Shameless

by Nina Lemay

Last one, the biggest print, is me in front of a dressing room mirror, in a halo of light bulbs, naked and barefoot, not a speck of makeup so my overexposed face is practically blank except for the deep pools of my eyes.

  In front of the display sits a small dais with a speaker propped up on it and my old iPod plugged in. A red arrow points to the Play button. Finally, someone steps forward and presses it.

  The voice bursts from the speakers, staticky, unclean.

  “You’re nothing but a stupid whore. You think anyone even cares what you have to say? Dirty, lying slut. You flash your tits and your pussy to everyone with a twenty, what do you expect? You think the police will care that someone actually got his money’s worth out of you?”

  There’s a gasp in the crowd. Some recognize Leary’s voice, I’m sure, but even without it, the sheer disdain and hatred in the words is shocking in its intensity. The voice fades to static but silence lingers, followed by whispers, murmurs full of growing outrage. A girl presses her hand over her mouth.

  This morning, the full version of the recording went to the school board, the director, the teachers in the department, to everyone with a Mackay email address. Except for Emmanuel.

  I thought about it for a long time, saved it for last. Many times my cursor lingered over the red SEND button, and every time I didn’t click on it. It’s funny, you’d think he’d be the first person who needed to know—who had the right to know the truth, at least. But in the end, I never sent it.

  Maybe there was no point, everything was over between us anyway. Or maybe I was just tired of justifying myself, for once.

  And then the whirlwind catches up with me, and suddenly I’m surrounded by people. Oh my God, Hannah, that’s so profound. It’s amazing. You really changed the way I look at—I never even imagined that— It’s so brave of you to—

  But I’m deaf to all of it, like I’m on the other side of an invisible glass wall. They’re close but they can’t reach me, can’t affect me.

  Because that’s when I glimpse Emmanuel for the first time, for just a fraction of a second before he disappears behind one of the screens.

  A part of me wants to run after him, to talk to him, to ask if he’d seen and he’d heard. But I stay rooted to the floor, half-listening, nodding along.

  “This is extremely powerful work,” says a short woman with pink streaks in her hair. She’s probably in her late thirties but she has a ring in her nose and a pink spiked choker necklace. “I’m impressed. I didn’t realize at first it was you in that photo—I thought you were at least a post-grad. I didn’t expect you to be so young.”

  I nod and thank her. But even when she hands me her card with the logo of an Old Port art gallery embossed on the glossy cardboard surface, I can’t bring myself to feel happy or satisfied. I can’t bring myself to feel a goddamn thing. A few people from my class whisper to one another, casting envious glances at that tiny cardboard square worth its weight in gold to them. I guess no one figured it would be me.

  I find myself wishing I could just give it to them and be done with it.

  It feels like hours pass until the crowd starts to thin out. Everyone is in an upbeat mood, planning for the parties and clubs they’ll be heading off to, to celebrate the end of the semester. Finally, just a few people are left, mostly teachers and staff.

  Come to think of it, I never saw Emmanuel leave either. For all I know he left quietly an hour ago, without drawing attention.

  Which is why his voice behind me, a soft murmur, startles me.

  “Hannah,” he says. I turn around: his face looks thinner, with hints of shadows under his eyes. But other than that, he’s exactly like I remember, messy dark hair, two days’ stubble that only makes him look more rugged and intense. My heart clenches.

  “It’s fantastic. There’s nothing more I can say. You did an amazing job.”

  I lower my chin. “Thank you.”

  “I only wish I’d seen it sooner,” he adds out of nowhere, puzzling me. Just as I draw in a breath to speak, he goes on:

  “…I mean, I already had to give you your grade. You still passed, with 62%. But I’ll go and change it now.”

  “You don’t have to change it. I didn’t do this for… for school.”

  His gaze flits to the large portrait, then back to me. “Yeah. I figured as much.”

  A couple of faculty members walk past and disappear behind the screens. Emmanuel lowers his voice.

