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When we got to the concert, there were hundreds of people drunk and high up there. I wonder how nobody fell over the edge. I slammed shots and danced, showing off my stripper clothes. Someone set up a plank of wood on cinder blocks and put me on it.
I was noticed that night and had my pick of boys. But one stuck out to me. I’d never seen him before. He had a dirty-blond shag that went wild when he played invisible drums to the music. He was way into it, arms flying, but when he spotted me, he stopped cold and immediately headed my way.
He leaped right onto that makeshift platform and danced with me. I was way interested. I half undressed him right there in front of everybody, and he let me.
I’d never met anyone as intense as him. Finally, I had met my match.
We jumped right into everything, hooking up in the stairwell next to the elevator shaft before we even knew each other’s names.
We became an item. But Donahue couldn’t hold a band. He was always late to rehearsals, too likely to blow off a gig. By the time I met him, nobody was giving him a shot other than to substitute for a night.
But he could drum. He had tremendous talent.
I figured out a couple of months in that if I was going to be with him, I’d be footing all the bills. Miranda started staying at Arsenal’s all the time, so it wasn’t any big thing for him to sleep with me. He came to the club most nights to watch me strip.
He was the one to hear about getting a work visa to La Jarra. We could do any old job, he said. He could wait tables until he found an island band. It would be a fresh start. He wanted to be a rock star in paradise.
I was shocked to find out there weren’t any strip clubs on the island, so I’d have to wait tables or work at a hotel, but I liked the idea. Maybe we had a shot at being regular people. I was turning twenty soon, so it felt like a new beginning for us both.
We applied for jobs to get the work permits, and I got my boss to say I was a cocktail waitress. I wasn’t anything special on the pole, so it was no great loss to him.
And we got in. I ponied up the cash for the flights. We went on a real bender those last nights in Savannah. Drunk every night. Donahue did harder stuff, but I generally avoided it. We said goodbye to everyone in a big way.
Then the morning we were supposed to leave, he was just ... gone. We didn’t have cell phones then. I ran all over town looking for him. Got our flights delayed by a day.
But I couldn’t find him.
Miranda had cut our lease loose, and I’d already sold the furniture or chucked it. I really had no choice but to go. I didn’t show up for my new job right away. I was destroyed. Utterly wrecked. So feeling sick, not wanting to get out of bed—all the signs that might have told me I was pregnant—went right past me in the midst of that heartbreak.
And no wonder it happened. The way we partied. Half the time I didn’t take my pills properly because I hadn’t come home for two days. I’d thrown up more than one dose after a night of binge drinking.
What was done was done.
When I settled into what I was dealing with, I panicked. I showed up for work and begged to be kept on. I couldn’t afford to go home and find Donahue. I got hold of Miranda a few times, but all she toldme was that he wasn’t going to the usual pop-ups or parties. I didn’t tell her about my condition.
I was stuck. So I tried to replace him. I went out with anybody who would go. I used all my stripper skills to hook them, but nobody really trusted me. Still, I kept trying. I slept with dozens of men. As soon as one cooled off, I found another. It’s no wonder people still talk about me.
Then it got obvious that I was pregnant. I had no friends. Nobody trusted their boyfriends or husbands around me. I hadn’t discerned, not really. Anybody I thought could help me out, I’d burned through.
I was lucky my boss at the restaurant was a bit of a loner. If he got wind of my antics, he didn’t say anything to me about it. Of course, none of my coworkers would have much to do with me. I’d screwed all the guys at the restaurant, and the women hated me.
It was a long, terrible pregnancy. My doctor was kind, though. And a few nurses. Sometimes my appointments were the only good parts of my month.
Then you came. I didn’t have anyone to help, but a nice volunteer sat with me. She made me a CD of songs, and we played them over and over again. Madonna. Spice Girls. TLC. I think of that night you were born whenever I hear “Waterfalls.”
I named you Gabriel, but when they brought me the paperwork to fill out with your father and all that, I fell apart. I couldn’t stay in La Jarra. I had no help. I couldn’t afford childcare working at a restaurant. I did better stripping, but I was a mom now and there wasn’t a club, anyway.
Nursing you wasn’t working, and the lactation consultant who came in knew exactly who I was. She was awful, but then I’d done her dirty by lap-dancing for her fiancé.
I had to leave. But where would I go?
There wasn’t much I knew how to do.
The only real way I knew how to survive wasn’t available to me on the island, but it didn’t matter. It’s not like I could have found midnight day care.
I saw no way out.
So I left. I walked out of the hospital and went straight to the airport and got on the next plane I could. I didn’t even pack anything. I just went.
