Calling Out

by Rae Meadows

  The phone rings and Mohammed retreats into the back room.

  “Good evening,” I answer. “How may I help you?”

  “I’ll take double D, nice ass, redhead.”

  “McCallister. I can’t talk now.”

  “Are you avoiding me?”

  “What gave you that idea? Moving to Utah?”

  “I mean it. When can we talk then?”

  “Tomorrow I guess. Call me at home.”

  “Have you become some guy’s ninth wife?” “Not yet,” I say.

  “You’re getting weirder, Jane. I’m worried.”

  Mohammed storms back in yelling in Arabic on his cell phone. He snaps the phone closed and puts his hands against the desk to steady himself, breathing noisily through his mouth.

  “I think I am getting high blood pressure,” he says. He places his hands on his chest like a grieving soprano, then leaves without another word.

  chapter 13

  I am sent on my first double with Jezebel to a new client, in for the night from San Francisco, at the Marriott across from the convention center. On the way to the hotel, Jezebel bounces around in the car like a giddy schoolgirl on the way to a dance. I feel like the chaperone. Albee yips in the backseat.

  With his mustache and bushy mullet haircut, the guy doesn’t look like he’s from San Francisco. He’s both lewd and jumpy, stammering as he says, “You girls’ll have to fight over who gets me.” Jezebel emits a truncated courtesy laugh, then turns to me and rolls her eyes. He undresses immediately and sits on the bed, his legs splayed, hair everywhere. Jezebel whoops and starts to dance. She takes my hand and spins in, kisses me on the neck, and spins out.

  There is something off about this guy. He’s shifty and forced in his interactions with us. His words don’t match his face.

  “Come on, you two, suck me,” he says, looking at the floor but holding his penis.

  My disgust must register on my face because Jezebel swats my butt then grinds against me with her pelvis. I dance with uneasy halfheartedness as I take off my coat, then my sweater.

  Jezebel is mesmerizing in her abandon. She’s already down to her underwear—polka-dotted—and matching bra, making full use of the room space. One minute she’s jumping on the bed and the next she’s bending backward over him. I might as well not be in the room at all.

  “Come on, Roxanne, join in,” she says in a Betty Boop falsetto. She lifts my shirt over my head, then unzips my pants and peels them to the floor.

  “Yeah, take it all off,” he says, rubbing himself. I catch him quickly glance at the window. “Come on, little girl,” he says to Jezebel. “Don’t you want to feel it?”

  “Oh, you’re so big and hard,” she says, reaching over to him on the bed.

  “Jezebel,” I say, but she is already moving her hand up and down his penis. I stand and watch, mute and ineffectual. One minute, then two. He looks at me when

  he ejaculates.

  Before Jezebel has even wiped the semen off her hand, the man reaches for his pants, and something metallic catches the light.

  “You’re under arrest,” he says.

  *

  Jezebel gets busted for indecent sexual contact. I follow the police car to the city jail, and three hours later, I hand over my credit card to pay her $500 fine.

  “Hey,” I say. She walks to me, her jacket pulled tightly across her chest.

  “You can’t tell on me, Rox. I’m already on Mohammed’s shit list. I need this job,” she says.

  Her makeup is smeared beneath her eyes, making them look sunken. Her usually blown-straight blond bob is frizzed up like that of an unkempt doll. I take her arm as we go out into the night.

  “I won’t,” I say. “Don’t worry.”

  It’s 1:30 a.m. and downtown is quiet except for the click of changing streetlights.

  “I’ll pay you back,” Jezebel says. “I swear.”

  I know she won’t but paying for her feels like I’m doing a good deed.

  “What’s the big deal anyway? What’s the difference? The ending’s the same; the guy gets off. It’s a stupid law. So what if it’s for money? So what if it makes me a prostitute? It’s not hurting anyone.”

  Jezebel does what she’s never done in front of me, she starts to cry, erupting in sniffly, hiccup-y tears she angrily tries to stop.

  “He let me keep doing it. You saw him. That fuckhead. He took our money back.”

  “You should have asked him why his dick was so small, if it was some kind of birth defect,” I say.

