The Weird Sisters - Eleanor Brown [28]
Bean had always had a way with men. There were women prettier, and smarter, and thinner, and funnier, but Bean had something special. When she was only twelve or thirteen, she had gone to performances at Barney and had drawn the gazes of the college boys who might have been—hopefully would have been—appalled if they had known her age. And when she discovered how to sneak out of the house on Friday and Saturday nights and follow the sounds of hysteria and beer, she had learned to flirt through the haze of smoke and noise, how to kiss without making any promises, and how to reel a man across the room with only a look.
She lifted her beer to her mouth, the neck hanging between two fingers, and shook back her hair. The one in the suit. He’d do. She signaled for another shot and tossed it back before taking her beer and her cigarettes and moving to a high table nearer to the pool players.
“Nice shot,” she observed when one of the T-shirts overshot, sending the cue ball hopping over the edge, where it rolled under her chair.
“Sorry,” he said, kneeling to recover it.
“Not at all. I like a man on his knees.” His head snapped up and he looked at her, startled, then smiled.
“That could be arranged.”
Bean didn’t reply, only smiled and took a sip of her beer, wrapping her lips around the opening just so. He tossed the ball in the air, nearly missed catching it, and backed toward the table.
“As you were,” she nodded, dismissing him. The others were looking now, running their eyes over her. She crossed her legs, flipped her high heel so it hung from her toes, and lit a cigarette with a sigh. Like shooting fish in a barrel. This is a gift that I have; simple, simple.
A game later, the man headed to the bar and brought back another beer and shot for her. “You up for a game?” he asked.
“Sure,” she said. “As long as you don’t mind losing.” He laughed as she hopped off the stool with a practiced toss of her hair and took the stick from him.
Bean was drunk enough that it was deliciously easy to play her part without thinking—to brush up against the guy in the suit, to lean just right against the table, to get one of them to settle that pesky tab and keep her supplied with drinks.
But then there was a rush of heat coming in the door, and a gaggle of girls piled in. Maybe they were over twenty-one, but they were definitely girls. Their hair dyed too brassy, sprayed too high, their shorts too short, their makeup too thick. But they, unlike Bean, were on the right side of thirty. And they, unlike 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,