“Just be safe, and don’t worry about your mother. I’ll take care of it.”
“I love you, Dad.”
“I love you too. Just promise to try to make up with your sister once you start to feel better.”
Trihn nodded. “I will.”
If I ever feel better…
She shouldered her backpack again and texted Ian to tell him to meet her in her garage.
He showed up a couple of minutes later. “Trihn?” he called softly. “What are we doing in here?”
“Over here,” she said. “Dad caught me.”
“Shit!”
She tossed him the keys, and he snatched them out of the air with his left hand.
He looked at her in confusion. “What are these for?”
“Dad said you should drive.”
“He’s letting you go?” he asked in disbelief.
“Yep. Said he had seen this coming all along and then handed me the keys. Said he would handle Mom and everything.”
“Whoa! That was unexpected. I was going to try to sneak the keys to the Beamer and suffer my father’s wrath, but this is way better.”
Trihn laughed. “Way better.”
They jumped into her parents’ silver Mercedes SUV, and Ian maneuvered it out of the garage. Trihn rolled down the window and let the evening air whip her hair around her face. She plugged her iPhone into the system. Ian looked over at her with worry in his eyes. They didn’t see eye to eye on music. While she could appreciate almost anything and she could dance to even more than that, her heart belonged to rock music.
Fall Out Boy blasted through the speakers, and Ian just shook his head. “I knew this was coming.”
“That’s what she said,” Trihn said.
She relaxed back in the passenger seat and let the tunes relax her. Driving away from everyone and everything might not be the most mature choice, but being miles, rather than feet, away from Preston was good for her psyche. She was already feeling more like herself.
But after three hours of on and off traffic, even the music couldn’t chill her nerves or her desire to be out of the car. She pulled her mane of hair back into a ponytail and tapped her foot. She could see the skyline from the distance, which only made her more anxious to be there.
“Just remind me of the turn for your place. It’s been a while since I’ve been there,” Ian told her.
Trihn shot up in her seat. “Wait.”
“What?” he asked, his eyes widening with concern.
“Take me into Manhattan.”
Ian deflated. “Why? It’s late. I’m tired. I’ve ignored about a hundred phone calls from my mom. I just want to get somewhere and relax before being demolished tomorrow.”
“I know for a fact that your parents are not going to demolish you. Anyway, I think my dad will smooth the whole thing over,” she told him. “But still…into Manhattan we go.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
“Do you have a reason?”
“I need to do something,” she said conspiratorially.
“Is that supposed to reassure me?”
“Probably not.”
Ian shook his head. He had just driven her three hours back into the city on a whim, so he wasn’t exactly going to question her next move even if he probably should.
“We’ll have to find parking somewhere close. It’s probably going to be a fortune.” She groaned, directing him down another side street through the maze. “There!”
He pulled up beside another car and then expertly parallel parked the SUV.
“Whoa. For a kid from the suburbs, you’re good at that.”
“I actually passed my driver’s test, Trihn.”
“Yeah, well, I passed.”
“The third time,” he mumbled.
“Who needs to drive in New York City?” she demanded, stepping out of the car.
Ian just laughed at her and followed her down the street. “Where are we headed anyway?”
She rounded the corner and stopped in front of the familiar building. Her heart wrenched as she remembered the last time she had been here—Preston’s insistence before they had gotten to the show, the way he’d looked at her when she brought him to her underground world, the waves of desire when he’d watched her dance, the hungry glint in his eye and the casual way he’d offered her a threesome, as if it were her idea to begin with. She should have seen the signs. But she didn’t and hadn’t wanted to.
“Where is here?” Ian asked. He cast his gaze around the dark, stopping at the seemingly empty location.
“Slipper.”
“WHAT IS SLIPPER?” IAN ASKED CAUTIOUSLY.
“It’s an underground prostitution ring I’ve been a part of for the past couple of years,” she deadpanned.
She watched Ian’s face go from horror to confusion to embarrassment.
Then, she started laughing. “I can’t see right now, but how red are your cheeks?”
“You’re not really a part of an…”
“Underground prostitution ring,” she filled in for him.
“Yeah.”
“No, I’m not. It’s a burlesque club. They dance and have acrobatic routines at night.”
“Okay,” he said skeptically. “Why are we here?”
“Because I dance here.”
“Here? At a burlesque club.”
She nodded.
“I never knew you did that kind of thing,” he said. “I thought it was all ballet.”
“Well, I never told anyone.”
Here was something she had painstakingly tried to hide from the outside world. She’d tried to keep this hidden in an attempt to be the right person at the right time.
She compartmentalized parts of herself for the various people that she was around. With Renée, she was the strict ballerina with her rocker edge. With Ian, she was the yuppie heiress to a fashion legacy. With Lydia, she was the baby who idolized her older sister. With Francesca, she was a fun-loving model party girl who was into high fashion. With Cassidy, she was the lithe pole dancer willing to try almost anything. With Preston…she had thought she had allowed him to see all the parts of her, but that didn’t mean that he’d fit the pieces together. It just meant that he had seen the puzzle and scattered the pieces.
Maybe if she started here, she could knit those fragments back together and try to be all of herself at once. In time, she wouldn’t have to hide the different sides of her personality. She could just be Trihn.
“You can stay out here if you want,” she told Ian before marching down the steps.
The woman at the front door clapped her hands together when she saw Trihn approaching. “Oh my God, are you performing tonight, lovey dove?” She was dressed even more radical tonight in a lingerie corset set and high heels. Her bob had been replaced by a crazy wig with long flowing gray curls.
“No, not tonight. I just need to talk to Cassidy. Is she performing tonight?”
“She’s back there, but I don’t know how much talking you’ll get done. Chick is a little emotional.”
“What do you mean?” Trihn scrunched her eyebrows together.
“Haven’t you heard?”
“Heard what?”
“Oh, dear,” she said, putting her hand to her chest. “I’ll have to let her break the news to you.”
Trihn frowned. “Is it serious? Is she okay?”
“I’ll let you in at the end of this set, and you can go talk to her.” The girl’s eyes moved high above Trihn, and she smiled devilishly. “And who do we have here?”
Trihn whipped around and saw Ian coming down the steps. “What are you doing?”
“Not leaving you alone in a place like this,” Ian said. He hurried to her side.
Trihn laughed. “No need to protect me. I’m probably going to need to protect you.”
The applause rang out through the rusty black door, and the woman jumped. “Time for you two to head on inside. Good seeing you again, Trihn.”