  She giggles and wipes her eyes. I laugh too. I envy the way Jezebel’s emotions are so close to the surface; they shift and bob from moment to moment like buoys on a choppy sea.

  “I didn’t have a clue he was a cop,” she says.

  We reach my car, where Albee has left drool and smudges all over the inside, and he’s peed on the backseat.

  “Sorry, Rox,” Jezebel says. “Bad Albee. Bad dog.”

  His wagging tail thumps against the door as he licks her face. Jezebel turns on the radio to a pop station and mouths all the words to the song. She dances with the puppy’s paws and joyously yells out the window at a group of young guys crossing the street toward Club DV8.

  When I drop her at her car, Jezebel hops out like a sprite and waves back at me, and I wonder if it is just that simple for her to move on, not to dwell, examine, or dissect the meaning of her actions. I have a feeling she will fall asleep tonight as easily as any night. She dumps Albee into the Blazer—its left front bumper is still smashed— and she circles my car and peels out of the parking lot.

  *

  Just the thought of the polyester strip-o-gram outfit makes me recoil, though my protests don’t carry much weight with Mohammed.

  “The pants’ll be too short. Complete floods,” I say. “No one will be looking at the pants,” he says. “It’s a security guard’s outfit, not a police uniform.” “Pfft,” he says. “Oh, and I’ll pay you after. It’s a favor

  for this guy who bought two rugs. A bachelor party or some such thing for his friend.”

  “At three o’clock in the afternoon?”

  “Does it matter?” he asks, raising his palms toward the ceiling.

  Kendra snickers over at the desk, finishing off the last of her McRib.

  “Don’t worry, Rox,” she says. “You’ll actually want to take it off.”

  The pants are dark blue with flared cuffs that hover way above the tops of my black pumps, and they have a sharp perma-crease down the front. Their synthetic roughness makes my legs itch. They’re so tight on top I have to lie flat on the floor to get the zipper up. The white polyester uniform shirt is big and wide with dirty cuffs I have to roll up, and a “security” patch on the sleeve in the shape of a shield. The hat looks like a Greek fisherman’s hat, and all in all, I look like an asshole. I feel sick.

  Kendra coughs on the powdered sugar of her mini donuts when I appear from the back and I snatch the Polaroid camera before her white-covered fingers can get it. She attempts to repress her smile, but I break first into teary laughter. I’m already distraught imagining the glare of daylight and the public ogling, without even a hotel room door against the outside world.

  The building is in one of those flat, treeless business parks with one tinted-windowed cluster indistinguishable from the next and the occasional FedEx truck trying to make a delivery when nothing has a number or a name. I have to stop twice before finding a dead end and an unmarked steel door that looks like the right one. Even though it’s December I’m sweating in my costume, releasing the scent of must and the long-ago deodorant and sweat of a nameless escort or security guard. I breathe through my mouth and hope that no one notices.

  After a few rings of the industrial buzzer, I hear the door click unlocked. I push it open and walk in to a fluorescent-lit, low-ceilinged office with gray nubbed carpet. At an old metal desk, a sixty-something receptionist with flame-colored hair, frosted lipstick, and drawn-on eyebrows looks at me in my getup
and blinks, then brings her glasses up to her eyes from a rhinestone chain around her neck.

  “Can I help you with something?” she asks.

  I want to explain it to her but where would I begin? I force a smile and try not to cry.

  “I’m here to see Joe?”

  I hold the CD player behind me with both hands, as if this will make the whole thing seem more normal.

  “In Receiving,” she says. “Straight back, make your first right.” She crosses her arms across her shelflike bosom and scowls.

  I find the department where men mill around boxes of circuits and electronic parts. It’s clearly no bachelor party. Off to the side is a card table with a coffeemaker and boxes of store-bought cookies, and draped across the front of it, a drooping banner reads, “Over the hill!” There is now a film of sweat across my forehead. One of the guys looks at me with a curious grin.

  “Joe?” I ask.

  No one hears me.

  “Excuse me, is there a Joe here?” I ask, raising my voice.

  “Uh, I’m Joe,” a short guy with gray hair and safety goggles says. “May I help you?”

