Mags Billure and Shirl Ketty were great girls, but that's what they still were: girls. They didn't seem to have matured since Gretchen had known them. They worked as strippers, for God's sake! Gretchen had had to lie to her parents and tell them they were stock brokers. Gretchen had met them at a dive bar when she moved to New York as a clueless 18 year old. They, together with their friend Roz Biana, had formed a band that played jangly pop with a dance beat, Saint Etienne meets the Bangles. They were called the Sparkly Earrings. Gretchen had sung lead and played the keyboards. They had even gotten a manager and recorded a single. It had made #79 on the Billboard Hot 100. They had been shattered at the time, but now it was something Gretchen was proud of. Not so proud was she of the slide into cocaine and abusive groupie boyfriends, which made them call it a day after four years of touring dives and an album of original pure pop masterpieces (#198 for one week on the Top 200 Albums chart).
After Sam had made her miss her exam with Oceanic Airways and Gretchen had broken up with him, Mags and Shirl had offered her the sofa in their 2-bedroom apartment in Williamsburg. They were happy to have her company, as well as her share of the rent and utilities. Two years on, Gretchen was still sleeping on that sofa.
So, maybe she was still a girl as well, even though she was swiftly approaching thirty. What 28 year old woman slept on a sofa? Her outburst, if you stripped away the stress, the passengers brawling under duress, had certainly been juvenile. The train arrived. She dragged her suitcase onto it.
She had been saddened her former band mates had become strippers. (Roz had nabbed a rich man and begun designing her own jewelry.) Mags and Shirl always urged Gretchen to dump Nickel and Dime and join them on the pole. The tawdry element and the morality of it bothered Gretchen, and she could only imagine what her mother might have to say about it! “Me only daughter? Flinging off her knickers to a load of paladic geebags? Did all them years sat in the pews on Sundays and Holy Days amount to nothing? I'm mortified, so I'm are!” or Irish words of that ilk. But Mags and Shirl never seemed to offer customers 'extras.' Never seemed to. And it kept money flowing into the household. Lots of it. Or at least it had until last Friday. When Mags and Shirl had ganged up together and battered a particularly lecherous customer in the men's room of the club.
Gretchen looked with eyes that could barely see at the ads opposite her. Poetry On The Move said one. Another invited New Yorkers to the Museum of Sex and its bounce house made of boobs on 5th Avenue. And between an ad for Express Breast Augmentation and one that warned: Crooked Teeth Can HOLD YOU BACK!, there were less glossy ones offering supposedly exciting employment opportunities: Substance Abuse Counseling! HVAC Engineering! Audio Technology for Producing and Recording Music! Medical Billing and Coding! Tarot Card Reading! What if...?
Oh! Her mind was so full, she had almost forgotten! She unzipped a compartment on her case, and pulled out the three scratch cards. From Ohio, she had Millionaire Dreams, from Iowa, Pirate Bags O'Booty, and from Arizona, Scratch Your Rich. She always bought a $5 card from every state she flew. It was an homage to her dad, Jed, who had won the lottery years before, a little perk to give her joy. Just like a mani-pedi by the local Korean woman who spoke no English, Gretchen's weekly scratch card purchase was a little bit of pampering, another ray of sunshine and hope, like Maximus, in her sometimes dreary life. She rummaged around in her pocket and located a dime.
The woman across her looked up from her Kindle and raised her eyebrows in slight surprise. Gretchen didn't know if doing scratch cards on the subway was strange or not, but she didn't care. She smiled vaguely at the woman, then focused on Pirate Bags O'Booty.
She quickly scanned the instructions. Win Up To $500,000 of Blackbeard's Booty! There were two parrots under the words Your Numbers, and twelve bags on the card under Winning Numbers. Six had skulls, six had crossbones. Apparently, if she matched her winning numbers to any skull number, she'd win that amount. If she matched any crossbone number, she'd win double. If she revealed a bottle of rum, she'd win every amount on the card.
What would happen? She felt the frisson of excitement she always did before the revealing of the numbers of the card in her hand. She held her breath, said a quick prayer, and began to scratch.
GRETCHEN, MAGS AND Shirl lived on the third floor of a walk-up. Someone who lived on the first floor had a workout DVD that featured jazzed up versions of 80s songs. Gretchen passed that door almost daily, heading out to work or trudging home, the thud of her wheelie bag down or up the steps behind her. The amount of times she heard “She Works Hard For The Money” blaring from that door! As if taunting her. And now, Gretchen grit her teeth as she passed and, yes, the song was just segueing into “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.” Her feet plodded up stairs.
While struggling to get her key in the door, Gretchen heard Mags and Shirl babbling and squawking with excitement inside. The Sparkly Earrings were blasting from somewhere inside. They only played that on special occasions. Gretchen's heart soared. Had they found jobs so soon? Maybe another club had hired them? They did seem loved by the clientele, even as shady as those men seemed from all the stories they told her, stories that she didn't want to hear.
She opened the door.
“Oh, Gretchen! Gretchen!” Mags and Shirl chorused as if they had been crowned joint Prom Queen.
“W-what's going on?”
Tendrils of apprehension tingled up Gretchen's spine as she rolled her bag inside and closed the door with weak fingers. Clothing was flung over every horizontal surface. Seven—her brain quickly counted them—seven suitcases were spread around the living room, in various states of being packed. There was too much upheaval for a simple weekend getaway to Bermuda. Gretchen's head throbbed.
