M.J.—you know how beautiful she is and he was just this wrinkled old man—if he could cheat on her, then what do you suppose Jack is doing to me?”
“Oh, Bitsey, I’m sure he isn’t doing anything of the sort,” I lied. For friends like Bitsey, you lie even if it tastes like gall.
She stared me straight in the eye. “You’re lying. I know you don’t like Jack. He’s critical and demanding, and he takes me for granted. You’ve pointed that out a hundred times.”
“That doesn’t mean he’s cheating.”
She pressed her lips together and blinked several times. “Maybe. Maybe not.”
M.J. came into the kitchen, her hair in a towel. “I don’t think Jack’s the type to cheat,” she said. Obviously she’d overheard our conversation.
Bitsey heaved that same, desolate sigh. “Did you think Frank was the type?”
M.J. shoved her hands deep into the robe’s pockets and shrugged. “I tried to pretend he wasn’t, but I knew he was. After all, he was married when we met.”
M.J. had been a trophy wife. Before that she’d been a twenty-three-year-old beauty pageant winner and aspiring actress, working as a hostess in Frank Hollander’s restaurant. He had kids almost her age, and when he’d dumped wife number one for her it must have been as bad as any cliché out there: a middle-aged man and his sex kitten.
Of course, I can understand why he’d fallen for her, and it’s not just how she looks. M.J. is one of those good-hearted, loving women who always tries to please the people she loves. And she’d really loved Frank.
There’d been no pleasing Frank’s kids, though. Some would say she’s getting what she deserves now, and I admit I even thought it. But not for long. To know M.J. is to love her. And I do love her.
“I used to be thin,” Bitsey said. “When Jack and I met I wore a size eight. Then I had all those kids.”
“I wish I had kids,” M.J. said in a quiet voice. “Tight buns and great abs are no substitute for a real family.”
“What about me?” I put in. “I don’t have kids or tight buns. By rights y’all should be feeling sorry for me.”
Neither of them laughed. Bitsey made coffee and we went out into the courtyard.
“That’s new,” Bitsey said of the plant nestled beside the pond.
“Louisiana Blue Iris,” I said.
That made M.J. smile. “There used to be drifts of those back home in the marshy area behind our house. Where’d you get it?”
“That specialty florist on San Pedro Avenue.” I stroked the deep purplish-blue flower. “A little taste of home, but without all the aggravating people.”
We were silent for a minute, then Bitsey looked at M.J. “Have you considered going home for a while?”
M.J. frowned. “Home? You mean like to Louisiana?”
“Don’t talk like that around me,” I said. “It gives me hives and I’ve got a very important meeting this afternoon.”
Bitsey didn’t spare me a glance. “Now that you’re out of that house and have a little money, you could go home to see your mother.”
“She moved to Florida,” M.J. said. “But maybe…”
“Does that mean you don’t have anybody left in New Orleans?”
“Not really. I mean, I have an aunt and two cousins. But I think maybe they’ve moved, too. The cousins, I mean.”
Bitsey stared into her half-empty coffee mug. “My dad’s still there, and it’s been three years. I guess I ought to go visit him. And I was planning to go,” she added. “But now…”
“Now what?” I asked when M.J. didn’t. You have to understand that Bitsey isn’t the sort to come right out and reveal her feelings. Maybe if she’s angry, but not if she’s sad. Right now she was seriously down in the dumps.
M.J. reached out and squeezed Bitsey’s hand. “Hey, Bits, what’s going on?”
Bitsey shook her head and put on her “it’s nothing” smile. “I got this invitation. That’s all. I was halfway thinking of going…”
“What, to a wedding?” M.J. asked.
“To my high school reunion,” Bitsey admitted. “My thirtieth.”
“Oh, you should go,” M.J. said. “I went to my twentieth and it was so much fun.”
Bitsey slowly shook her head. “I don’t know. Reunions can be hard and Jack can’t get away.” She sent me a quick, guilty look.
To my credit I kept my mouth shut and didn’t roll my eyes. But there was no way I would be able to restrain myself for long, so I changed the subject. “You never finished telling me what Margaret had to say.”
Bitsey gave me a grateful look.
“That’s right,” she began. “Well, like I said, Margaret’s not happy in Tempe. Five years, three majors, and now she’s thinking of taking a year off from school.”
“Maybe that’s not such a bad thing,” I said. “Maybe she needs more time to figure out what she really wants to do. “
“Tell that to Jack,” Bitsey muttered. Then she shook her head. “The thing is, there’s something else going on. I can feel it. I don’t know what it is exactly, but she’s so unsettled. So unfocused. Something’s wrong. I can hear it in her voice. But she won’t say what.”
Kids and how to deal with them were the one thing M.J. and I had no experience with—unless you count our mutual hatred of Frank’s awful kids. Generally we tried to be sympathetic with Bitsey’s situation, but we’d learned long ago not to be too forceful with our opinions. I could rag on Jack, but when it came to her kids, Bitsey was very sensitive.
A cloud passed over us, blocking the sun. It was such a rare occurrence that we all paused and looked up at the sky.
“What I wouldn’t give for a real thunderstorm,” I said. “Remember when you were a kid in the summertime and there was a storm, seems like every afternoon?”
“That’s the only time Mama used to let us play in the attic, when it was raining and we couldn’t go outside,” Bitsey said.
“We used to play under the house.” I said. Actually, it was a trailer up on cinder blocks, but they didn’t need to know that. Bitsey was a product of a Catholic elementary school and one of the best private high schools in New Orleans. M.J. was a suburban beauty queen. But I’d grown up in one of those spontaneous trailer parks that used to sprout up along the river road above New Orleans. To look at the three of us, we seemed pretty much the same. But we were a blue blood, a nouveau riche, and a redneck. And though we all visited our families now and again, we’d never all been back in New Orleans at the same time—which was just fine with me.
M.J.