  I pull off my hat and let my tucked up hair fall out.

  “Well,” I say, “I’m afraid you’re under arrest.”

  A few of the men laugh and clap, pushing a flustered Joe in my direction. I walk toward him with a forced swagger, my hands on my hips.

  “Aren’t you going to ask me what the charge is?” I ask.

  He grimaces, attempting a smile.

  “Because,” I say, “you are one very sexy birthday boy.”

  “All right!” someone yells.

  “Take it off!” yells another.

  They move in, encircling us, and they press Joe down into a plastic chair. He looks pained.

  When I press Play, the thumping pop-rhythms of Mariah Carey start in but it takes a few moments for me to start moving—as if I’m in an anxiety dream where I’ve been pushed out onstage and I can’t remember my lines—but then I look at the faces surrounding me, shiny, expectant, and unsure of themselves behind the machismo, and I don’t want to disappoint them. Perform, I think, give them what they want.

  s his back slapped and hair ruffled as if he were a groom-to-be.

  Then I turn back to Joe, whose pleasure is my object. He seems more at ease now and glad to see me. I straddle him on the chair and remove the dime-store handcuffs from the belt loop of my pants. I breathe close to his ear and snap one of the cuffs on his wrist behind the chair— he doesn’t resist—and then the other. And while he’s cuffed, I sweep my bra-clad breast against his face before I stand and resume my routine, much to the approval of the others. The tight pants have left pink indentations around my waist but no one seems to notice as I peel them down as slowly as I can, bending over to get them past my knees, trying to block out the thought of a bunch of men inches from my butt in the unforgiving light.

  When Mariah slips into a slow-jam number, I downshift into what I think is a more sultry act, slithering around the cement-floored workroom in my bra, underwear, and high heels. I take one of the men’s hands and he ventures to dance with me, ignoring his mocking coworkers, and for a moment allowing himself to be chosen. I return to Joe, grazing my backside against the back of his head, then spin around and put my foot up on his knee and grind.

  Strip-o-grams are supposed to stop here but these guys are stuck in a bland office where I imagine they will be doing the same thing for the rest of their lives. This audience, seemingly so happy and outside themselves, spurs me on. So again I straddle Joe, his wrists still cuffed behind him, kiss his forehead, wink, unhook my bra and slip out of it to the sound of an ovation. Topless, I wrap my bra around Joe’s neck and do a brief shimmy before making the rounds from man to man. With a minute to go, I pull down my underwear and step out of them, and in just my heels, raise my arms in a triumphant “ta da!” like a gymnast who just landed a dismount.

  When the fervent applause dies down, I stop the CD and scurry for my clothes. In the silence the lights seem brighter and more revealing. The men murmur and pour themselves coffee, with little idea of what to do now. I throw on the big shirt and my underwear.

  “Happy Birthday,” I say to Joe.

  “Thanks. Um. Yeah. Can you unlock me now?” he asks, his voice pleading; sweat bubbles glisten above his lip.

  “Oh, sorry,” I say, fumbling to find the key.

  “Thanks,” he says, when his wrists are freed. “That was something.”

  It is quiet except for the buzz of the lights overhead. I have my bra and pants in one hand, the CD player in the other.

  “Oh, wait,” one of the guys says, going for his wallet. The others follow suit. Even though I want to run, I don’t want to make my exit any more awkward. They hand me all sorts of bills, not even looking at the denominations, just wanting things to get back to normal as soon as possible. I wave with my full hands, and race past the disgusted receptionist to the cold safety of my car. I have $64 in my hand. When my breathing slows, I pull on sweatpants and smoke half a cigarette. It’s 3:45.

  I drive to Smith’s in the Avenues to stroll the aisles, collect myself, and spend my tip. I have the fever-cheek feeling of having hiked all day in a blizzard, the glimmer of having done something dangerous and emerging unscathed. The high lingers.

  Spotty snow flurries have begun by the time I pull into the grocery store parking lot. Still reeling, I realize there is something that I have wanted to ask McCallister and I finally have the nerve. I pull over next to the pay phone.

  “What are you doing?” I ask.

