Bean, were willing to play dumb, and giggle their helpless way from the bar to the pool tables, preening and posing. The air in the room seemed thinner and the lights dimmer as Bean watched the men’s heads swivel, one by one, turning away from her, showing her that they’d only been using her to pass the time until something better came along. Exactly what she’d been doing to them. A lump formed in her throat and she swallowed hard. Was she going to have to fight for this? She’d never had to fight for attention before, and now she was going to have to do it for these men who hardly seemed worth having in the first place?
‘Ladies,’ the man who had first approached Bean said, and his voice was a throaty purr. ‘Join us?’ The men around the table had gone slack-jawed and simian, beer bottles held limply in their hands, pool cues leaning against the wall and the tables as they admired the display of raw young flesh in front of them. Bean felt as though she were folding in on herself like an origami crane.
The girls looked at one another, consulting, in the way that girls of that age do, as though they are constantly arriving at a telepathic agreement before making even the slightest move. ‘We don’t even know how to play!’ one of them squealed, and the rest burst into giggles again.
‘Give me a break,’ Bean said. She walked to the wall and chalked her cue, running her hand with firm, practiced strokes along the wood, and then blowing gently, her lips puckered just so. The men ignored her. One of the girls gave her a pitying glance, and Bean caught her breath as she recognized the look – she’d been cocky enough to give it herself once or twice – of a woman so confident in the unearned beauty of youth that she could afford to feel sorry for someone like Bean. And instead of feeling superior, Bean felt as though she were in the wrong, as though she had tried too hard, was overdressed and overage and just plain over. Any fight that had been brewing in her burst into steam, like water thrown on a fire.
‘We’ll teach you,’ one of the men said, and Bean watched the way their chests puffed out, peacock-proud, at the thought that they could rescue these helpless women from the dangers of the vicious pool table.
There was a rustle of activity as the girls shimmied their way around, pretending that they didn’t know which end of the pool cue to use, and the men sidled into place beside them, swapping partners like they were all in some complicated square dance with an absent caller until everything settled down. One of the girls bumped into Bean, pushing her up against the edge of the table. ‘Should we just start over?’ one of the guys asked.
Bean, who had been winning the last round with her partner, restrained the urge to whack him over the head with her pool cue. She looked to her partner to support her objection, but he looked like he was about ready to dive headfirst into the prodigious cleavage of one of the gigglers. Bean twisted her body, placed a hand on her toned hip. Nothing. She flipped her hair. No response. One of the men leaned over and whispered something in his partner’s ear. She shrieked with laughter and he tilted back, draining his beer bottle, looking pleased with himself. ‘Fine,’ Bean said, and moved back from the table again. One of the men stepped forward and racked the balls.
She stepped back into the shadows, fumbling for her glass with one hand while she watched the show unfolding in front of her. She drained the shot, not even tasting the bitter liquid, but the buzz of the bar receded and her vision tunneled out. In the darkness by the wall, she felt as though she’d stepped off the stage straight into the audience. Because there was no doubt about it – this was really happening. She wasn’t waiting in the wings for her chance to come back onstage. She’d been replaced by a group of far inferior understudies – women who were louder and dumber and uglier and tackier, but who were inarguably younger.
The alcohol had turned sour in her stomach, and she realized she had to get herself home somehow now, since clearly she wasn’t going to get even the runt of that litter of men. Not tonight. And while Bean wasn’t usually one to walk away from a challenge, she could see the way this would play out, and she didn’t like the image of herself fighting with these silly girls over these worthless men. There was so little dignity left in her life, she didn’t want to waste it on them.
Since the men had paid her tab, Bean asked the bartender to call her a cab and went and waited in the parking lot, sitting on the hood of her car and smoking cigarette after cigarette, watching people drift out of the bar as the night grew old and the hope drained slowly out of it.
What did this mean for her? What do you do when you are no longer the one worth watching? When there are women less beautiful, less intelligent, less versed in the art of the game who nonetheless can beat you at it simply because of their birth date?
The cab pulled up and Bean flicked her cigarette into the gravel. She leaned her head against the window, cool from the air-conditioning against the heat of the night. What would she do now? Who could she possibly be if she was no longer Bianca? Who would want Bean? She felt cruelly sober, probably could have even driven home, and regretted that the last of her cash was going to go to pay for this ride, and that she’d have to ask someone to drive her back to the scene of this humiliation in the morning so she could get her car. A waste. Her whole night, her whole life. Wasted.
‘Get up,’ Rose ordered Bean. She kicked the foot of the bed for good measure. ‘Fie, you slug-a-bed.’
‘Jesus, Rose,’ Bean moaned. ‘It’s not even seven. Shut the hell up.’ A lock of hair caught on her dry lips and she shoved it out of the way before rolling over and burrowing back into her pillow.
‘Mom has an appointment in Columbus at eight. We’re leaving in fifteen minutes.’
‘Goody. Shove off.’
Rose’s nostrils flared and she put her fists on her hips, glaring down at the covers piled on top of Bean. She was clearly the one who’d turned the air-conditioning down so low last night, buried as she was under a feather duvet. In June. Out of pure meanness, Rose reached out and yanked the covers off of Bean, who howled in protest and yanked them back.
‘Your mother is sick, you selfish brat. I told you last night we were going up for her next round of chemo, and you said you’d come.’
‘I did?’ Bean asked curiously, peering up at Rose’s glowering silhouette against the sunlight. It seemed remarkably unlike her to have agreed to something like that. And frankly, she didn’t remember it. Ever since the night at the bar, she’d been putting herself to sleep by drinking, and last night had gotten a little fuzzy after she’d polished off the bottle of wine she’d found in the refrigerator. Maybe she’d been in one of those happy drunk moods. Or more likely she’d agreed with whatever she assumed would make Rose shut up fastest.
‘Yes, you did. Now if your highness would kindly get dressed, we can leave. It’s not bad enough I’ve got to get them ready, now I’ve got to worry about you, too?’
‘I’m up,’ Bean said, tossing aside the covers and sitting up. ‘I’m up.’ The ‘bitch’ at the end of the sentence was understood.
Our parents listened to the radio the entire drive, while Rose sat in the back and seethed, and Bean marinated in the fumes of alcohol seeping out of her skin and tried not to vomit. The toothpaste had helped with her breath, but not at all with the dehydrated headache of white wine the morning after, and the minty taste on her thick tongue made her throat feel clogged.
Inside the hospital, Rose led the parade. Bean veered off toward a coffee cart, Rose yanked her back in line. Bean watched our parents walking together, the stroll of the long-partnered. Our father is an inch shorter than our mother, his hair shot through with gray, his neatly clipped beard gone respectably salt and pepper. They always walk with her arm in his, his free hand darting up a thousand times an hour to adjust his glasses, their steps matched perfectly, knowing each other’s gait. But at the doors to the outpatient clinic, Rose halted and sent our parents through alone. As the doors slid open, our father turned and kissed our mother lightly below the line of the silk scarf on her forehead. She accepted the tenderness like a benediction.
‘We’re not going in?’ Bean asked. She’d found the end of a roll of mints in her purse and popped one, only slightly linty, into her mouth. She snapped it with a