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I gulped.
“I’m not afraid to do honest work,” came my low voice. “But the thing is, what if word gets out? What if people find out?”
Lauren threw her head back and laughed, a lovely tinkling melody.
“Word won’t get out,” she said. “You know how many clubs there are in NYC? Plus, it’s not like you’re going to use your real name. You’re not going to get up on stage and say, “Hey, I’m Melanie and I’m a freshman at Trinity.” You’re going to use a stage name, something like Candy or Amber. Trust me, no one will know it’s you.”
I bit my lip looking at the floor.
“Are you sure about that?”
Lauren got up then and took me by the shoulders before staring me straight in the eye.
“No one can make any promises,” she said in a firm voice. “But trust me, Mel, this is the way to go. What are you going to do otherwise? Work a minimum wage job at Icey’s Donuts? That won’t even pay for books, much less forty-six thousand in tuition.”
The number made me shiver again because Lauren was right. We were girls who didn’t have options, and the only way to drum up some cash fast was by dancing. So I swallowed again and managed a wavery smile at my friend.
“Okay, let’s give it a try,” I said. “When’s the next time you’re going?”
“Atta girl,” smiled Lauren. “Next Friday,” she said. “I dance every weekend because that’s when you get the best tips. And trust me, Mel, you’re going to be fine. After this is all said and done, you’ll walk across the stage with a mortarboard on your head, and you won’t regret a minute of it. In fact, I think after we become powerful corporate women, we should start a scholarship for female students in dire financial straits. We’ll call it the “Melanie and Lauren Dance Fund.” How about that?”
I had to laugh at that one.
“And that won’t give us away? Wouldn’t it be better to call it something like the “Melanie and Lauren Scholarship Fund”?”
My friend threw me a mischievous look.
“Yes, but we have to celebrate who we are. Female empowerment, and all that right? No regrets. Woo-hoo!”
And with that, we high-fived and I swung my backpack over my shoulder with one last laugh. I still had my doubts about becoming a stripper at a club in the city, but Lauren was right. We had no choices, except for hard ones, and if I wanted to earn a degree at Trinity, then I was going to have to dance for men. I only hoped that it turned out okay … and that I wouldn’t have regrets to haunt me for the rest of my life.
CHAPTER FOUR
Melanie
This was turning out to be a bad idea. The weather in the city was awful, for one. A heavy mist saturated the night air, making my brown hair even curlier and frizzier than normal, and I pulled my jacket tight around my shoulders. New York has always been scary to me because it’s so huge, and showing up at this cement block on one side of the West Side Highway put me on edge.
But I suppose it was better than some rural location because at least there were people around. At 9 p.m. on a Friday night, there were plenty of passerby goggling at the club’s giant neon sign with a picture of a donkey braying on it. They laughed and elbowed one another, making crude jokes.
“Let’s see if the New York strippers are hotter than the Wyoming ones,” said one overbuilt cowboy to his friend. Both guys stood out like sore thumbs. They had huge white ten-gallon hats on, plus black leather vests with no shirt underneath. Their muscles bulged like overdone gorillas, and I glanced at them from the corner of my eye.
“No way the strippers are hotter than the ones back home!” crowed his friend. “Besides, I’m not spending my money on some New York hos. We can get the real thing in Wyoming – sweet, succulent, and ready to ride a horse. You know the girls here have probably been with thirty guys by the time they’re sixteen.”
That got to me because although I’m shy, I’m also a feminist. Why is it okay for guys to hook-up with lots of women and for that to be seen as cool? In fact, he’s more of a man if he bags a lot of female ass. By contrast, women who do the same thing are labeled as whores and hookers. That’s not fair, and I stepped up to tell them so.
“Gentlemen, I’ll have you know that I’m eighteen and I haven’t bagged thirty guys,” was my frigid comment. “Sorry to disappoint, but New York women are not hookers.”
They guffawed, looking at me and then each other.
