Sumter Point

by K. G. MacGregor

  The waitress appeared with their food, but Beth didn’t let go of Audie’s hand. “And I’m here any time you want to talk.”

  “Thanks. I don’t even know if there’s anything left to say.”

  “Well, I know you’re worried about what to do with the house. I’ve been through all of that and I can help.”

  It was true the house had been on her mind a lot. Every time she walked in, she vowed to sell it to rid herself of the empty feelings.

  But it was the only home she had ever known, and the other part of her wanted to hold all of its memories forever.

  “Your ice cream’s melting.”

  “It so happens I like it that way.”

  “Good thing, huh?” Audie squeezed her hand one more time and let go. “We’d better eat so you can get home. I bet BD’s missing you.”

  Beth snorted. “As long as he isn’t ordering things from the Home Shopping Channel.”

  For the second time in three nights, Beth lay awake long after turning out the light. Her mind was busy with the events of the day, especially the last few hours with Audie. Something was going on between them, but she didn’t have a handle on it.

  Everything was complicated by their circumstances. Were it not for Miss Violet, they might not have crossed paths at all, and even if they had, they probably wouldn’t have been friends. Their lifestyles were so divergent. Audie was youthful and self-indulgent, while she thought of herself as mature and practical.

  Beth hated to admit it, but she was probably reading way too much into Audie’s overtures toward friendship. Audie was in a vulnerable place right now, and Beth was a solace, an ally for taking care of her Grammaw, nothing more. For Beth to pretend otherwise would only lead to disappointment, because the time would come that Audie’s need for comfort and assurance would subside, and she would go back to her circle of younger, more interesting friends.

  In the guest bath, BD was scraping in his litter box. The poor fellow was huddled in the corner of the dining room behind a potted plant when she got home, terrified and probably still hurting from his surgery.

  Beth threw back the covers and got up to see how he was.

  “Come here, you.”

  Even with the lights out, his dark form stood out against the beige carpet. He sat perfectly still, as though he were lost. She gently picked him up and carried him back to her bedroom.

  “I can’t believe I’m actually putting you in my bed.”

  She fluffed her pillows and leaned against the headboard. BD sat timidly by her side.

  “Your whole world’s been turned upside down too, just like Audie’s. Hasn’t it?”

  As she stroked his back, he relaxed, gradually allowing his weight to come to rest on the bed. His feet remained tucked beneath him, just in case he needed to bolt.

  “All of a sudden everything is different and you’re afraid because you don’t know what’s happening. You just want everything back the way it used to be, don’t you?”

  He tipped his head toward her hand.

  “You and Audie are a lot alike, you know that? You both act all wild and tough on the outside, like you don’t want anybody to get too close.”

  She fingered the hollow behind his ear and he began to softly purr.

  “But that’s exactly what you want, isn’t it? You want somebody close but then you don’t know what you’re supposed to do.”

  BD stretched out, finally giving in to her warm touch.

  “All you know is that it feels good, right?”

  Beth slumped lower in the bed, turning onto her side so that BD snuggled against her stomach.

  “Audie was right. I’m falling in love with you already, BD. You know that?”

  A heavy veil of sleep finally came and covered them both.

  Audie squinted as she turned on the light in her Grammaw’s bathroom. There had to be something in here for a stomachache.

  Beth was right. She was going to kill herself if she didn’t start eating better.

  Of course, this particular malady probably had nothing to do with Leon’s cheeseburger. The more likely culprit was the tortilla chips she had dipped in peanut butter after smoking a joint to settle down from the emotional roller coaster that dinner had turned into when she let herself wander off on a tangent to feel sorry for herself because Grammaw wasn’t cooking anymore and then Beth held her hand again making her feel good all over and all she wanted to do was sit in the restaurant and hold hands all night so she could—

  She shook her head wildly to clear it and located the plastic bottle of antacids. “Chew two.”

  It hurt to laugh.

