From Most Popular - Concessions 2

 

It’s Marianne Martin’s arm.  Ally glares at it and trips over the feet of the woman standing next to her.  The butterfly tattoo seems to stare back.

“Excuse me,” Mrs. Johnson says.  And it seems all of the women shoo her away simply for stepping on the old lady’s shoe.   “My feet are made of flies,” Ally says and dusts off.  

She looks away from them and from the butterfly too.  But she listens to Marianne chatter on about dinner.  To hear her nemesis go on about Don’s chili is like hearing about the birth of a royal child or the naming of a new pope.  But Don isn’t Marianne’s husband, he’s Ally’s.

“Cow," Ally says.  She doesn’t recognize her voice and the meanness.  She thinks it must be nerves.  And when she dares to make eye contact with the other women, she is relieved they’ve wandered off.

From across the yard she hears, “Are we eating yet?”  She hates that voice.  It isn’t a joke, and it should offend everyone.

Ally is grateful she bought a brand new tube of waterproof mascara.  She lets her gaze drift to the place where Marianne holds court in a horseshoe of land, in a spot that seems shadier than where she is.  Marianne dips her hand into a cooler and pulls out a frosty beer.  The one Ally drinks is lukewarm, and as she presses it to her lips, she feels dirtier than ever, and she wonders about getting her own tattoo.  Marianne’s butterfly comes alive and whispers, “It might make people like you better.”

Ally glances over to where Marianne winks and dazzles everyone and she eavesdrops on the gossip.  It isn’t anything new.  She polishes off her beer and stares at the circle around Marianne.  

Ally remembers when she had attitude too, young attitude, when it was the four of them, her and Frank and Eddie and Grizelda.  They were the twenty-something somebodies until the day she and Frank got married and Grizelda called, early.