Chapter 5

Frieda:

To know Beth is to love her like a sister — yeah, well, okay, we've done a couple of things sisters aren't supposed to do a couple of times, but that's another story ... I'm a little manic, but Beth is kind of a doofus and her speech problem makes her kind of shy and retiring, so I push her and she puts the brakes on me and between us we make, like, one decent chick — except for looks, I guess. I met her when she applied for the job at the grocery store and when I realized that she wasn't retarded or anything we hit it off and have been going strong ever since.

Anyway, so, where was I? We'd been on shift since before noon and it was getting close to time to get off when this guy comes through my station with a bunch of stuff that wasn't real food. Decent-looking guy -- short brown hair, nice teeth, strong jaw, nice build, twenty-something ... Prime stuff, actually. So Beth comes over to bag him and the next thing I notice is that he's, like, ogling her hooters and drooling — which is kind of weird, since Beth has a kind of saggy-looking bust. I mean, I don't have much, but what I DO have doesn't sag too much. Beth's hooters look kind of, well, under-inflated. I must have telegraphed the whole thing because Beth looked up at me, flicked a look at him and turned away, all embarrassed; I remember thinking, 'Jeez, Hon! If the guy wants to look... ' but of course I couldn't say anything. She finished bagging him and asked me if she could shut down her station — and again, the guy acts like he's all fascinated — not in a negative way, either, which is odd in itself, since Beth has that lisp ... She goes after the cleaning stuff in the shelves under my station and her shirt rides up and the guy circles around and starts ogling her bare back and the strip of her panties that showed up because she was bent over.

If he had been an old guy, it would have been really creepy, but even as it was it was unusual, to say the least! I popped a grin, thinking about how I was gonna rag Beth about it later, when she straightened up and caught him then glanced at me — then out of nowhere, the dude goes, "Hey, uh, you wouldn't want to go out or anything... ?"

I was FLOORED — but Beth wasn't EVEN prepared for THAT shit! She got that 'deer in the headlights' look and stammers, "I don't think so..."

Now, up to then, the guy could have been any one of a dozen kinds of weirdo, hot-looking or not — but he took 'no' REAL hard, tucked his tail between his legs and slinked off. Shit, I'd have told him 'yes' in a heartbeat! Beth, on the other hand, froze up ... I lit into her, hissing, "Beth! When is the last time a hot guy asked you out? I don't know what it was exactly, but he was INTO you -- and you just blew him off..."

So Beth whines about how she'd freaked -- which made sense, since it probably the first time ever! Thinking fast, I snagged a handful of register coupons and handed them to her, then pushed her off to chase the guy down, crossing my fingers and hoping that she would remember to talk...

She did. They went back and forth for a moment, then he looked over at me. I just looked back; it was too late to pretend I wasn't interested in the outcome. The next thing I know, Beth does this little hop and flounces back to me with this HUGE grin on her face. I took her in hand and we headed for the break room so I could make her halfway presentable.

The next morning, Beth comes waddling in with a hickey on her neck! First she tried to bullshit me, then she opened up -- and lighting had struck! The guy had wined her and dined her, then the little idiot had gone back to his hotel with him, and BANG! Cherry-picking time! It was fast, but then Beth had a LOT of catching up to do, you know? Prince Charming probably didn't have to apply a hammerlock ... Then she tells me that she invited him to her house! Jeez, what a fuck-up! Even Beth knew the guy was gone, given a moment's sober reflection...

Beth was dumped out -- and I was dumped out for her. We waited, hoping against hope for him to show up, but the end of the shift came and no call from Prince Charming -- or Jack, as that's what Beth said his name was. I decided to take her out and get her blasted to ease the pain and we were out in the parking lot deciding where to go when Beth's phone rings.

I could tell by the look on her face that it was him -- and I couldn't decide whether calling her to beg off was better than just disappearing. Beth gives a couple of listless answers, then goes, "What? Uuuhhh ... You mean, like, dress-up? Fancy dinner out? With other people?" Then she, like, goes into shock...

