Do I tell her she’s had enough? Cori waltzes the catwalk back to the kitchen and sits on the barstool next to me. “You didn’t drink your last shot.” She holds the vodka bottle poised above the rim of my glass.
“I didn’t like it.”
She bursts with a congested sound in the back of her throat: stifled but insincere laughter. “Fine, I’ll make you a Manhattan.” She reopens the cupboard of glass and crystal.
While she mixes another drink for me, she finishes my vodka. I peruse the kitchen, opening cupboards. Apparently, all she does here is drink. No water glasses, no plates, no Cheez-Its.
“Cori, do you really live here?”
Her smile is bitter. “The high life.”
Fine. I don’t care what she does here. I walk to the front window and push aside the floor-length, brocade curtain. Beyond the pool, beyond Cori’s Miata, I see the rounded back end of Hayden’s truck. I drop the curtain back in place.
He’s not following me.
It might not even be his truck. Hayden’s wasn’t shiny and purple when he came to my house. And really, I couldn’t tell what shape or color the truck was when my dress got stolen. He could have painted it any color by now. From beyond the range of the street lamp, Hayden emerges. He wears black fatigues, boots and a black T-shirt. He moves like a cop. His eyes scan, his back is straight, alert.
“What?”
I turn to Cori, but take time to push the curtain back in place. “I didn’t say anything.”
“You gasped pretty loud.” She flips on the inside light and pushes the curtain to the side. There she stands, illuminated to the parking lot. “What were you looking at?”
“No!” I duck from view of the window and fumble for the right switch. It isn’t like the light switches at my house, it’s a slide and there’re three in a row. I turn them all on before I can get the room dark again.
Her laughter isn’t so beautiful right now. She heads back to the light switch, intending to play.
“Don’t. There’s a guy.”
“Oooh,” she says.
Where do I start? “I used to work at the Wild Lily.”
She stops moving. I can see her from the ambient kitchen light, but I can’t quite work out her expression.
“The guy out there is a cop.”
Cori runs to the kitchen and turns off the light. She flies through the house checking every curtain, the French doors. We move together to the front window and, using the drape to hide us, peer out. Hayden is gone.
“Do you see that purple truck?”
“The fifties-style?”
“Yeah.” I answer. “1947, actually. First post-war vehicle.”
She bursts with a comical guffaw. “The stalker?”
“Huh?”
“From the TorchLight, last night?” Cori walks back into the kitchen and turns the light on again. “Come drink your Manhattan.”
I don’t move right away.
“Hellooo? Come in here.”
I walk back to the bar and take the offered drink.
“He was at the pawn shop, too.” I try.
“Maybe we should invite him up.”
I hold the wide rimmed, triangle glass up and slowly but continuously drink to hide my face. I don’t have to answer. Hayden and this life don’t need to meet.
“Since no one else came,” she continues, dejected. I never thought someone as fascinating or beautiful as her would be without a party following. I don’t look up. Poor Cori.
She walks over to the drawer where the letter waits. She opens it, looks inside, then closes it.
“Why do you dance?” She still faces the closed drawer.
I don’t answer immediately. How much should I share? “I need the money.”
“Of course.”
“You?”
“I love it.” She begins to mix two more Manhattans.
“Is it a sin?” I keep expecting Hayden to knock on the door. “Does it steal souls from children?”
“What?” She looks like a skeptical clown the way her right eyebrow shoots up and her lips flare out.
“If there is a such thing as a sin.” She shakes her head. “No. It’s kosher if it’s consensual.”
“Yeah.” I’m starting to feel really good: loose, tingly.
“You asked about my place, Sparrow.” She enounces my name like she is trying to give it as many syllables as possible.
“I entertain.” She pauses. Reconsidering?
“Friends?”
“Clients.”
She looks impatient, like I’m the little sister she always has to wait for. “Cosmetology clients?”
“Discrete, gentleman clients.” She sets down her drink. “That’s why it isn’t me here.” She walks toward the bookshelf and twirls slowly, still holding her drink, “It’s Bella.”
