But first I needed to keep my cool, fake my way through the last few minutes of this date, and get my kids home and in bed. Then I could try to make a plan. I exited the bathroom, pasted what I hoped was a chipper look on my face, and headed toward the door to the patio.
Through the front window I saw Nate and Phoebe and Alice all petting Little Sister, probably heaping the dog with praise. My girls looked so happy. They were drinking in the positive attention. A feeling like one of Emmylou’s crossbow bolts lanced my heart. Because despite what was going on out there, Layna was right. I’d been a fool to think I could ask Nate to come to my rescue. I was going to have to handle this myself.
Twenty-Two
Friday
Phoebe cried Friday morning because Alice had come down with a fever after we got home from The STIL and Phoebe wanted to be sick too. Somehow I managed to get Phoebe off to school on the bus. By midmorning, I’d read Alice nine chapters of a seemingly endless middle-grade book series about warring clans of wild cats. By eleven I was stir crazy—and uneasy. Being stuck in my duplex fretting about the fact that Nate had somehow been in cahoots with the dead guy in my playhouse was making me beyond anxious. Plus Baylee would be at Burgdorf to meet Connor tomorrow! And now I could hardly ask Nate to send the ATF.
If I was going to avoid going to Burgdorf myself to get that SIM card from Baylee, I’d need more information about what happened to Connor. I had to talk to Salma Hayek. While Errol had sent texts to Baylee threatening to kill Connor, Salma Hayek had actually hit Connor in the head with a beer bottle in the Huckleberry’s parking lot. Other than the killer, she was likely the last person to have seen him alive, and she might have the answers I needed.
With Alice feverish, I’d missed Thursday night pole dancing class. Layna texted me that Olympia had subbed again. But I hoped Salma Hayek would be at the open pole studio at noon. Luckily, Emmylou saved my baconagainby saying she’d watch Alice while I went to Pole Kisses.
“Moms need their self-care,” Emmylou said, which would’ve beenincredibly sweet, but she followed it with, “It’s really hard on the twins when you’re stressed. I think that’s why Phoebe’s been biting.”
Inside the pole studio, I didn’t see Salma Hayek. But the sight of Cheyenne’s pink hair glowing like a halo of cotton candy made my heart vault nearly out of my chest. Before I could approach she’d twisted into a spinning helix. Even if she stopped for a moment, I had no idea how to pump her for information about Salma Hayek. Normally I’d open a convo with a compliment about her outfit. But she wore a strappy metallic bra with the tiniest of deep-purple G-strings. What could I say?I like your butt floss?Your buns are like hard plastic? No and no. So instead of approaching her directly, I headed to a nearby pole and practiced my awkward pole walk.
BAM!A noise like someone had tossed a microwave off a ladder made me flinch. A girl in yellow patent-leather thigh-high boots had dropped from her pole into front splits. And from quite a height, by the sound of it. I kind of loved this place.
I grabbed my pole with both hands and pinched it between my knees. But I spun too fast, like SpongeBob about to fly off a merry-go-round. Meanwhile, Cheyenne was doing an airwalk with the grace of an Olympic gymnast in an antigravity chamber. At Huckleberry’s, I couldn’t quite figure out what about her held Salma Hayek so in thrall. But now, as she shifted easily to fly her body from the pole like a flag, I understood.
I’d always thought of strip clubs as sad places where dancers endured the grotesqueries of rando male desire to rake in much-needed cash. Or where a few transgressive, anthropologically curious gals with other options (cue Diablo Cody’s memoir) went to walk the wild side or fund their art projects. You could consent and be exploited, all at the same time. Wasn’t that true? But watching Cheyenne’s prowess on the pole helped me see things another way. Given her talents, of course she’d want to be a well-paid,professionalathlete.
As she executed an elegant pole combo, I wondered if she might haveanother motive for her work. I knew from my LA social scene that many forms of sex work allowed artists both a flexible schedule and financial freedom. Stripping had, after all, funded Lizzie Borden’s films, Chris Kraus’s novel writing, Kathleen Hanna’s seminal work in Bikini Kill, Cardi B’s life before her rise to hip-hop superstardom. The list could go on forever. But for Cheyenne, my guess was that pole dancing didn’tsupporther art form—itwasher art form.
Impervious to my deep thoughts, Cheyenne inverted, her legs flipping up and overhead until she was in an upside-down straddle known as a helicopter.
“Vagina to Jesus!” the girl in yellow thigh-highs called, clearly teasing.
“F off,” Cheyenne said. “It’s perfect.” But she hoisted her hips higher.
“Dolly Parton always said the higher the hair, the closer to God,” I called. “So why shouldn’t that apply to your landing strip?”
Cheyenne giggled and slid down the pole, thighs giving off a faint squeak. “Vodka gimlet girl,” she said, looking up at me from her crash mat.
“My name’s Nikita,” I said. “I heard about your grandma. Is she okay?”
“She had a stroke but it’s like a miracle—a little weak in her right hand, but otherwise, totally fine,” Cheyenne said. “We’ll be playingMortal Kombattogether again in no time.” She pointed at me. “You got Connor good the other night. Cat scratch fever.” She waggled her rhinestone-encrusted nails at me, causing my armpits to prickle with nervous sweat.
“You know Salma Hayek, right?”
Cheyenne nodded, climbing to her feet and stretching an arm across her torso. “Sure do.” I probably had two minutes max before she ran out of patience with me.
“I haven’t seen her since Huckleberry’s,” I said. “She missed class on Tuesday. Last night too.”
“I actually saw her Monday night.” Cheyenne’s cheeks flushed a pretty pink. “She told me she was headed out of town.”
I tried to sound casual. “Oh, fun. Where to?”
“You’re more likely to get water from a stone than a secret out of a dancer,” Cheyenne said, giving me a wink.
“I heard she got into it with that creep that got thrown out of the club,” I blurted.
“She smashed him upside the head with a bottle of Dos Equis,” Cheyenne said. “Wish I could’ve seen it, but I was behind the bar.”
“You know what happened to him after?”
She gave a delicate shrug. “By the time I got the text from my fam and rushed off to the hospital, he was long gone.”
