“I’m looking for a friend, Panther—I mean, Phyllis St. James. She was brought in this morning.”
The attendant coolly checked her computer screen, pecking at the keys while she cracked her gum, with little regard for the chaos that was erupting in all directions around her. Just another day at the office. The gold hoop earrings that swung from her earlobes were enormous. She eyed the polyester smock the woman was wearing and noted the cluster of tangled chains and crucifixes that covered her plastic access badge around her neck. It read: “HI—I’M DESTINEE. HOW CAN I HELP YOU?”
On the other side of the counter, Destinee saw a hooker. A dirty whore. Fearful and frantic for any news about her hooker friend. La Costa read this in her eyes. It was common. Outside the world of the club, people didn’t see things quite the same way.
“Released.” Destinee drawled the word languidly.
Destinee looked a lot like she knew things. Like how to fry chicken, sew a quilt, raise a bunch of children—do what was expected of her in the real world. She grabbed a hospital brochure and pointed to a phone number with an enormously curved gold fingernail and tapped it on the page. “This here’s the outreach center. Give them a call and have your friend see someone for follow-up counseling.”
La Costa nodded fuzzily. She had been crying a lot, and her nose was still dripping. A skinny white nurse next to her handed her a tissue. “She’ll need to see a physician in two weeks for another evaluation, if she wants to get clean, that is,” Destinee continued, all business. She whipped a business card out of nowhere. “Have her contact this place—it’s expensive, but it’s good. Public aid won’t pay. So, if she can’t swing it, then see to it she gets help someplace.”
Destinee looked at La Costa long enough to surmise the answer but asked anyway. “Are you a . . . relative?”
“No, ma’am. Just a friend.”
La Costa had never had a friend before. She never really thought about it. It never mattered before. The thought of standing by and watching Panther slowly kill herself was more than she could bear. She was the closest thing to a sister she had ever had.
What are we doing? La Costa ruminated. Night after night . . . the parties. . . the drugs? It was an incessant cycle of destruction, and although La Costa managed to teeter on the brink of its whirling gravitational pull just barely getting by unscathed, Panther, however, was not so fortunate. She was quickly going down, and would soon be swallowed up. This, La Costa was certain, if she kept up the reckless pace, would be the fatal outcome.
La Costa knew it. Destinee, the emergency room attendant, knew it, but how? How would she attempt to convince Panther? She was her friend, that’s all she knew. Panther had given her a break in life that helped her to get out of her ghetto apartment and into a better place. A place with a new family of sisters and a sort of crazy den mother in Lucy DuMont. It was a strange type of family indeed, but it was a family, nonetheless. She had Panther to thank for it. Now it was time for her to give something back to her—whether she liked it or not.
This was a wake-up call if there ever was one. La Costa vowed then and there that she would figure out a way to save both of them from the wrecking ball that was hurling straight toward them. She had twenty-one hundred dollars saved in an empty peanut butter jar beneath her bed. That, along with tips from the next two weeks, would amount to enough to check Panther into a local hospital’s rehabilitation program.
All the way back to the apartment, La Costa rehearsed her speech and how she would convince Panther that she needed help—they both did. How she would tell her she would get help too, and that she was only doing this because she loved her.
When she arrived back at the apartment, she was stunned to find that Panther still was not there. Didn’t Shana bring her home?
One of the four house Kittens, Jizzy, had reported seeing Panther run through just a half hour prior. “She flew in and out of here with her loser boyfriend, AJ, about an hour ago. Said something about going to Vegas and not to worry. She’d see you at the club on Friday. By the way, rent’s due tomorrow. She didn’t happen to give you her share, did she?”
La Costa puzzled. “Vegas?” A frightening jolt pitched her stomach one full rotation. Shit! She rushed to her bedroom and felt frantically beneath the bed for the plastic jar. She knew it would be empty even before she looked at it.
* * *
When Friday came and went with no sign of Panther, La Costa was worried. An emotion that quickly turned to anger when she learned that Panther had called in sick for her weekend shifts.
