Back in Service

by Heidi Lowe

  The way he lied, the amount of pathological conviction in his tale, if I hadn't been the victim of his attack I would have believed him myself.

  “Tell the truth?” I said through gritted teeth.

  When I went to lunge at him, Jo stepped in the way.

  “Why would you say something like this, Erica?” The look she gave me was equal parts anger, equal parts disappointment.

  “Because it's true.” There was a sinking feeling in my stomach, hearing those words from her. “He didn't rape me, but...he said he wanted me to know how it felt to have a man on top of me.” I would recall that sentence forever, and how I felt at that moment — helpless, overpowered.

  “You're crazy!” he shouted, now the one pointing the finger. “This is defamation of character. I would never do that to a woman.”

  “Jo, listen to me.” I grabbed her by the arms. “He's dangerous.”

  She wrenched herself out of my grip. “Just stop, all right. This isn't funny, it's sick. I know you don't like him, and I know you want us to break up, but you've gone too far.”

  I gawked at her, mouth and eyes agape, horror-stricken.

  “Saying that he attacked you...” She shook her head. “I mean, come on, Erica. Why would he do that?”

  I bit my lower lip to stop myself from crying. “I'm your best friend; your oldest friend. And you believe him over me?” I wanted to throw up.

  “I think that whatever's happening with you and that woman you like, it's making you bitter...”

  “Fuck you!” I spat. I'd never sworn at her before, but then I'd never had reason to until tonight. I took one, final, murderous look at the two of them before fleeing, tears trickling down my cheeks. “You deserve each other,” I screamed as I slammed out of the house.

  THIRTEEN

  Unsurprisingly, Jo didn’t call or text, not to say she was wrong, or silly, or a lousy best friend. Not two days later, or three, or four. By day five, without a word from her, I knew our friendship was over. This wasn’t like previous breakups; she’d never treated me like this before. And over a dude! A violent bum she’d known all of five minutes.

  I deleted her number from my phone, though it made no difference, seeing as I had it memorized. More than once the thought crossed my mind to text her and give her a piece of it in the hopes that she would see sense. But I always stopped myself before I sent the message. Even if she did come to her senses, there still remained the fact that she hadn’t believed me in the first place. My word meant nothing to her, apparently.

  I threw myself into my work, the little of it I had. Interstellar called again, followed by Teetotal. Now that there was no motel bill, my money was stacking up nicely. I was about three grand short of my goal, with four weeks to go before I headed back to London.

  “Mi amor, ¿no me recuerdes?” the hot Latina onscreen said to the man in the hospital bed. Apparently he was her husband, and after being run over by his evil twin brother, he’d lost his memory and didn’t know who she was. What the telenovela lacked in credible story lines and good acting, it made up for with its attractive cast. I was sure Hector, who sat glued to the screen in his wheelchair, only watched for the sexy brunettes with the sun-kissed skin and heaving bosoms.

  He clapped his hands together, more excited than I’d ever seen him, and as usual began telling me, in Spanish, what he thought of the scene.

  “You’re my only friend right now, Hector,” I said to him. “My only amigo.” I knew that word at least.

  This brought a goofy, toothless smile to his face. “Sí, somos amigos.”

  This was what my life had become — befriending a two-hundred year old man who didn’t speak English! I’d agreed to watch him for his daughter, waiving my fee, to her surprise. I didn’t need her money, but I did need the company. And Hector was a breath of fresh air in his own way. He smiled and laughed a lot. There was no doubt in my mind that had my Spanish or his English been better, we would have had a lot in common. We both appreciated the women onscreen, for starters.

  “Are you sure you don’t want any money?” his daughter said when she returned later that evening. Although she never admitted it, I suspected she’d been on a date. The new dress, the makeup and the cloying perfume were a dead giveaway.

  “It’s fine. Me and Hector, erm, somos amigos, right?” I looked at Hector for confirmation, and he beamed back at me, gave me a thumbs up.

