her hand, I give her a wink. “Come on, you fucking MILF. Let’s dance.”
She laughs as a blush blooms over her cheeks, across the bridge of her nose. But somehow, with her freckles and shiny eyes, it makes her look even more cute. Even more…innocent. “No. No, I’m not a good dancer. Like, at all…”
But I’ve already pulled her from her seat. As we pass the guys’ table, I give them a look and nod toward the dance floor. Three of them rise immediately, following along behind us like eager little puppies.
Thankfully, on Thursday nights this place revisits the eighties, and classic rock croons from the speakers. This, I can get on board with, and as I move my hips to AC/DC’s “You Shook Me All Night Long”, Randall’s touch finally begins to evaporate.
Marla stands next to me, looking uncomfortable.
“Oh, come on,” I say, moving closer and placing my hands on her hips. “Just sway your body, like this.” She bends her knees and slowly circles her pelvis, looking more like a pre-teen boy at his first dance than a club-hopping woman in her thirties.
She doesn’t seem to be all that coordinated. Her movements are stiff and twitchy, even with the alcohol loosening her limbs. Which is a real shame, because I, for one, know that Hollis loves to dance. Or, well, he used to love to watch me dance, at least. In our bedroom. Naked and on his lap…
It’s not long before we’re surrounded by the guys, and almost immediately one wraps a big hand around Marla’s waist and pulls her from my grasp. She throws me a wild look before he whips her around to face him, and soon after I feel someone come up behind me, place his hands on my hips. I have no idea who it is, but it doesn’t really matter because we’re dancing, only dancing, and tonight I want to forget about everything – Randall and Nicholas and that stupid video – and this guy is going to help me do it. Leaning back against his chest, I reach up and slide my fingers through his hair while he dips his lips to my ear, whispering something I can’t make out and don’t really care to. All I want is to grind against him, feel his hands on me, and prove that Randall hasn’t tarnished me beyond repair. When the dude slips his palms beneath my halter, gliding them across my stomach, I don’t even flinch.
He murmurs something again, but I ignore him, just close my eyes and sway, losing myself to the music, adrift in the delicious sensation of being someone else.
It’s such a good fucking feeling, being someone else.
Unfortunately, I don’t get to bask in this empty-minded bliss for long. Because someone is tugging at my elbow, and when I open my eyes, I see that it’s Marla…with her hand over her mouth.
“Becky? I-I think I’m gonna be sick.”
The morning is thick. It’s all I can do to swim up from the night’s dreams, fragments of images that include Hollis and Ford switching back and forth, first one and then the other, snapping and popping like phantoms. First, it’s Ford in my old apartment, only I’m twenty-two and he’s walking out on me. He’s calling me a liar, and he’s laughing like I’m a joke, laughing like he never really cared about me at all. And the pain of his rejection, the pain of his indifference is so real, so piercing, that I feel like I could die. I want to die. Then, just as I’m crumbling to the floor, a flash of lightening throws me into a new scene, this time with Hollis. We’re on the lake, the wild lake, and it’s storming, dark waves the color of steel splashing over the bow of my kayak. Hollis is ahead of me, his kayak bobbing in and out of sight, his dark head just visible through the rain. He’s paddling away from the shore, heading toward open water, and I call to him, chase him, try to get his attention because we need to get to land, need to get to safety, because with the way this storm is erupting, there’s no possible way we’ll survive if we stay on the wat
er. But he won’t listen, won’t even turn to look at me, as if I’m so insignificant he can’t be bothered. I cry out one last time as a wave crests, swells, flips me over, and something is grabbing my foot from inside the kayak, grabbing with an iron grip, preventing me from escaping. It’s Randall, I know it’s Randall, and even though I can’t see him, I can feel him, his serpent touch slithering up to wrap around my chest, my throat, squeezing the air from my lungs…
The dreams are like a spider’s web, a tangle of nightmares, and with each struggling attempt to wake, I pull a new thread, shake loose a new hell.
When my eyes finally peel open, I have no idea where I am. The mess of dreams has me so discombobulated, so disengaged from reality, that for all I know I could be on another planet. Everything’s a blur, and the slight weight draped over my waist is too light to be Ford’s arm…
Ford.
I’m at Ford’s.
And Marla…Marla is next to me.
Memories from last night flood in, along with a giddiness I can’t place. Something happened last night, something…good. A win, of sorts. A golden nugget of insight that I can take and run with.
Flipping backwards, I rewind the evening, from arriving at Ford’s to the Uber ride that brought us there (Marla and I sang “Unskinny Bop” over and over again, much to the annoyance of our driver), to holding her hair back in the bathroom at the club while she hurled everything she’d consumed that night into the toilet. Then, I think we danced, right? Danced with those guys, the ones who’d been eyeing us all evening…and Marla, uncoordinated…dancing to forget, just like me…
There’s a pounding behind my right eye, a throbbing that makes it hard to think.
It was all those drinks, too many drinks, leading to laughing, so much laughing, and loose tongues and…