There was more shouting and then nothing.
“What happened?” I asked as she lowered the phone.
“The good news is I don’t have to worry about getting back to work. I just got fired.”
“Neely Kate. I’m so sorry.” I reached over to grab her hand. “Maybe I should take you home. The whole day has been pretty traumatic.”
Her mouth tilted up into a grim smile. “Rose, you and I both know how much I hate that job. Let the old Nazi have it.”
Despite her words to the contrary, I knew Neely Kate was upset at the prospect of being unemployed. “Maybe Joe can tell her about why you were late if she—”
“It’s okay, Rose. I’ll be happier without that job.”
I had no doubts about that, but she wasn’t the only person it concerned. “What will Ronnie say?”
She smiled even though her eyes brimmed with tears. “That’s just it. Ronnie won’t care. He’s been bugging me to quit for months.”
“Well, see there? You hated your job, and Ronnie wanted you to quit. It’s a win/win situation.”
“But I wanted to decorate the nursery for little Ronnie Jr. I want to get him new furniture, not ugly hand-me-down stuff from my cousins.”
“You still can. Maybe you can get another job. A temporary one until you have the baby.”
“Who’s gonna hire a pregnant woman?”
My grip on the steering wheel tightened. “I’m pretty sure it’s against the law to discriminate like that.”
“We’re living in Fenton County, Arkansas. Do you really think most employers here actually care about the law?”
Neely Kate had a point. “Violet’s going to need help in the nursery. Maybe you can work part-time there.”
She released a short laugh. “Me and Violet working together? Did Tabitha shake something loose in your head when she knocked you down?”
“No, but my side sure hurts.” I turned to her with a grin.
She was quiet for a moment. “Thanks for having my back in that mess.”
My smile dropped, and I glanced into her eyes for a second before turning back to the road. “Always, Neely Kate.”
She wiped a tear from her cheek and a mischievous grin spread across her face. “I’m glad to hear that.”
“Why do I already regret saying that?”
She laughed. “Because you’re a smart woman, Rose Gardner.”
I asked Neely Kate to tell me about some of the nursery ideas she’d found on the Internet, assuring her that everything would work out and she’d be able to decorate Ronnie Jr.’s room however she pleased once she had confirmation he was a boy.
“You could just have a vision and tell me now,” she said. “It would save me an awful lot of aggravation.”
I pressed my lips together. “You know how I feel about that.”
She released an exaggerated sigh. “I guess it’s for the best. I’ve always wanted to be a chef, and after I confirm Ronnie Jr.’s a boy, I’ll be too busy decorating to cook anymore.”
I squinted. “Since when have you wanted to be a chef?”
She gave me a half-shrug.
I suddenly wondered if I was being played.
Before I could confront her, we drove into the tiny town of Holler Creek, which consisted of a shabby gas station/convenience store, a café, a used bookstore, and a post office.
“Where’s Gems?”
“I think it’s just outside of city limits. A lot of towns don’t like to be associated with establishments like that.”
“You mean bars?”
Neely Kate pointed straight ahead. “Turn there on County Road 135.”
We drove about a half-mile before a big clearing appeared to the left. “She works at the race track?” I asked, confused. They’d put a dirt track in a few years before, but I was pretty sure they only raced once or twice a week.
“No, I think it’s on the other side,” Neely Kate said, sounding unusually cheerful.
We drove past the track, and my breath stuck in my chest. Up ahead was a tall neon sign that read, “Topless,” accompanied by the silhouette of a girl. The name Gems was painted on the side of the building. I hit the brakes and stopped in the middle of the road. “Oh, no.”
“You said you’d help me.”
“Neely Kate!” I pointed to the sign. “There are naked women in that building!”
“Not naked.” She looked up and pointed to the sign on the pole. “It says topless. There’s a difference.”
“Do I even want to know how you know that?”
“Because Dolly Parton worked at the Bunny Ranch before taking a job here a month ago.”
“So she’s an experienced stripper?”
“Hey, don’t knock it. The pay’s good if you find the right place.” She grinned. “Maybe I could make some extra money here.”
“Have you plum lost your mind?” I turned to her, my eyes wide.
A car horn behind me blared, making me nearly jump out of my skin.
“You’re in the middle of the road. At least pull into the parking lot.”
“Then it will look like we’re actually goin’ in there.”
“We are goin’ in there. Pull into the lot.”
Grumbling, I pulled off of the road, and into the long line of parking spaces.
“It’s not that bad, Rose. Really.”
I slammed the gear into park. “You’ve actually been here before?”
“No, but I visited Dolly when she worked at the Bunny Ranch.”
“You really expect me to go in there.” I pointed to the front door. “Into that building filled with naked women?”
“I thought we’d already established that they aren’t naked. They just take turns being topless and dancing around a pole.”
“They’re pole dancers?”
“Of course, they’re pole dancers! What other kind of dancers would they be?”
“I don’t know,” I semi-shouted, shaking my head. “You know . . . the kind that just dance around and take off their clothes.” I couldn’t believe I was actually having this conversation.
“They haven’t stripped like that for years.” Neely Kate stated the fact like I was an idiot.
