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“This will never work.” Leah presses her palms down and rubs the tops of her thighs with a wince. They get sore during the day and by evening she is in the chair, which I know she loathes.
“It will work.” The tenacity in my voice is as much to convince myself as her. “It might work.” I temper my bravado and slip my feet into a pair of sparkly, pink and purple, patent leather ballet flats. I pop up from the edge of the bed and grab my favorite sweater, which I picked out just for tonight.
“You are not wearing that.” Leah groans.
“What? I love this sweater.” I pick up the lime green, polka-dot cardigan and hold it out, regarding it. “It’s fun.”
“Like we would know what fun is?” Leah snorts and spins in a slow circle in her chair.
“Like you would know what style is? For all we know, striped kimonos and chef’s aprons are what girls our age are wearing.” I look at the sweater again. “Dad would have liked it.” I push one hand into the cashmere sleeve and pull it up over my shoulders and the opposite arm. Before I start to button it, I walk over to the enormous mirror which stands above the antique dresser, flanking the door to the ensuite bathroom. I’ve got on a white bra and panties. At least they match. And they are as fancy as anything I have. But they do not say ‘stripper.’
I do my best not to focus on the way my collarbones don’t stick out or there isn’t a rib in sight. I realize I may not be the pinnacle of every man’s desire, but maybe there is some demand for the novelty, dancing chubby girl.
This is as sexy as I’m going to get, so I hope it’s enough.
“Dad liked everything you did.” Leah’s voice is softer.
I snap my head around and see her bright smile. She’s beautiful, like magazine cover beautiful.
I always wished I could look like her. If we were in a movie, she would be the glamorous leading lady and I would be the plain Jane sidekick with my too-round center and my inability to keep wild, inappropriate things from tumbling out of my mouth at the worst possible moments.
“He loved everything about everything. Especially us.” The melancholy hangs like
a mist for a moment before I finish buttoning my sweater to the top button and clutch my arms around myself, running them upward over my upper arms to my shoulders.
“How are you going to get there? If you take a car they will know.”
“I’m taking the bus.” I stand up, stretching every inch of my five feet, grinning as I drop my arms and face my older sister. She’s still giving me that protective stare.
“The bus? How do you even know there is a bus?” She’s mocking me now.
“It’s called the internet.” I roll my eyes, turning back toward the mirror and grabbing a hair band from the top of the dresser.
How would a stripper wear her hair to a stripper interview?
“The internet? When were you on the internet?” Leah’s eyes widen.
I tip my head back and forth like a metronome before I squint my eyes and tell the truth. “I grabbed a bus schedule out of Mariana’s purse.”
Mariana is one of the kitchen staff here at the estate.
I see Leah behind me cover her face with both hands and shake her head, snorting.
“I’ll be fine. It’s like less than a mile from here. I mean, where else can I work and Simon won’t know? They never come around up here at night. It’s just been the two of us up here for months. I can sneak out at eleven, be back by four-thirty, and hopefully get some money in my pocket. We are not living here forever, Leah. I’m telling you.” I spin around as I throw my auburn hair into a ponytail on top of my head. “We are leaving here and getting our own place at least for a while. I want to be out in the world, see things. I want to do things.”
“I told you, just go, leave me here. I have no life anyway.” She drops her eyes to look down at her legs. When she’s not in the chair, she has to use her forearm crutches. Both her legs were crushed in the accident and she’s lucky they were able to save them at all.
She eyes me with hope and it hurts to look at her as she continues. “It’ll be so much easier for you to just go get a place on your own. You can get the money together for that if you don’t have me around. Taking care of me is not your obligation. I want you to be happy, May. That’s what I want more than anything.”
“I will never leave you,” I snap. “And I want us to be happy more than anything. I’ll figure this out. You just have to trust me.”
“How do you even know about this Monarch place? What do you even know? It could be dangerous.”
“I’ve been reading about it. Simon lets me read the business section of the newspaper and I’ve been following it for a year. The city council tried to block the entire project, but finally they got their zoning approvals and it’s been the big talk around, because who would have ever expected there to be a nightclub –let alone a strippy type club– around here? Everyone was just all gaspy and not-in-my-neighborhood about it.” I smile because it made me oddly satisfied when they won the battle and were able to build the club. This stuffy neighborhood needs some shaking up.
“What about Victor?” She screws up her face as she says his name.
“What about him?”
