The Weird Sisters - Eleanor Brown [29]
“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 She’d been replaced by a group of far inferior understudies—women who were louder and dumber and uglier and tackier, but who were inarguably younger.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