Calling Out

by Rae Meadows

  Ford laughs all the way to American Bush.

  The club is a squat, shiny black building; the neon pink cat on the sign winks on and off. Inside, the airconditioning is on despite the season, and the smell is a combination of cigars, a smoke machine, and orangeblossom perfume. It’s still early in the night so there’s a booth free right up near the stage and we slide in. I look up at a topless woman whose implants bulge out at the sides as she dances in high patent leather pumps. Ralf ’s eye twitches at the sight of her spherical breasts. Ford sees only Ember, who waves a dollar bill at the dancer above us.

  “What do we have to do here again?” Ember asks. “Recruit?”

  “Hand out some cards. Tell them they can make more money in the entertainment field,” I say, handing a small stack of wrinkled mauve Premier business cards to her.

  Ralf turns from the breasts to me, his mouth open as if asking a question.

  “You don’t have to talk to anyone,” I say to him, “You’re off the hook.”

  He relaxes in a slump in the booth and turns to the college basketball on one of the many TVs perched above the bar.

  The dancer, a young Asian woman with waist-length ebony hair is now on the floor. She spreads her legs in our direction and pulls over her G-string, her pubic hair shaved close in a narrow strip, and I think that escorting may be better than this after all, since only one other person shares an escort’s humiliation.

  “So maybe I should do this escorting thing,” Ember says. “It must pay pretty decently. It doesn’t seem that hard.” Her nose is red and running and her hands dance on the table in staccato as she talks. She looks from me to Ford and back. “Well?”

  Ford keeps his eyes on Ember.

  “Maybe you could look a while longer for something else,” he says.

  I feel for him. Despite his liberal espousals, Ford has never been that much of a free-liver.

  “Maybe I could,” she says.

  “You can come visit me at the office,” I say, “and see if it still seems interesting. I’ll introduce you to Mohammed.”

  I can’t look at Ford.

  “Cool,” she says.

  She and Ford are in a silent standoff until he melts and touches her forehead with his. Then she’s off and running with the Premier cards in hand and the buzz of an adventure. Ford watches her with softness and awe.

  “You’ve got yourself quite a firecracker,” I say.

  He squints at me over his beer and drains the bottle.

  “Yeah,” he says, and he lets it go at that.

  Ember seems to befriend everyone in the club, bartenders, dancers, and customers. I hear her laugh from some dark corner and watch her dance to the music blaring from the stage. It’s smoky and dark, and above us onstage three women jiggle around with half-interested expressions, spinning around the smudged, shiny poles.

  There is a dull, tight thread of irritation in my head leftover from the drugs. Although I have done cocaine before, once at a New Year’s Eve party in New York a couple years ago, it isn’t something I consider a casual indulgence, a mere lark. But tonight with Ember I dove right in. She went ahead and cut four lines without even giving us an option, because she’d just assumed we were with her. I liked that feeling, and going along seemed natural and fun and daring.

  I stuff a dollar in a brunette’s G-string and turn back to Ralf. We sit close in the booth. I don’t find him particularly attractive but I consider what it would be like to kiss him. It seems uncomplicated, a healthy distraction. He says he will only marry someone who is Mormon. He brushes a hair from my face as I tell him something about what it was like to be a copywriter, how meaningless words became.

  “That’s so interesting,” Ralf says. “I’ve never known a copywriter before.”

  I don’t know what I used to do all day, hour upon hour, year after year, looking at words on a screen. I remember it as if my eyes were at half-mast.

  Ford smiles at us, and then casts a worrying look into the haze after Ember.

  “Tell me something about Mormonism,” I say to Ralf.

  “Okay,” he says brightly. “Mormon was a guy. He was the leading Nephite general. He had a son named Moroni, and Moroni hid a set of golden plates in a hillside. Fifteen centuries later, the plates were revealed to Joseph Smith. That’s the simple version.”

  “‘Plates’ as in dinner plates?” I ask.

  “More like tablets,” he says. “If you believe that hocuspocus.” He laughs and touches his bandaged chin. “Moroni is the gold angel on top of the temple.”

