Boys and Burlesque

by Ripley Proserpina

  She hadn’t done anything wrong. My father was the problem. And Pastor Morehouse. And the whole fucking town of Shawville as far as I was concerned.

  But Betsy was completely innocent.

  “Are you sure you want this?” the man, who was a Navy vet, asked.

  I studied the stencil, reading the phrase that would span from one side of my chest to the other. “Absolutely.”

  The physical discomfort of the tattooist’s needle in my skin was nothing compared to the other pain I was feeling.

  Westin had quit school first. He lasted a little over a week. “I’m not fucking listening to some fat old man talk about this sport like it actually fucking matters,” he told us all one night when we’d driven out of town. We sat on the tailgate of Josh’s truck, drinking cheap beer and doing our best to get hammered.

  That day was the day I told my friends what I had planned.

  “I joined the Navy,” I announced.

  It would allow me freedom from my father. Everything I needed would be taken care of—food, shelter, money.

  I’d gone to the recruiting office, taken a written test, had a physical—all within a month. Once I’d passed those, it was just sign your name on the line.

  And I did. With a flourish. This ruined every plan my father had for me. He couldn’t pull strings. He couldn’t take down the government. This was bigger than his little Shawville, or even Alabama, influence. None of his frat brothers had pull enough to stop the wheels I’d put in motion now.

  My friends were silent. “That’s a good idea.” Westin was the first to respond. “I’ll do that Monday. It’s going to piss off Luke.” He’d taken to calling his father by his first name when he wasn’t referring to him as prick or asshole.

  “What about your scholarship?” Brant asked.

  “I don’t want anything hanging over my head, and if I’m reliant on that scholarship, then my asshole father has a way to control me.” Westin glanced over at me and then paused, studying me. “Why are you moving weird?”

  “I got a tattoo,” I answered.

  Westin’s smile was slow and Grinch-like. “That’s a fantastic idea.”

  “I’m going to do that, too,” Josh added. “Not the tattoo. The Navy. We can take better care of Betsy this way. Think about it. Insurance. Housing.”

  “Me, too.” Brant shrugged. “What the fuck else do I have to do? Might as well defend freedom.”

  “We should call her now.” Josh stood. “This solves all our problems.”

  “We can’t,” I said. “Not yet. We haven’t made it through basic. We’ve got to be solid. I don’t want to risk drawing attention to ourselves only for my father and Westin’s to ruin everything all over again.”

  My friends had nodded, like I knew what I was talking about.

  There was a certainty that came with being eighteen. Twenty-six-year-old-me knew that an eighteen-year-old had no fucking clue the world wasn’t ending. He had no clue that if we had taken our situation to Josh and Brant’s family, or included Betsy in the conversation, things could have worked out. We could have learned earlier that what their families—unlike mine and Westin’s—wanted was for their sons to be happy. They had a lifetime of perspective, and all I had was that of a golden boy who hated his father.

  Eighteen-year-old-me thought I knew it all, and then when I found myself in a hole so deep it blotted out the sun, I just dug in a little harder. A little faster.

  “Why didn’t she tell us?”

  I came back to the present with a bang.

  Brant wasn’t accusing, but my blood pressure rose all the same. “It wasn’t on her.”

  “I know that!” He was as on edge as me. “I’m not blaming her. I’m just asking why.”

  “She said it,” Josh reminded us. “We ghosted her. She knew she couldn’t rely on us, so why would she reach out? And then there was the last text message in January…”

  Betsy’s messages had come for about nine months. Her January message—shit—I couldn’t think about it without wanting to puke. Happy New Year, you fucking assholes. It didn’t even sound like her.

  I should have known something big had happened. It wasn’t like she hadn’t been begging for us, telling each one of us that things were going badly for her. What was wrong with us?

  Instead, we ignored her. Left after New Year’s, that first year, for the Gulf. That was when we well and truly abandoned her. She could have died, and no one would have told us.