“Sick, my ass!” La Costa fumed when she read the roster and saw Panther’s name crossed out in red. Panther’s name had been struck for “illness.” The other girls nodded and shrugged their shoulders incredulously.
“What’s she up to now? Scared us all out of our minds!” Shana said.
“Who knows? That girl does any old crazy thing she pleases,” said Jizzy. “How fair is that to us, who have to pick up her slack? Ungrateful bitch!”
They all agreed, chiming in with nods and tsks as they primped their lashes and brows in the dressing room mirrors.
“Yeah, and why’d she leave with him?” Goldie said, slamming her locker.
Everyone knew that AJ was bad news by anyone’s standards. At just twenty-one, he was a Jamaican giant, mean as a snake, and disliked by most everyone. He was known to be violent and controlling, but somehow, he had convinced Panther to run away with him and La Costa’s money. They were probably blowing every cent of it at that very moment in the casinos.
“Well, she’d better be winning—that’s all I can say,” Jizzy quipped as she fastened the hooks of her sequined bra. “She’s gonna need it to get her room back. She stiffed us again on the rent. Frankly, I’m sick of her shit! Girl’s gotta learn how to manage her cabbage. I say, we kick her ass out and let Monique come live with us instead. She’s been looking for a place for weeks.”
The bevy of scantily clad beauties agreed.
Monique brightened. She was a rookie recruit with butt-length auburn hair and mile-long legs that went on for days. Shana had brought her in from a club in Dallas. She did not strip, but she would make enough serving cocktails to pay for her share of the rent. In the fall she would be starting up at the university, majoring in—what else? Theater. It was all smoke and mirrors.
“Monique could have a place closer to campus, and believe me, this one won’t piss away her pay!” Shana added. “It’s fine by me,” she told the others.
“It’s yours if you want it, honey,” Goldie chimed in.
Monique nodded, smiling.
Jizzy examined her reflection in the mirror. She was one of the more seasoned Kittens with mounting seniority. She was a living Barbie doll if she ever there was one—all beach-blonde hair and five-hundred-watt teeth, right down to her over-baked tan. Everything about her competed for attention, making one wonder what was and what wasn’t real. She looked positively plastic. It was always La Costa’s practice to stay as far away from the girl as possible. In fact, she hated her type.
“It’s settled, then,” Jizzy said, lifting her serving tray, rearranging the pens and matchbooks inside the rock glass that served to anchor a stack of pink-and-black-striped cocktail napkins. Then, she looked squarely at La Costa. “Anyone got a problem with that?” she said, her fake baby blues all a-blink, knowing full well about the friendship between La Costa and Panther.
La Costa nodded morosely and said nothing. No one else seemed to care, nor did they believe that Panther would be coming back. And so, it was done. Panther was officially OUT.
* * *
Five weeks passed without so much as a phone call or a post card from Panther. La Costa thought she might know how to find her family. She knew that her parents were split and that she might have a brother who lived in Denver. She could not remember. Panther had been vague on her family details and could have high-tailed it to Colorado, or anywhere in the world by now. La Costa thought better of trying to
track Panther’s brother down. What would she say? “Hi, I’m a good friend of your sister’s . . . we stripped at the Mink Kitty here in Los Angeles and serviced gentlemen clients. I was wondering if you have heard from Panther lately?” Right! She didn’t think so.
Monique moved into the apartment and took over Panther’s side of the room. They were six living in a three-bedroom unit. It was ample enough, as someone was always coming or going at all hours. Best of all, it was located just blocks away from the club. The shared apartment was the nicest digs La Costa had ever lived in. But now, with her best friend having betrayed her trust, she liked the setup a whole lot less. What was she doing? she wondered. Wasn’t everyone just out for themselves? Why did she even think she could trust anyone? In the end, it was the disappointment in losing a friend that mattered more to La Costa than the money. She could find a way to make more.
