A Ballad For Beulah

After that awkward night in early December with Billie Joe, Beulah didn't know what to think. She understood he was drunk beyond thinking straight, so she had to cut him some slack. And even though she didn't completely appreciate being used like that, she couldn't lie and say it wasn't a little exciting.

And he'd said he loved her. Right? "I love ya babe" was just as good as "I love you babe." Right?

Did he finally love her the same way she loved him? Or was it the alcohol in his system making him more emotional and sexual? What did this mean for them? For their relationship, if it could be called that.

She didn't know, and she wasn't about to come right out and ask him.

Instead, Beulah chose to be silent about it all, as usual. She tried to focus on other things like helping Laura plan things for the upcoming wedding, which she was maid of honor for, considering Laura had no sister and no real female friends. Beulah was also able to place Bailey into the day care offered at the MGM Grand for employees that was free, so now she was able to spend her lunch breaks with him and didn't have to worry about paying for a babysitter which saved her a buttload of money every week.

When March rolled around again, Beulah had been visited only twice by Billie Joe since the 'awkward drunk night.' And now Bailey was turning three, and his father arrived to inform Beulah of Mike's wedding and how it had been a small ceremony and party afterward.

Beulah was so happy for Mike and had even bought the newlyweds a gift for Billie Joe to go home with and give to them.

And despite only visiting two times since 2004 had begun, and for only a couple days both times, he only stayed two days during this third visit. The day he arrived and the following day when he left.

His reason was that he needed to get back for recording the album.

As he was leaving, he put a baseball hat on his head, chewed a little lazily on some Wrigley's Spearmint bubblegum and leaned forward to place a kiss on Beulah's cheek before lifting his three-year-old son up into his hard.

Giving the boy a big squeeze of a hug and a kiss, he smirked. "D'you like the birthday presents I got ya?"

Bailey nodded. "Yeah. I wike 'em."

"I'm glad," Billie Joe replied as he let his son slide down his front until his small, bare feet touched the floor. "Be good for your mommy, now, alright?"

"Okay, daddy," Bailey agreed as he began to run off toward his room, purposely waddling like he was a penguin on speed.

Beulah and Billie Joe laughed a little after him before they glanced back at each other. He leaned forward again and sighed, clearly wanting to say something.

"Uh, Bee..." he began. "I, uh...I'm not sure when I can get back to visit. Now's really crunch time with finishing the album and then there's gonna be a lot of shit we gotta do afterward, like promotion and press junkets. Shit like that. And I'm not sure when exactly we're gonna plan on doing some touring, so I'll be pretty busy then, too..."

"It's okay. As long as you can manage to call Bailey at least once a week, I think he'll be fine."

"Okay," he nodded. "Just don't expect too much out of me."

I never have, she thought.

"I'll try not to," Beulah muttered. "But, I was kinda wondering something..."

"Sure. Shoot."

"That night, three months ago...you know. When you were too drunk to stand and drove in a cab all the way here from LA..."

Billie Joe looked down quite sheepishly at his feet. "A little. It's mostly in tiny pieces. Like, fragments in my mind. I mean, I can't remember the drive, or how I got upstairs, here, in the apartment. But I remember, at least I think I remember, the two of us..."

"It's okay...nevermind. But...did you, by any chance, mean what you said? That is...was it real or was it just platonic-like?"

"I don't know what you're gettin' at."

"You said..." she trailed off, gathering up her nerve. "You said 'I love ya babe.'"

Billie Joe looked at her, but he wasn't looking at her. He swallowed back a lump in his throat and raised his hand to his temple and scratched it subconsciously. "I, uh...I don't remember. Everything's really hazy," he responded a little sheepishly. "I'm sorry..."

"No. No, it's okay. I was just...a little thrown. I didn't know what to make of that. But, yeah...it's okay."

"Well, um...I need to get goin'. The cab should be here, like, now. And I have to catch my plane before it leaves without me..." Billie Joe began.

"Oh, yeah. Of course. I'm sorry, uh...I'll see ya later. Or, uh, talk to you."

"Alright...see ya." With a goodbye kiss on her cheek, Billie Joe smiled and let himself out, holding his single overnight bag in his free hand.

When he was gone, Beulah sank to her couch and flicked on the TV as Bailey came out of his room and climbed up onto the couch with her. Snuggling up against his mommy's side, he laid his head down on her lap and stuck his thumb in his mouth, watching whatever she was watching.

"Mommy?" he mumbled while sucking his thumb at the same time.

"Hmm?"

"When daddy gonna be here again?"

"I dunno, sweetie. But your daddy's gonna try his hardest to see you, 'cause he loves you so much."

Bailey didn't reply, so Beulah simply stroked his hair soothingly.

Then, "Mommy?"

"Yeah?"

"Can I have a brother?"

"A what?"

"Can I have a brother? I wanna brother to pway wit."

How she wanted to tell Bailey he did in fact have two older brothers. One, nine; the other, five and half. But that would only confuse the boy. He didn't even know his daddy had another family. He only thought his daddy was gone all the time because he had a big, important job somewhere else.

Sighing, Beulah leaned down and placed a kiss on her son's cheek. "Maybe someday, honey."

* * *

Come May, Beulah turned 24, and was given a big party from her girlfriends, the people from work she liked, Nick and Laura. And, even though she was only 24, she felt about 34.

Running after a three-year-old and working a stressful job at a restaurant did that to a person.

But it didn't seem to get her down all that much. No matter what shit life threw at her with a fiery passion, she did her best to trudge through it; accepting that that was just how life was.

Sometimes it was a bowl of cherries, sometimes it was a shit sandwich.