“Oh.” I can’t bring myself to call her a prostitute.
“I have something they want, they have something I want.” She takes a drink. “Consensual, baby.” I can’t tell if she called me Baby or just said baby. “But my parents would call it a sin.”
The letter. “In Utah?” I hope my voice sounds casual.
“Yep.” She walks back to the kitchen. I accept another drink because I want to maintain this feeling. I have never had this much. Thom. No, don’t think about him. I’m in control.
“Just call me Jack.” She smirks. “The Jack family.”
“I thought your last name was Reese.”
“No, we were definitely the Jack family. Non-practicing Mormons.”
I remember Lorna arguing with either a Mormon or a Jehovah’s Witness once. I’m not sure of the difference between the two.
“It would be better to be raised without religion than a false one.” She holds up her glass in toast.
“Is there a real one?” Does she know? If she says yes, I’ll believe her.
“Of course not.” She picks up her cell phone. “Let’s call a cab. We’re going to scope out the other clubs and get you an act.”
“Go watch other strippers?” Women never really came into the Wild Lilly.
“Yes, dummy. See the competition.”
“First, tell me who the letter’s from,” I say.
She ignores me. I stand and cross my arms. I’m not budging.
Cori rolls her lacquered eyes and picks up her cell phone. “He was my fiancé.”
After Cori delivered her fiancé comment, her ocean eyes looked wide and watery. I haven’t had courage to ask again during the past forty-eight hour blur of sleeping, drinking and going to clubs. It’s hilarious how much easier it is for me to dance at a club than get into one. Cori promised next time she would get me a fake ID.
Cori flirts with Rob, the bouncer who let me sneak into the Kittie Kat Lounge. To me, all bouncers look the same. A neck I can’t fit my fingers around and short, thick arms that barely cross over a swollen chest. Their eyes…well, I mostly avoid looking at their faces.
The majority of the girls here look underfed and overdosed. Some clubs just have a better feel than others. This one’s crowded though, mostly because of a bachelor party. The groom-to-be has an upside down mustache. A little Hitler patch underneath his bottom lip. His friends will carry him out of here if he keeps up his current pace. Ah, the bride would be so proud…
The dancer is upside down, attached to the pole by one leg. Pole dancing is no small feat. It should be an Olympic sport, all the girls say so. That just makes me giggle, but I stifle it in front of Cori.
“Have you seen your stalker today?” Cori plops down beside me.
“No, but I keep looking in the shadows for him.” I think I see Hayden or his truck every now and then, but I’m never sure.
“Don’t say that.” Cori’s lips form a wrinkly “O” and her eyebrows hide half her forehead.
“What? That I keep expecting him?”
She leans forward in that sly way she does to the men, but her face is pinched panic. “No. That you look in the shadows.” I bar
ely hear her voice. She shakes her head as she leans away. “Don’t look.” I read her lips.
I match her tone and volume. “Why?”
“Don’t look…” She pauses and closes her eyes. “…at the shadow people.”
My first thought is that she teases. I judge her seriousness, and my thoughts turn to her sanity.
“Rob-by.” She leans over to Rob, and her laughter adds shrill notes to the already discordant tones keeping the dancers’ beat.
An air clamp presses against my chest. Someone is here, or something. Here. Is it the curse? The spirit near me?
My eyes scour the corners. Can Cori see my curse? The cluster of chairs and people make me feel trapped. I need out.
I fumble through the crowd. A few questions are called to me from the bachelors. I don’t understand the words, only their gist.
It occurs to me after I exit the building, that—while I’m finally alone—I am locked outside. Just as the door-click signals it’s too late, I realize I can neither reenter the locked emergency exit, nor get past the front entrance without Cori’s lapdog, Robby.
The brick exterior is cold against my back. A stream of florescent light swirl with entranced insects. I’m in the circle of this light. But I’m not absorbed, not even warmed. I am, however, surrounded by shadows.
And in the shadow stands a figure: a man.
