The B Girls (3 page)

Jane tapped the rim of her glass a few more times
and said, "Fuck him. He's the one losing out."

Mae raised her glass in agreement. "Fuck
him."

Lucy choked on her water.

Jane stared with her jaw hanging open for several
seconds before she found her voice. "I've never heard so much as a 'damn'
come out of your mouth before. What gives?" she said.

Still struggling to catch her breath, Lucy nodded
her encouragement for Mae to answer.

"What gives? Me. To my family. I've turned
them all into a bunch of spoiled brats--and that includes my husband. Do you
know, they actually thought I must be physically ill because I didn't clean up
the mess they left in the kitchen this morning?"

"And saying fuck relates to this how?"
Lucy asked.

"I've decided to try new things. Like using
bad language and not cleaning up after them all the time. I'm thinking about
getting a job or something." She reached for her purse and started digging
for the pack of cigarettes she'd retrieved from her stash before leaving the
house. "And I'm going outside to smoke."

Jane and Lucy stared after Mae in open-mouthed
shock for several seconds before jumping up to follow her out of the sunroom to
the patio.

Mae saying she was going to get a job was like
Hillary Clinton announcing she was going to become a Republican. Mae announcing
she was going to smoke--well there wasn't anything to compare it to. Mae was
all about taking care of her family and presenting an image of wholesome
perfection to the world.

Outside, Jane laughed, dropped into a cushioned
patio chair, and signaled for Mae to pass her the pack. "You're talking
about getting a job and I might be unemployed on Monday."

"What?" Was there some sort of insanity
virus going around? "I thought you were going to be realtor of the
month." Lucy sat down and watched her two best friends light up and puff
away, feeling like she'd gone down the rabbit hole.

"That was before I told my client to make a
deal with his trophy wife about how many blow jobs it would take for her to get
the house she wanted." Jane coughed as she blew out a thin stream of
smoke.

"Oh my God. You didn't?" Mae pulled smoke
deep into her lungs with more finesse and no coughing.

Jane drank from the glass she still held and
nodded. "I did. And you know what? I don't feel bad about it. I know I
should feel bad. I know it wasn't nice. But I've just reached the limit on my
bullshit meter."

"That's just how I feel," Mae said.

"Well, I didn't choose rebellion. I had it
forced on me by my rat bastard soon to be ex-husband," Lucy said.

She threw back the last of her water, wishing for
the box of wine. "I want my nice well-planned future back. I don't like
not knowing what comes next." Especially when what came next was sure to
be an unpleasant divorce battle followed by a severe cut in her standard of
living.

"You want Gary back?" Jane asked.

Lucy thought about that. She
should
want Gary back. She loved him didn't she? The fact that she
had to think about it was a hint. "No, I don't think so, but I want my
future retirement back. I want to spend my golden years collecting shark's
teeth in oversized brandy snifters and watching the sunset over the Gulf of
Mexico from the balcony of my high rise condo."

"Doesn't that sort of go along with having
Gary back?" Jane said.

"I don't know. I guess I'm thinking of him in
a gone fishing sort of way."

"Well you should probably think of him as just
gone," Jane said. "And good riddance. You shouldn't spend the best
part of your life with someone you tolerate more than love."

"But I don't want something different. I want
safe and predictable and easy. Reinventing my life at this point is just too
much work," Lucy said.

"No whining allowed," Jane said.

"We're all at a crossroads in our lives. We
have a chance to completely turn things around--find our bliss," Mae said.

Jane and Lucy looked at each other and burst out
laughing.

"Are you sure you haven't been drinking?"
Lucy said.

Mae pretended to pout. "What's so funny?"

"Crossroads?" Jane said wiping tears of
laughter off her face--without smudging her makeup. "Promise me the words
'find our bliss' will never pass your lips again."

Lucy was shaking her head. "Maybe she's right.
Maybe we're all having a pre-midlife crisis."

"Pre midlife?" Jane said.

"Well I'm sure as hell not admitting to being
middle-aged. Hell, half the time I feel like I'm just playing a grownup on
TV," Lucy said.

"I always feel like a grownup. I think that's
the problem," Mae said.

"I think we need a night on the town,"
Lucy said. "I'm not through drinking yet. Let's go to The
Shitkicker."

"You're still drunk," Jane said.

Lucy nodded. "I'm also serious."

Jane tapped another cigarette out of Mae's pack.
"I'm game."

"The Shitkicker?" Mae's voice came out as
a squeak. "That place is full of rowdy twenty-one year olds. And it's . .
."

"Fun?" Lucy said.

"I was going to say seedy," Mae said.

"Seedy? Nobody says seedy." Jane drummed
her fingernails on the table.

Mae pursed her lips in a stubborn pout. "Chip
would have a coronary."

"Didn't you just get finished telling us you
wanted to try new things? Break out of your soccer mom mold?" Jane said.

"And don't forget the always feeling like a
grownup thing," Lucy said.

"But I don't have anything to wear," Mae
said.

"Just throw on a pair of jeans and you'll be
good to go," Jane said.

Mae didn't say anything but the vaguely guilty look
on her face spoke volumes.

Lucy was horrified. "Don't tell me you don't
own a pair of jeans."

"I can't go out in public dressed like
this," Mae said. "I thought these clothes were going to be fun but I
feel like I'm wearing a costume." She shuddered. "People will laugh
at me."