  When we got back after eighteen months, and there was nothing from Betsy, we shouldn’t have been surprised. Her message on New Year’s had been pretty fucking clear.

  Looking back, part of me was sure our separation wouldn’t last. Eight years?

  When we got back from the Gulf, found out our sacrifice had been pointless because Brant’s parents were talking about moving and Josh’s dad met a woman, we were stuck. We’d just enlisted with the Navy. We were low-ranking sailors, and we had no control over our lives. Again.

  One deployment led to another. Was that a ridiculously lame excuse? Other enlisted people had families. They figured out how to stay connected to the people who mattered to them while they were out at sea.

  Each time we returned to shore, I looked at my phone. No messages. No voicemail.

  She never called us again.

  And all I could think of was what an entitled asshole I would be to have waited so long to get in touch now. Especially when I was still barely squeaking by, living in a single room on-base apartment. I’ll contact her soon. I’d make something of myself. We’ll get better, prove ourselves.

  Time passed, all of us trying to be the best we could become and then bam! There she was, Betty Belle. It was like Betsy disappeared. This woman was a famous dancer, and as happy as I was for her, I realized I could never approach her now.

  I’d waited too long.

  At eighteen, eight years was the difference between childhood and adulthood. And adulthood and—as far as I was concerned—old age.

  God. To have the fucking balls of eighteen. I knew everything. How could things not work out, no matter what I did or what choices I foisted upon us?

  “I want her back,” Brant stated the most obvious thing ever. “But I can’t see it happening. I can’t imagine her ever forgiving us now. Maybe after a month. Or a year. But we let eight years pass without once reaching out to her.”

  “She’s going to think it’s just because she’s famous. Or rich,” Westin spoke all our darkest fears.

  “I don’t know what to do,” I admitted. “I don’t know how to fix this.”

  Forty-One

  Betty

  Al walked me back to the Bellagio, frowning at anyone who happened to spare us a glance. He didn’t say anything to me about what he must have overheard, and I was glad for that. The guy was professional that was for sure.

  He walked me up to my room, swept it, and then left me alone.

  I sat on the couch, pulled my feet under me and stared out the window.

  So.

  I told them everything and now they knew. There was no more mystery about my life without them, or why I’d tried so desperately to get ahold of them.

  There were details. Details about turning eighteen and getting a job at a “gentlemen’s club.” I didn’t want to share those. It had been as ugly and seedy as I expected at first, until I formed friendships with other girls and found we were all just trying our best. And stripping, yeah, there’s definitely a lot of judgment attached to it, but I was never a prostitute. In fact, I never met one girl who was. It didn’t mean I wasn’t propositioned, or that bachelor parties could feel dicey and get grabby, but I earned enough to pay for healthcare on a sliding scale at one of the clinics.

  I worked in those clubs until I started to feel off balance, and then my belly popped out at five months pregnant and I was finished. Thank God, I’d socked away as much of my tips as I could, because I needed it for the next few months after my miscarriage and hospitalization.


  Lying back on the couch, I placed both of my hands on my belly. Even though it was flat now, it was still soft. When I was pregnant, it had been taut. Probably the only time in my life my belly was firm. That was the first thing I’d noticed after Marigold. How soft and empty I was.

  My life had gone so differently than I expected it to go, but I didn’t wish for it not to have happened. I wouldn’t wish to not have been pregnant. That had been a gift, even if it had scared the living daylights out of me.

  I wouldn’t wish to have never met the boys. If that had happened, I never would have had the moments I did, as brief as they were, with my daughter.

  And I wouldn’t wish to not be a dancer. So what if I’d taken my clothes off while I danced? I made it work for me, and I made it successful and profitable.

  Now, enough moping. It was time to get ready for my show.

  From the moment I stepped out on stage that night, I had a feeling something was going to go wrong. I couldn’t say why. Aucoin did my makeup. Celeste helped me into my costume. Steven and I chatted on the walk to the stage.

