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I don’t answer. It sounds so meager.
“Libby? Is it less than two hundred dollars?”
I groan and pout, but I finally have to nod and admit the truth. It is way less than two hundred dollars a day. It’s more like… Oh, jeez.
“But Mona, I’m still nineteen. I can’t just walk into the club and expect them to, what, let me serve beer? Valet cars? What would I even do there?”
Her eyes slide to the left, the only hint of guilt she is even going to show. I have a pretty good idea what Mona does, but not 100 percent. She told me that she is a bartender, and that they occasionally have what they call “lingerie shows.”
Stripping is illegal in this county. Apparently, there is some kind of exception made if you happen to show up for work in your underwear and feel like dancing around while men give you money. Something like that.
She holds up her hands, palms out. “Okay, just hear me out… You’ll just be a beer girl, all right? Take a bunch of the heat off me. I can always use the extra help on a Friday. There is only usually two of us working there, and the guys can get really thirsty, if you know what I mean. I’ll get you a fake ID.”
I feel my eyebrows going up. “A fake ID? Like you have that kind of thing just lying around?”
“Yeah, you can use Tammy’s, don’t you think? She’s blonde like you.”
Tammy is Mona’s older sister. She went right into the Army after high school and got deployed immediately. Her bedroom looks just the way she left it, except for all the stuff that Mona borrowed and didn’t put back yet.
“Tammy’s ID?” I repeat, incredulous. “Is it even still valid? Do they expire? And it would say I was twenty-three. Who is going to believe I am twenty-three?”
Mona rolls her eyes extravagantly, pushing back a bushy mass of curly, shining hair with her palm.
“Ty isn’t really going to be interrogating you, you know what I mean? He’s going to take one look at you and that supermodel body and basically be thrilled you showed up. After all, why would he even suspect you are lying?”
I glance down at my long, not-very-curvy, not-entirely-formed body and try to imagine anything supermodel about it. Nope. Not really. Just a gangly tomboy, like always.
But then, I do have blonde hair and big brown eyes. Freckles. I look “wholesome” I hear. From the glances I have been noticing, I guess I must at least be worth a second look.
“Yeah, okay,” I grumble, more or less seeing the logic of her plan.
Two hundred dollars… Three hundred dollars… I mean, that’s some serious money. I thought that I could maybe make half of the cash that I needed to get to New York while my dad was gone. Eight hundred dollars. Working at the Krazy Mart, picking up a couple extra shifts? Maybe even mowing the lawn or two? I mean, there are definitely enough young men on base to keep most of the lawns pristinely manicured, but maybe somebody would take pity on me?
In my desperation, I even considered a bake sale. Cooking. Not in my top-ten list of skills. But desperate times, you know what I mean?
Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. How hard could being a beer girl be? I know how to open bottles of beer. Read labels. Hand things to people. I mean, that’s pretty much it, right? And listen to some shitty music while drunken soldiers play pool and act like nobody can see what they do when they are off-base?
Maybe I could do that.
“So what would I wear?” I ask carefully.
Mona gasps and claps her hands quickly underneath her chin. “Yay! Amazing!” she hoots triumphantly. “You can wear whatever you want! Actually… Let me dress you! Let me pick something out! It will be awesome!”
“Wait, wait, wait,” I object. “That may be a little bit too far. I know how you like to dress. I don’t think I would look right like that.”
She reaches out and pokes me right on the top of my bathing suit bottoms, sending a surprise thrill through my lady parts.
“
Says the woman who just waxed her chocha,” she smirks knowingly.
I flinch away, immediately grateful to see that my dad is approaching the door. Reflexively, I leap from the lawn chair and snatch the towel to wrap it around my middle.
Mona springs into action too, but in the opposite direction. She stretches out slowly, flexing her toes as she hears the screen door slide open. Then she drapes her legs over the side and twists to standing, supple as a cat.
“Oh, Colonel Warner,” she coos charmingly. “I didn’t realize you were home.”
My dad steps out into the sunlight, his eyes flickering toward her for only the briefest of seconds. If he notices how shamelessly she flirts with him, he has never let on. Absolutely nothing like that leaks through his exterior. My dad is 100 percent Army morals and honor. He would never risk doing anything that would reflect on his sense of duty and propriety.