  “Good to know,” I say.

  Ember swoops back to the table and knocks over the last bit of my drink.

  “Whew,” she says, breathless. “I gave out the cards to four dancers I met. I think they’re in. I said I was a talent scout.”

  “Thanks,” I say. “Mohammed will be so pleased. You’ll get twenty-five dollars for each convert.”

  “Including me?” she asks with a raised eyebrow.

  Ember lays her head against Ford’s shoulder and nuzzles his neck. He is rigid for a half second before kissing her head.Her face has a dewy glow. She catches me staring at her and leans over to kiss me on the cheek.

  “Thanks for letting us stay with you, Jane,” she says. “It seems like I’ve known you for eons.”

  “Hey, what about me?” Ralf asks.

  Ember takes his face in her hands and kisses him on the lips. Ford smiles but I know the kiss gets him, because it gets me too.

  By the time we stumble into the car it is past two. Ralf falls asleep with his head in my lap and Ember passes out in the passenger seat. Ford drives and talks quietly to me in the darkened rearview mirror.

  “It’s not like it seems, you know,” he says.

  “I don’t know how it seems,” I say. “And it doesn’t really matter what I think about it, does it?”

  Ford shrugs.

  “There’s something pretty compelling about always trying to catch up,” I say. “Chasing that feeling of what it’s like when the person picks you. I understand it, Ford, believe me.”

  “Sometimes I wish I didn’t,” he says.

  I reach over and touch his head.

  We don’t bother taking Ralf home. The four of us go back to my apartment in the quiet Avenues, take off our shoes, and fall in a heavy, tangled mass into my bed, nestling like a litter of blind and sleepy kittens.

  *

  “Hello, beautiful.”

  “Hi, Scott.”

  “You sound like you might be under the weather.” “No, just a little tired,” I say and yawn.

  “Not too tired for me, I hope.”

  “Of course not.”

  “Great. I’ll be there in a half hour.”

  “Hah,” I say, “Nice try, baby.”

  “Maybe I’ll drop by one day and you won’t even know it’s me.”

  “Come on now,” I say, “None of that.” My stomach catches. “I don’t suppose you’d like to see a lady?” With Diamond on a date, I scan the dismal list of two: S&M Samantha with the sour disposition and the new girl, Pamela, who I found huddled and crying in the tanning closet after her first date. I don’t have the heart to be

  the one to send her out again.

  “No,” he says, “not really a chance of that.” “I should get going,” I say.

  “You shouldn’t,” he says, “but I’ll let you.”

  Just as I hang up I jump at the sound of Ember’s voice.

  “That sounded cozy,” she says.

  “Jesus. Where’d you come from?”

  “Door was open. Who was that, anyway?”

  “Just a caller,” I say as I get up and check the lock on the door.

  Ember walks over to my desk in Ford’s old Irish sweater looking fresh and rested; her hair as lustrous as an oiled pelt, and her face, shiny clean. I sit back down and

  my head feels like a large wedge of clay propped up on my neck.

  “I bet you don’t talk to all the callers that wa
y,” she says. She starts to braid a section of my hair.

  “Did you sleep all right?” I ask.

  “Yeah. That was fun last night.”

  “Ford working?”

  “He left before I got up. So are you going to hook me up?” she asks.

  “You want to do this, just like that?” I ask. “Why not?” she asks.

  Ember gathers my hair into her hands and lets it fall on my back. I feel like I could sleep for a week. When I answer the phone, she listens with a bemused smile. “Mohammed’ll loan you the money in a second,” I say to her after I hang up. “He’ll think he’s won the jackpot.” She hugs me from behind and reads Scott’s information sheet over my shoulder.

  “Maybe you could send me to that guy, the one you were talking to. He sounds like fun.”

  Ember spins my chair around and with a school-yard giggle, flashes me her small, perfect breasts.

  “Yeah, maybe,” I say, feeling a bit territorial about Scott.