  Everything seemed to be fine, but I couldn’t ignore the yawning pit in my stomach. At the last minute, I’d changed the choreography. Meeting with the boys had me wanting to do my original set, back from when I used dance to manage my emotions.

  The first song came on. It was country, and I moved with my eyes closed. I didn’t have to see the stage to know where I was, to know how many eight counts there would be until I reached stage left, or where the chair upon which I’d place my high-heeled foot sat.

  The audience went wild, feeding off of whatever energy I was putting out there. There were cries and whistles, and I had to smile. They felt me tonight, and I was calling out their pain just as surely as I was exorcising mine.

  Like every time I was on stage, I wore high heels designed for dancing. Dancers were meticulous about their footwear. Our feet were our life, and while we wrecked them dancing for hours, in between, we babied them, wrapped them, iced them, and massaged them.

  I did a pirouette. It was a spin I’d been doing since my earliest days of ballet. But wasn’t it always the things I counted on that failed me?

  My heel caught on the stage floor and my foot twisted. I went down hard. As I hit the ground, my hands slammed onto the floor and my fingers skimmed across divots dug into the wood.

  How strange.

  The thought crossed my brain right before everything else disappeared beneath a wave of pain, immediate and overwhelming.

  The audience gasped, like it was a collective set of lungs horrified by the sight of me folded over my leg.

  My mind shut off, leaving me weirdly removed from the entire event. That wasn’t my foot, swollen and misshapen. That wasn’t my voice, hoarse and crying.

  The spotlight shut off, bathing the stage in darkness. In seconds, the medical staff was there, lifting me up and carrying me off stage. It was then time caught up with me, and I was yanked back into reality.

  “Steven!” I called as I was loaded onto a gurney.

  My friend grabbed my hand, his face blanching when he glanced down my body.

  Someone put ice on my foot, and I screamed. Fuck that hurt. Pressing my head into the soft mat, I shut my eyes and swallowed hard, not sure if I wanted to be sick because of the pain or the image seared into my brain.

  This was bad. Career ending.

  And with that thought, I passed out.

  Forty-Two

  Betty

  Josh: I won’t disappear. Will you see me again?

  Delivered

  Josh: Betsy. Please.

  Delivered

  Westin: No sorry will ever be enough. Please let me see you.

  Delivered

  Brant: I’m not leaving.

  Delivered

  Landry: I’m on my way. This isn’t finished.

  Delivered

  Forty-Three

  Betty

  I didn’t wake up until I got to the hospital. The drugs they gave me were pretty damn good, but they weren’t good enough to make me unaware of what I’d done to myself.

  Steven stayed with me through the x-rays and stabilization. He stayed with me when they stuck an IV in my arm, even though he hated blood and paled so quickly I motioned for a nurse to check on him. She did, leading him to a chair. He’d been talking on his phone, but it slipped from his fingers, and she picked it up for him.

  “When will the surgeon be here?” he asked the woman.

  “We had to page her,” the nurse answered. “It won’t be long.”

  She glanced at me, and then quickly away. I was still in my costume, but I couldn’t imagine I was the first girl wearing a feather headdress who’d ended up in her emergency room.

  “Is it bad?” I asked the doctor who’d gone about treating me when they rolled me into this bay.

  “It’s a compound fracture,” he said, but through the haze of painkillers, that meant nothing to me. Not an answer I could make sense of, or determine what it meant for the rest of my career. “Which means the bone came through the skin. We’re treating you for shock right now and giving you antibiotics to be sure you don’t get an infection.”

  “What the fuck do you mean?” Steven’s voice cut through the room. He stood abruptly, leaving me staring at the door.

  “Do you have anyone to call, sweetie?” the nurse asked me. Her eyes were kind as she squeezed my hand. A wave of dizziness hit me, and I leaned back against the pillows. This was why I didn’t drink or do drugs harder than anti-inflammatories.