  She laughed. “What will I do when you go back to England?”

  I said goodbye and headed back home. I noticed my dad’s car parked on the lot.

  “Dad,” I called as I let myself in. “You’ll be pleased to know my Spanish is improving. I can say...”

  I stopped when I saw my parents sitting at the table, a tense silence in the air. My mom was looking down at her hands as they clutched onto a cup; my dad was looking at me with an expression I’d never seen on him before. His laptop was open in front of him.

  He picked up his phone, dialed a number from the screen, pressed it to his ear...

  In my purse, my phone started ringing. My work phone!

  “Aren’t you going to get that?” he asked.

  The tears were already falling by the time I took the phone from my purse, by the time I looked at the screen and saw his number. When I opened my mouth to ask how, he spun the laptop around so I could see. And there I was, on my website, the one I thought had been taken down. Although my face wasn’t showing in any of the pictures, anyone who knew me well could easily identify me.

  “Dad, I—”

  “He sent this to my work email!” He slammed a fist on the table, made both me and my mom jump.

  “Who?” I was bawling my eyes out by now, the shame unbearable. I wanted the Earth to open up and swallow me, leave nothing of me.

  “Moses.”

  Dead scumbag walking, I thought to myself. I would kill him with my bare hands. Hadn’t he already caused enough trouble?

  “Dad, listen—”

  “So this is where you sneak off to in the evening? To sell yourself to...to rich women?” It wasn’t so much disgust as melancholy in his tone, in his eyes. “How could you do something like this, Erica? Have you no dignity?”

  Suddenly I was furious. Maybe it was the embarrassment that prompted it, but it took over my whole body. “I have my dignity. It was money I didn’t have. You know why that is? Because you lost it all.”

  He flinched, said nothing.

  But I wasn’t done. “How did you think I would make the kind of money I needed working in a coffee shop, or babysitting? Did you ask yourself that? Did you even care?”

  He winced, like my words were causing him physical harm.

  “I did it because I had to... and because I like it. I know that’s hard for you to hear—”

  My words were cut off not by his seething comeback or insults but by his sudden outburst of sobs. My father was crying. I’d never seen him cry like that.

  My mom got up to comfort him, to hug him. I ran to my room and started packing up everything I owned, the tears blurring my vision. There was no way I could stay under that roof now.

  “I really need to see you,” I said to Dana’s voicemail an hour later, as I sat in my car. This was the second message I’d left her and she hadn’t replied. Although the tears had stopped, my heart was still thudding, my head still heavy from the crying.

  I could see the door of the apartment from the parking lot, and in that moment thought I would never see it again. Never have the courage to come back here, or face my parents again. Because everything had changed, and there was no going back to the way things were. When he looked at me would there ever be a time that he wouldn’t see me as the girl on the website, striking seductive poses in scanty clothing, offering my body to any woman who could pay my prices?

  I waited in that car for her to return my call, or text, do something to make me feel less alone. Waited for over an hour, before I drove off and headed downtown, in the direction of the motel.

 
I needed to drown my sorrows. The first thing I'll do when I get to the motel is down a bottle of vodka while foreign language television plays in the background. Sounded like a good plan.

  But why wait until then? I mused. I spotted the bar where Dana and I first met, found a parking space, then went inside.

  “Two vodka and lemonades,” I said to the barman.

  He wanted to make smalltalk as he prepared them. “You meeting someone?”

  I rolled my eyes impatiently, not in the mood for the conversation. “No. They’re for me. Got a problem with that?”

  “No, I...I just thought—”

  “Is that what they pay you for, to think?”

  His face turned bright red. “Sorry I asked.”

  Because I was aware how much of a dick I sounded, and knew exactly how it felt to have an asshole for a customer, I sighed and said, “No, I’m sorry. It’s been a rough day.”

  He smiled. “I know about those. Take it easy, all right?” He handed me my drinks, I paid him, told him to keep the change, then found a seat at an unoccupied table.

