Legal Limit Pt. 3
Ansley was plain good ole’ fashion fun and she hid it well. She kept her pinkie fingernail exactly a centimeter longer than the others, so no one other than other cokeheads would notice. Not even the pageant judges.
She was crowned Miss Clark County Fair in the summer immediately after her senior year, and she would’ve swept the state competition too, if her ex hadn’t leaked her nudie pics.
“But I’m with Benjamin now, so nun of that even matters.” She’d swat away any sympathy.
“Scholarship money would’ve gone to waste anyway!” And she’d whack the side of her temple with the heel of her hand, her Pandora charm bracelet titering in response.
I was staring at her purity ring as he lined up the coke on the alabaster sink with her daddy’s Amex. Her father owned all the commercial property in the neighboring counties and her mother was the choir director at the Pentecostal on Maine Street.
She stepped back, and swung her golden hair over her shoulder, looking towards me.
“Go’hed doll babe,” Ansley couldn’t help but speak in “sugars,” and “baby girls,” it was her native tongue.
I went to lean my cheek into the damp counter when she grabbed my waist.
“Pause–” I looked to her as she tapped her left nostril. “Switch.”
I suppose based on my expression, she stamped her crystalline white cowboy boot, and explained, “Beau told Ben, Ben told me, and nose bleeds in bed are hell on a comforter.”
“Sure are!” A voice cooed from the stalls. Ansley had abandoned discretion in this bar, in this bathroom.
“Ha! See? She gets it!” She bent at the knee and folded at her waist, golden hair nearly pooling on the grimy bathroom floor, calling under the stall, “I like you!” She looked at me with a laugh caught between her glimmering teeth. Nodding her chin towards me in encouragement.
I took my left cheek took the counter, and breathed in. I pinched the bridge of my nose as she swiped up the remaining line with her index finger and pushed it into her gums.
“At home whitening!” She smiled at me with powder still coating her canines, and it made me laugh.
She ran her butter soft hand under the tip of my chin, before hooking her index finger around my gold chain. Henry’s gold chain, I wore around my neck.
“Hey, I got something for you.” For a second, I thought I could see a whisp of pity stuck between her thick black lash extensions, her blue bloodshot eyes betraying her. But instead, her smile curled into a smirk.
She pulled a pail of nail scissors and a bottle of acetone from her leather clutch.
“Manicures?” I questioned while wiping a drip of watery mucus, not blood, from my nose.
When we left the ladies' room, I’d transformed into a woman. With a wipe of nail polish removal, a quick flit of scissors, and a swipe of Ansley’s BUXOM LIP PLUMPING LIP GLOSS, I was a newly minted 21. Save, for the all-too-important hand stamp.
“That is going to trouble you’ll have to get into on yer own.” Ansley purred into my ear, as we exited the bathroom. She squeezed my hand before bee-lining to the dance floor, where Benjamin stood eagerly awaiting his dance partner.
I’m sure Beau was looking for me somewhere, but I was looking for a drink, and that mattered more.
I’d head to Ms. Diana’s perch, where I’d sneak past her Cerberus-like guard over the coveted OVER 21 ink stamp.
But as I spun on my heel, I spun into Parker Turner. Of course.
“Hey,” he offered emotionless.
“Hi, you mind?” I sidestepped him, aware he was stalking a step behind.
“What, are you leaving?” His hand brushed the back of my arm, and goosebumps followed.
“No, I’m not leaving.” I stepped back from him, putting my back against the wood-paneled wall. We were mere feet from the saloon doors now.
“Hey listen, I’m really sorry about Cody Anne, you know she almost can’t help asking, since she knew him so well. But I know you’re not really in a place to–Saf?”
I was staring at his hands. And I had an idea.
“I guess, I know every bartender and bouncer, so I just never got one–” Parker glanced down at my hands now. The back of my right hand was still noticeably red from where I’d rubbed the pink highlighter off.
“Oh!” He looked sidelong at me. “Oh.” I didn’t need to say anything for him to start protesting.
“Nothing gets across Ms. D like that, though.” He scratched the back of his neck.
“You have.” Parker Turner was 21 in this bar.
“Right, but I don’t cause any trouble.” He locked eyes with mine.
“And I do?” I countered.
He looked me up and down, his bottom lip parting to expose a smile.
“Yes,” he breathed out, on an exacerbated laugh.
“Do this for me? I brought my feet together, and my palms into a prayer, the picture of a goody two shoes. Someone even Parker Turner could endorse.
He was looking around the room, for a way out. I was trouble, and Parker had a future ahead of him. Parker had a college savings account, sports teams he never quit, and soup kitchens he championed. All I had was a preternatural ability for test taking, a nearly clean disciplinary record, and…
“Do it for Henry.” You could pull the dead brother card only a few times until you isolated every friend you had and started to feel a thick layer of survivor’s guilt filth coat your heart. I shouldn’t have tried that on Parker.
He turned as if slapped. Shutting his eyes, bracing against the impact. “Oof–ah,” and then he looked at me. Not with pity, or understanding, but with a whole lot of hurt.
“I was going to do it for you. I was just giving you shit.” He rolled his tongue across his teeth, his hands knitted behind his head the bottom of his shirt barely lifting above the hem of his jeans.
He was staring at me too closely. I turned my attention to the dance floor. Feigning disinterest. What could I care? Drink or no drink, Safiya Remmel was a guaranteed good-time girl. I’d have fun, with or without Parker Turner’s assistance.
He threw his hands up in surrender. “Just meet me behind the bandstand in ten.”
I breathed a sigh of relief as the saloon doors swayed with his exit. Only to have my breath taken away as Beau, pulled me by the wrist towards the dance floor.
