A twinge lit up her lower back. Get used to it, she thought. “Don’t push me, Mike. I’m a woman scorned, with a muffin in the oven.” She did a quick pivot and headed off. Over her shoulder, she added, “I’m off at 2. Set it up.”
It didn’t happen that night, as it turned out, and that didn’t surprise her. What did surprise her was that it happened only two nights later, and she didn’t have to hound him half as bad as she’d expected — more surprising still, he hadn’t been jiving: It really wasn’t a guy.
Her name was Claudia, a Cuban, maybe fifty, could pass for forty, calm dark eyes that waxed and waned between cordial welcome and cold appraisal — a tiny woman, raven-black hair coiled tight into a long braid, body as sleek as a razor, sheathed in a simple black dress. She lived in one of the newer condos at the other end of Fremont, near Sahara, where it turned into Boulder Highway.
Claudia showed them in, dead-bolted the door, offered a cool muscular hand to Sam with a nod, then gestured everyone into the living room: suede furniture, Navajo rugs, ferns. Two fluffed and imperial Persian cats nestled near the window on matching cushions. Across the room, a mobile of tiny tin birds, dozens of them, all painted bright tropical colors, hung from the ceiling. Interesting, Sam thought, glancing up as she tucked her skirt against her thighs. Thing must torment the cats.
“Like I said before,” Mike began, addressing Claudia, “I think this is a bad idea, but you said okay, so here we are.”
Sam resisted an urge to storm over, take two fistfuls of that pampered hair, and rip it out by the roots. She turned to the woman. “Can we talk alone?”
“That doesn’t work for me,” Mike said.
With the grace of a model, Claudia slowly pivoted toward him. “I think it’s for the best.” For the sake of his pride, she added, “I’m sure I’ll be fine.”
That was that. He sulked off to the patio, the two women talked. It didn’t take long for Sam to explain her situation, lay out her plan, make it clear she wasn’t being flaky or impulsive. She’d thought it through — she didn’t want to get even, pick off Mike’s customers, nothing like that. “I don’t want to hand my baby off to day care, some stranger. I want to be there. At home.”
Claudia eyed her, saying nothing, for what seemed an eternity. Don’t look away, Sam told herself. Accept the scrutiny, know your role. But don’t act scared.
“There are those,” Claudia said finally, “who would find what you just said very peculiar.” Her smile seemed a kind of warning, and yet it wasn’t without warmth. “I’m sure you realize that.”
“I do. But I think you understand.”
It turned out she understood only too well — she had a son, Marco, eleven years old, away at boarding school in Seville. “I miss him terribly.” She made a sawing motion. “Like someone cut off my arm.”
“Why don’t you have him here, with you?”
For the first time, Claudia looked away. Her face darkened. “Mothers make sacrifices. It’s not all about staying home with the baby.”
Sam felt backward, foolish, hopelessly American. Behold the future, she thought, ten years down the road, doing this, and your kid is where? In the corner of her eye, she saw one of the cats rise sleepily and arch its back. Out on the patio, Mike sat in the moonlight, a sudden red glow as he dragged on his cigarette.
Claudia steered the conversation to terms: Sam would start off buying ounces at two thousand dollars each, which she would divide into grams and eightballs for sale. If things went well, she could move up to a QP — quarter pound — at $7,800, build her clientele. She might well plateau at that point, many did. If she was ambitious, though, she could move up to an elbow — for “lb,” meaning a pound — with the tacit agreement she would not interfere with Claudia’s wholesale trade.
“I want you to look me in the eye, Samantha. Good. Do not confuse my sympathy for weakness. I’m generous by nature. That doesn’t mean I’m stupid. I have men who take care of certain matters for me, men not at all like our friend out there.” She nodded toward Mike all alone on the moonlit patio. “These men, you will never meet them unless it comes to that. And if it does, the time will have passed for you to say or do anything to help yourself. I trust I’m clear.”
The first and oddest thing? She lost five pounds. God, she thought, what have I done? She checked her sheets for blood, then ran to Valley Medical, no appointment, demanded to see her ob-gyn. The receptionist — sagging desert face, kinky gray perm — shot her one of those knowing, gallingly sympathetic looks you never really live down.
“Your body thinks you’ve got a parasite, dear,” the woman said. “Just keep eating.”
She did, and she stunned herself, how quickly her habits turned healthy. No more coke, ditto booze — instead a passion for bananas (craving potassium), an obsession with yogurt (good for bone mass, the immune system, the intestinal lining), a sudden interest in whole grains (to keep her regular), citrus (for iron absorption), even liver (prevent anemia). She took to grazing, little meals here and there, to keep the nausea at bay, and when her appetite craved more she turned to her newfound favorite: stir-fry.
She continued working for three months, time enough to groom a clientele — fellow casino rats (her old quitting-time buddies, basically, and their buddies), a few select customers from the Roundup (including, strangely enough, Harry the homely Brit, who came from Manchester, she learned, taught mechanical engineering, vacationed in Cabo most winters, not half the schmuck she’d pegged him for), plus a few locals she decided to trust (the girls at Diva’s Hair-and-Nail, the boys at Monte Carlo Tanning Salon, a locksmith named Nick Perino, had a shop just up Fremont Street, total card, used to host a midnight movie show in town) — all of this happening in the shadow of the police tower on Stewart Avenue, all those cops just four blocks away.
Business was brisk. She got current on her bills, socked away a few grand. At sixteen weeks her stomach popped out, like she’d suddenly inflated, and that was the end of cocktail shift. Sam bid it goodbye with no regrets, the red pleated dress, the cowboy hat, the tasseled boots. From that point forward, she conducted business where she pleased, permitting a trustworthy inner circle to come to her place, the others she met out and about, merrily invisible in her maternity clothes.
The birth was strangely easy, two-hour labor, a snap by most standards, and Sam shed twenty pounds before heading home. The best thing about seeing it go was no longer having to endure strangers — older women especially, riding with her in elevators or standing in line at the store — who would notice the tight globe of her late-term belly and instinctively reach out, stroke the shuddering roundness, cooing in a helpless, mysterious, covetous way that almost rekindled Sam’s childhood fear of witches.
As for the last of the weight gain, it all seemed to settle in her chest — first time in her life, she had cleavage. This little girl’s been good to you all over, Sam thought — her skin shone, her eyes glowed, she looked happy. Guys seemed to notice, clients especially, but she made sure to keep it all professionaclass="underline" So much as hint at sex with coke in the room, next thing you knew the guy’d be eyeing your muff like it was veal.
Besides, the interest on her end had vanished. Curiously, that didn’t faze her. Whatever it was she’d once craved from her lovers she now got from Natalie, feeling it strongest when she nursed, enjoying something she’d secretly thought didn’t exist — the kind of fierce unshakeable oneness she’d always thought was just Hollywood. Now she knew better. The crimped pink face, the curled doughy hands, the wispy black strands of impossibly fine hair: “Look at you,” she’d whisper, over and over and over.