by Lexie Ray
It was my favorite time of day. It was like I had the whole place to myself.
The shuffling of my slippers were the only sound as I padded down the carpeted hallway. Even though the carpeting was thin, industrial quality, it helped muffle footsteps up and down the corridor. I tried to walk lightly even though I knew I didn’t have to bother. It would probably be hours before anyone else woke up.
I looked fondly at each door I passed. The girls loved to decorate them, many unaware of how truly revealing it was. Nearly all of them had their names posted — the names Mama had given them, of course. Cream and Shimmy, Daisy and Pumpkin, all presented proudly in varying forms of cursive or glitter or huge block letters. They identified with their names, wore them like a badge of honor.
Then the decorations began. Those were almost like a diary. Most of the images were posters or clippings from magazines. Cream and Shimmy, who were roommates, painstakingly cut out petal and leaf and stem shapes from regular magazine pages and formed them into celebrity-dotted flowers. I could pick out Ryan Gosling’s gorgeous mug from part of a swirling rose.
Daisy and Pumpkin, on the other hand, cut out photos of puppies and kittens. You had to smile at their sweet door every time you passed it. They added several new ones practically every other day, making it seem like the animals were constantly cavorting over the surface of the door.
Blue’s door was probably the most creative. In her free time, she sketched. She had pieces of paper taped up to her door with caricatures of all the girls in Mama’s employ. She’d emphasized all of the features that had earned them their nicknames — Pumpkin’s round bottom, Shimmy’s constant dancing, and so on. The drawing of me was legs all the way up, munching on a chocolate bar.
Eating too much chocolate wasn’t how I got the name Cocoa, but nobody had to know that.
My door was free from any decorations except for a poster board with my name on it. I always kept another fresh poster board inside my room to write names of my new roommates. I didn’t post any magazines or pictures on purpose. I wanted my roommates not to feel intimidated by me taking up too much ownership of our shared space. I’d been here the longest out of anyone, and Mama liked to use me to help girls get used to life at the nightclub.
My roommates were always coming and going. If they didn’t work out at the nightclub, they moved on. If they did, they usually moved out and into another room to make way for the next new girl in mine.
I didn’t much mind. It was a great way to get to know everyone even though I wasn’t particularly close with anyone.
I smiled at the last door before the stairwell — Yo-Yo and Fantasy had attached an enormous poster of Charlie Hunnam along with a marker on a string. Girls who passed by had been adding saucy commentary to his sultry gaze.
“Look at Blue like that anytime, baby,” one of them read.
“PANTY DROPPER,” scrawled another.
I smirked and uncapped the marker. “Wish they all looked like this,” I added, drawing a smiley face.
All the girls were so different, as the decorations revealed, but we still came together in something resembling a sisterhood. It was difficult to understand, given the unique backgrounds everyone hailed from.
In fact, the only thing the door decorations had in common were that there were few — if any — photos of friends and family.
We were a family here. We were all the family we needed.
At the foot of the stairs, I paused for a moment. The nightclub was always so foreign in the morning, the light trying to get in, the chairs empty. I sometimes imagined I could still hear the music and chatter from the night before, ghostly echoes in the empty room.
Sometimes, it gave me chills.
Dust motes swirled in the light as I made my way to the kitchen, my mind still thinking about the night before and the customers I’d served. I had my regular customers, of course, the ones who couldn’t get enough of Cocoa, but every night was something new. I met new people, did new things, and never got bored.
I was good at what I did. The money I earned reflected that. Maybe the Cocoa I presented at the nightclub wasn’t the real me, but she did make me some cold, hard cash.
I pushed my way into the kitchen and jumped.
“What are you doing up so early, Mama?” I asked. Since Mama owned the nightclub, she was usually awake until well after the sunrise, looking at the books, counting up how well we’d done the night before, planning for future musical acts and dinner specials — running the joint.
She turned and smiled at me. All wrapped up in a terrycloth robe, her hair in curlers, and without the formidable amount of makeup she usually sported, Mama looked like anyone’s idea of a comforting mother figure. She could be that, when she wanted to be.
But I wasn’t the only one who knew Mama could be downright ruthless if she had to be. I’d seen her act as a bouncer, angrily evicting customers who tried to get away with things like not paying or abusing the girls.
Ruthless? During those times, Mama was terrifying.
“Hey girl,” she said, turning back to the grill. “Couldn’t sleep. Can I cook you up some breakfast?”
“Mama, if you’re cooking, I’m eating,” I said, holding my hands up and laughing. Mama was as good a cook as she was a businesswoman. It was a real treat if you got to eat her cooking. It felt like home.
“I was hoping you’d say that,” she said, grabbing a couple of plates. “I always make too much for just me.”