  “Chew two. Chew two. Chew two.”

  She clutched her abdomen as a cramp seized her.

  “Why do I do this to myself?”

  Chapter 10

  “Margarita rocks, no salt,” Audie said, squeezing between two groups of guys. “Hey, Mike. How’s it going?”

  “Not bad, Audie. You?”

  “Good.”

  It was the same banter she shared with dozens of casual friends each time she came to the Gallery. Tonight’s crowd was nice, about half ladies since it was Friday. There were a few new faces out there, women she hadn’t met before. She would fix that.

  “Here ya go.”

  “Thanks.” She shoved a few bills across the counter. “Keep it.”

  She and Dennis usually worked it out so that he drove on Fridays, since it was Ladies Night, and tonight Joel and Dwayne had ridden along. Leaving her own car at home freed her up to have a few margaritas, which made dancing a lot more fun. She was always careful not to do anything stupid, like leave with someone she just met. But just in case she drank too much, Dennis and Joel both had permission to order her home.

  Regan was at the club tonight, as was Deanna, another girl Audie sometimes hooked up with. Both were apparently alone, and thankfully, on opposite sides of the room. Either might be up for an overnight guest. All she had to do was work out a ride home to Sumter in the morning before work.

  “Audie Pippin.”

  She reached out for a hug as soon as she spotted the familiar face. “Mallory. Good to see you.” She and Mallory had shared a few sexual adventures, but didn’t really connect otherwise. That was a couple of years ago, though, and Mallory was hot enough that Audie was certainly willing to give it another try.

  “You still working at the animal shelter in Sumter?”

  “Yeah, I haven’t seen you around much.”

  “Nah, I’ve been working about a hundred hours a week. Credit card bills out the ass. That doesn’t leave much free time.”

  “I’m glad you made it out tonight.” She was about to ask for a dance when she noticed Mallory was holding a drink in each hand.

  “You here with somebody?”

  “Yeah.” Mallory’s face brightened. “I met a woman a couple of months ago and she’s already turning me into an old married lady.”

  There went that idea. “That’s great news.”

  “Come on over, I’ll introduce you. We’re just hanging out with some friends in the corner.”

  There was no graceful way to decline, so she followed Mallory back to her table. It never hurt to meet new people, even if they were all attached. Experience had taught her that most pairings were only temporary.

  Mallory made the introductions, saving her new girlfriend for last. “And this is Ginger.”

  “Pleased to meet you.” Audie smiled and extended her hand, shocked at the brazen appraisal she was getting from this woman, right in front of her girlfriend. It was downright uncomfortable, but Mallory didn’t seem to notice. Instead, she dragged up a chair and motioned for Audie to join them.

  “We were all just talking about the first time we went to a gay bar.”

  “It was in Chicago in 1980,” one of the women said. Audie wasn’t even born then. “That place was a dive, nothing like this.”

  Ginger looked around the crowded room. “This is nice but I think I’d rather go to a
place that was just women.”

  “A couple of women have tried to open clubs in Nashville that cater to lesbians. They just won’t fly,” Audie said.

  “They might if they turned up the lights a little and turned down the music a lot.”

  “One of the places was like that. It had booths and tables, and a nice bar. But it sat empty three or four nights a week, and even when women came in, they didn’t spend much money. Most of them would buy one drink and sip it all night.”

  Ginger shrugged as though it was Audie who didn’t get it. “Not everybody needs to get smashed to have a good time.”

  “But you can’t keep the doors open if people don’t spend money. Liquor’s got the highest markup, and the Gallery runs things all through the week, like contests and drag shows, just to draw a crowd.”

  That launched them into a discussion about how to attract women to a club, the diversity of the lesbian community, and the difficulty of marketing to a group that didn’t share common avenues of communication.

  “But I guarantee you this,” Audie said. “If any of you have ideas for attracting women to the Gallery, Bruce will listen. He wants this place to be for everybody, not just the boys.”