  Thanks to my small frame, it never took long for me to go from zero to tipsy, before proceeding quickly to drunk. Those initial two drinks went down like water, and by the time I ordered another, I was already floating sky high.

  In my corner of the bar — isolated from the merriment of the patrons who hadn’t disappointed their fathers or made them cry, who didn’t have best friends who’d betrayed them, or lovers who wouldn’t return their calls — I tried Dana several more times. Each time the call went to voicemail. Each time I became more miserable. Was she ignoring me?

  I opened up the secret compartment in my photos, perused the ones with her in them. Zoomed in on her smile, her eyes. I’d made her smile like that, no one else. She wouldn’t have been screening my calls, surely.

  I’d thus far managed to ignore the laughter around me, but the more dejected I became, the more everyone’s happiness added to the misery. It was an endless cycle.

  I looked up, hate-filled eyes gazing around the room, and landed on a group of high-flying businessmen in expensive suits. Champagne was brought to their table on trays. The attractive waitress serving them received their lecherous looks and compliments with warm smiles and flirtatious giggles. I did a double take on one of the men, a white-haired guy whose pompous laugh carried right across the room. It took me a moment to realize who he was, and when I did, my heart nearly skipped a beat. It was Dana’s husband.

  I couldn’t have stopped myself if I’d tried. Only a small part of me thought getting up and staggering over to their table was a bad idea. The rest of me — the bitter, lonely, crestfallen majority — had no such reservations.

  I tapped him on his shoulder and he spun around.

  “Mind if I sit?” I said.

  Before he could respond, his associates pulled up a chair for me between them, eyes drinking me in. Grant Evans, the man who was married to the woman I loved, gave me a long, hard stare, trying to figure out why I looked so familiar, no doubt.

  “What’s your name, honey?” one man said.

  I was paying very little attention to the other men. Grant was the guy I’d come to speak to.

  “You don’t remember me, do you?”

  “Should I?”

  I laughed. “You almost saw me naked. Am I that forgettable?” I feigned being offended. Then I watched his face change as the penny fell. “That’s right, I’m the girl who’s fucking your wife.”

  The whole atmosphere around that table changed. Suddenly no one was laughing and joking anymore. Grant just stared at me, his face even, unwavering.

  I took out my phone, held it up in his face, showed the selfie of me and Dana in bed, both of us sporting post-sex bedhead. “You see how happy she is there. That was all my doing. She was thousands of miles away from you, in bed with me, and I was making her happy.”

  Coolly and calmly, as though he hadn’t heard a word I’d said, he picked up his champagne glass, swallowed down all of its contents. He straightened his tie, then said, “What do you think all of this will get you, just out of curiosity?”

  Taken aback by the question, by how blase he was, I stuttered and stammered, and didn’t have anything to say.

  He laughed. “You’re not the first, little girl, and you won’t be the last. Now I suggest you go home before you make an even bigger fool of yourself.”

  And as if I wasn’t still sitting there, he resumed his business talk with his associates, like nothing had happened. Feeling insignificant and pathetic, I got to my feet and walked aimlessly out of the bar and onto the street. Nothing like a dose of reality to sober me up a little.

  Then I burst into tears. I couldn’t drive home now. And where was home anyway? Where had I even parked?

  I called the only person I could think of, and could barely get the words out when I spoke to her.

  “I don’t want to be alone tonight. Please can you come and get me?”

  I woke the next morning in a bathrobe, in a lush bed at the Fairview Hotel. When I sat up, Algebra came over from the living area, handed me a glass of water.

  “How did I get here?”

  She smiled. “You called, I came. You were in a really bad way. Threw up all over your clothes.”

  The night’s horrible events came flooding back to memory, and I face-palmed. “I messed everything up.”

  “So you said. Your parents know? Baby, it’s not the end of the world.” She squeezed my shoulder. “They’re your parents, they’ll come around.”