We sat right at the counter in the kitchen, where just the night before, chefs and assistants had dashed around, preparing and plating dinners for our customers. The room was empty and sterile. Soon, though, girls would start waking up and wandering down here for their own meals. And after that, the chefs would dash in to begin preparing for the customers again.
It was a never-ending cycle.
I hardly ate breakfast myself, preferring a cup of tea in the morning and something more substantial later in the day. However, I’d never refuse Mama’s food. She had to use some kind of kitchen magic to get her pancakes so fluffy, the bacon so crispy. The yolks never dared to break in her eggs over easy.
“You already do the books for last night?” I asked, popping in a forkful with a bit of everything on my plate, dipped in syrup. The flavors — buttery, creamy, salty, savory, sweet — melted in my mouth.
“Sure did,” Mama said, her mouth full. “We don’t know how to do a bad night, it looks like.”
“That’s great,” I said. When the nightclub did well, it meant all the girls did a good job.
“I wonder what we could be doing to get new customers in,” Mama said, taking a sip from a steaming mug of black coffee. “I know I can’t rightly advertise the place. Word of mouth is good — return customers bringing new customers — but I can’t help thinking we could be doing better.”
I looked at Mama askance. Her usually warm, brown eyes were in a faraway place I’d learned was where she was hunting money. I saw her this way a lot.
“Mama, you try to cram any more customers in this nightclub and we’re going to have to add extra tables and chairs,” I joked, even though it was true. There was a line outside every single night, and I knew that there were some times when not everyone got a chance to taste the wares of Mama’s nightclub.
If anything, it made them hungrier for it.
“More tables and chairs,” Mama said dreamily. “Maybe that’s just the thing.”
I got up and grabbed the chore list and section assignments for the nightclub. Every girl’s name was written on the whiteboard with red marker. It was my responsibility — delegated to me by Mama — to make up fresh assignments every day. I took special care to rotate everything evenly. No girl wanted to pull toilet-cleaning duty every night, nor did she want to serve the same section.
When we lived together in such close quarters, it was important to work together to keep it clean — a place you wanted to spend time in. I erased the names on the chore list with the slee
ve of my kimono and uncapped the marker, wrinkle my nose at the sharp scent.
Mama huffed her breath out heavily. “You gotta do that while we eat?” she asked.
“I gotta do it before Blue wakes up, walks down here, and thinks she’s cleaning the showers two days in a row,” I said. “She hates cleaning showers. She’d kill me.”
Mama chuckled. “Anything to keep Blue happy,” she said. “Go on, then.”
Showers, toilets, sweeping, mopping, sinks and mirrors, vacuuming, trash, kitchen, grocery, were all categories on the list for boarding house chores. I made sure each girl had a task different from the day before.
Dusting, plates, silverware, glassware, tables, chairs, menus, rooms, and sight checks were all the chores for opening and closing the club. I assigned girls for these tasks, as well. Tables had to be wiped down, even though they’d been cleaned the night before. Chairs had to be, as well, then tables set for the customers. Menus had to be cleaned in case anything had been splashed on them. The rooms — where the real money was made each shift — needed to be checked, the bed linens changed, new towels put out, the various bottles of lubes and packages of condoms restocked, and everything. I had to put several girls on the chart for this chore.
Mama’s nightclub was a nightclub. It hosted live musical acts almost every night. Customers danced if they wanted to — sometimes with the girls, sometimes with each other. It wasn’t uncommon to see women come in with the men that we more often serviced. The food was amazing. We featured chef’s specials every night and had a regularly rotating menu of tapas — smaller dishes that were perfect to accompany a night out. The booze flowed, just as it did at every club.
There was just one difference.
If the money was right, any of Mama’s girls would sleep with the customers — myself included.
Mama’s nightclub doubled as a thriving brothel. Plenty of people knew about it, but Mama’s connections were such that we never got shut down. More than a handful of the regular customers were actually cops. I’d even seen the chief of police in there one night.
As long as she kept it discreet and didn’t attract undue attention — or negative press — Mama’s nightclub operated comfortably. We had our own way of doing things, but they worked well. We had it nearly down to a science.
Mama usually preferred to sight check everything, making sure the nightclub and rooms were perfect before we opened, but I’d do it if she was too busy.
I was, more or less, her second in command at the nightclub. It was a big responsibility.
My last task for the whiteboards was making sure the girls rotated on which section they served in. Some sections were more exclusive, playing host to our more affluent and private customers. It wasn’t fair if girls didn’t get their chance to serve the customers who were more likely to shower them with money.
There were some exceptions, of course. If you were new, you got rotated to these sections less often. And there was nothing you could do if a customer requested a girl specifically. You had to serve him wherever he sat, even if it was in another girl’s section.