  “Ideas like what?”

  Mallory leaned into her girlfriend with an evil grin. “I’d show up to see you in a wet T-shirt contest.”

  “See?” Audie said, slapping her friend’s hand with a high-five.

  “That’s all there is to it. I’ll go tell Bruce that you volunteer to spearhead a titillating event that’s sure to pack the ladies in. What night would be good?”

  “Wait a minute!” Ginger gamely laughed along. “Why bother with T-shirts? Let’s just have a topless night.”

  “Now you’re talking!” Regan joined them, smiling enthusiastically at what she had gleaned from the tail end of the conversation.

  “Hey, Mallory!”

  Mallory got up to give her a hug and introduced her friends and Ginger. “You know Audie, right?”

  “Very well,” she answered, slipping an arm around Audie’s waist so that her hand rested on her rear. “You gonna do this topless thing?”

  “What do you think?”

  “I’d certainly come.” Audie didn’t miss the double entendre.

  Ginger cleared her throat. “Please tell me all of you are kidding.”

  “Don’t you worry, sweetheart,” Mallory cooed. “We’ll have our own little topless night.” Ginger was visibly relieved.

  Regan tugged on Audie’s hand. “Come dance with me.”

  “Excuse me, ladies.” She drained her margarita. “I’d love to stay and chat but I just got a better offer.”

  Audie stayed on the dance floor the better part of the next hour, cutting out only to run back to the bar. She had all but decided to pursue more when Regan dashed off to the ladies’ room. Audie took a brief hiatus of her own to chat with Dennis and Joel. The next thing she knew, Regan was out on the dance floor with her other prospect, Deanna. And before she had the chance to reclaim her spot, the two of them left together.

  “You’re losing your touch, Audie.” Dennis never could resist tweaking her when she struck out.

  “Tell me about it. If I’d known I’d be coming home with you guys, I wouldn’t have had so much to drink.”

  “What’s that got to do with anything?”

  “I’m horny, stupid.”

  Joel laughed at her misery as he and Dwayne climbed into Dennis’s backseat for the twenty-minute ride home. “Maybe that’s fate trying to tell you it’s time to quit screwing around.”

  Dennis found that amusing.

  “What the fuck are you laughing at? Man, I knew this was going to happen.”

  “What?”

  “You get religion all of a sudden and now everybody starts working on me. Why don’t you and David go play house and leave me out of it?”

  “We’re not playing house, Audie.” He sounded more annoyed than defensive. “I like David. I don’t want to just trick with him.”

  “Good thing, since he’s not giving you any.”

  “We both decided to get tested, if it’s any of your business.”

  She turned in her seat to eye Joel, who badgered all the young men at the club to be responsible. She had given in too last year and let him draw blood at his office. “You must be very proud.”

  “Come on, Audie,” Dennis whined. “Don’t you ever wish you could be with somebody that cared about you, not just how you fucked?”

  “I’ve worked hard to be a good fucker.” She had probably had one too many margaritas to be having a truly serious conversation.

  Her mind drifted automatically to Beth Hester. Beth seemed to care about her, but had no apparent interest in how she fucked.

  Dwayne was usually quiet, but even he couldn’t resist piling on.

  “Even if you’re God’s gift to lesbians, wouldn’t you like to share that with somebody you really cared about?”

  Audie snorted. “You sound like my Grampaw before he found out I liked girls.”

  “Maybe you didn’t give him enough credit,” Joel teased. “It hasn’t been that long since you had your heart broken by that woman with all the tattoos… what was her name?”

  She folded her arms and slumped in the passenger seat.

  “Maxine, and she only had six. Besides, she didn’t break my heart.”

  Audie wanted a joint in the worst way, but she and Dennis never smoked around Joel.

  “She was a low-life sack of shit,” Dennis growled.

  “Gosh, Dennis, tell us how you really feel.”

  “I would have kicked her ass if she’d gotten you hooked on coke. She was bad news.”