She sighed heavily when she finally made up her mind—staring into the makeup mirror was when she did her best thinking. She was exhausted. She was sick and tired of men hungrily eyeing her from a distant chair in the smoke-haze darkness of the dingy club. Tired of the charade that lured them to come in, night after night . . . helping themselves to her. The money was meaningless, she decided, after all. If the act of earning it did not kill any ounce of decency she had left inside, then surely spending it on drugs, booze, and fast living would. She would end up like Panther, gambling with her very life one way or another if she stayed. This would not do. Not anymore.
It was not going to be easy to walk away from it all—the money, the attention, and the thrill of being a Kitten. It wasn’t the noblest of things, but it was something. Something that wasn’t serving her quite like she had hoped. In a world that valued sex and beauty seemingly more than being chaste and invisible, ordinary girls did not receive the perks in life. She knew this. “Ordinary” did not open doors or influence powerful people. She was smart enough to realize that she had gotten all that she could from Lucy DuMont’s world. It was over, and time to move on.
La Costa had a stack of business cards that were tied with a large rubber band and buried in her lingerie drawer. One hundred seventy-seven of them, given to her by various patrons from the club over the years—business executives, modeling reps, porn scouts, born-again Christians, nearly somebodies and truly nobodies—everyone had a calling card, it seemed. They loved to slip her their pitch with the flick of a wrist: “My card. Call me if you ever need ‘whatever.’” Just fill in the blank.
There was one in particular, though, that she was searching for. It was a patron she knew who lived in Nevada. He was a nice gentleman, a “regular” client of hers, who visited the club at least every couple of months when he was in LA on business. She shuffled through the stack and located his card with ease. It was white with gold metallic raised lettering that looked like a playing card. The Ace of Diamonds. It read: Gerald W. Hildebrand, Executive Vice President, Nevada Chamber of Commerce. On the back was a hand-written promise, sealed in blue ink: If ever you’re in Vegas, Lucky La Costa, look me up. You’re aces with me, kid!”
She smiled when she remembered Gerry and his funny way of always talking in clichés. He was a throwback from another era, like a character from an old black-and-white movie. He was in his late fifties, a tan, lean, and silver-haired white gentleman who was an heir to the Hildebrand hotel dynasty. He often spoke to her of the promise to get her a job if ever she was ready to hang up the garters and glitter. That was, if she wanted it. He called it “respectable work,” like in an office or department store. She had his word, and she knew that with him, it was as good as gold. The card was her ticket to a new beginning.
She placed the call.
Three weeks later, La Costa packed all her belongings and bid a teary goodbye to Lucy and all the girls. They had thrown her a little farewell party in the club’s kitchen just before opening the day before she left. Manuel had baked her an extraordinary cake in the shape of breasts, with pink and red sprinkles around the gumdrop nipples. They all signed a gag card that was so raunchy, it made her blush to read it in the presence of the entire staff who made their living around elevating titillating sex to an art form. Colored condoms were inflated and tied to her locker, made to resemble festive balloons. The crowning moment came when “Al” a blowup male doll was presented to her with a chorus of hoots and applause.
“He’ll be your driving companion, La Costa! Not a single word all the way to Vegas! Just prop him in the passenger’s seat and go!” Monique giggled.
And Lucy was quick to point out, “Yeah, and his wanger points north, so you’ll never get off course . . . unless you want to, that is!”
Everyone howled. They were guzzling champagne and trying not to peel away the layers that would show their own true feelings, envying La Costa for having the guts to leave.
“Say hi to Panther, when you see her!” Jizzy piped sarcastically.
“Yeah, if you can find her!” Shana tossed.
“I will.” La Costa smiled, secretly hoping in her heart it was possible. Vegas was a big town, and there was no telling where on earth Panther and AJ could have ended up—or even if they were still together.
Someone handed La Costa her name moniker from her locker before she took off. She tucked it into her purse. She promised them all that she would keep it forever and never, ever forget them. It would be the only thing she would take from that life. That, and a shoebox filled with photos and few pieces of memorabilia from the club. The lead bartender, Scotty “Rocks” Renior from the club’s main bar, loaded her down with swizzle sticks, ashtrays, and matchbooks for the memory vault. “Have a sweet life, Miss La Costa,” he said with a shit-eating grin that always made her smile.
