Aggie took the ad from her sister’s outstretched hand. She read the simple words and immediately thought of herself. She was exactly what the man was looking for. Angela wanted her to prostitute herself for this man and then share the money.
“I won’t do it.” Aggie thrust the paper back at her sister.
Angela sat in an armchair. “You don’t know what I’m going to ask you. Aggie,…”
“No!” Aggie interrupted.
“No, Aggie!” Angela interrupted back. “I said you had to listen to the whole explanation before you decided. Now you’re jumping to conclusions and I haven’t even started explaining.”
Aggie recognized the justice of her sister’s words, though she couldn’t image another more acceptable explanation. She nodded for Angela to continue.
“I answered the ad. I used your name and circumstances.” Aggie nodded tightlipped and Angela carried on. “About a week later I got a letter asking me a bunch of questions. Everything was getting too complicated already and I sent back the letter with kind of a nasty note.”
Aggie could imagine her sister’s words. Though Aggie had the hotter temper, once Angela was angry, she was deadly. She smiled and her sister continued, her voice more optimistic.
“A few days later a man called me.”
“You have an unlisted phone. I couldn’t even find you.”
“This man must be really wealthy to offer $120,000. I used a box number. I guess he bribed somebody. I don’t know.”
“Keep going,” Aggie prodded.
“Okay.” Angela took a deep breath. “The man on the phone was Danny, the brother of the man who advertised. He said the lawyer was suspicious of me and had rejected my letter when I wouldn’t answer his questions. Do you follow me?”
“So far.”
“Danny said he knew I was the right one for his brother. He didn’t say ‘thought’. He said ‘knew’.”
“And…”
“So here we are in Vancouver. The man lives here.”
“And you want me prostitute myself for twelve nights and then share the money with you so you can get out of prostitution.” Aggie couldn’t suppress her anger. She stood and paced the short length of the room.
“NO!”
The horror in Angela’s voice couldn’t have been faked. Aggie stopped and turned to her sister, her eyebrows raised.
“All I want you to do is go to the initial interview with the lawyer, convince him you’re on the level. Then I’ll do the nights. I can fake innocent in bed. I just don’t think I can fool a lawyer.”
The proposition was so much simpler, so much less painful than Aggie had imagined, she almost laughed in relief. Her sister didn’t want her to sell her body. She just wanted her to pull another twin stunt. No wonder she had cut her hair to match Aggie’s. No wonder she had tried to fool their father and Mary. All the pieces dropped into place and Aggie laughed.
“You’re too much, Boo.” Aggie held out her arms to her sister. Angela rushed into her embrace and knocked them both back onto the sofa. Angela was crying in loud gusts.
“I knew,” she sobbed. “I knew when you understood… that you would understand.”
Aggie squeezed her tight.
“Stop crying, Boo,” she advised her older sibling. “You’re not making any sense.”
Angela sat up.
“You’ll help me, won’t you?”
“Are you sure you want to do this, Angela? This man may be as bad as the last one. He could be worse.”
“I can handle anything for twelve nights. Hell, pregnancy lasts nine months. This has to be easier than throwing up every morning.”
“You don’t throw up for nine months,” Aggie reminded her.
“You know what I mean. I have a goal, Aggie. I really, really need to get out of prostitution. I need the money.”
An awful possibility occurred to Aggie. “You’re not hooked on drugs, are you?”
“No.” Angela stated flatly. “I’ve never touched anything. Not that they aren’t around. That’s not why I want the money. I just want to make a new start.”
“You can do that without $120,000.”
“Can you see me in some poky apartment drudging every day at some stupid job?”
“Is that how you see my life?” Aggie asked, surprised and hurt.
“No, stupid. You have a house and a good job. You were smart and got a degree in library science. I was the stupid creative one. Now I’m not fit to do anything real. I thought maybe I’d go back to school, become a lawyer or something.”
Aggie couldn’t argue. Angela had always been smart in a careless way. Aggie had gotten the better marks, but Angela’s B’s had come easily. If she had the determination to go back to school, Aggie was sure she would be successful. She made one last try to dissuade her from what she saw as unnecessary self-degradation.
“Come to Cincinnati and live with me while you go to school.”
“I can’t be that dependent.”
“Then get a college loan.”
“I can’t be that poor. Starving graduate student doesn’t appeal to me much more than prostitute.”
Aggie knew her sister well enough to agree. She couldn’t think of any more arguments, so she capitulated.
“All right. I’ll do the interview.”
Angela grabbed her sister in a breath-stealing hug.
“I love you!” she screamed. “I’d love you anyway, even if you said no, but…”
“Stop crying,” Aggie admonished her sister for the second time that evening. “You’re not making sense again.”
“I don’t care,” Angela sobbed. “This has to work, Boo. It just has to work.”
“I’ll do my best, Angela,” Aggie cautioned as her sister sat up and dried her eyes. “But he’s probably interviewing lots of people. Wait a minute.”
Aggie stared at her sister.
“You said the lawyer rejected your letter. Why do you need me to go for an interview with him?”
“I never told you the rest of the story. Danny said to come to Vancouver anyway, and he’d figure out a way to get me in to the interview. I picked up a note from him at the Vancouver Hotel…”
“Ah,” Aggie interjected.
“Right,” Angela agreed. “We were supposed to stay there. He rented the Queen Anne suite for us. Sounds posh, doesn’t it?”
“Why aren’t we…” Aggie paused as she figured out her sister’s reasoning. “We can’t be seen together. He can’t know there are two of us. No wonder you’ve been so nervous the last two days.”
Angela nodded. “I have the room key, so he doesn’t know we’re somewhere else. Anyway, the note said to meet him at ten o’clock tomorrow morning in the lobby of the hotel. We don’t have much time.”
Aggie felt her heartbeat quicken. Anticipation of the coming encounter made her feel more alive than she had in years. Since her sister moved away, she realized. Angela could do that, make the colors of life more vibrant, the days more fun. Aggie had almost forgotten the surge of adrenaline that foamed in her sister’s wake. She thought back to the personal ad. The man might have written it directly to her. Mingled with pure adventure was the tingle of sexual anticipation. If her sister hadn’t needed the money so badly… She suppressed the subversive thought. What about Andrew? Screw Andrew, she realized with a guilty shiver. One way or another, she was going to at least see the man who had placed the ad. She turned to her sister with a smile.
“Let’s get started.”
Chapter 9
“What criteria did you use to select these women?” Jimmy’s voice boomed over the speakerphone.
“Exactly what you said in the ad, Jimmy,” Richard replied.
Jimmy heard no apology in his lawyer’s voice, but only a resigned weariness. Jimmy mentally accused and then quickly acquitted him of deliberately choosing unappealing women. Despite his good looks and intelligence, Richard found the female sex even more an enigma than Jimmy did himself.