Night Fever

by Jessica Hawkins

  Lola returned to the front of the house. Johnny poured three shots in his bartender’s rhythm, one at a time and without stopping. Lola stayed off to the side. He said something to the three girls in front of him as he patted his beer gut and laughed. That beer gut had been a valley nine years ago when she’d started dating a tall, skinny, twenty-four-year-old Johnny with darkish hair past his ears—hair that was now down to his shoulder blades and always in a ponytail. The valley was now a small hill. That beer gut had history. She liked it and what it stood for.

  Johnny wouldn’t survive a new owner. He’d been doing things his way for too long. And she sure as hell wouldn’t stick around without him. Nobody liked change, especially not Johnny, and it was on the horizon, speeding their way.

  * * * * *

  The ride home that night was quiet. Lola went over the numbers in her head again and again. If Walken bought Hey Joe, she figured they could be out of their jobs within weeks. She listed alternatives. They’d both have to hustle, because even though Lola had been thinking lately she might like to try something new, they couldn’t survive on Johnny’s wages alone. She’d have to work while she figured her shit out. Fall classes had already started, so school was out of the question for a few months at least.

  She looked over at Johnny as he pulled into their apartment complex. He’d been preoccupied, but not about losing their jobs. It was as if he expected everything to just figure itself out—the way he expected getting married, having kids and owning a business would happen on their own. He was thirty-three. They’d been driving through a tunnel for the last eight years, and they were about to come out of the darkness. She couldn’t see what was on the other side, but at least she was trying.

  “Johnny?” she asked when they’d parked and he reached for the handle.

  He looked back. “Yeah?”

  “You’re my best friend.”

  “It’s late, babe.”

  She smiled, a little resigned. “I know. But you are. When we’re young, we think we’re invincible. Then we get older, and it’s like we realize not everything works out all the time. If you want certain things, you have to put in the effort for them. Or even make sacrifices.”

  Johnny put his hand over hers on the seat. “What’s bringing this on?”

  She squinted out the windshield. “Money was a big deal to my mom. She would say ‘The toaster’s broken. We got no money, so we have to live with broken toasters and ripped screen doors that won’t even keep out a fly, forget about a robber.’ I had no idea who’d want to rob us. We had nothing. She said that was naïve and stupid, because desperate people were everywhere.

  “She told me money was the reason my dad left. There wasn’t enough. So I believed money and happiness were inextricably linked until I met you and decided love was more important. I was in a dark place, but you came in and saved me. Since then, I’ve tried hard to convince myself money isn’t important at all.”

  Johnny sniffed. “Now you realize it is.”

  “Mitch said something to me today. He said, ‘I can’t feed myself off my principles anymore.’ It’s kind of the same with love. Those things are so much, Johnny, but they aren’t everything like I wish they were. Money can give us stability and freedom. It can give us choices.”

  Johnny released her hand and ran his palms down his pants to his knees. “Life is easier with working appliances,” he said flatly.

  “If someone buys the bar, we’ll probably lose our jobs.”

  “I know.”

  “Do you know? You’re more concerned about Hey Joe being glamorized than you are about how we’ll survive.”

  “I don’t see the point in worrying about it until we know more,” he said. “Something could still happen.”

  “Something like what?” Lola asked. If Johnny said it out loud, she wouldn’t have to. Not knowing if he wanted her to accept the offer was almost worse than if he’d just come out and tell her to do it. She was stuck, and she had no idea which door would lead to their happiness.

  “I don’t know,” he admitted. “But there’s still time.”

  “There isn’t any more time,” Lola said. “Are we stupid not to take the only exit we’ll ever get? Buying the bar isn’t just keeping our jobs. It’s following your dream. It’s building a life and having a steady income and saving a legacy. All in one night.”

  “So what’re you saying?” Johnny asked. He wouldn’t look at her. “You want my permission to sleep with another man?”

  Lola turned in her seat to face him. “I don’t look at it that way,” she said. In fact, she had been very good about not looking at it that way. When she thought of Beau, she didn’t let her mind stray too far to the man she’d thought he was before he’d tried to buy her. That was the man she’d thought about during sex with Johnny. Just as she’d had his attention, he’d had hers. But that wasn’t the man he’d turned out to be. “All I see is what that money could do for our future. I could do this, for us, and it would never mean a thing because you are what’s important to me.”

  He was quiet for a few tense seconds. Suddenly, he slammed his fist against the steering wheel.

  She bit her lip. “It’s not that I want to—”

  “I know,” he said. “It’s not you I’m mad at. It’s the situation. It’s me.”

  “You?” He didn’t continue. Lola looked at her hands in her lap. She assumed he was mad at himself for even considering the offer, but she was afraid to ask. “Just please tell me what you’ve been thinking this last week. You’ve been so hot and cold. I can’t figure out what you want, so you have to tell me, and you have to be honest.”

  Johnny ran a hand over his face and blew out a breath. “You want honesty?”

  “Yes.”

  “I keep thinking about that life,” he said. “I want something of my own. We can’t live paycheck to paycheck forever, but I don’t know how to get out of it. I can’t ever seem to catch up.”

