Right after that, he appeared at their table. He was good looking in a rough sort of way, but Sally Beth didn’t mind that. She preferred real men to sissy ones, unlike Lilly, who seemed to like pretty boys like Lawrence and her cousin Geneva’s old boyfriend, who drove a fancy car and wore a suit even during the week. No, this man who was asking her to dance was the kind she liked. Big and burly and not a dandy, and she was feeling so good and happy with the music thrumming in her veins, she jumped right up.
The band was playing a fast tune, but as soon as they stepped onto the floor, that song melded seamlessly into a slow dance number. Sally Beth began to regret her lack of caution when her partner moved in close, tightening his grip. As politely as she could, she put her hand on his chest, pushing lightly and shaking her head. He didn’t get the message, but pulled her even closer, then, to her horror, he pressed his groin into hers as he leered and breathed into her face.
Up close, his teeth looked ragged and dirty, his breath was beery, and when she saw his red eyes focused on her with a hard and ugly stare, she felt a sudden fear creeping up her backbone. Struggling in earnest, she clawed at his shoulders, but the more she resisted, the more it fueled his cruelty. He moved his hands down to cup her buttocks, roughly jerking her toward him to grind his crotch against hers. When he began to steer her toward a dark corner, she panicked, forgetting to breathe until the room started to spin.
Suddenly, Edna Mae appeared behind the man. “Hey, darlin’,” she drawled. “I think you’ve got a little too tight a grip on my friend here. I’m cuttin’ in.”
The man mumbled an obscenity at Edna Mae without unlocking his drunken gaze from Sally Beth’s face.
Edna Mae said nothing, but smiled brightly, as if she was having the most delightful conversation, then, as gently as if she were giving him a loving hug, she wrapped her forearm around his neck and slowly pulled him backward.
He brought his arm up sharply behind him, hitting Edna Mae with his elbow, then he spun around and glared at her. “Get the hell away from me, you fat dyke, before I bash your teeth out.”
Edna Mae’s smile grew tight and her eyes hardened, and one second later, he was lying flat on the floor with one of Edna Mae’s scuffed boot heels delicately balanced on his throat. The sole of the other boot stood in his open palm on the floor.
The dancers stopped, then the music stopped, and Sally Beth wished she were anywhere but there. A thought flashed through her head. This is what happens when you go to bars and drink and dance with strangers. The bouncer materialized by her side.
“What’s the problem here?” he asked.
Edna Mae smiled at him, all soft sweetness. “Sorry, sweetheart. This bozo decided to molest my friend right here on the dance floor, and she isn’t big enough to discourage him by herself. I just gave her a hand.” She stepped away from the man on the floor. “We’ll just go back and sit down now, if that’s okay. I think he’s learned his lesson.” The bouncer nodded as Edna Mae grabbed Sally Beth’s shaking hand and led her back to their booth.
Sally Beth was mortified, but after a moment, she felt kind of good, too, that Edna Mae had come to her rescue like that. But then again, no one had ever done anything like that man had done to her.
The man jumped up and yelled at Sally Beth’s and Edna Mae’s backs, “You ugly, fat bitch!” he yelled, lunging at them, but when the bouncer made a threatening step forward, he turned back to his friends at the bar, muttering something that made them look in the girls’ direction and hoot with laughter.
Furious, Lilly jumped out of her seat, but Edna Mae grabbed her arm. “Huh-uh, honey. I know how to deal with their kind. They’ll be whimpering before we’re done with them.” Slipping back into the darkness of the booth, she rummaged in her purse. “Sally Beth? Do you have any red lipstick?”
“What?” She had not yet recovered from the shock.
“Red lipstick. I don’t think I brought any with me. And eyeliner. You got any?”
“Uh, yeah. In here somewhere.” She opened her purse to pull out a handful of lipsticks and eyeliner pencils.
“Oh, good. Let me have that,” she said, grabbing the assortment and a compact mirror.
“Don’t you want to do that in the bathroom?” asked Lilly.
