Paid Companion

by Nia Forrester

  Groaning, Lia shoved the remainder of her meal aside. She had eaten too fast, and now felt stuffed and uncomfortable. She took a warm shower, brushed her teeth, and settled on the sofa, watching without really absorbing a movie on Netflix. Then she watched but did not absorb another, took a nap, and woke up in time to get ready for her grocery store run with Stephanie.

  “You ready to talk yet?” Stephanie asked as she drove.

  “There’s really nothing to tell,” Lia said, feeling as though she was telling the complete truth. “It was just more trying than I thought it would be.”

  “What d’you mean?”

  “All the lying. It was like, before I left it was kind of funny. Like I would be walking into a sitcom plot or something. I mean, they’re rich, they’re good-looking … it was almost like they weren’t real people with feelings and lives and problems. And then I got there, and …”

  “And?” Steph prompted.

  “And, they are real people. With real problems, lives and feelings. So, the lying after a while …” Lia shrugged. “I didn’t want to do it anymore.”

  Stephanie didn’t say anything for a long time, then she finally cleared her throat. “Anything else happen you want to tell me about?”

  Steph and her radar.

  “I might have had a little … thing with Kevin Taylor, and …”

  “I knew it!” Stephanie erupted.

  Lia looked at her. “How did you know?”

  “There was a smile in your voice when you mentioned him. And you mentioned him a lot.”

  Lia smiled now, thinking about Kevin and all the little things she had come to learn about him in a few short days.

  “What was he like?” Steph asked.

  “He was like … a little boy trying his best to be a big, strong man. But he was a big strong man, too. A sensitive, beautiful, man.”

  “Sounds like you grew a little crush while you were away, Miss Lia.”

  “I wish I could’ve gotten to know him better,” she admitted.

  “But it was an adventure, right?”

  Bless her heart, Steph was trying to make it all seem upbeat.

  Lia feigned a laugh. “Yeah,” she said. “It definitely was.”

  ~20~

  Debbie was sitting behind her enormous desk upon which she had rested her elbows. She made a steeple of her forefingers and stared at Lia with a tight smile making a harsh line of her already thin lips. The effect was made harsher because of the slash of orange lipstick, and the dark suit she was wearing. It was one of Debbie’s affectations, to wear business suits with one very specific flourish. Today, though the suite was dark and conservative, her shoes were as orange as her lipstick. In Washington DC, this was the kind of outfit people considered daring.

  “I don’t suppose you have an explanation for this,” she said. “A reason you might offer for why you would do such a thing.”

  Her grey eyes were cold. She knew full well that there was no explanation. The situation was precisely as it appeared.

  “This is an extraordinary breach of trust, Lia. At a minimum. Some might even say there are grounds for us to press charges.”

  Lia held her breath. She was sitting in the chair directly opposite her boss, throwing herself on the mercy of the court. As soon as she walked into the office that morning and saw the temp sitting at what was normally her desk, she’d smiled at the girl, even feeling a little badly for her since today was going to be the last day of her assignment. But instead of welcoming Lia with a smile in return, she averted her eyes a little and mumbled something about Debbie needing her in her office, urgently.

  Urgently. That was what did it, so that Lia knew even before she entered the corner office, decorated with the framed headshots of the agency’s most successful models, that something serious was amiss. And she even had an inkling about what that might be. She just couldn’t for the life of her figure out how Debbie would have found out.

  “They wanted to offer you a bonus,” Debbie said, a hint of irony in her voice. “For a job well done. The client himself called.”

  Lia sat forward. “Kevin called?”

  Debbie gave her a cold look. “No. Blake Morgan called. He wanted to speak to you.”

  Lia had a few more questions about what Blake had said, but didn’t dare ask them.

  “Do you have anything to say for yourself?” Debbie asked, but her eyes were closed off. She didn’t care what Lia had to say, but was just going through all the necessary formalities.

