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“But isn’t every woman a fan of our show?” Dallas asks. “I mean we’ve got the muscles, the moves and if DJ Vince gets his head out of his ass, we’ve got the music.”
“Are you talking about how you missed your curtain time last week? It’s not Vince’s fault you were hooking up with a woman from the previous show in the bathroom.”
Listening to their antics, I shake my head, fasten my bowtie and cuffs, then close my locker. In years, I’m not that much older than most of the guys, but as the oldest now, and most experienced in the business, I’ve become the self-appointed big brother of the group. A role I’m familiar with.
It’s not my personality to be rowdy like the other guys, constantly working each other up and trying to outdo one another. When Chad, Romeo as he was known on the stage, stopped dancing, I became the oldest and most experienced guy on the revue. I’m only thirty, but they give me shit about being the old man. I don’t feel old, but to some of these young twenty-somethings, I am.
Since I started dancing with Rainin’ Men, I’ve had a singular goal. To put Sophie through school. To see her graduate college and start her career.
The money I’ve made here over the years has afforded me that.
My eyes slide across the room to the guys horsing around. They’ve got Ken in a headlock trying to make him eat some weird looking substance from Dallas’s bag just as Rita, the revue’s manager and choreographer, bounds through the door.
“All right, guys, listen up. Jackson pulled his groin last night,” Rita’s words are interrupted by several hoots and hollers,whoo, shitandyeah he did, “and he won’t be dancing tonight,” Rita finishes, her eyes narrowed on the interrupters. “I know you’re excited for your friend that he had a fun night, but now he’s missing the bonus that goes with tonight’s shows.”
“Griffin.” Rita’s eyes find me. “You’ll take point on the closer. Dallas, I need you to take Jackson’s construction worker routine. Make sure Vince knows your music so we don’t have an issue like last time.”
Low chuckles fill the room until Dallas heads them off with a glare.
After the group disbands, Rita signals for me to follow her to the office.
She drops into the chair behind the desk, then pulls out an envelope and hands it to me.
My fingers grasp the paper, noticing my name scrawled across the front, before tucking it between my palm and my thigh.
“Open it now.” She nods toward the envelope.
I groan like a teenager whose mom just told them to pick up their room. That’s the kind of relationship Rita and I have. She mothers all the guys, but to me, she isn’t a second mom, she’s the mom I never had.
I slide a finger under the sealed flap, causing it to tear.
It’s a card. And inside, a handful of one-hundred-dollar bills.
“What is this?” I ask.
“We took up a collection. We know you’re not much for a goodbye party, but we figured you could use the money to buy a suit or something. High-powered lawyers need nice suits.” She smiles. “Ones that don’t tear away.”
“I’m not a high-powered lawyer.” Rita’s projection of my future is premature.
“Yet,” she argues.
“I haven’t even gotten my results.”
“You’ll pass.” She smiles. “Terrence won’t live to hear that his best student didn’t pass on the first try.”
Terrence is Rita’s husband. He’s a lawyer, thirty years at his practice, and a tenured professor at Boyd School of Law at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas (UNLV). He’s also been my mentor through law school.
I met Terrence eight years ago when I started at the revue. Rita likes to get all the guys together at her house for a monthly meal and what she calls team building. She cooks enough food for an army, enchiladas are her specialty and they’re to die for.
Besides feeding us a homecooked meal, it’s her way of checking in with everyone. She knows we’re grown men, but some of us don’t have families nearby or at all. Ken is from South Africa and isn’t able to visit family during the holidays. Rita and Terrence have become surrogate parents for many of us. Terrence has become my mentor and if—when—I pass the bar exam, I’ve already got a position with his firm.
Rita stands and I follow suit.
“How are you feeling about tonight?” she asks.
“It’s time to move on, but I can say I’ll miss seeing you every day.”
She motions me in for a hug.