Lucy thought Mae looked adorable in her western
wear. After Mae's confession that she indeed didn't own a pair of jeans, Lucy
had insisted they go shopping for Shitkicker clothes at Wild Bill's. "Look
at it this way, it would have been worse if we'd opted for the square dance
clothes."

"Mae, you really need to loosen up," Jane
said. "You take this whole conservative suburban soccer mom thing to the
extreme. When was the last time you went to the grocery store in your
sweats?"

Mae looked vaguely horrified at the thought.
"I never leave the house like that."

"Do you even sit around the house like
that?" Jane asked.

Mae shook her head. "Too many people coming and
going from my house. I like to be presentable."

When Jane arched an eyebrow, Mae got defensive.
"There's nothing wrong with always wanting to look your best."

"Of course there isn't," Lucy said giving
Jane the eye.

Jane ignored Lucy. "No, there isn't anything
wrong with wanting to look your best but everyone has a skanky sweat and tee
shirt day. No one would think less of you if you forgot your mascara every once
in a while."

Mae shivered at the thought. "Easy for you to
say."

"What does that mean?" Jane said.

"It means, I never see you running around in
sweats and even if you did you wouldn't have to worry about anyone looking down
their nose at you because of it," Mae said. She ground her cigarette out
in a ceramic dish they'd brought out to the patio for use as an ashtray.

"You're right I don't have to worry about it
and neither do you," Jane said.

Lucy squinted at both of them with concern.
"What's going on here? Mae, why would you think anyone would look down
their nose at you for any reason? Especially your clothes. You've seen the way
I dress. We live in the same neighborhood for God's sake." Lucy had never
met a pair of jeans or sweatpants she didn't like and the very thought of
wearing something that had to be ironed--except for weddings, funerals and the
occasional church service--gave her hives.

Mae's lower lip trembled. "You don't
understand, either of you. You never had to." She looked at Jane.
"Your mother probably dressed you in designer diapers and I'd bet
everything I own that you were the queen bee at your high school." She
turned to Lucy. "And you, you're one of those people that can get away
with anything by being 'creative' and 'intellectual'. Well, I'm here to tell
you it isn't like that for all of us. Some of us live on the other side of that
coin."

"What the hell are you talking about? Just
because you came from a peanut farm in South Georgia instead of the city? Or
some college campus?" Jane said.

"I lied."

Mae's voice was so low when she responded that Jane
and Lucy took several seconds to process her words.

"Lied about what?" Lucy said. "Your
parents?"

Mae nodded looking miserable and blinking back
tears.

"So what?" Jane said.

"I knew you wouldn't get it," Mae said.

Lucy shot Jane a look letting her know to back off.

Jane shrugged and leaned back in her chair.

Lucy couldn't imagine what Mae's parents had to do
with any of this but obviously Mae had something bubbling to the surface after
being submerged for a while. "Maybe you should explain," Lucy said.
"We want to help." And maybe thinking about someone else's problems
would take her mind off her own for a while.

"The only true thing I've told anyone about my
past is that I'm from South Georgia. Even Chip doesn't know the whole
truth," Mae said.

"What is the truth?" Lucy asked.

Mae sucked in a breath and averted her eyes before
answering. "My parents were total white trash losers. Drinking, drugs,
jail, unemployment, bad trailer parks--the whole works. I spent more time in
foster care than I did with them.
 
Which was a blessing and the only reason I made it to college. I was the
kid everyone either felt sorry for or ridiculed in high school." She
shuddered. "It was hell. After I made it to UGA, I invented a different
past for myself and made it a point to learn how to dress and how to act to fit
in. But deep down, I always knew I didn't really belong, that if I wasn't
vigilant my genes would come back to bite me and everyone would know I'm a big
impostor."

Lucy blinked back tears of her own but Jane just
stared at Mae with her mouth open for several seconds. "You're
serious," she finally said.

Anger sparked along with shame and hurt in Mae's
eyes when she looked squarely back at Jane. "Of course I'm serious. Lately
it's been harder. My kids are getting older and I'm always afraid I'm going to
embarrass them or do something to make the other kids treat them the way I was
treated in high school."

Lucy got it. For the first time Mae made sense to
her. The ruthlessly clean house. The immaculate clothes, hair and manicure. The
fact that she never, but never, drank more than two or three drinks even when
it was just the girls. Her constant worry about Chelsea and Trey's grades,
sports performance and social life.

"You need a serious reality check," Jane
said.

Lucy started to shush her but Jane shook her head
indicating she knew what she was doing.

Lucy waited, ready to jump in if Jane went too far.

"All those people you seem to think are
somehow better than you? They all have their secrets too," Jane said.

"If you're talking about Betsy Lamar's husband
having an affair or Leanne Standish being an alcoholic, it's not the same
thing," Mae said.

"You're right. But the fact that Betsy was
'Betsy Boop' stripper extraordinaire when she met Mike or that Leanne drinks in
part because Truman Standish makes his money producing porn isn't just the same
thing, it's proof positive that these people you so admire don't have one tenth
as much class as you."

Lucy's eyes went wide. She hadn't known any of
that. "Are you serious? About Betsy and Truman I mean."

"Oh yeah. You'd be amazed if you knew the kind
of secrets that are being kept in the houses of Pine Bluff Country Club
Estates."

"Wow," Lucy said. "You aren't
kidding."

"The point," Jane said turning back to
Mae, "is that you shouldn't be ashamed of your background. You should be
proud of the fact that you overcame it and made a good life for yourself and
your family."

Lucy was starting to think Mae hadn't been
listening when she suddenly started to laugh.