“I’m sorry. I was sick the day they covered the evolution of stripping in history class.”
Neely Kate started to laugh. “What on earth do you think’s gonna happen in there?”
“I don’t know.” I cast a wary glance toward the red front door.
“The sheriff’s department knows all about this place, which means it has all its permits and everything, or you can bet your backside that Deputy Abbie Lee Hoffstetter would shut it down just like that.” She snapped her fingers, making me jump.
“Can women even go in there?”
“Sure. And there’s probably a bouncer at the door right now and maybe security. If somebody bothers us, the staff won’t put up with it. Not that anyone will bother us. They’re here to see the dancers.”
“I’m not sure this is a good idea.”
“You were the one who said we needed to go by Gems and ask about the bartender. Hopefully we’ll get some information we can use and leave.”
She was right. It was the logical place to look. We weren’t doing anything illegal, and Neely Kate seemed to think it was safe. “Will anyone be dancing in there?”
Neely Kate looked at the scattered cars in the parking lot. “Probably.” She opened her door. “Look, I can do this on my own. Just wait here, and I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
I watched her walk across the parking lot, waging an inner war. We’d go in and out. Easy cheesy. But what was Mason gonna say if he found out?
It took me no more than two seconds to figure out what he would say. He knew we were looking for Dolly, and I’d promised to stay out of danger. He’d want me to stay in the truck . . . but Neely Kate was my friend, and I didn’t want her to go in there alone.
“Neely Kate! Wait up.” I climbed out of the driver’s side and hurr
ied toward her. “I’m coming.”
She hugged my arm. “Thank you.”
“But I’m leaving at the first sign of trouble.”
“Fair enough.”
She led me to the front door and stopped. “Let me do most of the talkin’, okay?”
“Fine by me.” She’d proven herself to be a great interrogator in the past, and she’d know what questions to ask in this situation.
“Okay, then follow my lead.” She opened the door and strutted in, stopping in front of the bouncer.
He eyed us both up and down.
A grin spread across Neely Kate’s face. “We’re here to apply for the job.”
Job? I tried to keep my shock from showing—not that the guy at the door was paying any attention to me.
He waved to the doorway at the opening of the short entryway. “Mud’s who you need to talk to, and he’s in the back. Just have a seat at a table, and someone will come out and find you for your interview.”
“Thanks,” Neely Kate said, strutting through the opening with a swagger she didn’t normally possess.
I followed her, trying not to freak out over the fact I was not only about to walk into a strip club, but I was there for an interview.
We entered a bigger, dimly lit room. A bunch of mostly empty tables and chairs were arranged around a long stage against the back wall. A pole was at its center. A couple of guys sat in chairs by the front, drinking beers as they watched the girl dance on stage. Only I wouldn’t call it dancing, and she wasn’t dressed in anything I would have expected. She had on a black bra with silver spikes all over the cups, paired with a G-string that barely filled the gap in her crack and rode high on her hips. A band of fabric was wrapped around her hips, and her bare buttocks hung out, but it was what she was doing with the pole that grabbed hold of my attention and wouldn’t let go.
I stopped in my tracks, staring as she grabbed the pole behind her with her hands and started gyrating her hips.
Neely Kate captured my arm and tugged me over to a table. “Don’t look so shocked. They’ll never buy that we’re here for a job.” She looked me up and down, then pushed me into a chair. “Then again, maybe they’ll like it.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Dolly likes to play the innocent act. But that only works for a few months before regulars figure it out. That’s part of the reason she switched to here. Plus, Mud promised her more customers for lap dances.”
My eyes just about fell out of my head. “Lap dances?”
“That’s how you make the real money. You dance on the stage to give them a taste, and then they pay you for a lap dance.”
The girl on stage had hooked her leg around the pole and was spinning around—upside down, no less. I couldn’t stop staring, even though all I wanted to do was look away. “Tabitha said Mud would like me. That he liked the unusual girls. What’s that mean?”
She studied me for a moment. “I have no idea.”
“Is Tabitha a stripper too?”
“An exotic dancer,” she corrected. “And yes. She got Dolly the job at the Bunny Ranch.”
A redneck-looking guy wearing jeans and cowboy boots came out of the back door and headed straight for our table. “Are you the girls who are here for an interview?”
“Yes, we are!” Neely Kate replied just a little too eagerly, even for the man sent to fetch us.
The cowboy led us down a long hallway and stopped in front of a door with a sign that said, simply enough, Office. “He’s waiting for ya.”
“What are you waiting for?” a gruff male voice called out from inside. “Get in here.”
Neely Kate walked into the room and looked him square in the eye. “I’m here about a job.”
She was still partially blocking the entrance to the room, so I leaned forward to glance over her shoulder. A middle-aged man with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth was sitting at a desk covered in papers. The small office was covered in old paneling. It felt familiar, but I couldn’t quite place it. I certainly knew I’d never been here before.
The man eyed Neely Kate up and down, and then his gaze landed on my face. “Did you bring yer friend to hold yer hand, or is she here about a job too?”
Neely Kate stepped to the side so I was more visible. “She’s applying too.”