  “I heard it. The recording.”

  My stomach flips.

  “Aren’t you going to say something?” he prompts. The bitterness in his voice is palpable. When I look up and meet his eyes, they’re a touch too shiny.

  “No. I’ve said everything there was to say.” I give a slight nod at the photos.

  He covers his eyes with his hand. “Of course.”

  A few seconds pass by in total silence, nothing but the barely-audible hum of the bright white lights.

  “It was Audrey, you know,” he says softly. “She told me to go see Leary during his office hours. It doesn’t change anything, but I just thought you should know.”

  “You’re right,” I say. “It doesn’t change anything.”

  He reaches out to touch my hand, and I can’t bring myself to pull away. He takes my hand between his, so warm and dry, just as I remember. “I thought the worst of you,” he whispers. “Because maybe you’re right and my head is filled with preconceived notions. Maybe to the point where it’s too late for me to change. But I simply assumed the worst, without giving you a chance, and you got hurt because of me.”

  I want to say something, but all words are lost.

  “There’s nothing I can say or do at this point to make it okay. I just wanted to tell you how sorry I am.”

  He waits for me to answer, to tell him that I accept his apology, that he shouldn’t be sorry, or some other comforting platitude. Or maybe he waits for me to tell him to fuck off and die.

  When I don’t do either of these things, he heaves a sigh. “I’m resigning,” he says. “Leaving the school. No one explicitly asked me to, but…”

  “Don’t resign,” I say. “Not because of me. I’m the one who’s leaving. That’s what I wanted to tell you. I’m dropping out first thing tomorrow.”

  He chokes. “But…”

  “It’s for the best.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  My long, silent look is the only answer. Finally, he lets go, and stares at the floor.

  “We should get going,” I say. My robotic voice is back, which is better that having no voice at all… isn’t it? “They’re closing down the auditorium soon.”

  We part ways silently, at the auditorium exit. He goes one way and I, the other, a perfectly choreographed ending—the way it should have been from the start.

  I squeeze my eyes shut and count my steps. Only when I can be sure he’s far enough I stop and cover my face with my hands.

  Two Months Later

  “So the door guy is just on the other side,” my new manager waves at the screen that separates the booths from the rest of the floor. “If anything happens, a guy gets rowdy, just holler. He’ll come over and fuck him up.”

  I nod matter-of-factly, like it’s all business as usual to me. The club isn’t as big as my old one and it’s a little farther from the downtown core, but somehow it’s never empty. The manager is a woman, a bleached blonde who still sports the eighties poufy bangs and tanned skin the texture of a Birkin bag. But everyone tells me she really stands up for the girls. Within the first five minutes, she cheerfully tells me that she stripped for nearly twenty years before marrying the owner of this place.

  Then again, who am I to judge. To each her own.

  “That’s all I ever knew,” she says, waving her hand and flashing the rings piled on all five fingers. “So now I make sure all my girls are happy, you got that, bébé?”

  I nod.

  “So what’s your stage name going to be?”

  I almost blur
t out Alicia but hesitate. Maybe it’s time to let go of Alicia, just like it’s time to let go of other things. “Um, let me get back to you on that.”

  She measures me with a glance. “You need something flowery, you,” she says with a squint in her eye. “Look at you, all young and fresh comme une rose.”

  “Me?” I giggle. “A rose? I’m not chic enough. I’m more of a shrinking violet, if anything.”

  She blinks at me in puzzlement, clearly confused by the English expression. “Okay, you can be Violet if you want.”

  I don’t really want to be Violet, but it seems like a lucky accident. So I just go along with it.

  This club is different from the old one, in a good way. There’s a lounge area for the girls right on the floor, to sit and chat on slow nights without being out of sight of potential customers, and even a coffee machine we can just help ourselves to. The coffee is weak and tastes like paper filter, but you know what they say, gift horse and all.