  “Just that I’m very sorry. It was terrible judgment on my part, and of course, the fee I earned …”

  Debbie gave another of those tight, angry smiles. Lia had never really liked her, but knew that summoning that dislike now was self-serving. It suited her to think of how much she didn’t like Debbie because in this instance, it was Debbie who had been wronged.

  “I’m going to do you the biggest favor I have ever done an employee, Lia,” her boss said. “I’m going to let you go. And as your severance, you may keep the bonus. The base fee I’m going to retain for the agency. Because after all, it always belonged to the agency.”

  ‘The agency’ was just another way of saying that it belonged to Debbie herself. She had built it up to one of the more prestigious of its type in the city, with a reputation for providing girls who were a little classier than the average model, a little less obvious. There were no other shareholders besides Debbie Levin and her family. It was rumored that Debbie herself had once been a ‘party girl’.

  “Thank you,” Lia said. She was relieved that Debbie wasn’t going to swear out a criminal complaint against her of course, but more surprising, she was relieved to have been fired from her job.

  “You may go. The bonus will be deposited into your account, along with your final pay.”

  Outside, standing on L Street, Lia took a deep breath and looked up at the sky. It was a bright summer morning, and it had already grown muggy, even though it was not yet ten a.m. Washington DC was brutal in August. She wouldn’t miss not having to get dressed-up in heels and pantyhose and a dress every single day. But she would miss her paycheck.

  Having thought it tasteless under the circumstances, she hadn’t asked how much the bonus was, but there was no pretending that it hadn’t been more than generous for Debbie to have given her even a cent of it. Reaching for her phone, Lia almost dialed Stephanie’s number then decided not to. There was no point worrying her. Instead, Lia headed over to the nearest Starbucks and got herself a frozen coffee drink, then, slinging her jacket over her shoulder, hailed a cab she now could no longer afford, and went home.

  She was halfway up the stairs when she saw him, leaning against her apartment door, and typing out a text message or email on his phone. With the click of her high-heeled shoes, he looked up and then pushed himself to an upright position, grinning at the sight of her.

  “I thought you might come back home,” he said. “Figured you were getting’ shit-canned for sure, Miss I’m-Only-Pretending-to-be-a-Model.”

  Lia smiled back at him. He looked outside of his element, standing there in the gray hallway of her dingy little apartment building.

  “I thought you were in Florida,” she said. He stood aside to allow her to unlock her apartment.

  “I’ll be heading back in a couple of weeks. But I had to come see you first.”

  “How did you know I’d be here?”

  “Your boss said your first day back was supposed to be today. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that you wouldn’t be there too long.”

  “Come in.”

  Blake followed her into the apartment and looked around. “So, you played us all, huh?”

  “That wasn’t what I was …” Lia shrugged. “I guess you could see it that way, but I was just …”

  “I know. Trying to make a little money. Seeing this armpit of an apartment, I can see why.”

  “You’re not mad at me.” It was a half-question, half-statement. Lia tossed her jacket over the
back of her sofa and stepped out of her heels.

  “To find out you’re not exactly what you said you are?” Blake let his head fall to one side. “Am I really in a position to judge someone for that?”

  And then he smiled at her again and opened his arms. Lia walked into them and hugged him. He smelled different. No longer like saltwater and fresh air. Now he smelled like cologne.

  “I kind of missed you,” he said when he let her go.

  “Only kind of?” she asked.

  He was a little less comfortable with her, a little more guarded than he had been on the island. So, Lia held off on asking what she wanted to know. She wanted to ask what had happened between him and his parents once she left, whether he had come out to them. But it seemed a very heavy question to ask right off the bat, especially when it was clear they would have to navigate their way back to the easy friendship they had built. Now, in a new place, something new would have be develop between them.

  “How about Nicki … and Kevin?” she asked. “Are they angry at me? For lying to them?”

  “Nicki’s not.”

  “But Kevin …”

  Blake shrugged. “It’ll take him a minute,” he said.

