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No woman has ever stirred any real feeling out of me, no one but her.
“This is your club?” she says, glancing back at the door behind her. “I thought the owner was some man named Peter. I met him a couple of times, I think.”
I’m still not sure at all if she remembers me or not, but I think that I can see a hint of recognition in her pale, sea-green eyes. She looks like she wants to remember.
“Peter was my uncle,” I tell her, nodding. “He passed away over the weekend, and when the will was read, I found out he left me this place for some reason.”
I don’t feel much sorrow when I think of him. I didn’t know him very well, but with both of my parents retired and uninterested in owning a strip club, I had been his best bet in keeping the business alive.
It isn’t my dream, but it’s good enough.
She looks taken aback, and I wonder if no one has told the employees that their boss passed. I can see her thinking it over, and she suddenly looks up at me.
Her eyes are big and vulnerable, and I wonder how old she is now.
“So I work for you now, then? Is that right?” she asks me, and I can see she’s nervous, but she’s either brave or prideful enough to hide it under a facade of dismissiveness.
She raises her chin as if she’s challenging me, and I smile.
She doesn’t say sorry for my loss, and I’m even more intrigued by her. So many of my friends have offered me platitudes and meaningless words of comfort.
“That’s right,” I answer, realizing she’s waiting for me to talk back to her. “I thought it was you when I saw you inside earlier. And then just now….”
“You knew my Dad,” she says suddenly. “You were his friend before he left.”
“We worked together at the construction site for years before your dad….”
“Before he started stealing from the company and before he left his family behind in the rearview mirror,” she answers, nodding. She doesn’t look sad about it at all.
“What are you doing working at a strip club?” I ask her because I really am curious. I want to know what a woman like her is doing in a place like this.
She had always been so bright as a kid. I just assumed she would be interning somewhere right now or maybe even sitting pretty in an office building downtown. I could never have imagined Kathleen in a place like this one.
I’m starting to believe this has all been a product of fate for the two of us now.
Kathleen begins to narrow her sea-glass eyes at me, raising her chin in defiance.
I can tell that she wants to defend herself, and I feel like maybe I’ve crossed a line by implying she shouldn’t be here. She seems young, though, too young to be here in this seedy underbelly of the city.
I wonder if she would even be interested in an older man. I must be at least twenty years her senior by now.
“What are you doing owning a strip club?” she counters, raising an eyebrow.
It’s a fair point. I like that she’s not afraid to give me an attitude right back.
“My uncle didn’t have anyone,” I tell her, shrugging. “He didn’t have any kids or a wife so he left it all to me for some reason.”
“So instead of a beautiful house or a large inheritance,” Kathleen points out, dimly lit by the street lamps. “He leaves you a strip club in the rough part of town, huh?”
I can’t help but sigh, and my gaze drifts to glance at the diner across the street.
“Do you, I don’t know, want to get coffee or something?” I ask her, nodding at the diner where the neon lights flicker faintly. I push my hands into my pockets.
I feel like I’ve already botched our first meeting, though I’ve been thinking about her ever since I first saw her again after all this time by the table in the club.
She leans to the side and looks at the diner behind me, stealing a quick glance at the thin leather watch on her wrist. I know it’s just a little past ten O’clock right now.
“I need to be home by eleven,” she tells me, looking unsure. “Does that work?”