  When there aren’t enough customers to start the show, we usually just goof around and practice pole moves on the main stage. I find that I’m actually getting better at this. I can do some stuff fit for Cirque de Soleil. The girl who teaches me apparently runs a pole dance school when she’s not working.

  I tell her I do photography, and she asks if I’d be interested in taking some photos of her classes to post on her website, as demos.

  I say yes. Why not?

  My project was all over the place for quite a while. I even saw a post about it on a huge feminist blog, and a ton of mentions on sex-worker blogs. People called it things like daring and brave. It was strange. I didn’t do anything special, I just told the truth.

  Of course, there were people in the comments who called me a shameless whore, the scum of the universe, and said I deserved whatever happened to me. But somehow all of it rolled right off me, with nary a sting.

  Somewhere along the line, I just stopped caring and started living my life. It was refreshing.

  It’s on one of the slow nights that he comes into the club. I’m on stage, trying to pull off a really complicated and impressive pole move that involves twisting myself into a pretzel while slowly sliding down to the floor—and smiling and looking sexy the whole way. When I see him, I freeze mid-movement, and flop gracelessly on my knees.

  But it’s not fear or shame or soul-crushing pain that fills me when I see him. My heart thrums, but I wave at him and smile like he’s just an old friend who dropped by to visit.

  Except when he smiles back, my insides tie into a knot and my heart tugs upward like a balloon all over again.

  I hop off the stage and walk over to him, self-conscious and a little wary of getting too close.

  Emmanuel smiles. The familiarity of it makes me ache. “Hi, Alicia.”

  “Hannah,” I say. “And anyway, it’s not Alicia here.”

  “What’s wrong with Alicia?” I can’t tell if he’s teasing.

  “Nothing. Alicia was the name of the bitchiest girl at my high school, and I think I’m kinda over her, that’s all.”

  “Wow.”

  “Wow what?”

  “I think this is the most you’ve told me about your past since I’ve met you.”

  Without needing invitations, we both walk to the empty bar and take seats.

  I shrug. “Yeah. I guess.”

  “So that was it? The big secret?”

  “No. Not exactly.” I’m so light inside, I feel like I can soar like a bird any second. “You see, I was really dorky and unpopular until my senior year, when this guy Jonathan asked me out, just like that, out of the blue. He was Alicia’s ex-boyfriend, he played football, you know, the usual—it was like every nerdy girl’s Cinderella dream come true. So we went out, and I thought I had finally made it, managed to weasel my way into the popular crowd. And then he asked me to send him a naked pic. And I did. You can imagine the rest.”

  He looks at me, thoughtful, a touch of sadness about his eyes. “That’s terrible. Is that why you left for another country?”

  “Yeah,” I say with a shaky laugh. “I know, I know. Overkill. But it turned out well… so far.”

  “So far.” The smile is back. It lights up his whole face. “I looked for you.”

  “I dropped out, like I said.”

  “I know. And I quit anyway.”

  I lower my gaze, suddenly aware of my bare legs in my tiny bikini. “You didn’t have to.”

  “Leary was the object of an investigation,” Emmanuel says somberly. “He has tenure, but they made him resign.”

  “Good.”

  “And Audrey didn’t come back. They let her off with a warning, but I guess she was too wounded in her pride.”

  I snort.

  “But what about you? I looked for you for weeks, you know. I went to your old club and this girl with humongous acrylic nails that glowed in the dark told me you worked here now.”

  “That’s Maryse,” I say with a laugh. “And you know what they say, judge someone by their deeds and not by their manicure.”

  He face grows serious. “I wanted to say I’m sorry.”

  “You already did.”

  “I don’t think I can say it enough. Not ever.”

  “I was never angry at you. I didn’t have the right to be. Things were just… fucked up, you know?”

  The barmaid leans in to ask what he’s drinking, but catches on to something and leaves us alone.

  “Why didn’t you just tell me that he—that he assaulted you? That he blackmailed you? I could have done something. I could have—”

  “You could have gotten fired,” I say.

  “You really think it would matter to me? After that? Are you serious?”