  “I don’t understand why you’re being so cool about it, honestly.”

  “So, you’re a receptionist and not a model. What difference did it make? It was a stupid-ass plan to begin with.”

  “But I lied.”

  “I lie. Nicki lied. We all lied. All the time.”

  “Except for Kevin.”

  “Well, he’s a little more pure-hearted than most.” Blake sat on her sofa, and looked around. “You should be able to move out of this place now, I hope.”

  “My boss … my ex-boss took the fee, so … maybe not for a while.”

  “I have a place,” Blake said. “One that I hardly use. I could loan it to you when I go back to Miami, if you want to move out.”

  Lia sat across from him, amused. “You’re offering to move me into your apartment in DC? Where is it?”

  “Good location. Central …”

  “Where?” Lia pressed.

  “The Watergate.”

  Lia exploded into laughter at the sheepish look on his face. “Are you embarrassed to have a swanky apartment?” she asked. “I figured it would be someplace like that. And no, you don’t need to loan me your apartment.”

  “I could rent it to you, then.”

  “I couldn’t afford it.”

  “Pay what you pay here.”

  “That wouldn’t feel honest.”

  “Right. Because you’re all about honesty,” he said, and his voice was unexpectedly bitter.

  “Blake,” Lia leaned forward. “I … that wasn’t something I should have done. Lied to you, taken the listing from my agency. I wish I hadn’t …” She stopped. “No, that’s not true. I’m not sorry I took the listing. But it was wrong.”

  “So, she took the fee, huh? All that work …”

  “It was work sometimes. But it was fun, too. I liked hanging out with you, believe it or not. And she took the fee, but she didn’t take the bonus.”

  “Well then you’re straight. The bonus was basically me doubling the fee.”

  Lia leaned in, incredulous. “You paid me a ten-thousand-dollar bonus? But I didn’t even finish the entire …”

  “Doesn’t matter.” Blake stood quickly, looking uncomfortable that she was referring to dollar amounts. “Where’s your phone?” he asked.

  Lia handed it to him. He looked at it, and immediately, exasperatedly, handed it back to her so she could unlock the screen. When she had, he took it and entered something. Then he offered her one last smile, opened her door, and left. From the way he’d left—so abruptly and without a word, Lia knew that he, too, was a little angry at her deception. It was just that he didn’t think he had a right to be.

  When he was gone, Lia looked down at her phone. The Contacts app was open to the M’s, and Blake had entered his phone number, and Nicki’s. Scrolling from the M’s to the T’s just to check, just in case but not daring to hope, Lia saw that Blake had indeed entered Kevin’s contact information as well.

  Over the next several days, Blake came over. He never called first, and he never seemed to have a specific aim in mind when he got there. He simply ambled in when Lia opened the door for him, settled onto her sofa and watched television. Occasionally, he brought food with him—spicy Thai, or Chinese food; and once, what he said was authentic Haitian.

  Lia took out her charcoals sometimes and sketched him. He never said anything when she did, but once, looked at the drawing she had done that day and one corner of his mouth tugged up into a half-smile. He asked her if he could take it with him, and then gave her a full smile when she said he could.

  Another night, when they were watching a movie, and it grew late, he asked if she had a blanket so he could crash on her sofa, so Lia had fetched him one. Even though he was her friend now, and no longer a stranger staring up at her from the society pages, it still felt surreal when Lia had gone to the bathroom in the middle of the night to see him sleeping there. Blake Morgan, who had an apartment in the Watergate, wanted instead to sleep on her ratty sofa. She watched him for a little while, and felt a rush of what could only be described as sisterly affection, and empathy.

  He was lonely.

  But the next morning, when Lia woke up, he was gone, and he didn’t return for two days.

  On the third day, when he came back, Stephanie was visiting, and was dumbstruck when she answered Lia’s door to find one of America’s most eligible Black bachelors standing there. Blake introduced himself, and Stephanie tried to make conversation with him, but was painfully awkward and finally excused herself, saying she had to go. Later, she would text Lia that she hadn’t wanted to make any more of a fool out of herself than she already had.