So she hangs up, and I ask, "What did he say, Hon?"

And in this stunned voice, she says, "He asked me if I had anything to wear to Antoine's..."

At that point, Beth totally lost it -- but there was no time to lose, so I drove her home. And I managed to get her momma moving in the proper direction, too, which was NO mean feat!

Beth got her looks -- most of them, anyway -- from her momma -- but they're nothing alike, temperamentally. Beth's momma, Vera, has to be in charge of just about everything in sight -- and she takes no prisoners. Beth takes after her dad -- who probably never was in control of her family, even at the start. Vera freaked from the word 'go, ' having a fit over Beth's hickey and ranting about her being 'suddenly boy crazy, ' but I managed to convince her that dinner at Antoine's with a group of people wasn't exactly a sordid assignation. Of course, they'd already HAD their sordid assignation, but Vera didn't need to know that ... We got Beth dressed in something halfway decent -- it wasn't exactly a little black cocktail dress, but it was as close as we could whip up on short notice -- and no sooner did I pronounce her makeup presentable than Jack showed up at the door!

Vera lit into him right away about the hickey, and would have carried it farther, but Beth surfaced some uncharacteristic gumption and drew some of her momma's fire. While Vera was rounding on Beth, Jack punched in again, trading off, telling her they needed to leave and sort of hanging out the idea that she could bring out the rack and thumbscrews at a later date. I tossed a shawl over Beth's shoulders and they got out of there -- leaving ME with Momma Vera, unfortunately...

I was a single target; when Vera set her sights on me, there was no diversion. "So what do YOU know about this?" Vera asked, hands on her hips.

'Nothing' would have been an obvious lie and that easy penetration would have made a hole in my defenses for her to work with, so I said, "They met last night."

"Last night?"

"Yeah..."

"You know she didn't come home last night..."

'Uh oh... ' "Really?"

"Frieda..." Vera crossed her arms over her hooters. "Obviously, she wasn't with you..."

Yeah, this wasn't going well ... time to switch tactics. "Jeez, Mrs. H! Beth FINALLY meets a guy who is into her and you have to treat it as ugly!" (Yeah, I know her name -- but I can't use it!)

"What if he's only there to take her innocence?" Vera demanded.

"Mrs. H! Why on Earth would a hot guy hunt down BETH just to take her cherry!"

Vera wrinkled her nose at the whole 'cherry' thing. "They're out there!"

"So are guys who would genuinely want to date Beth!" I retorted. "They're few and far between, OBVIOUSLY -- but that just means that YOU have to be a little more careful about not running them off!" While I was making a point, I decided to throw a serious punch, "You want her to be picked up, don't you?"

"Well, yes..."

"Okay, Mrs. H -- what is Beth gonna have to do to get picked up?" Vera looked mulish, so I knew I had her. "I'll tell you! She's gonna have to get naked and offer to blow a guy -- at least! More likely, she's gonna have to do more than that! Now, which would you prefer -- Jack, or some four hundred pound black guy with a couple of gold teeth and a bad attitude who's ONLY interested in taking her innocence -- and maybe won't take her afterward because she has NO IDEA what she's doing?"

Mr. H, who had been in the background the whole time, wrinkled his face in disgust. "Frieda! Please!"

"We need to deal with reality, Mr. H!" I protested. "If Beth gets picked up, you have to hope that whoever does it is a nice guy -- and it's the luck of the draw! When it happens, there isn't gonna be any tender romance -- she's gonna have to put her stuff out there and HOPE someone is vaguely interested, and she'll be going in BLIND! Jack, on the other hand, is into her -- I KNOW, I was THERE when they met! Even if you're right and he's a total scumbag, he's doing her a favor if he teaches her a few things!"

"Frieda! That's DISGUSTING!" Vera ranted.

"Maybe," I retorted, "but if you screw this up for Beth, she'll NEVER forgive you! Besides, you missed the IMPORTANT things when you started crawling all over Jack!"