  “Jane? Uh, walking. I just left my shrink’s office. What are you doing?”

  “Standing in the snow calling you.”

  “You never call me. Are you okay?”

  “Yeah I am, actually.”

  “You sound weird to me lately.”

  “I want to ask you something.”

  “Okay.”

  “Would you have broken up with me if you hadn’t had met Maria?”

  “Jane.”

  A boy in a red Smith’s apron pushes a caterpillar of grocery carts past me and waves, glancing quickly at my spiked-heels-and-sweats outfit.

  “Hello?” I ask.

  “I’m here.” McCallister sighs and I know he is running his free hand through his hair. I hear cabs honk in a furious tag-team rhythm. “Why are you asking this? It’s been months and months. Does it really matter?” “Yes, it matters,” I say. “It matters to me.”

  “We would have broken up eventually. You know that. Or we would have split up and gotten back together for years and then where would we have been?”

  “So the answer is no?”

  “Yes. No is the answer.”

  “Okay then,” I say. “I guess I just needed to know.”

  “Okay.”

  “So did Maria paint your walls red yet?”

  “No. That’s on hold. I mean, the whole thing.”

  “The whole Maria thing?”

  “Yeah. The moving-in part. We’re going to wait. See how things go.”

  The news registers as a shallow sort of win for me.

  “I’m sorry, I guess,” I say.

  “Maybe I’ll have to come to Utah and pick up a couple of young wives. Bring them back to my harem.”

  “I’ll keep my eye out for some good candidates,” I say.

  “Jane, it’s not like I don’t miss you,” he says.

  chapter 14

  It’s a week before Christmas and Ford, Ember, Ralf, and I drive into snow-buried Little Cottonwood Canyon, past the skier-dotted slopes of Solitude, and on to Silver Lake. The one general store out this way is closed for the season, as is the ranger office. Other than a father trying to teach his young daughter how to skate on a cleared square of ice at the far edge, the lake is tranquil and deserted. It’s Ford’s last day in Salt Lake. The mood is not quite somber, but there is a sense of waiting, of purposely good behavior, of wanting to honor the occasion. We tread ligh
tly in our talk, avoiding the unspoken and unresolved. Our plan is to hike up into the woods to Summer Lake and have a picnic and relish a fragile peace. I’m guessing that with all the gear in our backpacks—sleeping bags, a tarp, a camping stove, bottles of whiskey, wine, and water, blankets, cigarettes, steaks, plates, and utensils—we’re not going to make it that far.

  Silver Lake has been frozen over for months now, and it’s under two feet of snow. A swollen, dark cloud hovers directly over the peak behind the lake but there are also patches of sun. Ember, who today seems uncharacteristically sober and clear-eyed, points silently toward a pair of moose on the far bank, their hooves buried in snow. The air is so sharp and fresh it hurts at the tail end of a big breath, but so invigorating I can’t get enough.

  “Hey, do you need some help with that?” I ask Ralf, who’s pulling up the rear, his pack clanking with all the bottles. He smiles broadly and shakes his head “no.”

  “Come on, you guys,” Ember calls, leading the way. “The quicker we get there, the quicker we eat.”

  There’s something disorienting about how present Ember is with no drugs; out here in the midst of bare trees and ice and mountains, I feel as if I don’t know her at all.

  “What’s wrong?” Ford asks me.

  “Nothing,” I say. “It’s just cold.”

  We cross around the southern side of the lake and the incisive high-altitude sun zeroes in and burns my nose and cheeks. About fifty yards back from the lake, a small signpost poking out of the snow marks the beginning of the mile-long trail up into the woods. The sight of it adds twenty pounds to my pack.

  “Am I the only one who’s tired?” I ask, with rasping breaths. Snow clings to my jeans from my knees on down. My toes are already numb.

  “Come on, Jane, you’re not ninety,” Ember says, motioning me to come along with her scooped hand. “I’m sure Ralf would carry you if you asked.” She flashes me a toothy grin, and I give her the finger, which she can’t see through my mitten.

  “What’s that?” Ralf asks, clanking up the rear.

  “Nothing,” I say.