“Nope. It’s better if we do it right here,” said Edna Mae as she peered into the mirror. “It terrifies them when we just bust out of the corner like this.” After she put on a thick ring of black around her eyes and slathered on lipstick, she untied her ponytail, shaking out her hair until it bloomed around her face in a fan of copper and honey curls. Sally Beth gasped at the transformation.
“Got any earrings in there? Big ones?
“Uh—”
“I do. I bought them for Sally Beth, but then I found the starry ones and decided to give her those instead.” Lilly produced a pair of large gold hoops.
“What are you doing?” asked Sally Beth.
Edna Mae grinned as she put the earrings into her ears. “You two had better spiffy up, too. Here, put some on,” she said, handing the lipstick to Sally Beth. She unbuttoned the top five buttons of her housecoat and tugged it off her shoulders. Reaching under the table, she unbuttoned her housecoat nearly up to her crotch. “Sally Beth, give me your belt.”
Sally Beth hesitated only for a moment before stripping it off and handing it over to her. She was only slightly surprised that Edna Mae had no trouble buckling it just two notches away from where she had worn it. It cinched in the voluminous garment, making Edna Mae’s waist look tiny between her breasts and the huge swell of her hips.
“Lilly, undo a few of those buttons, honey,” Edna Mae said, as she tugged at the elastic top of Sally Beth’s peasant blouse, bringing the shoulders down to the middle of her upper arms. “Here, that isn’t enough.” Taking the lipstick from Sally Beth, she applied it thickly on her lips, then did the same for Lilly. Eyeliner came next, and then she pulled the pins out of Sally Beth’s chignon, ruffled up her hair, fluffing curls around her shoulders. Finally, she carefully replaced Sally Beth’s bubble-gum pink cowboy hat with the rhinestone crown atop her blonde head, leaned back with a sultry look and said, “How do I look?”
Sally Beth grimaced slightly. “A little trashy,” she said, then immediately regretted saying it, so she added, “but real pretty!”
“Perfect,” came the reply. “Before we’re done, these guys will be crawling. Here, drink this down,” she said, handing Sally Beth a fresh mojito. “You’re going to need it.” Sally Beth wasn’t sure she should, but Edna Mae was so authoritative and so intimidating that she felt she really had no choice. “Good girl. Now heat it up.”
She pushed them both from the booth and she slid out, revealing a long, chiseled thigh. Head held high, she strode to the stage, stepped up beside the lead singer, and stood perfectly still in the spotlight.
The room fell silent while all eyes turned to her. Every inch of her, from her wild hair and painted eyes and lips to her scuffed cowboy boots looked like an Amazonian goddess. No one there had ever seen anything like her outside of the mud flaps of an eighteen wheeler. Her breasts billowed out of the top of her dress; her slender waist accentuated the round, perfect, massive hips. A long thigh pushed forward through the open dress as she stood, quietly smiling. Then she simply lifted the mic from the stunned singer’s hand and spoke into it with a low, throaty voice. Her eyes were half closed; her lips were pursed slightly, as if she wanted to kiss the mic.
“I just love hearing you boys play, and me and my girlfriends just had to get up here and join you. You don’t mind, do you?” The band members broke into grins, and the audience fell to clapping. Edna Mae glanced slyly to the bar where Sally Beth’s dance partner sat with an open mouth. His friends all wore the same expression.
Lilly was the first to recover. Standing below the stage, she nudged Sally Beth. “Here’s your chance, honey. Make that jerk suffer.” Tossing her head and running her fingers through her satin blonde hair, she stepped up
on the stage and leaned into Edna Mae.
“Anyway,” Edna Mae was saying, “I’m Tiffany, and these here are my girlfriends, Silver Gilded Lilly, and Sweet Sally—come on up here, Sweet Sally. She’s shy. Boys and girls, why don’t we help her out?” Lilly reached out to pull Sally Beth up to her while the audience cheered and applauded, and suddenly Sally Beth felt the alcohol send courage and strength pulsing through her veins. She realized that this was her moment. That man had humiliated her in public, and now Edna Mae was up to something to pay him back, and she was going to do her best to help her. She threw her head back and stuck out her chest as she heard the applause and felt a warm buzz go through her.