  “Yes,” I answered, not really sure what I was saying ‘yes’ to.

  “Who?” she asked.

  I wanted to go to sleep and pretend none of this was real. In fact, I couldn’t even be sure it was real.

  “Sweetie,” the kind-eyed nurse shook me. “Who do you want me to call?”

  “The boys,” I replied even as the darkness was starting to move in from the periphery of my vision. “Landry Shaw.” His number rolled off my tongue even though I hadn’t dialed it in years, but I probably didn’t say a word. The whole thing was just a nightmare.

  I don’t know how much time passed before I woke up. But when I opened my eyes again, I was sure I was still dreaming. How could I be staring at Landry, Brant, Josh, and Westin? I’d left them on the Strip before I…

  My gaze went to my foot. It was just a lump beneath a blanket. I wiggled my toes. The pain registered slowly, like it was moving upstream against whatever was left in my blood.

  “Bets.” Westin touched my hand and I let him. I was sure I could find an excuse later on for why I did.

  “How bad is it?” I asked, surveying all of their faces and stopping on Steven. “Hi, Steven.”

  His frown disappeared as his face softened. “Hey, love. It’s pretty bad. You’re out of commission for a while.” He gazed at my hand in Westin’s and then back at me with a raised eyebrow.

  This wasn’t supposed to be happening. That’s what that look meant, so I moved my hand away. Westin wouldn’t let me though. He linked our fingers and squeezed.

  But I wasn’t giving in that easily. I pulled away and crossed my arms. Now, no one could hold my hand.

  Westin’s cheeks flushed, but he didn’t fight with me about it. My hand was still warm from his, and I had a flash of just how stupid I was being, not accepting comfort when it was offered. It seemed wrong to accept it from one of the boys though. I had a hazy memory of asking for them just before the drugs put me to sleep. There was no way the request had come from Steven.

  A bubble of warmth filled in my chest and then popped as quickly as I recognized its appearance. Yes, they’d come when I’d asked, but look at the reason why.

  I stared at the lump. My leg ached, but it was dull, probably still masked by pain meds. That I registered it at all meant that when they fully wore off, I’d be in a world of pain. I clasped my hands to hide the tremble building at the base of my spine and looked at my friend and manager. He wo
uldn’t lie to me.

  “How long?”

  Steven’s tablet sat on his lap. “Months to heal.”

  I nodded, like it was no big deal. “Have you talked to the surgeon? What’s his prognosis?”

  He was quiet and then let out a breath that could blow away all of my dreams. I saw them hovering, right there on the horizon. “It could be career ending.”

  Could be. I wasn’t a Sally Sunshine, but could be also meant might not. I was a hard worker, and I was fit. In all my years of dancing, I was probably the fittest I’d ever been. So, I guessed if this had to happen, at least I was in tiptop physical shape.

  “Right. So we get the surgeon on board. I want you to talk to rehab specialists. Who was the therapist who worked with Misty Copeland when she had a stress fracture? I want her. When is surgery scheduled? After that, I want to get right into the gym to do strength training and cardio so I don’t lose any ground.” I rattled off directions, and as I did, Steven smiled.

  “That’s my girl.”

  At his words, Westin stood abruptly from my bedside. “Are you together?” he asked. He pointed at Steven. “Is he your husband? Boyfriend?”

  If I’d been one of those sassy girls from a TV show, I’d have quipped with, “You don’t get to ask me that,” or “None of your business!” But I was twenty-six and didn’t have time for bullshit. Also—I didn’t like bullshit and hated when people beat around the bush when I wanted them to just make their point. So I answered, “Steven is my manager and best friend. I trust him more than anyone in the world, but he’s not my boyfriend. Or husband.”

  Westin glanced over his shoulder toward Landry, who stood against the wall with his arms crossed. “We want to help,” Westin said.

  I’d given them the wrong idea by having the nurse call them. “No. I’m not your responsibility.”