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That’s what Dr. Ramos said.
My baby sister has a blood clot in her head, and lord knows how long it’s been there untreated. I think of all the times she complained about her migraines, or when she would throw up at my aunt’s place because the light coming through the curtains in our bedroom at night was just too bright for her to keep her dinner down, and it has me questioning my capacity to protect her. I should have known.
I should have demanded that my aunt take Zoey to the emergency room.
I should have yelled and pleaded and broke everything in my way so she would finally take Zoey’s illness seriously. Lucy would have had the money for this surgery. She might have even been able to add Zoey to her husband’s healthcare provider, if only I had insisted.
Back then, though, all my pleas went unheard, and I was just trying my very best to keep my aunt happy enough not to send us back to foster care.
I should have tried harder.
I failed Zoey then, but I won’t fail her now.
If stripping is how I’ll make her better, then so be it.
So I went in, plunged myself into this world.
My pride went out the window long before now, and if there are any remnants of it, then I pray it leaves me alone long enough for me to do what needs to be done.
“You’ll need a stage name, honey. Have anything in mind?” Betty, a woman who looks like she’s old enough to be my mother, asks as I fidget in my seat, waiting for her to pull out whatever outfit she thinks might fit me from the rack. We are in the back room, and before me is a row of polished mirrors with vanity tables. The walls are a bright red with posters of the girls plastered all over. Even back here, the music pumps through the walls, sending my heart into overdrive. At the back of the room, which Betty kindly pointed out, are rows of silver lockers I’ve stored my meager belongings in.
“Whatever works. I really don’t care,” I reply on autopilot as I watch some of the other girls paint their faces with their warpaint, while others slither into thongs and cheap costumes.
“Well, you better start pretending that you do. The best way to get those dollar bills is for the clientele to think you are loving every second of being on that stage,” she offers softly, but there is steel in her voice.
“I thought we were being paid to dance, not act.”
“Here at Tease, it’s one and the same, girlie. Here. Take this,” she says, handing me a cheerleading uniform.
I laugh just so I don’t cry my eyes out.
“What? Don’t like it?” she asks.
“No. It’s fine. I just never stayed in high school long enough to wear one of these.”
“Take it from me, being a cheerleader was overrated.” She chuckles. “Prom queen too. I did all the normal things girls your age are supposed to, and it still landed me in this dump.”
“I’m sorry,” I tell her in earnest, staring at the little age lines around her eyes.
“Don’t be. I made my choices, and I have to live with the consequences,” she explains and then stares a little too long at me for comfort. “You can leave, you know? The DJ hasn’t even told the horn bags outside that there is new blood in the show tonight. You can go. Just walk out the door and never turn back. It’s not too late.”
I get out of my chair and take the cheerleading outfit out of her hands. “I don’t have a choice.”
“We all have a choice, girlie. You just have to know which one is the right one.”
Saving Zoey is the only choice I have.
It couldn’t get righter than that.
“I have to do this. I need the money, and this is the only way I know to get it quickly without having to sell my organs on the black market,” I say, albeit with a poor excuse of a joke to lighten the tense atmosphere.
Before I can stop her, she pulls at my arms and pushes my long sleeves up to my elbows.
“You’re not a junkie, so it isn’t for smack. Let me guess? Is your man a crackhead or does he have a gambling problem or something?”
“I don’t have a boyfriend. Never have.”
Her brows furrow at my confession. “A pretty thing like you? Soft spoken and polite and never had a man on her arm? Sorry, girlie, but that’s hard for me to believe.” She snorts.