  With a sigh, I look down at my knees again, at my hands folded in my lap. Still childish, nail-polish-free hands, with paint stains around the fingernails. I pick at one of them distractedly.

  “I don’t know,” I finally say. “To tell you the truth, it never even occurred to me to tell you. I was too terrified, I guess. That, and stupid and inexperienced. He saw all that, too, that’s why he picked me to victimize in the first place. He knew what he was doing.”

  “That,” Emmanuel says grimly, “and you didn’t think I’d believe you.”

  I gulp. “Would you have believed me? If, after you walked in on Leary and me, I had run after you and tried to explain, would you have believed me?”

  He takes a long time to answer. “I hope so.”

  “You hope so.”

  He runs his hands over his hair. My heart breaks and I want to just hug him and hold him and bury my face in his shoulder, erase all the painful history between us, all the resentment and mistrust and misunderstanding. Start fresh.

  “Maybe you were right about me. I dismissed you right off the bat, because of—because of this.” He gestures around at the club. “I loved you, and at the same time, deep down I just waited for the other shoe to drop. For you to turn out to be just another Vanessa.”

  My breath catches. I look up at him and the world frays; the blinking neon lights blur around his face like a halo. I can only hear one word. My mind latches on to it and refuses to let go.

  He loved me.

  Loved, in the past tense.

  “For that, I can never stop saying I’m sorry. I’m the one who failed the test. I’m the one who doesn’t deserve you.”

  I want to put my finger to his lips, make him stop talking. I want him to say that word again, and again and again. I want him to never stop saying it, even if it’s already in the past, irrevocably lost. At least it means I had it once. It was mine, if only for a little while.

  “You will never see me again, if you don’t want to,” he says, so softly I barely hear him over the music.

  “I…” it’s a wonder I can still speak. Emotions choke me, tears well up in the back of my throat. “I might be leaving Montreal.”

  “Of course.” He doesn’t ask where I’m going.

  “I’m applying to art s
chools all over North America. My grades are good, and the exposure I got for La Confession really gave me a boost…” I’m rambling, but I don’t want to stop. If I stop, I know the tears will take over, spill out. “I applied to OCAD, to a school in British Columbia, even to a couple of places back in the States. I did late admissions, but I think there’s still a good chance I might get in.”

  Finally, he looks up. His eyes are shiny. “I’m glad,” he says. “I’m glad you’re pursuing your studies. Going after your dreams.”

  For a very long time, neither of us says a word. We’re frozen in this pas de deux like we both lost our rhythm, each waiting for the other to make the move.

  “But since you quit your job—” I say carefully. “Although I don’t know how you feel about long distance...”

  His head snaps up. The hope in his eyes is wild and desperate, and I recognize it—I’ve felt the same way so many times, every time he took me into his arms and looked at me like I was the only one. Every time he held me like I was rare and precious.

  He reaches out, slowly, carefully, as if afraid to scare away a butterfly that alighted on his sleeve, and takes my hand.

  “Hannah Melissa Shay, I love you. I’ve been without you for all these months now and I never want to be without you again, not if I can help it. I love you and I respect you, your resilience, your strength, your independence. And I will gladly follow you wherever you choose to go, as long as you want me to.”

  I wondered what it would be like to hear him say it—for real, in the present tense. I guessed it would be like the movies: we kiss, and fireworks go off above our heads. But no fireworks go off. It’s a quiet, but intense happiness that floods every inch of my being, and suddenly I’m warm and comfortable. And happy. And whole.

  I realize how we must look, sitting at the bar of a strip club, me in my sparkly bikini and sky-high crystal shoes like a perverted Cinderella, him in worn jeans and a t-shirt, holding my hand almost chastely. Anyone watching us might think we’re nuts. Maybe we are.

  I can’t help it. I start to giggle, overcome with bubbly happiness bursting from my every pore.

  “What is it?” Emmanuel asks anxiously, even though I can see he’s cracking up too. “Hannah, what is it?”