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“Have you told him what you want from him?” she asked.
“Who are you and what have you done with Soula?” Bethany flattened her hand to Soula’s forehead, feeling her temperature. Soula jerked away from her.
“Ew. Don’t touch my face with your bar hands.”
“There she is.” Bethany rolled her eyes at our persnickety friend. “She’s right, though. Have you been upfront with your own expectations? Have you talked about your feelingsat all so far, or has it all been scheduling and chores and mundane shit that keeps a household running? You can’t expect romance to thrive if you only feed it toilet cleaning and sermon topics.”
“No. I’m afraid. It’s not like I’myou,“ I said to Bethany, the platinum blonde centerfold who turned heads wherever she went. People crumpled at her feet. She could get whoever she wanted whenever she wanted, and she’d proven it by snagging the one guy who didn’t worship her.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked.
“I don’t look like you.”
She made a scoffing noise. “Honey, I don’t even look like me until I’m made up, hair done, airbrushed, and in a glossy magazine.”
“No, but you look like a celebrity.”
“I don’t,” said Quinn’s small voice. “I’m normal. It doesn’t mean I’m any less deserving of my needs being met than Bethany.”
“Same,” came Soula’s monotone voice.
“Wrong. You’re all gorgeous. Quinn, you can flirt with any guy in here, and he’d want you. And I can’t take a page from your book, Soula, and just ask Gus if he wants to fuck. It’s not even about the sex, it’s the...” I didn’t even know what I wanted. I was making an idiot out of myself.
“Soula’s trying to help. And look, in the past, I tried not drawing attention to the way I look. I’ve worn the baggy clothes and no makeup and it’s not me, but if you need me to—“
“What, Bethany? You think I need you to ugly yourself up because you’re outshining me? I’m so jealous that I want you to—?”
“I would,” she said pointedly. “For you.” She was angry. “But that’s not what you need. Right now, you need to stop lashing out at the people who do love you.”
I put down my drink. It wasn’t the gin that was the problem. It was me. I was a lasher. At my friends. At myself. It hadn’t happenedin a while. Not since I’d thrown myself into my spirituality and practice. Not since I’d started studying orthodoxy and its beautiful traditions and rituals that allied so closely with my granny’s teachings and my new understanding of the universe and its cycles.
But I’d been working more and more. And stressing more and more.
And the more work I did, the more stress I felt, the tighter the world felt around me, like I was being caged in by expectations and privilege and loss and all the pressure to win at life. I was a snake coiled in the corner, striking at anything that came near, even that curved, snake-tamer pole that only wanted to help me.
What was Gus’s prayer again? “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner.”I thought it quietly to myself as I breathed deeply, calming myself, disrupting the emerging adrenaline response.
The breathing I got from Bethany.
“I’m going to grab a beer from the bar. It looks like those guys are leaving the table, Bethany. Are we up next, or do we have to wait longer?” Quinn gestured to the money on the pool table next to us. It was the new pattern that developed after Quinn began her fellowship in Soula’s morgue, whenever our schedules cooperated, which was more infrequent these days. Bethany nodded, still seething and not even looking at Quinn as she got lost in the Friday night crowd.
“You calm?” she asked me, a little softer now.
“I think so. Soula, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to insinuate there’s anything wrong with your approach, it just came out as a dig because I... Well, I have no excuse. Bethany, I...”
“I know, honey. You don’t have to say it. You dug yourself in a hole when you asked Gus to marry you. I was worried this would happen. In a way, I’m glad it’s already happening, so you can get it all out of the way and have a real shot at that real marriage you sayyou want. But first, I think you need to figure out for yourself what a real marriage looks like for you.” She took my hand between hers since we were too deep in our seats to hug. Soula sipped her Coke. She wouldn’t have been in on a hug no matter what.
“Now, you’re right about one thing. Your partnership won’t look like mine, and it won’t look like Soula’s. We all have way different love languages. George and I... Unless you count the thorns on the roses, we don’t do the romance thing at all. Soula and Waylon are trying to have a litter of kids before she hits forty. And Waylon’s a romantic, but Soula’s immune. She just needs to be fed high-caloric foods to feel loved.”
“It’s true.” Soula nodded.
I laughed. I hadn’t realized I’d leaked out enough frustrated tears that my laugh was punctuated by a runny-nosed sniff.
“I’ve seen the way Gus looks at you. I’ve seen the way you look at him. Googly-eyed, both of you. Between the three of us, you might have the most traditional marriage.”
“Take that back.” I smiled.
“No way, TradWife.” Bethany leaned back, smugly sipping her Mai-Tai.