  Lola took his hand again and squeezed it. “I’m relieved that you’re also worried. Sometimes I feel like I have to be the one to fix it.”

  “I want to fix it, Lola, but I don’t know how.”

  Suddenly she wanted to go back to ignoring the problem. She almost wished she hadn’t dragged them into this conversation. “Maybe we don’t have to,” she said. “You’ll keep on managing Hey Joe. It won’t be the same, but you’ll learn to love it. I’ll graduate from bar wench to cocktail waitress. Or maybe we get new jobs in a different dive bar. Things would be tight while we transitioned, but they’d settle and we’d get back to where we are now.” Lola’s voice softened with defeat as she spoke, but she hoped Johnny wouldn’t pick up on it.

  “Because where we are now is the best option,” he said. “You don’t think I’ll ever be able to give you more than this. Not without someone else’s money.”

  “That isn’t what I said.”

  “You might as well say it. I’ll never be more than what I am in this moment.”

  “I’m trying to be realistic,” she said. “If we want more, then I have to do this. If I don’t, then this is how things will be. It was enough before Beau came along, but is it enough now? I don’t know, Johnny. I don’t know the answer to any of this.”

  He threw open the car door, jumped out and looked back at her. “You want to do this because you think it’s our only chance.”

  Lola also got out of the car. Their doors slammed at the same time. “Don’t turn this around on me because I have the guts to say what we’re both thinking,” she said, hurrying to keep up with him. “This could be our only chance. It’s not like I want this.”

  He kept walking.

  “I know you want me to do it,” she said, raising her voice. “Why don’t you man up and tell me the truth?”

  He turned around and pointed a finger at her. “You want truth so goddamn bad? The money’s all I think about. And the things I could finally do. I’m six-foot-two, two hundred pounds, but I’m half a man because I can’t take
care of you.”

  Lola reached for him. “But you do take care of me.”

  “No, I don’t,” he said, stepping back. “Five nights a week we get off work while the rest of the world sleeps. We work our asses off, and we’re still struggling to get by. If I lose this job, I’ll have to start all over somewhere else. I have no other skills. You think you have nothing now? It’s about to get a lot worse.”

  “When did I say I had nothing? Would I like a washer and dryer of my own so I don’t have to schlep down the street? Would I like to quit this job one day and try something else? Yes. But that doesn’t mean I have nothing. If I do this, it’s for the things that can’t be bought—like our future.”

  “If this, if that. I’m tired of this shit. Just make a decision.”

  “I can’t, Johnny,” she said, shaking her head. “You have to do it.”

  “This has to be your choice. I’m not going to send you into another man’s bed no matter what I want.”

  She put her hand to the base of her throat. “Want?” she choked. “Are you saying you want me to do this?”

  “No,” he said. In the dark, their eyes were narrowed on each other. The silence was thick. “I’m saying I won’t stop you.”

  Chapter Six

  He slept in bed next to Lola, but Johnny, who was usually unconscious as soon as the lights went out, breathed unevenly. He was awake. He flipped back and forth every few minutes. His mind was elsewhere. They each stayed on their sides of the bed.

  It went on for days. When they were alone, he barely looked at her, but she often caught him staring during work. Waiting. For her to bring it up again? For her to make the decision? Did he hope she’d say yes? Or no? His silence meant she had to choose for both of them.

  The more silence drew out between them, the more time Lola had alone. Beau was a strong presence in her thoughts. She couldn’t forget him in his urbane suit, giving all his attention to whatever he was doing at that moment, whether it was throwing darts¸ savoring his Macallan—or looking at her. Being near her. Flirting with her. Everything he did, he did a hundred percent.

  During a night off, while Johnny worked, Lola finally gave in to her curiosity and looked Beau up online. He hadn’t always been wealthy. He’d even grown up twenty minutes from Lola. It was well known that he was a self-made millionaire and that he co-founded Bolt Ventures but had his hand in many different projects. At thirty-seven, he’d never been married, and except for stints here and there, he’d always lived in Los Angeles.

  Lola looked for details about him before he’d sold his seventh try at a website, but they were hard to come by. His father had died in a car accident in France. He’d worked part-time jobs and developed his own projects in his spare time, mostly at night.

  When she was about to give up, she found one of his first interviews from years earlier. The interviewer had asked what his least favorite job had been before he’d struck it rich. She had to read his answer twice—it was a six-month bartending gig at a hole-in-the-wall place in the Valley. He’d quit because with a thirty-minute commute each way, gas ate into his tips and he wouldn’t get home until an unreasonable hour.

  Beau had been like them. He hadn’t done it for years like she and Johnny, but he’d been in their shoes. He knew struggle. And he’d done what he had to do to get out of it. The question was how far Lola would go to get out of it—and what Beau expected of her if she agreed.

  * * * * *

  The next night, Lola was just about to open the bar when the phone rang.

  “Lola, right?” asked a familiar voice.

  “Who’s this?”

  “Hank Walken. We met last week when I came in to see the space.”

  “I remember,” she said flatly.

  “How are you?”

  She hadn’t expected that question. “Busy,” she said. “There something I can help you with?”