  Mohammed charges in and with barely an introduction, whisks Ember back into his office. A few minutes later, her laugh breaks through the afternoon dead air. I am flummoxed by the idea of her being able to jump right in, but I can’t tell if it’s out of envy for her guts or her beauty or her blitheness.

  I’m glad when McCallister calls, because he’s after something that he can get only from me.

  “Jane.”

  “Hi.”

  “Do you think the gay quarterback screenplay should be a comedy or a drama?”

  “Comedy.”

  “You’re sounding particularly dour today.” “Late night.” I know he is curious but I won’t expound. “Really? I was asleep at nine.”

  “Do you always have to use your cell phone?” I ask. “I feel like I have to yell.”

  “The cell phone is probably best in this situation. Besides, I can hear you just fine.”

  “Because I’m yelling.”

  “I have a question for you, Jane. Did we used to talk when we went out to dinner? I mean have stuff to talk about? Or were there long stretches of silence?” “You talked,” I say.

  “Funny,” he says. “It’s not like it feels awkward or anything, the not talking. I just wondered.”

  “Every relationship is different, McCallister.” “So it is,” he says.

  “Got to go,” I say.

  Ember and Mohammed emerge with jovial smiles. “Write out the checks,” Mohammed says to me. “Let’s

  get her out there!” He has the ebullient face of a bornagain evangelist. I can’t imagine what Ember gave him as collateral. He rubs his hands together and practically skips

  out the door.

  “So what does Ford think of all this?” I ask. “My sweet Ford,” she says. “Why should he care? I’m still going home to him.” From her backpack she pulls the baggie of white powder, significantly depleted from last night.

  “Meet me in the bathroom?”

  I hesitate but then I follow her.

  Diamond buzzes as we’re wiping our noses. I get the door.

  “That fucker,” she says as she throws herself on the couch.

  I try to pinpoint her date in my racing head. “He thinks because he’s seen me before he gets privileges.”

  Dale, the school principal, from Bountiful. “He got all grabby and ripped my shirt before I could get it off. Kept pushing my head down. As if.”

  “Where was his wife this time?” I ask.

  “Some sort of ward-meeting thing. I don’t know how he always gets out of church activities.”

  “Hey,” Ember says, walking into the lounge. “Hey,” Diamond says. “Are you new?”

  “Yep. I’m sure I’ll see you around.”

  Ember smiles and waves to me on her way out. “She’s pretty,” Diamond says.

  “So are you,” I say.

  She laughs and brings the money over to the desk. “Are you okay?” I ask. “Did he get rough or anything?” “Whatever. I’m fine.”

  “How’s the tooth?” I ask, to remind her that I know she’s escorting again only because of that.

  “It hurts like shit,” she says. She smiles and tosses me a twenty-dollar bill.

  *

  When I get home, Ralf is sitting on my doorstep in a flannel shirt and paint-spotted jeans. His wet hair is combed back and he shivers, holding his hands under his arms.

  “Where’s your coat?”

  “I left it in Ford’s truck,” he says. “I was hoping he’d be here.”

  “Come on in,” I say. “I’ll make you some tea.”

  He sticks his head through the door before stepping inside.

  “Where is everybody?” he asks.

  “I was going to ask you the same thing. Ember came in to work today.”

  Ralf nods and takes a seat at the kitchen table. The light is bright and sharp and it makes us shy. Through the window the crepuscular sky deepens to indigo.

  “So how come they’re called Latter-day Saints?” I ask.

  “Because after the apocalypse, we’ll be left to frolic,” he says.

  “Peppermint or Almond Sunset?”

  “Almond Sunset,” he says with a bashful smile.

  I set a steaming mug in front of him and press Play on my answering machine.

  “Hi honey. Well now that we got through Thanksgiving, it’s time to think about Christmas. Let us know when you’re coming home. Your sister has requested roast beef for Christmas dinner. You know your father and I don’t care. Whatever you girls want.”

  I press Delete. Ralf smiles.

  “Hey, are you there? Pick up. I have to ask you something. Hello? Okay. Talk to you later.”

  “Who’s that?” Ralf asks.