Still, we always helped one another out. If a girl saw an empty water glass, she’d fill it. The success of the nightclub depended on teamwork.
It was our lives. Many of the girls didn’t have anywhere else to go.
“Done,” I announced, capping the marker.
“Girl, that smell makes me feel high,” Mama said, waving her hand in front of her face. “I’m going to be loopy for the rest of the day.”
“Watch out,” I said, giggling.
“I was wondering if you could tell the girls something for me,” Mama said.
This I did often enough. Mama loved spending time with the girls, but she usually didn’t have enough of it to pay attention to everyone. I served as her mouthpiece, conveying bits of information and instructions to everyone.
“Of course.”
“I don’t know who did this, but I got a customer complaint that one of the girls wasn’t exactly fresh for business, if you get my drift,” Mama said, pushing her empty plate down the counter and resting her chin on her fist.
I winced. That was really embarrassing, not to mention that it reflected badly on the nightclub. We had to work hard to make sure our appearances were top notch. Why a girl wouldn’t be fresh — not smelling good, not looking good, or not being attentive enough to the client — was a serious problem.
“Do you think someone’s trying to do too much in one night?” I wondered aloud. “That would make sense, wouldn’t it? A girl trying to get in a few too many customers?”
I remembered when I first started out at the nightclub. So eager to earn money, I’d dash from customer to customer, putting my all into pleasing each one. I was, of course, always careful to shower between each encounter, reapply my makeup, straighten my hair, and march right back down to the nightclub to continue.
Exhaustion quickly set in. Back then, Mama had noticed I wasn’t my usual self before the customers did, which was a blessing.
“I know you want to make that dough, Cocoa,” she’d said, “but you’re not going to make it running yourself into the ground. Stick to a few customers. Show them a special time. The money will follow.”
Even when she’d first started the nightclub, she’d been a shrewd businesswoman — and right. When I focused my energy into just a few clients, I was unstoppable.
“I’m not sure how it’s happening,” Mama said, pulling me back to the present. “But something needs to be done. I don’t want it getting out that we’re falling asleep on the job. We have a reputation to maintain.”
“That we do,” I agreed. “I’ll remind the girls.”
“Thanks, honey,” Mama said. She leaned back and patted her plump stomach. “Mercy, I’m full.”
“I can’t believe you were going to try to eat all that by yourself,” I said. I was full, too, with all that rich food.
“Well, I fibbed,” Mama said. “I didn’t have trouble sleeping. I set my alarm. I was kinda hoping you were going to be down early.”
“You know me,” I said. “I’m always down early. What’s up?”
“I’ve been thinking that it’s been too long since you had a roommate,” she said.
“It has been a while,” I said carefully. I tried to think ahead at what Mama might be getting at. My last roommate had been a waif of a girl who hadn’t been cut out for life at the nightclub. That happened sometimes, and it didn’t make Mama happy when it did. It was like losing money on an investment, especially when the girl had needed things to start out with. Mama’s specialties were girls who were down on their luck. She’d take them in, clean them up, give them clothes, food, and a place to live, then earn her money back.
My last roommate — Scribbles, Mama had called her, since she was always writing in a little notebook — had refused to sleep with customers after her first encounter. Mama had smoothed feathers, offering other girls at discounted rates to the customers Scribbles had snubbed.
Then she’d unceremoniously dumped my roommate on her ass in the alley. Mama’s insults had echoed down the brick-lined corridor, making Scribbles scuttle away into the night and me feel like I’d done something wrong.
“I gotta vet ’em better,” Mama had muttered to herself. “Gotta get better help in here.”
I’d removed the poster board on my door with Scribbles’ name on it immediately, even before getting back to work at the nightclub. I had to take over serving her tables.
Mama told me later that she didn’t blame me a bit for Scribbles, but I felt guilty all the same. Maybe it was some failing of mine that kept the girl from doing the best job she could.
But if I was reluctant to talk about Scribbles, I absolutely loathed talking about Jazz.
Jazz had everything going for her when she was my roommate. Mama had wanted to move her on out of my room, especially when we’d taken on Shimmy a few weeks afterward.
But I had told Mama to wait. I didn’t lik
e what I was seeing with Jazz.
The business was eating her alive.
Jazz had made Mama so much money that she’d been more livid at the fact that Jazz had fled the nightclub than the fact that Jazz had betrayed her.
Or tried to, anyway. What had happened to Jazz in the end was the ultimate betrayal. She’d almost died in the process.
I let out a long breath. That was the past. I’d since gotten a letter from Jazz telling me that she was doing much better.
“We need a new way to bring in girls,” Mama said. I was immediately relieved that she didn’t want to talk about Jazz — or anything else I felt bad about. “A way to get them here and keep them here.”
“What’ve you been thinking of?” I asked.