“Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Yes, okay. I’ll be the protector of your virtue for one night only.”
I breathe deeply and grip the side of the chair, willing myself to stay calm and collected, when what I actually want to do is fist pump the air in victory. Her acceptance is more satisfying than scoring a winning touchdown at the Super Bowl.
“Excellent!” I clear my throat and wipe my sweaty palms over my slacks. I’m not sure I’ve felt this excited about a company dinner in all the time I’ve worked at the firm, and that includes my first Christmas as an intern when Steven announced to Mr. Peterson, our supervisor, that he was going to ask one of the interns out on account of her having the most phenomenal tits he’d ever seen. Peterson, being the smarmy asshole that he is, told Steven if he did it at dinner, allowing the entire office front row seats to the imminent rejection, he would pay him $500. What neither of them realized was that Steven was talking about Sarah, who had told me in confidence the first day of our internship that Daddy just happened to be Mr. Peterson, and she was keeping it quiet, not wanting to give the impression that she was only there through Daddy’s connections. That evening had held my number one spot for work dinners for many years, but I’m pretty sure tonight may steal first place.
I cough and clear my throat, peering across the table at Robyn before getting down to business—arranging our date.
I DON’T KNOW what just happened. One minute I’m thanking Cole for the coffee, the next I’m exchanging details and organizing a dinner date for tonight. What the hell is wrong with me? This is such a bad idea. In fact, it’s beyond bad…this is up there in the realm of the most catastrophically stupid idea in the history of shitty ideas. I go to bed crying every night, scared that I’ll be woken by some maniac demanding money I don’t have, and by the looks of it, still won’t have by this stupidly imposed deadline. At first the tears came for Danny. I missed him. My chest ached every time I looked around our apartment. My apartment. Now, all that I harbor in my chest where my heart used to be is a huge empty void. I feel so lost, so incomplete. I can’t pay my bills, barely have money to eat and lie awake each night picturing everything I must have done wrong for Daniel to abandon me. I can’t go out on a date with some random stranger just because the prospect of a free meal is overwhelmingly appealing. Anything that isn’t PB&J is appealing when that’s all I’ve eaten for the last five days in a row.
I stop mid-stride and pull out my cell. I need to cancel tonight. Cole’s number sits heavily in my palm. I should never have agreed. He’d been so persuasive and kind. It’s astonishing the effect the simple kindness of a stranger can have when you feel like there’s no hope. For five minutes while I sipped my coffee and he made small talk I forgot to be stressed. It was heaven. I press call and am immediately transferred to my payment line. The robotic voice announces that I don’t have sufficient credit to make a call, and I’m being diverted. I don’t have the money to load anything onto my cell. My face flushes with the shame of not being able to afford something as menial as a telephone call. I can’t cancel this evening now unless he decides to contact me.
The coffee I finished begins to churn around in my stomach, mixing with a healthy dose of apprehension and weakness to form a sickening dread that I don’t seem to have control over any aspect of my life. Mom always used to tell me that a fairytale only ends when you’ve finished reading the story and close the book.
I think life just closed my book.
I make it to Reveal twenty minutes before my audition time. I look around at the building, taking in the huge black double doors and the red Broadway-style signage that blinks out the name of the club. There’s nothing on the outside to give away what is happening on the other side of those mammoth doors. No windows, no posters, nothing. Just a thin red strip of carpet under the awning and a brass railing with red rope. It looks far classier than I was imagining, but then I had let my imagination get the better of me. I was expecting a frontage that wouldn’t have looked out of place in the back streets of Amsterdam’s red light district.
“You here for an audition?” a woman asks, walking past me and throwing the door open.
“Oh, um, yeah. Hi, I’m Robyn,” I offer, taking in all of what must be five feet nothing of her. She’s like a tiny little pixie with cropped blonde hair, flat biker boots, and huge boobs.
“Oh, Lucy’s friend? I’m Annie.”
“That’s me,” I answer as I walk through the door she’s holding open and into the club. “Wow, this place is impressive!”
“It doesn’t look like much empty, but it comes into its own in the evening,” she says happily. “Follow me.”
I do as she asks, winding my way around the circular tables that are adorned with tiny little Tiffany-style fringed lamps. I feel like I’ve stepped off the sidewalk and right back into the twenties; it’s all very Gatsbyesque. The dread that was sitting heavily in the depths of my stomach begins to subside. I’ve danced from the age of six. Ballet, tap, modern, street and anything and everything in between. It’s more than a passion; it’s an obsession bordering on insanity. If I couldn’t dance, I would cease to exist. People may call it dancing—I call it living. It’s raw, ardent expressionism, each movement distorting reality so radically that you have no choice but to feel every emotion it pulls from you.
I’ve danced almost everything, perfecting my craft, but never burlesque. My mind has always attached the style to my preconceptions around stripping. I used to think I was above it. What I do is art, and I couldn’t find the art in taking my clothes off and shaking my ass for money. After watching every YouTube clip I could find on burlesque, I have to concede that my biases are…well, simply bullshit. There’s a definite art to it, and in truth I’ve danced in music videos wearing perhaps the same amount of clothing. My eyes travel the club: the air of opulence and a distinct lack of a pole on the stage is doing wonders for my frayed nerves.
“You’re actually the first here; this is going to be a group audition. Feel free to get on stage and stretch or whatever. I’ll fetch the bossman and the others should be here soon.”
“Okay, thanks,” I shout as she exits through a large black door in the far left corner of the room that reads Private. I’m hoping it leads to an office, and not a seedy backroom for “Private” dances.
I climb onstage as I hear Annie bellow, “You’re such an ass!” as she marches back through the door with a face like thunder. My eyes widen, and she smirks at me on approach.
“You love me really, cupcake!” a deep male voice retorts, and it echoes through the room.
“I do,” she whispers to me. “But I’d rather swallow razor blades than let him in on that.”
I’m not sure how to respond. So far this isn’t exactly how I pictured this morning panning out.
I place my bag at the corner of the stage to start warming up my muscles. I have my back turned when I hear heavy footsteps and a deep raspy voice say, “Ah, you must be Miss Spears, I’m Za—” his words die as I turn to face him. Then I want to die. Literally, right here and now.
“Zane,” he finishes with the widest grin I’ve ever been on the receiving end of.
“Shit!”
I don’t mean to cuss out loud, but it’s the first thing that enters my mind and slips without warning from my lips. Now he’s laughing, a deep, amused belly laugh, and I really don’t see the funny side of this. Of course it’s him, why wouldn’t it be? The universe fucking hates me.
“We meet again,” he croons, as Annie plays eyeball tennis frantically between the two of us. She looks confused for a second before it morphs into a scowl. I guess she likes Zane. I’m also willing to bet that she’s put two and two together and come up with twenty-five. My insides twist and I contemplate walking out. If I leave now I’ll probably save myself a little humiliation. He’s not about to offer me a job, given that the last time we met I knocked him down, vomited in front of him and he carried my drunken ass home. If the saying is true and you really do only get one chance at a first impression, mine was irrevocably the worst.