  “McCallister. He’s in New York.”

  Ralf looks at me with a curious grin and drinks his tea. He seems to be without guile or pretense, which strikes me at this moment as being as appealing as fresh snow.

  “You are a mysterious woman, Jane,” he says finally.

  I laugh. “Hardly,” I say.

  We move into the living room to watch TV—an old episode of M*A*S*H—and sit side by side on the couch, close, content, and warmed by the tea.

  “Hey, feel that?” he asks.

  “Yeah,” I say and smile.

  “Wow. I didn’t know you could feel the train from way out here.”

  chapter 7

  Ember has taken the name Shena, fittingly exotic, and she prepares for her first call out. She has tied her hair in a loose knot—no doubt for the drama of letting it down later—and looks in my closet for a sweater, opting for a snug black turtleneck.

  “It’s like I’m getting ready for the Oscars,” she says as she smudges black eyeliner on her lids. “Sort of.”

  I sit on the bed and watch like an envious little sister.

  “I hope you get sent to someone decent,” I say.

  “I’m not worried,” she says as she coats her already dark lashes with mascara.

  In the other room, Ford drinks beer and reads the Deseret News.

  “Listen to what the Mormon president says,” Ford calls to us. “‘Our whole objective is to make bad men good and good men better, to improve people, to give them an understanding of their godly inheritance and of what they may become.’ The nerve,” he says.

  “What do you have against improvement?” I ask, walking out into the living room.

  “I’ll do it by my own rules, thank you.”

  “Just because it’s not right for you,” Ember calls back, “doesn’t make it wrong.”

  “Good God,” he says. “Since when did the two of you convert?”

  When Ember appears in the doorway, Ford winces, recoiling into his body. She is stunning. The energy crackles silently between the three of us.

  He turns away and drains his beer. She goes into the kitchen and cuts lines of cocaine on the kitchen counter. She snorts two of them and I have one. Ford won’t join us.

  The phone rings as if on cue and a flinch passes across Embe
r’s face. She quickly hides it with a smile when she sees me watching. I asked the phone girls to be easy on her, but the name of the date is no one I know.

  Ember kisses Ford’s head, then bites the back of his neck until he scrunches his shoulders and succumbs, and they giggle and kiss. I volunteered to be Ember’s driver, to make the process less solitary and severe, so I wait for them to disentangle themselves, jangling my keys.

  “Don’t wait up,” she finally says to Ford, striking a screen siren’s pose.

  Seeing Ford’s distress, I almost shift sides but Ember pulls my hand with all the strength of her wiry, electric body, and I trip after her to the car.

  “Are you freaked out?” I ask, once we’ve closed the doors.

  I can see my breath in the front seat. Ember tunes the radio to hip-hop.

  “No way. It’s an adventure.”

  The drug flips a hyperawareness switch in my head and I am vicariously expectant for whatever the evening holds. Ember dances in her seat like she is getting pumped up for a boxing match.

  “Be good,” I say. “It’s harder than you think to tell who’s a cop.”

  She smiles as we drive by the Christmas lights display in Temple Square, and I smile at good old Moroni on top. Below him, each tree shimmers with tiny lights setting off the spotlighted granite spires of the temple.

  “That’s why the streets are so wide here,” I say, pointing to the church, “so the oxcarts carrying the granite to build the steeples could turn around.”

  “Did Ralf tell you that?”

  I laugh.

  “It really does look like Disneyland,” she says.

  One of the horse-drawn tour carriages pulls out into our lane and I slam on the brakes, acutely sensitive to keeping everything in control in my current state.

  “We should do that some time before Christmas,” Ember says, pointing to the carriage. “Just you and me. It’ll be sad and fun.”

  “And cold,” I say.

  “Maybe when it gets all snowy.”

  “Yeah,” I say, “okay.”

  Little America is a sprawling hotel complex that gives off an air of middle-class suburbia despite its location downtown. There are small patches of lawn around the faux colonial buildings. Mormons like to stay here when they come to pay tribute to the founding fathers. We send a lot of girls here.