“That’s right, boys and girls. Give Sweet Sally a hand. She’s real shy at first, but once she warms up, she can be hot.” She turned back to the lead singer, draped an arm over his shoulder, and looking dead level into his eyes from about four inches away purred, “Would you boys mind if we sang a little song? In honor of Sweet Sally’s birthday?” He shook his head no, dazed, but grinning as he gazed down at her breasts pressed against his chest. Slipping his guitar strap smoothly over his neck, Edna Mae handed it to Sally Beth, then took her harmonica out of her pocket, sat on the stool, and crossed her legs. The crowd erupted in cheers. Lilly approached the bass player and just as neatly took his instrument from him.
“Now, we want to sing this song for that little creepy man over at the bar there, the one who thought he could put his nasty old hands all over Sweet Sally and call me a fat, ugly bitch.” She pointed directly to him, holding the pointed finger out long enough for his friends to edge away from him. After she was sure everybody knew who she was going to honor with the song, she stuck out her chest and put both hands up to fluff up her hair, then gave a mighty stretch, lifting her leg and pointing her foot forward. When she had finished stretching, her hands slid downward across her body, stroking her curves. “Do you think I’m fat and ugly?” she crooned into the mic.
A chorus of “NOOOOOs” rang out.
“He needs more than just glasses. He needs a shrink!” shouted someone from the back.
“My thoughts exactly. Crazy little man thought he could get by with pawing his nasty old hands all over Sweet Sally right on the dance floor, and on her birthday.”
Another round of enthusiastic “NOOOOOs” echoed around the room. Sally Beth was past caring about maintaining a ladylike demeanor. She preened and blew them a kiss.
“Now, the way I hear it, the only men who do that kind of thing are the ones who have a little...” Edna Mae held up her thumb and forefinger two inches apart, “problem,” and she winked. “It makes them feel like a maaaan when they can intimidate and molest nice girls. Isn’t that right, creepy little man at the bar with the little…” Again, she held out her finger and thumb, but shrank the distance between them while drawing them in front of her right eye. She closed her left eye and squinted, “…problem.”
Then she blew into her harmonica for a few bars before launching into the song about a scornful woman. Sally Beth and Lilly moved into the second mic to back her up, stomping their cowboy boots, swinging their hips and hair, and playing for all they were worth.
“We need a drink up here, boys!” shouted Edna Mae while Lilly played a riff, and within seconds, both bartenders brought them drinks—whiskey for Edna Mae and mojitos for Sally Beth and Lilly.
They sang both verses twice, then Edna Mae spent some time making the harmonica as insulting as she could, and then, to Sally Beth’s surprise, Lilly leaned into the mic and on the spot, came up with another verse.
He’s way too dumb to understand what he can’t and what he can
He struts around all day and all night thinking we’re all his fans.
He ain’t no kind of man to a real wo-man
But he’s a REAL BIG FELLA TO HIS OWN RIGHT HAND!
Lilly shouted the last line, her fist pumping the air. “Let’s all sing it!” She yelled to the crowd. “He ain’t no kind of man to a REAL WO-MAN,” and they sang back with one loud voice:
“BUT HE’S A REAL BIG FELLA TO HIS OWN RIGHT HAND!”
Sally Beth was so embarrassed to hear those words coming out of her sister’s mouth that she had to distance herself from the whole scene, falling into the laughter of the music and pretending she was someone else while Lilly sang. The crowd went wild. Hats flew in the air. Women jumped up and down, laughing hysterically, and men gawked, whistled and stomped while Lilly and Edna Mae breezed through the chorus again. Sally Beth’s face flamed, but she tried to laugh through the rest of the song. The man who had humiliated her stormed out the door as the crowd jeered at him, then turned back and cheered the trio.
When the song ended, Sally Beth was breathless, and her feelings were so mixed up she didn’t know what to think. She felt such an outrush of love for her baby sister and this unreal super woman who this afternoon was too shy to put on lipstick, all painted up and strutting, slinging her hips and shaking her boobs around in front of a crowd just to vindicate her, little Sally Beth. On the other hand, she was embarrassed to death. She chugged her drink and hoped for courage. It didn’t occur to her to pray.