“I’m gonna try,” she said, forcing herself not to cry. All the extra attention made her feel strangely vulnerable. The Mink Kitty had been for her, a true family.
It was five forty-five, and soon would be time for the club’s doors to open. Everyone scurried to their stations around the bar, the lounge, and in the main dining room, throwing kisses her way as they waved and bid La Costa all the best.
She took one more lingering look and then turned for the back service door, leaving the Mink Kitty’s illustrious VIP show lounge and stage that night and forever, with one less Kitten.
Chapter Eleven
Newport Beach, CA – 2014
La Costa and Felicia broke for lunch on the deck, beneath the bright summer sky and a commotion of beachgoers, vacationers, and residents dotting the shore with their colorful towels, umbrellas, and watercraft. There was a simple lunch consisting of a spring greens salad and croissant sandwiches with spicy deli meats, basil, and melted provolone. Fresh fruit—a medley of melons and berries—accompanied the meal for good measure, but the highlight, La Costa’s famed peach pie, was cooling on the kitchen counter for later.
“I thought you’d enjoy a change of scenery, so I’ve had our lunch set out here,” La Costa said as the two walked onto the gray-washed planks of the stunning deck, greeted by the screams of seagulls and children laughing. A large patio table and two chairs were waiting. A handsome young man in his twenties had just finished pouring the ice waters and placing the pitcher in the center of the table.
“Thank you, Florian,” La Costa said.
He was her personal assistant, an intern from USC with aspirations for a major in musical arts. As it was, it took a small army of individuals behind the scenes to help her do what she did with seemingly effortless ease. La Costa called on him whenever she could, to delegate the necessary mundane tasks that would otherwise eat up her precious writing time. “Enjoy your lunch, Ms. Reed,” he said. “Coffee is brewing. I’ll check back with you to see if you need anything done for the book promos running tomorrow.”
Felicia’s eyes widened. “Does he cook?”
“No, this is all catered. But he is a whiz with technology and keeps my calendar and my social media presence humming, as they call it. I’d be dead in the water without
him!”
Felicia smiled, and La Costa handed her a plate. “Dig in.”
The tape recorder was turned off as they enjoyed a delicious meal, talking about things like motherhood, demanding work schedules, and slipping into middle age with as much aplomb and grace as possible. Felicia, a seasoned sixty-something, regarded her short-cropped platinum hair as a badge of honor. “You just come to know things, don’t you? I mean, by the time you come into a certain age,” Felicia said wistfully as she surveyed the vast horizon where the water and the sky met perfectly, uncluttered, with not a single cloud in sight.
“I do believe that you’re right. However, I would like to think that life still has much to teach us, no matter what manner it has brought us to where we are today,” La Costa said. She drew in a long, full breath and exhaled. “I have nothing but gratitude for my scars, you know? Wouldn’t change a thing if I could.”
Felicia pressed her palms together and sighed. “Exactly! And that, my dear, is what people want to believe for themselves as well—what you write about in your books, your heroines—they speak to women and encourage them.”
“I truly hope so,” La Costa said, modestly.
“Shall we continue, then?” Felicia said, reaching for the recorder and her notes. “Out here, or inside?”
“Let’s go back inside,” La Costa said. “I have some more photos I’d like to show you.”
Moments later, the two were seated at a large oak dining table, where La Costa had scads of photos strewn about, taken from photo albums, faded with age. A few framed photos were taken from a wall in her den, and a stack of notebooks and journals lay about like old friends, in neat piles that were arranged in chronological order.
“Coffee or tea?” La Costa asked Felicia, whose eyes widened at the colorful array of artifacts and memorabilia on the table and the sheer magnitude of the care that La Costa had taken to collect and preserve her memories.
Sexy Ink! Page 6
