Page 51 of Intoxicated
“My son really is an idiot,” an older woman bemoans. I can’t see her face, but I imagine the type who always has a martini in one hand and a little yippy dog in the other. She sounds too refined to go with the fake spray tan and hot deals from TJ Maxx. No, this is a woman who goes to the nicest, most secret salon in some high rise on the waterfront and dons herself in simple designer dresses she picks up in LA, New York, London, and Hong Kong. She’s the “effortless” rich woman. She’s who I aspire to be when I am fifty-five. “He spends all his time up in Seattle. When he does come home, it’s usually to go out with women I’m never allowed to see. Take this last time he was finally back in Beaverton. I told him,just once,I’d like you to bring by a girl you’re seeing. I’ll pretend that I don’t care she’s utter gutter garbage with no pedigree or her own decent career to speak of. Well, I leave that part out. You know how sensitive my son can be when I bring up how poor people are in this town.”
“To be fair,” a woman with a whinier voice says, “the property taxes in this area have been goingnuts.How much more can they tax us before the guillotines are brought out?”
“Uh, do you know who they’re going to behead after they’re done with the politicians?” She was met with another snort. “Anyway, my son tells me that he’s not actually seeing anyone. Except I see the stupid look on his face. When he thinksI’mnot looking, he’s got the goofiest grin of a dumb man in love. Can you believe it? Thirty years old and getting all slack-jawed about a woman he won’t let me meet.”
“Is that unusual?” asks the whiny woman.
“Hmm. I suppose. The boy gets around to the point that if I didn’t already know he had a vasectomy… well, never mind. Point is, I thinkhemay think he’s in love.”
This is the part where we acknowledge what we’re all thinking. This woman I overhear? She’s obviously talking about Drew. Or, if she’s not, then the guy I’m boning has some doppelganger out there who is also thirty and spends most of his time in Seattle. Oh, and he hasthiskind of woman for a mother. We don’t have to debate that, however. I know exactly who this woman is after scanning my memories and recalling meeting her once before when I dated a so-and-so who ran in her social circle.
Cindy Benton.TheCindy Benton, current matriarch of all things Beaverton Benton.
Maybe you can’t tell from listening to her for two seconds, but she’s not actually some tactless rube from the sticks. Nor is she a native of Portland (if you also could not tell that.) Cindy is as east coast as the blood flowing through her veins. Her Virginian origins aren’t well known around here, but I like to think it adds to her sophisticated smarm that straddles the line between Southern Hospitality and Yankee Abominations. No wonder she fits in so well around here – and hates it.
I could also tell you how Cindy became a Benton, because that’s how well I’ve immersed myself into that world. I’ve heard every version of the story, of course, but the real truth is boring if you’re a gossip-monger. Alexander Benton met his future wife through a mutual acquaintance while they were both attending college in Southern California. One thing led to another, and before you knew it. Drew’s older sister was cooking in the oven and Cindy had to decide between becoming an early Mrs. Benton or aborting that kid so fast she would forget all about it after one night of partying.
We see what she chose, hm?
Oh, it was plenty gossip back then, I’m sure. I wouldn’t know. That was about ten years before I was born, depending on who you ask. Drew was their Band-Aid baby meant to save their marriage, and it worked, but only because he was a boy. Joke was on the Bentons, I suppose, because their daughter is still the one due to take over the company one day. Meanwhile, spoiled, bastard Drew is out there cavorting with whores like me.
Whores like Mrs. Benton is apparently talking about right now.
“You need to hire someone and figure out what’s got him grinning like a fool,” the whiny woman, someone I don’t immediately recognize, says. “It’s only a matter of time before he starts telling you about her, and before you can get excited about grandbabies, you need to know what you’re dealing with.”
“On one hand, I’m simply excited he might be serious aboutanyone,” Cindy says. “Especially if it keeps him here in Portland. You know how much I miss my baby boy. Our housekeeper Opal also remarks on his absence. You ask me, he used to have a crush on her.” Cindy chuckles. “Typical. Boys falling for their pretty housekeepers and nannies. No wonder they’re always trying to marry them, let aloneactuallymarry them.”
“Watch out for boys in love,” the other woman says. “If I had a dollar for every boy who ends up with someone taking him for a ride, I could make my yearly donation to the WHO.”
“Why are you donating your hard-earned cash to a band that has enough money?”
“No, no, Cindy, dear. The World Health Organization. Number three on Carol Cruz’s list of Charities to Watch Out For?”
“I can’t say I’ve received this quarter’s newsletter yet.”
I thank the server for bringing me my cheese plate and wine. While Cindy and her friend switch topics to some inane shit I can hardly stand to follow, I mull over what she has said about Drew.He’s in love with someone from around here, huh? Recently, you say?I don’t believe for two seconds that it’s me. Oh, they might betalkingabout me, but Drew is absolutely not in love with me. Maybe he’s enamored with my pussy and how my mouth looks bobbing on his dick, but he’s not in love with me. Not Cher Lieberman, a human being with her own thoughts and personality. He might be in love with sex with me, though. I have to admit, it’s been on my mind much more than the sex I usually have, even forfun,whatever that means anymore. I’m not about to think I have some magical pussy that’s roped in a guy like Drew, though. I don’twantto rope in a guy like that anymore. He’s not worth the drama. He’s barely worth the occasional date and screw.
I’m still in the middle of my snack when Cindy and her friend pay their bill and step out. A baby blue dress swishes against my arm as Cindy absentmindedly bumps against me with absolutely no regard for my personal space. No sorries. No apologies of any kind. Her friend merely tugs on her arm as Cindy turns around and barely acknowledges my presence.
Wine is on my lips as we briefly see one another. In her eyes, I see a middle-aged woman who has given up on many things. Not because she has spent most of her life struggling against an impossible system built to keep her down, but because she’s had everything handed to her so easily she has no idea what to work for anymore. She doesn’t see me because she thinks I’m so far beneath her. She doesn’t see me because she sees nothing but her inane existence.
Well, there’s a small flicker of a spark in her eyesnow.I tend to have that effect on people. They see me and instantly feel alive.
I better mind myself, though. I’m not working Drew’s mother like I might work some of my sugar daddies’ mommies. I have nothing to gain by making myself memorable to this woman.
I do, however, have a lot to lose if Drew decides he’s in love with me. For one thing, I might lose my damn sanity trying to shake him off my leg.
