Dead to Her(27)

Marcie sat up, drained her margarita, and poured another. If Keisha wanted to do this, so be it. They’d do it. She was tired of being something she wasn’t. Her head buzzed. Tequila made her wilder. It also made her want more tequila. So what if Keisha told people? It would embarrass Jason and he deserved some embarrassment.

“They’re all such social snobs,” she said, even though she’d kill to have the respect that Iris and Virginia had from the rest of the town’s society. “Jason still tells new people that I was working as a receptionist at a client’s office just outside of town. He’s said it so often even I’ve started to believe it.”

Keisha peered over her sunglasses. “Not true?”

Marcie shrugged and shook her head. “I was a broke waitress in a diner and living in a motel out by Hunter. Jason used to come in for breakfast when he had meetings that way. He liked my smile apparently.” She paused. “Funny, he didn’t mind me being a waitress then. In fact, he thought it was kind of cute. Obviously cute wasn’t enough when it came to being the wife.” She was surprised by her sudden bitterness. She resented her relationship with Jason more than she’d realized.

There was a long pause and then Keisha laughed, deep, throaty, and coarse. Marcie stiffened. “Are you laughing at me?” She sounded prissy and felt stupid. Of course Keisha was laughing at her. She was constantly laughing at her behind this faux-friendly exterior.

“No, no. Fuck no.” Keisha held one hand up and shook her head as she got herself under control. “I’m not laughing at you. It’s just it’s so funny.”

“What’s so funny?”

“All of it. Them. Billy tells everyone that I worked in a travel agency. Apparently I was helping to plan the next leg of his European trip for him.”

It was Marcie’s turn to peer above her oversized, overpriced sunglasses. “That’s what he told us. Said he hadn’t wanted to interrupt Elizabeth’s visit with her mother so he took care of it himself.”

“Yeah, right. Like Billy would think like that. He’s used to everything being done by someone else. Of course Elizabeth took care of it.”

“How did you meet then?” Maybe this afternoon would turn out to be worthwhile after all.

Keisha pushed her glasses onto her head and sat up, taking a long swallow of her drink and then a deep breath before she started to speak.

“You can’t tell anyone.” Her eyes gleamed, mischievous. The tequila had hit her too.

“Of course I won’t,” Marcie said. An age-old lie. The first rule of big secrets, Marcie had learned, was that you kept them to yourself. The second rule of big secrets, she’d also learned, was that most people found it impossible not to break the first rule. She was not most people, but it appeared Keisha was.

“I was a waitress too. I worked in a club. Not like your country club. This was the kind with sticky carpets and cheap champagne and where girls dance for lonely old men or brash city boys out for the night. Billy came in one evening and we got talking. He came back the next day and the day after that, and one thing led to another and here we are.”

“You worked in a strip club? Did you dance?” Marcie couldn’t believe what she’d just heard. Why on earth would Keisha be so stupid as to share something like that? With her? The whole day had brightened. William Radford IV, king of the hill, had gone off and married a waitress from a strip club, maybe even a stripper.

“No! No, I couldn’t do that. Not that I judge my friends who do it, but it wasn’t for me. Anyway, it wasn’t a strip place but table dancing. Close enough, though. Didn’t bother him at the time either.”

“Wow.” Marcie snorted out a giggle and found she couldn’t stop. Keisha was right. It was funny. These two preening men so concerned with what everyone else thought. Slaves to it despite their success and wealth. And what would everyone think if they found out? Eleanor would die all over again. Jacquie had been enraged at being replaced by a “trashy waitress,” but this was something else. And she only had Keisha’s word that she’d been a cocktail server. For all Marcie knew the English girl had actually been a stripper.

“I didn’t know he had it in him to go to a place like that,” she said, and laughed some more, and then Keisha was laughing too and within minutes their eyes were streaming and they were clutching their sides and they weren’t even sure what was so funny anymore. It felt good, though, to properly belly laugh. She hadn’t in such a long time. Why was that? When had she and Jason stopped laughing like this? Maybe Keisha made him laugh like this too, she thought, and her giggles dried up. Perhaps that’s what she had.

The sun was melting into the blue of the afternoon, slipping like oil streaks down the sky. She should probably text Jason in case he finished work early and wondered where she was. Drinking tequila with the stripper you’re hot for. How would that go down?

“Anyway, now you know my big secret, maybe you’ll take that stick out of your arse and start to relax a bit,” Keisha said once they’d both got their breath back. “Please don’t tell the others, though. I see how they look at me already. Like Billy not only went crazy and married some young girl, but chose a young black girl on top of it.”

Marcie started to protest, but Keisha hushed her. “I may be ignorant on a lot of this, but I know when people are looking down on me. Everyone does here. Even Billy.”