Truth or Beard

I was feeling hollowed out, like Duane had removed some essential part of me and had taken it with him. I had no way of getting it back.

Therefore, Thanksgiving was spent in a distracted haze of sadness and self-doubt. My family attributed the depression to my mother’s death. Several times during the day my momma put her hand on my back and rubbed the space between my shoulders.

Then she’d say, “I know. I know it hurts,” give me a quick hug, and walk away fighting her own tears. I’d watch her go, grimacing to myself, because I wasn’t preoccupied mourning the loss of Louisa. I mean, I mourned her. I was sad she’d died, but she’d spent all my life, especially while I was in college, keeping me at arm’s length.

I guess now I knew why…but not really. Her actions still didn’t make sense to me and I was too exhausted to contemplate Louisa’s decisions. The reality of Louisa’s betrayal—because it was starting to feel like one—was too fresh.

My momma seemed to think I was feeling a great deal more despair about Louisa than I was, and contradicting her assumption felt wrong. It felt heartless, especially in the face of her genuine pain. So I kept my mouth shut and accepted her sympathy, offering my shoulder as a safe place for her to cry.

Meanwhile, the focus of my conscious desolation was of the red-bearded man-troubles variety.

Matters were not helped when Tina sauntered into the kitchen after di

“Hey, Jess. Want company?” she asked right before her arm wrapped around my shoulders and gave me a squeeze. “I am so sorry about your aunt.”

I stiffened, then sighed, relaxing and giving an odd sideways lean into her embrace. I couldn’t hug her without drying off my hands and that just felt like too much effort. She obviously didn’t know the truth yet. I made a mental note to talk to my parents about the plan going forward, how they wanted to proceed, if they wanted people to know I’d been adopted.

“Thanks, Tina.” I acknowledged her sympathy with a head nod. “But no need to keep me company in here. I imagine your boyfriend can’t be feeling too comfortable with Jackson poking fun at his new name.”

Tina leaned against the counter at my side and giggled. “Twilight isn’t my boyfriend. We’ve been hooking up a lot lately, is all. I brought him to ease my momma’s mind. She thinks I’m some kind of biker whore, so I figured bringing a familiar face from the Order would make her feel better.”

I slid my eyes to the side and scrutinized my cousin. “What do you do with the Order anyhow? When you’re there at the Dragon Biker Bar?”

She shrugged. “We play pool. Get drunk. Have fun, fool around. Sometimes I put on a show.”

“Do you ever feel like you’re in danger? I mean, the Order doesn’t have the best reputation.”

She shrugged again and this time when she giggled it sounded nervous. “Well…not in danger exactly. I mean, things can get pretty intense and scary—like some of the guys can be really rough—but I think I like it, most of the time. I really like it when they fight over me, I like that part a lot.”

I nodded thoughtfully. I was trying not to judge. Trying really hard. Because watching two men fight over who would be having sex with me didn’t sound all that appealing. And I didn’t know how to ask the questions I suddenly wanted to ask, but knew would be imprudent, not to mention impolite. What Tina did, and who she did it with, and why in tarnation she did it was none of my business.

I felt her eyes on me; apparently, she misinterpreted my struggle, because she said, “Duane and I aren’t back together.”

I stiffened with surprise and dropped the roasting pan I’d been holding, splashing water on my apron. “What? What did you say?”

“I said, Duane and I aren’t back together. Despite what you may have heard, we aren’t. He came to see me on Friday, at the Pink Pony, and I know how some people like to gossip. I’m sure you heard about it.”

I felt many things at that moment and all of them were of the ugly, jealous variety. I recognized something about myself just then: I wasn’t enlightened or open-minded. Not even a little.

I didn’t want Duane going to the Pink Pony, watching and admiring naked women, and I didn’t want him seeking out Tina. Just the thought of it made me angry. And feeling more and more like a woman scorned—in the Shakespearean sense. And lots of crazy-woman scorned thoughts bounced around my brain making me dizzy. The room tilted and I gripped the edge of the sink.

Maybe Duane didn’t want to leave Green Valley because he didn’t want to leave Tina and all the dancers at the Pink Pony. Maybe I wasn’t enough for him. Maybe he’d been expecting me to conform to some role, where he raced cars and got lap dances on the weekends while I stayed home, knitted him socks, and folded his laundry.

But that wasn’t right. That wasn’t the Duane Winston I knew and fell in love with. That wasn’t even the Duane I grew up with. Reason raised its hand and suggested I doubt my cousin, or doubt her version of events at least.

Reason had a calming effect, and that’s when I realized she was still speaking.

“…so just because he’d been texting and calling me like crazy for the last three weeks didn’t mean I was open to restarting anything between us. Like I said, I’ve moved on and so should he. I told him—”

She stopped talking abruptly, frowning as she pulled her phone from her pocket. Helplessly, I watched as she smirked at the screen of her cell.

“He just can’t stop calling me,” she tsked then showed me the incoming number.

It was Duane’s number. And he was calling her.

I watched her send it to voicemail. I felt her eyes on me, though mine were affixed to the phone. Duane was calling her, he’d left her messages. Now maybe I was being willfully blind, but I could not swallow the notion that Duane cheated with Tina, or with anyone for that matter.

He loved me. He did. I knew it. And no one could convince me otherwise. And he wasn’t a cheater. I knew him. Therefore, with cold conviction, I turned my tired gaze back to Tina.

“You’re lying.”

Her full lips parted, like she was offended, and she stuttered for a bit before managing, “What? You just saw his number flash on my phone. You just saw him call me.”

I shook my head. “I’m not doubting the calls or the messages, Tina. But you’re still lying. This smells like a skunk in a perfume shop. First of all, you come in here on Thanksgiving, the day after I come back from my…Louisa’s funeral, and tell me how Duane has been visiting you at the Pink Pony, waving that phone in my face, wanting to stir shit up. I don’t buy it. You’re trying too hard.”

Tina was giving me her angry bitch face, which was actually pretty scary, but I was too numb to feel fear or intimidation.

After an intense and drawn-out staring contest, Tina rolled her eyes, flipped her hair, and snorted. “Whatever. You believe what you want. But that don’t change the fact—”

“That’s right, nothing you can do or show me will change the fact that I know Duane Winston, and he is a good man. He’s not his father. He’s not a cheater. He wouldn’t do that to me or to anyone. And I know he loves me, I know it. I trust him, and I love him and…” And, now I was crying.

I didn’t know why she was doing this, why she wanted to make me believe that Duane had been ru

Using still wet hands, I turned from Tina and grabbed a paper towel, using it to wipe my eyes and nose.

I could feel her stare, feel her intense dislike, as she pressed, “I thought you weren’t together. Isn’t that what you told me at di