  “Sure. Got it. Is Mitch around?”

  Lola bit her bottom lip and looked toward the backroom. “Not right now,” she lied.

  “How can I get in touch with him? It’s important.”

  “Try around this time tomorrow. I can get him a message if you want.”

  “Just tell him to call me, and that time is money. I want this deal worked out in the next forty-eight hours if we can manage it.”

  “Deal?” Lola asked, her throat closing. She and Johnny had run out of time. It was now or never.

  “I told you about the lounge, didn’t I?” he asked cheerily. “We’ll be looking for pretty, young cocktail waitresses with experience. That’s a not-so-subtle hint.”

  She struggled to register his words. All she could think was that their moment was about to pass them by. “What about management?” she asked, even though she could barely picture herself in a lounge, much less Johnny.

  “I like to bring in my own people for the higher-level stuff. Why, you tired of serving?”

  “I’m the assistant manager, but I was asking for my boyfriend. The guy you met.”

  “Ah.” He cleared his throat. “We stick with women on the floor or if we hire males, they’re generally models, actors, that kind of thing.“ He guffawed. “If they can make a drink, even better. But maybe we can find your boyfriend something in the kitchen.”

  “I’ll give Mitch the message,” Lola said and hung up.

  “Who was that?” Vero asked as Lola walked by her.

  “No one.” Lola went directly to Mitch’s office and closed the door behind her.

  He looked up from his paperwork. The radio played The Rolling Stones. “What’s up?”

  “We’re going to make an offer,” she said.

  He heaved a big sigh. “Lola, I—”

  “I just need a little more time.”

  “Hank won’t like that.”

  She went and set her palms on his desk. Johnny could work anywhere, but he would never be as happy as he was there. She’d been lost once, and Johnny had shown her the way back. Now she’d repay him by giving him what nobody else could. “Johnny’s busted his ass for you for over twelve fucking years. He doesn’t ask for much. For God’s sake, I’ve had to ask for all his raises. You will wait a few more days because you owe him at least that.”

  Mitch laced his fingers on the desk and looked down. “I just want you to be sure about taking this on. The whole thing could tank if you’re not careful.”

  He had no idea how true that was. “We’re sure,” Lola said. “We’re ready.”

  “All right,” he said, eyeing her up and down. “That’s what you want, I’ll hold Hank off a few more days.”

  Lola left Mitch and went into the break room. She leaned against the counter and inhaled a shaky breath. She hoped making the decision would be the hardest part of all. Her stomach was a mix of nerves and anticipation when she thought about the phone call she had to make. She decided Johnny would do it—she already had enough responsibility.

  She went back out to the bar. Johnny was mid-pour. Customers at the bar were absorbed in their own conversations.

  “I’ve made my decision,” Lola said. “I’ll do it.”

  Johnny didn’t look up. He set down the bottle of gin. Now he was the one with a choice to make. If Johnny asked her not to do it right then, she wouldn’t. She’d leave Beau in his skyscraper where he belonged. Their worlds had been the same once, and now they’d be the same again. Only, Lola would be the one crossing sides this time. Beau was waiting for her there. One night on his side thrilled her as much as it terrified her, and that was why Johnny needed to tell her not to do it.

  Johnny picked up the gin again and continued pouring. “Five hundred isn’t enough,” he said. His voice was steady but toneless. “We’ll ask for more.”

  * * * * *

  Beau scrubbed his hand up his jawline and back, looking between Lola and Johnny. Lola couldn’t tell in their bare surroundings if Beau was actually solemn, or if he was just reflecting what he saw across the conference table. Even the sky itself had given
up the day to gray webs of clouds.

  At least he hadn’t made them wait. Beau’d walked into the room a couple minutes after the receptionist had shown them in. Lola had watched him round the table, wondering if he’d removed his tie to seem less intimidating or if he’d come into work that day without one. It’d caught her off guard. Suits had never been her thing, but the casual nature of his open collar and exposed neck did something to her, as if she were seeing some forbidden part of him.

  Beau was exact with his attention as always. At that moment, he addressed Johnny. “Are you sure you want to be here for this?”

  Although reclined in his seat, tension emanated from Johnny. Lola had refused to sit down without him, but first she’d made Johnny promise not to let things get to the level they had last time they’d all been in the same room. “Just get started,” Johnny said.

  Beau tapped the end of his pen once on the slim folder in front of him. “All right. Half the money will be deposited into your account by five o’clock the night of the arrangement. The other half will come once Lola has held up her end of the bargain.”

  Beau’s formality made Lola’s stomach uneasy, but she was grateful for it. She didn’t think she could handle anything less tactful. “Exactly what does my end entail?”

  “From sunset that night to sunrise the following morning, I own you.”

  Lola schooled her expression. Inside, her heart was going a mile a minute. If anyone could own a woman, it would be the man sitting in front of her. “You own me,” she repeated. “Meaning what?”

  Beau put his elbows on the table and played with his pen, twisting the cap. “You’re mine to do with what I please, excluding physical harm,” he said. “I want to be very clear—I have no intentions of making you physically uncomfortable or of hurting you in any way. This is meant to be a pleasant experience for us both.”