Edna Mae made a deep bow, exposing enough flesh to make the crowd cheer and whistle louder. “Thanks y’all. That was real nice of y’all. We enjoyed it a lot, and you just made Sweet Sally’s birthday. Come on, Sweet Sally, take a bow. She’s twenty-three years old today, and isn’t she the prettiest thing you ever saw? Our little princess. Our honky tonk princess.” There were more shrieks and whistles. Sally Beth blushed and made a tiny curtsey. She was feeling warm and really good. Sometimes liquor was just what you needed to get you through an embarrassing time, she decided.
“Now, we’re just leaving,” continued Edna Mae, “and we have a little suspicion that some little somebody just might be waiting in the parking lot for us, so we would greatly appreciate it if maybe one or two of you nice gentlemen would escort us to our car. Sweet Sally’s had enough excitement for one night. And, oh! By the way, who’s got our dinner tab this evening?”
“I got it, darlin’!” came a voice from the back.
“It’s on the house!” came another voice.
Edna Mae smiled again. “Thank you all so very much. And that pretty little lady over there is Charlotte, our waitress, and she needs a big tip, okay? A twenty ought to do it.”
“She’s got it,” came the first voice from the back, and Charlotte whooped. Lilly and Sally Beth gave their guitars back to the musicians in the band.
“Thank you,” Sally Beth whispered gratefully. The guitarist laughed as he stuck out his hand. “My pleasure, ma’am. You can come back any time.”
Everyone in the bar ushered them out. The obnoxious dance partner was nowhere to be seen, but Edna Mae kept looking around warily, even as she smiled and shook hands with people who were congratulating her. She slipped into the back seat of the car, Lilly got behind the wheel, and they drove slowly out of the parking lot. The crowd ran after them until they hit the street and accelerated.
“Don’t go straight back, honey,” came Edna Mae’s voice from the dark back seat. Wind around a little. Let’s make sure they aren’t following us. Something prickled Sally Beth’s scalp. It suddenly occurred to her that they might be in danger. “Let’s go to the downtown area and see if we can find the police station.”
Lilly objected. “I’ve been drinking, Edna Mae. We can’t go waltzing into a police station.”
There was a silence. “Okay. I don’t see anything, but we don’t want this guy following us. Drive into that A & W, and let’s just get something to drink.” They pulled in and sat for some time until the place grew quiet. “I guess it’s okay. I haven’t seen anything, and I don’t think that guy was too sober. Let’s go.”
Deep into the night, Sally Beth awoke to find Edna Mae standing tense and solitary at the window. The curtains were closed, but she gripped the edges as she peered out into the parking lot, like a sentinel standing guard over her troops
. Sally Beth slipped out of bed.
“What’s wrong?” she whispered. “Is there somebody out there?”
“No,” answered Edna Mae. “Just checking.” She kept her face turned to the window, and in the filtered light, Sally Beth could see she looked sad and drained, as if a light that had blazed blindingly bright for a brief time had been extinguished.
“What is it, Edna Mae. What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, honey. Go back to bed. I just want to stand here for a minute, just to make sure.” After a long silence, Sally Beth turned and got back into bed with Lilly, but she did not sleep until much later, after Edna Mae finally stopped her vigil and stumbled back into the other bed.
Lord, shine Your love down on Edna Mae and heal the hurts she is living with. Bring her a good man, Lord, one who will love her for who she is, treat her right, and make her feel special and safe. And Lilly, too, Lord. And maybe me, if You’ve a mind to, if that’s what You want for me. We all want to be cherished.
Six
August 12, 1978, Albuquerque, New Mexico
Sally Beth woke early, feeling a little hung over and saddened by what she had seen during the night. Lilly still slept, but Edna Mae was up and dressed in cutoff jeans and a tank top. Her hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail, and her face shone with scrubbing. She sat on a chair tying her tennis shoes, and even in the awkward, bent-over position, she looked stunning.
“Hey,” said Sally Beth, rubbing her eyes.
“Hey. There’s a gym next door, so I’m going to go work out. Why don’t you come with me?” She paused to study Lilly briefly. “Lilly ought to come, too.”
The Women of Jacob’s Mountain Boxed Set Page 52