"Oh?" Vera snarled. "Like what?"

"Did you ASK about his CAP score?"

Beth:

Momma was all over Jack as soon as the door opened, ranting and raving about the hickey, for God's sake! She was vague about it, and Jack just kind of stood there; I could tell he was worried that my less-than-virginal state was the subject under discussion. "What did I do?" he asked cautiously.

Momma was so busy ranting and raving that she totally missed the fact that Jack RELAXED when she revealed that it was the muffler burn she was worried about! He even apologized -- but then Momma moved on to more general questions and I realized that if things went very far at all, Momma would sniff out something important, so I stepped in, "Momma!"

Of course, once I did, the inquisition moved to me... "Well?" Momma turned to me and put her hands on her hips.

"We were making out, okay?" I replied, realizing that I couldn't carry this whole thing any better than Jack...

"Making out ... When did all this start?" Momma demanded.

Fortunately, Jack jumped in, reminding Momma that we had places to be -- right after which, he shifted the focus to me... "You look beautiful! Do you need a wrap?" I probably grinned like a fool; I KNOW I got all gooey inside!

Momma fell back on ranting about the hickey and tied a scarf around my neck, and Frieda draped a shawl over my shoulders and Jack got me out of there -- too fast, almost, since when he hauled me toward the door he got me going at a rate that made balance on my heels a bit precarious! I managed not to fall, though -- somehow -- and he got me to the car, all the while fending off Momma's crap over the hickey; I knew we were BOTH happy that Momma hadn't scented the fact that Jack had marked me a lot more deeply than THAT!

"Whew!"Jack said as he got in the car. "Think she would feel better if I gave you a matching mark on the other side?"

I giggled and declared, "I'm NOT wearing this scarf!" then reached up and got rid of the thing.

"Good," Jack replied. "If I like to mark my women, it's MY business -- and if you like being marked, it's YOURS!"

'His women!' "Am I your woman?" Butterflies fluttered in my stomach.

"Yes," he replied, in a tone that said, 'of course... ' "Do you like being marked?"

"Yes!" 'Mark me!' I thought, 'PLEASE!' I figured that I needed to explain myself a little, so I said, "I thought I scared you away this morning when I mentioned going to my house. Then you called late..."

Jack cocked his head. "Sooo..."

"I thought you were calling to beg off," I explained. "I was happy you'd even done that; I wasn't expecting it."

"So THAT'S why you were acting so weird!" he exclaimed.

"Yes." I sat there, picking my fingers. "Most guys..."

He gave out a grunt and was quiet for a bit, then replied, "I guess I'm not most guys..."

I couldn't believe it; I'd spent all day stewing over something that apparently hadn't even occurred to him! Of course, that STILL didn't explain why he even bothered with me. I gave voice to the thought, "I don't know why..."

"I don't either," he replied, cutting me off. "Let's not over-analyze it."

It was Antoine's all right; Momma probably thought he was gonna take me to Burger King, but we pulled up at the portico and a valet reached for my door ... When Jack came around to take my arm I begged him not to drag me inside as rapidly as he'd gotten me out of the house. "We were escaping your mother," he replied, chuckling. "They do wonderful things for your calves, though." TWO compliments in fifteen minutes! Buoyed by the attention, I probably glowed. Then he came out with, "How are you barefoot?" From the teasing look on his face, he might as well have added, 'and pregnant!' Suddenly, I was wet, looking at him ... I stumbled along between him and a waiter, wondering if he knew how deftly he was pushing my buttons...

The next thing I knew some woman my mother's age was greeting me, showing a lot of teeth and apparently blaming me for dinner or something. I stammered out something and she detected my lisp and said it was 'sweet'; I probably turned purple from embarrassment. After a minute or two, though, I decided she was trying to be nice and put me at my ease instead of being catty -- which was good, because some guy who had been eyeing me like I was not fit to grind into hamburger dragged Jack off, leaving me with the group of strangers.