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“What?” I asked, impatiently, all traces of my fake and real smile gone. I couldn’t afford to be unpleasant to Alex, but I couldn’t afford to be taken advantage of, either.
“I have a very important client who wants to meet you,” he said.
I closed my book and looked at him levelly. “Meet?” I asked. Meeting was one thing. Something else was, well, something else.
“Just a drink. I told him you were unavailable for more,” he said, and I relaxed. Alex really wasn’t as bad as some of the other girls said. He did bad things on occasion, but I bet he felt guilty about them. Sometimes.
“Do I have to pay for my drink?” I asked. An eighteen dollar gin and tonic was not in my budget. Eighteen dollars bought a lot of macaroni and cheese.
“He’s buying your drink — he’s a gentleman!” he said. “White wine okay? Let’s stay away from hard liquor...I’ve never seen you drink. I don’t want you getting crazy!” he said, and I could tell he was relieved that I seemed cooperative. “And if you’re so worried about paying for your drink, you should think about picking up some extracurricular activities,” he said, and wagged his eyebrows at me again.
“I’ll have a drink with him and that’s it,” I said, firmly. Maybe some wine would be nice. A lot of the other girls smuggled in drinks to have before, during and after they went out on the floor, to calm their nerves. None of us could afford the steep prices at the bar and we only got that one free drink when we were done. That was, unless the customers were plying us with shots — which most of the girls thoroughly enjoyed. I had made a deal with the bartenders: they sent me Sprite and cranberry in a shot glass if someone wanted to buy me a drink. That way, the bartender got a free drink, the customer was happy, and I didn’t look like the total nerd I was.
“Who is this guy?” I asked. “The one who wants to meet me?” I’d never had Alex ask me to do something like this before.
“He’s a friend of Cruz’s,” he said. Cruz was one of the owners, but I’d never met him. I heard he lived in Brazil most of the time. “He’s a gentleman, I swear!”
“A gentleman in a gentleman’s club? No way,” I said, and my real smile was back. The irony of that was at least funny to me. Alex laughed a little and I relaxed. Sometimes it was okay to actually talk to someone, even though he’d grabbed my ass not that long ago. I was over it, so I would go talk to this guy he wanted me to meet. I just hoped the gentleman would be a gentleman.
I told Alex I would meet him out there. I buttoned up my shirt a bit, put on some more lip gloss, and ran my hands down my hair. I was always relieved to see my reflection in the mirror, and it wasn’t because I liked the way I looked. I had grown up feeling that way. I relied on my own eyes steadily looking back at me. Things could be crazy around me, people I loved could be falling apart, but I was the same. So now I looked at myself for another second and I took a deep breath, telling myself to be nice, even though I knew I wouldn’t be too nice. That comforted me. I could trust myself, even though I couldn’t trust anyone else.
I went out to the floor and tried to focus on Alex in the distance. He was talking to the same group of men from when I was dancing. I kept my eyes on them and tried to avoid the comments from the baseball-hat wearing crowd as I waded through them; they wanted a lap dance, they wanted to buy me a drink, they wanted a one-on-one. There were some grabbers, but I knew the bouncers were watching out for all of us, so I just kept moving. No one got a good grip, and I wouldn’t look at them. I didn’t smile.
I thought about Tracy and I felt guilty. I was so high and mighty now, but I knew it wouldn’t last. Tracy had been twenty-one once, too — and now she had two kids, a little cellulite, and a boyfriend with a coke habit. That was gonna be me if I didn’t watch it.
That was gonna be me. That’s what I was thinking when I saw him. I knew who the very important client was before Alex had a chance to introduce us. He was tall, maybe six-two, with slightly shaggy brown hair and a creased face. He was old enough to be my youngish father, probably mid-forties. He was wearing a suit and tie. I had seen a lot of businessmen in Vegas; I could tell he was not in photocopier resales or insurance. There was something about the cut of his suit and his beautiful tie that conveyed money and sophistication. Because I had neither, I couldn’t put my finger on it. But he didn’t have the look of a drug dealer or some sort of thug, like so many of the men did here. There was no jewelry, no spray tan, no hair gel. He just looked clean and healthy, like he took vitamins and smelled good without cologne.
He turned towards me and smiled. And then my heart stopped.
* * *
