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“Lavonne—” I started but she interrupted me.
“You’re workin’ ata titty bar?”
Wonderful.
“I’m not dancing, just waiting tables,” I assured her.
Lavonne didn’t feel assured. “A titty bar’s a titty bar. You’re not the type of girl who works at a titty bar. I know your mama didn’t raise you like that,” she retorted.
I pulled my back up.
Firstly, there was nothing wrong with working at a titty bar. It was good, honest work and good, honest people worked there (okay, maybe Richie, one of the bouncers, was a bit of a jerk). Secondly, on her dresser, Mom had a framed picture of Lottie sprawled across the top of a Corvette with her naked boobs pressed against the hood and her ass in a glorified thong pointed skyward.
Mom totally raised us like that.
“There’s nothing wrong with working at a titty bar,” I defended myself.
Lavonne deftly sidestepped my defense of titty bars.
“Your mother know about this?” Lavonne asked.
I nodded.
“What’s she say?” Lavonne pushed.
I hesitated, sighed and sat back down on the armchair. Then I gave Lavonne the rest of the story.
When I was done, she walked to a little desk in the corner (which had hearts carved into it) and took out a piece of paper and handed it to me. Then she went back to the desk, popped her smoke between her lips and spoke with the cigarette bobbing precariously.
“You write down your address and phone number on that sheet. Girl, Icannotbelieve you did not tell me Nancy had a stroke eight months ago. What must Nancy think, none of her friends poppin’ ’round?” She was digging through her desk and grabbed something and started writing. “Always took too much on yourself, even as a little kid. Never sharin’ the burden. Lettin’ people get away with murder. That father of yours takin’ advantage, Lottie off enjoyin’ herself without a care in the fuckin’ world while you mopped the kitchen floor. You’re fuckin’ Cinderella, is what you are.” She ripped a check out of a checkbook and handed it to me, taking the cigarette from her mouth and letting out an enormous plume of smoke. “’Cept Cinderella didn’t have a choice. You do.”
I took the check and looked at it. It was for five hundred dollars.
“Lavonne! I can’t take this!” I exclaimed.
Lavonne smashed the cigarette out in a heart-shaped ashtray and crossed her arms on her flat chest. “You can, you will. You’ll cash it and you’ll use it.”
I stared at the check then I stared at her.
“I know you don’t have this kind of money,” I informed her.
“Yes I do,” she retorted. “It’s my Christmas Club. Been savin’ up all year to buy this moron a flat screen TV. After today, he ain’t gettin’ no flat screen TV.”
Bear collapsed on the sofa and put his hand to his forehead.
Lavonne nodded to me. “Merry Christmas.”
I tried to hand the check back to her. “Really, I can’t.”
“Your Mama know Ray’s in town and all that’s happenin’ to you?” she asked.
Uh-oh.
I shook my head slowly.
“She’ll go on not knowin’ if I see that check’s been cashed,” Lavonne stated.
Wow. Lavonne wasgood.