  That wasn’t the only thing I’d screwed up. Had I neglected to tell her the part about Dana’s husband?

  “This is so not like me. I’m sorry I bothered you.”

  “Hey, don’t be. We all have bad days.” She got up, and I noticed she was fully clothed.

  “You're leaving?”

  “I have a lecture in Des Moines. I’ll be back this evening. Do you think you can entertain yourself until I return?”

  I offered her a tired smile. “I’m sure I’ll manage. I should probably go get my things from my car at some point. I don’t want to turn up and find a bunch of homeless guys wearing my underwear!”

  She laughed. “Order whatever you want. Go nuts. See you when I get back.” She blew me a kiss, which I caught, then she left.

  I ordered a big, oily breakfast with all the trimmings, and stuffed my face until the plate was clean and I was at bursting point.

  As I washed everything down with freshly squeezed orange juice, I heard the ring tone of my work phone coming from the living room. No use answering it, I thought. I wasn’t in the mood to work. Today was my day off.

  But as soon as it stopped, my regular phone started ringing. There were only a couple of people who had both numbers...

  Dana’s name flashed on the caller ID when I retrieved the phone. I gulped, thought about not answering it, but steadied my nerves and did so anyway.

  “Where are you?” she demanded. No hello, no how are you doing.

  “I–I’m at the Fairview. I’m in Al–Janette’s suite.”

  She rang off immediately, and that terrified me. That fury in her voice, I’d never thought her capable of it.

  I paced the room, talking myself through what I would say, how I would dig myself out of the hole. How much grovelling I would do. The minutes ticked by, my heartbeat galloped and raced. My head thumped from the hangover, and the impending confrontation.

  Twenty minutes or so later, a hammering on the suite door made me jump.

  She barged in when I opened it.

  “Dana, before you say anything—”

  “Be quiet!” She stuck up a hand to silence me. I slammed my mouth shut, stared into wrathful green eyes. “You went to a bar and told my husband’s prospective business partners that you were sleeping with me?”

  I nodded slowly, swallowed.

  “Why would you do that?”

  “I was drunk. I didn’t know what I was saying.”

>   “You knew exactly what you were saying!” she said through gritted teeth. “You wanted to humiliate him... me!”

  “That’s not true,” I pleaded.

  “How dare you! Who the hell do you think you are? I told you to leave my marriage alone.”

  “I’m sorry.” Tears coursed down my cheeks. She was so angry. I expected some anger but nothing like this. And because I had no more cards to play, because I sensed I was losing her, I said, “I’m in love with you.” It wasn’t the way I’d planned to tell her, but I didn’t know if I would ever get another chance to say it.

  She took a breath. “I know.”

  I blinked at her through the tears, stunned by this revelation. She knew?

  “Here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to delete every photo you have of me. Then you’re going to delete my number.”

  I gasped. “What? No!”

  “I won’t tell the others what happened last night, that way you can keep making money without them worrying you’ll do the same to them.”

  “Dana, please—”

  “This is my fault. I never should have taken you off the clock.” She started out the door, took one look back at me, and a flicker of sympathy passed over her face. When she spoke again, her voice was more gentle. “Whatever I feel for you... he’s my husband, Erica. You crossed a line.”

  And with that, she walked out of my life.

  Hours later, once all the tears had fallen, I didn’t cry any more for her. I promised myself I wouldn’t. She didn’t deserve them. She didn’t deserve me. Where was she when my life was falling apart? She’d conveniently remembered to call me when she wanted to break it off, but had ignored all my calls the night before when the shit was hitting multiple fans.

  And she knew! Knew I was in love with her. Yet she hadn't said anything. How long had she known? Since London? Before that? She'd watched me suffer with my feelings for her, and she didn't care one bit.

  Algebra had come to my rescue once again, just as she had before. She’d saved my dad from jail, gotten me more clients, and had come to find me when I called her. I owed her everything.