The metal door creaks. “What are you doing out here?” Cori pulls me in. Her wrinkled bottom lip clenched between her teeth makes her look concerned. Everyone needs a sister.
When we return to the lounge, I begin to doubt I really saw anyone outside. I don’t think haunting spirits have shapes. And why would some guy just be standing outside a building? I need to make a plan someday, to fulfill my vow and laugh at my grandfather’s curse.
Inside, one of the bachelors shares a confrontation with Rob. Another man from the bachelor party puts on a jacket and leans forward to the groom. There is some cussing and strutting before the group leaves. Cock-a-doodle-do.
“I’m getting another drink,” says Cori. “Stay inside.”
“It stinks in here.”
“I don’t care.”
I turn to the chairs where we were sitting before I ran outside. The guy from the TorchLight, Brody’s friend, sits with his arm around the chair that was mine earlier. He leans back and has an ankle resting on the knee of his other leg. Part of his body overflows his seat and crowds into mine. He may as well wear a “property under new management” sign on his chest.
“You never brought me that Jack Daniels.”
I don’t plan to sit there in the nook of his arm. He lowers his crossed leg and his heel steps on the corner of my backpack. How did I leave my flute again? The fact that I ran from the room, without taking my bag, creates a cool wetness on my hands and the back of my neck.
“Why are you rubbing your hands? Do I make you nervous?” He sits forward, grins and rests his large hands on his knees. He’s handsome, despite being bald. Maybe it’s his crooked nose. The only faces that interest me are those with a distinguishing characteristic. Like a cleft lip…
I want to tell him, “No, you don’t make me nervous.” But I just shake my head.
“You’re Brody’s new bird.” He pushes the chair next to him closer to me. I lower into it, but I don’t really want to; I’m just trying to get closer to my backpack. “I keep picturing you in that shiny blue dress, running away.” The emphasis is on the last two words, not the dress. His smile creeps up sideways, into his left cheek. “I’m Clint.”
“Yes.” My affirmative squeaks out, but at least I have progressed beyond nods and shakes. Slowly, I reach down until I feel the canvas of my navy Jansport bag. Clint stretches a leg, and the heel of his Doc Martin slides my bag away from my grasp.
“Your purse doesn’t match your outfit.” He looks down at the gauzy fabric of my cherry-red sheath dress. I don’t know if it’s the alcohol, but this makes me laugh.
“Cori didn’t want me to bring it for that reason.”
“Really?” He lifts the bag to his lap.
I try to tuck my hair behind my ear to keep my hands still. If I reach for the bag and he pulls back, he will have the advantage. My hair catches in the chandelier earrings and tangles. I know my ear pulls out with my hair because of the “ouch” face Clint makes. He leans forward, places the bag between us and begins to untangle my hair. I let him touch me because I can feel the bag resting under my hand.
“These are huge.” His breath is warm against my neck. The smell is not unpleasant, sort of earthy. “Look at this, girl, they reach your shoulder.” Coarse fingers pull entwined hair from the costume jewelry. He traces his finger over my dress strap and pushes a handful of hair away from my shoulder. His hand stays on my back, under my hair.
“Brody has a lot to say about you.”
He sits back in his chair, and there I am—in the nook of his arm.
He turns his head and watches a dancer. I scan the room, looking for Cori. She waves from the bar where she stands with Rob. If she has noticed Clint, she doesn’t indicate it.
“And the way you looked the other night in that blue dress...” Clint looks back at me and pulls me a little closer. “Wow.” One eyebrow punches upward with the word.
“It wasn’t my dress.”
“Well, you owned it that night.”
“Oh. Well, it belongs to TorchLight’s costumes…” And now Hayden has stolen it.
“Just say thanks.”
I don’t.
He draws his hand up to my neck.
It gives me brutal chills. My stomach churns like I’m falling, and I have the sensation I’ll throw up. Something is really wrong right now.
A resounding chuckle tremors in his chest. It vibrates against my arm. “Brody is right about you, Baby Bird. You’ll bring the wolves.” He whispers my stage name like a lover.
