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“Yes, I’m serious.”
“He’s the son of Daniel Dunning. How can you not know that?”
“The son ofwho?”
“Daniel Dunning. The billionaire. You should know that.”
“How the hell would I know some billionaire?”
“Ian’s his only son. He stands to inherit everything.” She went silent for a moment. “Actually, now that I think of it, you should keep giving it to him for free. He’s worth way more to you as an ex-husband than as a client. Did you by any chance get his number?”
“For the last time,” I yelled aloud in the open street, “he’s not a client because I’m not a hooker. Repeat—I AM NOT A HOOKER!”
I felt a tap on my shoulder.
“You know, you could be,” said an eleven-foot-tall man wearing a purple velvet blazer and high-heeled boots. “With the right management, I mean.”
“Fuck off!”
“Here’s my card,” he said. “My office hours are ten p.m.to five a.m., with extended hours on Fridays and Saturdays.”
“My daughter’s way out of your league, asshole!” my mother yelled from the speaker.
“Sara?” the man said, addressing my phone. “Is that you?”
Oh my God.
“She doesn’t need a common street manager, so piss off!” Mom yelled.
“Holy crap, Sara, she looks just like you! With lighter hair.”
“I said piss off, Jefferson!”
“You’re Jiggly Jeff?” I said, recalling the name from a few years back. He was Mom’s bodyguard for about six months, but she fired his sorry ass when she heard he was working the street. “I pictured you way heavier.”
“Keto diet,” he said. “You should try it. Help you get rid of that extra fifteen pounds.”
“My daughter’s beautiful the way she is, you miserable mother fu—”
I hit the “end call” button, even though as a rule I never cut my mother off when she was calling a street pimp a miserable motherfucker. I’d make a point of apologizing profusely later. Right now I just needed to go somewhere and kill myself.
I returned to Ian’s car. As soon as I slid into the passenger seat, I closed the window and pressed the recline button until I was flat on my back and no longer visible to anyone outside.
After a few moments of silence, Ian dared to speak. “Five thousand a night?”
“You have a problem with that, billionaire?” I said, instantly defensive.
“No,” he said. “It’s just that you told me your mother was a trophy wife.”
“She was,” I said. “Once. But after her last divorce she realized that she could make just as much running her own business as she could marrying and divorcing yet another asshole, so she became an independent contractor. And if you don’t like the way she earns her money, that’s your problem, not mine. I support and respect my mother’s choices so don’t eventhinkof criticizing her in my presence.”
“I wasn’t going to criticize her,” he said. “I’m just saying, if you support and respect hookers, why did you flip out when I thought you were one? And why are you so upset about the picture of us?”
“Because ‘hooking’ is open-air human trafficking. The women do all the work and then the pimps give them their ‘cut,’ which amounts to slave wages. My mother forged her own career path. She chooses her own clients, she sets her own hours, and she demands her clients pay her the kind of money she deserves. And if there’s a bodyguard involved, she signshispaycheck, not the other way around.”
He grew quiet for a moment. “Listen, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you my real name,” he finally said. “But you have to understand—”
“I don’t have to understand anything, billionaire,” I interrupted, not interested in anything he had to say. “You’re a liar and a phony and I don’t owe you shit. Can you just please call your team of three-thousand-dollar-an-hour lawyers and make this go away?”