  “Nicki’s having a party,” Blake said. “A kind of introduction of Gabe to the world, I guess.”

  “Really?” Lia smiled, pleased.

  “Yeah. And she said I should bring you as my date. So … you want to be my date?”

  Lia nodded. “Yeah,” she said slowly. “That’d be pretty cool.”

  For all the days that Blake had been coming to hang out, she hadn’t wanted to ask about Nicki, or Kevin. For one thing, she wanted Blake to know that he was enough. He didn’t always have to come with the two appendages that were his siblings. It seemed important to have him know that. And the second reason was that Lia wasn’t sure either Nicki or Kevin had any interest in knowing her beyond the most casual.

  “You could bring your friend Stephanie, too,” he added. “If you think that’s something she’d enjoy.”

  His inclusion of Stephanie meant almost more than his inviting her. It meant that he wanted her friends, people who were important to her to maybe, someday, be his friends as well; and be folded into the circle right along with Lia.

  “I think she would like that.”

  “Cool,” Blake said. “Because a couple days after the party I’m headed back home.”

  Lia remembered Nicki’s description of him as ‘closed-off’ and thought, though she did not say, that this was probably him working hard on opening up. They had been hanging out. For a couple of weeks now. But going out with her on his arm, as his date and a friend would be different.

  “What’s your plan for work?” Blake asked out of the blue.

  They were sitting on her sofa watching CNN. A political reporter was laying into a commentator, calling her out on something she said that was not altogether supported by the facts. Lia had come to learn about Blake that he watched political talk shows the way other people watched sitcoms—with amusement, glee and frequent out-loud commentary of his own.

  “I’m giving myself one more week, and then I need to start looking for something.”

  “The same kind of thing you had at the agency?”

  “What’re you now? My job counselor?” Lia asked idly, and not unkindly. But when he didn’t a
nswer, she looked at him. “I’ll be fine. I have my bonus money coming after all, thanks to you. And I think I even had some vacation left, there’ll be that payout as well, and my last paycheck …”

  “But how long can that last?” Blake asked impatiently. “Money is fluid, Lia. You’ll never be financially comfortable if you’re always so flip about it.”

  “Always so flip about it?” she asked. “How long have you known me? Like a month and a half maybe? How are you even in a position to say that I’m ‘always’ anything?”

  He was right, of course. She was flip about money and she had listened to countless lectures from Steph about this very thing. But it stung to hear him say it, nevertheless.

  “Okay, fine. So, sit on your sofa and draw pictures for another week, or until your next rent comes due,” Blake mumbled. “That’s bound to work out well.”

  “If you really want to know,” Lia said, turning to face him, “I’m trying to come up with a strategy, that’s all. I want to do my art, and I can’t take the kind of job that will make it difficult for me to do that. But on the other hand, I need to make enough money so I don’t starve. It’s a very tough balance to strike. But you wouldn’t know anything about that.”

  “What’s your degree in?” Blake asked.

  “How do you even know I have one?” Lia turned so she was sitting cross-legged on the sofa, fully facing him.

  Blake shrugged.

  “I went to art school.”

  “So what you’re telling me,” he said stifling a grin, “is that you’re unemployable.”

  Lia laughed, and nudged him in the side.

  “I have a friend,” he said. “Owns a small gallery in Georgetown. I’m going to call him. He should be able to find something for you.”

  “Blake …”

  “Do you have a better idea?” he asked, cutting her off.

  “No, but …”

  “Okay, so when you come up with one, let me know. But for now, this is the plan. I’m calling my friend.”

  Lia turned to face the television again, letting her feet fall to the floor. “Thank you,” she said. And then after a few moments, “when are we going to talk about you? And about what’s happening with, you know, with your Dad and … everything?”