He turns back to the dancer.
“She’s not very good, is she?”
Now that he mentions it…she doesn’t have much rhythm. She’s just a new girl. I used to dance “new girl” style.
“Skinny drug addict.” Clint says this so quietly that I barely hear it myself, so it seems coincidental when the girl’s head snaps in our direction. She flips her hair, but from my angle her crestfallen expression is still visible.
“Let’s get something to drink.”
I lift my arm. A cocktail waitress walks straight toward us through the now sparse room. I get an Amaretto Sour, and Clint a Jack Daniels.
“Man, I can’t get you in that blue dress outta my mind.” He takes his arm off my shoulder and sits back.
He looks at me, all over. He doesn’t look into my eyes, like Hayden did, but Clint searches my body. Stuck on the surface.
Everywhere we’ve gone for the last two nights, the vivacious blonde I’m with has gotten all of the attention. Now, Clint looks at me. It feels so good to have so much power.
“So what’s in the bag?” He pulls my backpack onto his lap and unzips it before the area where his arm rested cools.
He knocks aside The Pearl. My flute looks fragile in his hands. “You play?”
“Not really.” I lean forward like I’ve seen Cori do many times. As though I’m unaware he can see down my dress. Clint responds by returning my flute, zipping the bag and focusing completely on me. I smile at Clint seductively and slide my backpack between my ankles.
Chapter 13
Tonight is my second Friday dancing. Last weekend I was on a side stage in sync with a few others. Tonight it’s all me. My act, on center stage. That’s what it is: an act. I pretend to feel sexy, that I’m not so nervous sweat drips a river down my spine. The dance is supposedly a traditional strip tease; complete with the giant peacock feathers I saw in the costume room the night Brody took me to that benefit.
It was his plan all along. Now I truly am Baby Bird.
At least I’m not nude. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Talia lead a customer behind a shoji. At
least I don’t have to do that.
Clint smiles at me from the front row. Pretending gets easier. He compliments me often. He makes me feel stronger and sexier than I am.
When the lighting changes, I slip out like Cori suggested. Magical disappearance. She really has a flair for theatrics. She waits for me in the dressing room.
“Perfect,” she screams.
We hug and Brody comes in the room.
“Fab-u-lous.”
Cori leans her head to the side and smirks at me. She mouths the words, mimicking him.
“I think we’d like to use you as our model,” Brody comments, but it’s like he’s still deciding. “Take some pictures, you know, for advertising.”
Cori gives a little squeal and squeezes my hand. Is he talking to me or Cori?
Clint enters the room like a lightning storm on a summer day. Unexpected, unnerving. “How’s our new poster girl?” Clint puts his hands up in the air, holding an imaginary sign. “Billboards, signs on taxicab roofs, fliers.” Clint walks right up and kisses me where my earlobe meets my jaw. “You’re the girl.”
“What do you think?” Brody looks impatient. He could be repeating a question; I couldn’t really hear Brody and Cori’s conversation. Brody and Clint seem to stare at each other.
“Will you do it?” Three sets of eyes attend me.
“Sure.”
Clint makes a little half wink where his eye doesn’t fully close. “See ya.” He nods goodbye with his crooked nose.
Brody leans forward and kisses the spot where Clint’s lips touched. Brody’s lips are wet. “We’ll set up a photo shoot tomorrow.” He turns and reaches the door in just a few strides. Brody snaps his fingers and points at me. “Thanks for bringing back the blue dress, ‘ppreciate it.”
The satin gown? Did Hayden bring it back? I stare at the door long after it shuts, still envisioning an empty hose box and taillights fading in dust.
The rain drips down, cooling my skin. It feels like I’m breathing water, showering in oxygen. I close my eyes to the hazy sky and receive the downpour. Late spring showers cause bright green to pop up everywhere. How does life circle around so fluidly? Does Hayden’s God or Raenah’s Great Spirit give this to us? Or does the cycle of the earth turn while one of them sits laughing at us in the muck?
Sovereign Ground (Breaking Bonds) Page 9