He glanced down at his desk and scratched his crotch. I took the opportunity to elbow Neely Kate in the side, and I was impressed when she barely flinched. All the abuse she’d taken from her cousins had toughened her up.
“There is a job opening, ladies, but only one.”
“That’s okay,” I volunteered. “She needs it more than I do.”
“Is that so?” he asked, giving Neely Kate more attention than I liked. He shrugged, then motioned for us to come into the room.
There was only one extra chair, and I didn’t plan on staying long enough to use it. I only hoped the fact that Neely Kate didn’t take it meant she wasn’t planning to stay either.
“I can only give you four nights a week, and only one of ’em’s a weekend. Otherwise the other girls’ll be squallin’.”
He paused, and Neely Kate said, “Okay.”
“You pay the house thirty-five dollars for every shift, and then give ten percent of the money you earn in tips to the D.J. and the bartender to be split.”
“Tips?” I asked.
Mud’s eyes bugged out, and the cigarette dangling out of his mouth nearly fell out. “I take it you never danced before.”
I was pretty sure he wouldn’t count me dancing for the first time last June in the Henryetta splash park with my niece. “Uh . . . no.”
He shook his head and turned to Neely Kate. “What about you?”
“Sure.” She shrugged, tossing her hair over her shoulder. “Down in Shreveport. I had to move back home to take care of my momma.”
Seeming to accept her answer, he turned to me, looking at me like I was an idiot. “Tips is what the dancers get when the customers tuck money in their G-strings.” He pantomimed to reinforce his words. My face flushed, and he laughed. “But most of the money is made from lap dances. The house rule is that it’s twenty bucks a dance.”
“Okay,” Neely Kate said. “I heard one of the other dancers quit.”
“More like didn’t show up,” he grumbled. “You plan on sticking around?”
“I need a job, Mr. . . ?”
“Just call me Mud.”
She shifted her weight. “I really need the job, Mud.”
“You can start tomorrow night, but first I gotta see you dance. We’re a classy joint, and we gotta keep up our standards.”
The brown stain on the wall in the hallway screamed of class and sophistication. But I still couldn’t shake the fact that this place felt familiar, which creeped me out even more.
“Okay,” Neely Kate said without hesitation, and I fought to hide my horrified shock.
“You prepared to dance today?”
“Of course.”
His gaze returned to me, and his eyes roamed my body. “I’d like to see you dance too. You never know when there’s gonna be another opening.” He had to have an active imagination; I was wearing jeans and boots and a heavy brown wool coat over an oversized sweater.
My mouth dropped open, and I started to protest, but Neely Kate’s eyebrows lifted so high in warning she gave herself a temporary facelift.
He waved to the door, already givin’ his attention to the papers on his desk. “Show your dance to the girls and Roy. If you’re any good, I’ll watch. Roy will meet you in the hall and show you where to change.”
Neely Kate practically shoved me into the hall.
“Shut the door!” Mud shouted after us, and Neely Kate closed it.
I turned on her like a barracuda. “Are you out of your ever-loving mind?”
She covered my mouth with one hand. “Shh!”
I swatted her hand off and whispered, “We can’t do this! It’s not right!”
Her lips
pressed tight. “There’s nothing illegal about dancing. I told you that this place has all their permits in line and everything.”
My tactic obviously wasn’t working. “Neely Kate. You can’t strip! What will Ronnie say? Not to mention the fact that you’re pregnant! You just started getting your morning sickness under control. All that twirling around is bound to stir things up.”
“Rose, calm down. We’re not strippin’.”
“You’re about to audition! We’re about to audition!” I shook my head in horror. There was no way I could spin on that pole, let alone strip while doing it.
“I’m just borrowing more time.”
“You’re sure gonna need it. You got nothing out of Mud. You didn’t even try.”
“He’s not just gonna give us answers, Rose.”
I shook my head in confusion. “Then what are we doin’ here? Why do we have to pretend we want to work here?”
The boss must have contacted Roy somehow, because the cowboy who’d led us back into the hallway had reappeared and was moving toward us. We were running out of time.
She released a heavy sigh. “Trust me.”
The thought of getting up on that stage and taking off my clothes scared the bejiggers out of me. There was no way in tarnation I would do it. “I’m gonna be honest, Neely Kate. You’re making it awfully hard right now.”
“I know, but I have a plan.”
Lordy, I hoped so.
Chapter Thirteen
“Did you bring something to dance in?” Roy asked, walking past us and leading us through a door.
“No,” Neely Kate said. “We plum forgot.”
He ushered us into a big room filled with tables, the length of one wall lined by a mirror. He pointed to a laundry basket of clothes. “You can wear your own bra and panties, then put some layers from the basket on over them. After Sparkle comes off, you’re up next.”
Neely Kate’s face froze. “What?”
“I said you’re up next.”
She blinked and pulled out her best indignant attitude. “I was told this was an audition.”
“It is. On stage. Our afternoon crowd is pathetic at best. If you suck, no harm, no foul.”
He walked out of the room, and I shook my head, my eyes wide with horror.
Thirty-Three and a Half Shenanigans Page 12