White Lies

More Beautiful than You

"How's it going?" Trisha asks, balancing a fork on her index finger. Her dessert plate is cleaned off. Bee's plate is not.

"Okay." Bee scoops the icing off the chocolate cake. Any other day, she'd be licking her plate clean, but her appetite has nose-dived once again.

Trisha pokes her friend's cake with her own fork. "Spill it. C'mon, tell Momma Trisha what's wrong." She lifts a piece of the dessert and offers it to Bee. "Open up!"

Blanche purses her lips and lets her fork clang against the white plate. "Trish, stop. I'm not in the mood."

Taking the food into her mouth, and not bothering to swallow it before she speaks, Trisha points the fork at her friend. "Is he being an ass?"

"What?" Blanche knows exactly to whom she's referring, but thoughts of Hunter Peters just grates her nerves.

"You know what. Tell me or I'll eat all of your dessert."

Bee pushes the plate towards her. "Have it. I don't want chocolate cake."

Trisha raises her hands in an over-the-top fashion. "Do not! Do not push away good cake! I'm worried about you." Then she turns serious. "Really Bee, if he's being an a-hole, you can come back and live with me."

"I'm fine, Trish. He's not being anything." Nothing, she wants to correct herself, but even she doesn't understand why she wants Hunter to be not nothing.

"You've been living with him for a month and a half. I'm surprised you lasted this long with that troglodyte aka Shrek."

It's Trisha's way of making her laugh, and it works. Bee lets a snicker escape her lips. "We barely see each other. Actually, I don't see him at all. He's still asleep when I leave for work, and he comes home late, like two or three in the morning."

Her friend stops scooping pieces of the cake to her mouth, leans back and narrows her eyes. The action means one thing: she's formulating a theory.

"How do you know what time he comes home?"

Blanche averts her eyes from her friend. "I didn't say I did."

"Yeah you did. You said two or three in the morning. If you don't know, then you would have stopped at saying 'he comes home late.' But you know what time he comes home. Do you wait for him?"

"What? No!" Bee tries for defensive, but knows it's too late.

Trisha lifts a curious brow.

"He's not very quiet when he comes home, and I'm a light sleeper."

"You have slept through earthquakes and thunderstorms!"

"It's the pregnancy. It changed me and my sleeping pattern." When Trisha narrows her eyes again, she tries to convince her, "I swear it's the pregnancy."

"Don't blame your state of bumpiness." Trisha circles her finger over the table. "You like him."

"I don't like him. Hunter? No!"

But Trisha has made her decision. A cock-sure smile plasters on her face, then she continues to ravage Bee's dessert.

"I'm gonna go."

"What? Why? Girl's night just started!"

"No, Trishy-poo, it's nearly eleven. I'm exhausted. I think my feet are swollen and my insides are burning from the hot sauce. Remind me next time to stave off anything hot and spicy." Blanche pushes herself up and off the seat, bracing her hands on the back of the chair and the table. She swears she has grown double her size the previous month, but the doctor assured her that she's measuring fine.