But, when July rolled around and Billie Joe still didn't visit his son, and the phone calls became gradually less, the boundary between snapping and sanity was starting to wane.

And it was Mike's random call to her in the middle of the night, which woke her up, that made her problem seem a little less important at the moment.

Walking into the living room as quickly as she could without stumbling and falling on her face, a groggy Beulah picked up the phone and sank down onto her couch, curling her legs up under her.

"Hello?" she croaked.

'Hi, Beulah, it's Mike."

"Mike---what? Why are you calling at three in the morning?"

"I'm sorry. I just scrolled my list of numbers in my cell and dialed randomly for someone to talk to. I'm sorry, I'll let you go," he rambled, but the hint of stress and slight depression in his voice caught her attention.

"No...no, it's okay," she assured with a yawn. "What's up?"

"Sarah left me last month and we're getting divorced," he admitted bluntly. But he seemed a little choked up in his response.

"She what? Why?"

"Well, according to her I spent more time in the recording studio than with her, and I don't understand it...I've been in the studio working on this damned album for a year and more before that when the master tapes for Cigarettes and Valentines was stolen. Why now? Why not leave me before we married?"

"That doesn't make sense to me either, if you want my opinion," Beulah muttered. "She knew what she was getting into. And if she didn't, she cannot possibly be human."

Mike laughed a little on the other end, which made Beulah smile, letting her know he wasn't a complete wreck at the moment.

"I dunno." She could just hear him shrugging.

"You were only married three months? And she gave up on you after that? That's kind of a low blow."

"That's what the guys have been saying. But, I still love her."

"Well, of course you do, Mike. You're not going to get over her overnight. Take it from someone who knows what it's like to never get over someone after 14 years of knowing them."

"Still jonesin' for Billie, huh?" Mike questioned sympathetically.

"Call me what you will, but I can't help it. He affects me so deeply. No matter what he says or does or doesn't do, I need him in my life. Hell, I want him in my life...I just wish he'd be in his son's a little more..."

"Yeah, I know he's been...absent in your lives, but this time I can vouch for him. We have been really busy these past couple months. It's been stressful."

"Is he too busy to pick up the damned phone and call for five minutes, once a week?"

"Well, uh...no. I'll, um, get on his ass again."

"No, don't. I don't need you playing referee."

"It's not playing referee. It's me playing the concerned friend who's tired of seeing one hurt the other's feelings," Mike bit out with aggravation in his voice; not toward Beulah, but over Billie Joe's lack of common courtesy.

"He's not hurting my feelings, Mike. Just...disappointing me, sometimes."

"Same difference, if you ask me."

"Well, I didn't," she snipped. Then, "Sorry."

"S'okay. We're both stressed and depressed. Let's call it even," he joked solemnly.

"Deal," she muttered in response. "Other than your current situation, how you doing?"

"I'm doing," Mike replied simply. "You?"

"Same."

"You working tomorrow? Am I keeping you up? 'Cause I can let you go if you need to get---"

"No, tomorrow's a Saturday. I don't work weekends."

"Oh, okay. But if you want me to let---"

"It's alright, Mike. I don't mind talking with you. Actually it's kinda nice. I mean, it's like what you said. You're the only one I can really talk to about everything because, aside from Billie and me, you're the only one who knows the truth."

"Glad I can be of service."

"So am I. It's nice to have an extra friend," Beulah commented, pulling the afghan off the top of the couch where it was draped and pulled it down over her body. "Just so you know, I'm lying on my couch with a blanket, so if you hear me snoring all the sudden, you'll know it's because I was just really comfy, not because you were boring my ear off."

Mike laughed on his end. "Okay," he muttered with a smile.

He was lying on his own couch and all the lights were on. A pack of cigarettes were sitting on his coffee table next to a bottle of Corona.

Frowning, Mike knew as he looked at the cigarettes that he really needed to drop that habit. Not that he was a chain smoker like Billie Joe or anything, and he only smoked once in a while nowadays, but it still wasn't something he wanted to do. It was something that simply calmed his nerves when he needed to be de-stressed.

"So...what do you wanna talk about?" Mike wondered, resting his head back against the couch pillow and laying his free hand across his chest while crossing his ankles.

"I dunno," she shrugged. "It's been a while since I just talked on the phone and chatted the night away."

"Well, then aren't you glad I called out of the blue to dump my problems on you and you on me? It broke your non-phone chat slump."

"Oh, yes, thank you ever so much. It's what I've been waiting for all my life," she teased sarcastically.

Mike grinned. "How's Bailey?"

"Getting big every day. Learning to do more, say more," she replied. "Last week he said 'Fuck,' and it kinda floored me."

"What'd you do?"

"What could I do? He's almost three and a half. Not thirteen. I mean I told him that he said a bad word, and to never do it again, and I can only pray I don't have to hear any bad words from his mouth until he's bitching at me, wanting to borrow the car to take his girlfriend to the movies one day."

"What makes you think he's gonna be straight?" Mike joked with a hearty laugh.

"Hey! I have nothing against homosexuals but I'd rather my son didn't grow up to take it up the ass, thank you."

The blue eyed bassist just about fell off his couch in a fit of laughter. "Oi. Wow. I needed that," Mike smirked. "Uhh," he added as a relieved sigh.

"So, um...I know what we can talk about."

"What?"

"Nick's wedding," Beulah replied. "It's next Saturday, and, uh...yeah."

"What color's the dress you're wearing?"

"Peach."

"I bet that color looks great on you...I mean. Nevermind."

What was he getting at, anyway? Why was he changing the subject?

Not even he understood.

Smiling at his compliment, Beulah turned on her side and curled up more with the afghan, as the two of them talked through most of the night, chatting about nothing and everything, so long as it distracted them from their problems for a little while.