  Audie had to agree. Maxine was full of bad habits, but there was something about her that had been downright irresistible at the time. “I might have cared about Maxine, but she never cared about me.”

  “I’m not going to give you a hard time about what you do at the Gallery,” Joel said. “There’s nothing wrong with having fun if you use your head.”

  “Thank you.” Audie didn’t mean to sound sarcastic, but she didn’t understand where these guys got off thinking she needed their permission.

  Joel poked the back of her shoulder. “But it’s a lot more fun when it’s somebody you care about.”

  “You should have come with us,” Ginger said, dipping her tortilla chip into a bowl of green chili salsa. “I nearly dropped my jaw when Mallory came back to the table with Audie Pippin. I had no idea they knew each other.”

  “I thought you said Mallory was from Bristol.”

  “She is, but they must have met at the club when she first moved here. I’d bet my left tit they hooked up.”

  Beth lunged for her soda as she nearly choked on a chip. “What makes you say that?”

  “I don’t know… just a feeling.”

  “You okay with it?”

  “I guess. I don’t have a right to complain about who she was with before. But it sure makes me wonder what she sees in somebody like me.”

  “That’s ridiculous, Ginger. You have a lot to offer, and Mallory’s smart enough to see that.”

  Ginger tipped her head. “Maybe, but I gotta tell you, Audie Pippin is hot. And she knows it too.”

  The fact that Audie was attractive was a given. But the rest didn’t jibe with what Beth had seen. “She doesn’t strike me as someone who really cares what others think about her.”

  “Maybe not consciously. But you can’t give off the kind of sig- nals she does without knowing it. You should have seen her last night, Beth. Her jeans were so tight you could practically see the outline of her pubic hair.”

  Beth had noticed that Audie wore her jeans very well, but she tried not to let Ginger’s image into her brain. She didn’t need to be walking around thinking about Audie’s pubic hair. “That doesn’t sound like the Audie I see every day. Of course, that may say more about me than it does about Audie.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”


  Beth shrugged. “Just that maybe she doesn’t act that way around me because she doesn’t see me that way.”

  “What way?”

  “Well, like… I doubt she ever thinks of me as anything but a friend. She probably prefers girls who are a little more hip to a nurse who stays home and studies half her life. Hell, she probably wouldn’t even be talking to me at all if I didn’t take care of her grandmother. It’s not like she flirts all that much.”

  “All that much? Do tell.”

  Beth leaned back to allow the waitress to deposit her plate. No way was she going to relate the vibrator story. “It’s not flirting really. I told you, she asked me to come along with her to the Gallery, but it wasn’t like she wanted me to be her date. My guess is that she prefers to play the field.”

  “That’s what I figured too. But if you’re ever looking just to get laid, I bet you could.”

  “You know me better than that.”

  “Yeah, I do. And you shouldn’t be giving somebody like Audie Pippin the time of day. You deserve a lot better than that.”

  “Audie’s not a bad person. She’s just a free spirit.” And frankly, Beth would love the chance to go out with Audie if she thought for a second Audie was really interested in her.

  “I’ll say. I think you’d be better off going out with somebody like Mallory’s friend, Jan. She’s a loan officer at First State.”

  “I believe we’ve already had this discussion, and the answer is I’m too busy.”

  “But your boards are… when?”

  “A week from Monday. But I still have a class to finish and finals. And if all that works out, I may be starting a new job in December.”

  “You just keep putting your life on hold, Beth. You’ve always done that.”

  “I didn’t with Shelby and look what it got me.” She knew that would shut Ginger up, but she didn’t expect to hear the hurt in her friend’s voice.

  “Fine, Beth. If you’re happy like this, who am I to try to change that?”

  “You’re my friend, Ginger. I know that. This is not about Mallory’s friend, or even all the stuff I have to do. I’m just stuck where I am right now.”

  “Shelby really did a number on you, didn’t she?”