“Oh, Gretchen!” Mags exclaimed, face flush, flinging an armload of panties and bras into a bag. Her eyes shone. “It's unbelievable!”
“We're moving!” Shirl squealed, sweat lashing, wedging a curling iron and a water flosser into a case stuffed with, Gretchen was startled to see, pots, pans and plates. “To Las Vegas! Can you believe it?”
“What...now?!”
“Yes!” they chorused.
“But...”
Mags shuffled through the clothing and belongings that covered the floor, grabbed Gretchen's arm and sat her down on the edge of the coffee table. There was nowhere to sit on the sofa.
“The most wonderful thing just happened,” Mags explained, while Shirl continued shoving household items into the bag and bobbed her head like a simpleton. “One of our regular clients, that Ukrainian millionaire we've told you about, you know, Pavel, the one that throws around hundreds as if they were singles, heard that we got fired from Bits-N-Pieces. How he heard, I don't know, but it doesn't matter. Anyhoo, he calls us from his ranch in Las Vegas and asks us to work in his club there! The club he owns! Amazing! At our ages! It's on the strip! Twerk Paradise, it's called.”
“Stripping on the Vegas strip!” Shirl giggled. “A dream come true! Do you have any idea how much they make there? How much we'll be making there?”
“We had no idea he owned a club. And he told us he has a chain of them in the West! Why he bothers coming to our little hovel of a club here in New York, I don't know. Talent scouting, maybe.”
“And he told us we could live with him on his ranch—”
“Don't worry, it's got seven bedrooms! So there'll be no hanky panky. Though, actually, he's so hot...” Mags nibbled on her fingernail, brow furrowed.
“Come with us!” Shirl urged.
Gretchen yelped as Shirl's arms suddenly wrapped around her from behind, and she planted excited kisses on the back of her neck.
“Yeah,” Mags confirmed, “the three of us all together! It will be a blast! You need to quit that horrible job of yours anyway.”
“But,” Gretchen wondered, “aren't you scared of...I don't know, human trafficking, the white slave trade, or something like that?”
“Pshaw!” Shirl rolled her eyes. “You don't know Pavel like w
e do.”
“We trust him.”
Shirl nodded. “Our flight leaves in,” she checked the time on her phone, “three hours. You've got enough time to pack if you want to come. Oh,” she noticed the wheelie bag by the door, “you're already packed. But you've got to bring more.”
“Are you guys flying Nickel and Dime?” It was the only thing Gretchen's vexed brain could conjure up.
“As if!”
“Pavel paid for us. We're flying Oceanic. First class!”
“But all those bags and, and the things in them...aren't you scared of the charges...?”
“Pavel can afford it! He told us to bring everything we need. No expense spared.”
“But...”
They could apparently see the worry in Gretchen's eyes.
“We figured you wouldn't want to go with us,” Mags said, rising and grabbing more clothing and shoving it into a bag. “Not knowing Pavel and not being in the industry and all.”
“So we're taking essentials, but we're leaving enough for you. There are two forks, two knives and two spoons still in the drawer, for example.”
“And we're not taking all the pots and pans. And you can have the blender and toaster and kettle. We never use them anyway.”
No, they didn't, because they were wined and dined by horny punters on a regular basis. Gretchen thought of pointing out that the ranch would probably already have plates and forks, but then it would sound like she was being churlish. It was a spur of the moment life change, and her roommates weren't thinking clearly. Ex-roomates.
“T-the apartment—”
Shirl laughed. “Don't worry about it, Gretchen! We can get the landlord to sign the lease over to you. You know he likes us.”
Mags grabbed her breasts and waved them under Gretchen's nose.
“He likes these, more like! But it'll be fine. And if it isn't, we'll work something out. You can pay us, and we'll send him a check from Vegas. I don't know. We know it might seem we're dropping you in it, and we feel bad, you're our best friend after all. But we've talked about it. Quickly, because Pavel only called us two hours ago.”
Shirl nodded.
“We'll pay our normal share for two months. That should give you some time to find someone on Craigslist.”
“Or you can move your hot guy in here. Mackeesh?”
“Maximus. But it's a bit too early in the rela—”
The chimes of “I've Got A Feeling” rang out.
“Oh, wait a minute! It's him! Pavel! I've got to take this!”
Mags found her phone somehow and disappeared into the bedroom that was soon to be Gretchen's, shrieking and cooing and giggling down the line.
“What about the furniture?” Gretchen asked glumly.
“It's all yours,” Shirl enthused. “We won't need any at the ranch. And we'll be raking it in, so we can buy new after.”
Gretchen raised her shaky legs off of the edge of the coffee table she had just been bequeathed. She stood there in the middle of the wreckage, unsure what to do with herself.
“But...I'll be all on my own. I'm a bit scared. And I'll miss you guys.”
“And we'll miss you! But we'll always be in touch. Facebook, Twitter, Skype, email, the phone, you know. And the offer's always open. You can join us any time! If paying the bills on this place with your, er, salary, gets to be too hard.”
Shirl's glistening eyes looked her up and down.
“Awwww! I feel so bad now! Leaving you here on your own.”
She threw her arms around Gretchen and hugged her so tight Gretchen felt faint. Shirl's breath had a hint of strawberries and coffee and gin. When she let go, she grabbed Gretchen's hands and clasped them in her own, swinging them back and forth.
“It's been a great time with you here. Three quarters of the Sparkly Earrings together again. But you won't be lonely. You've got Makie, don't you?”
“Maximus.” And Gretchen's heart suddenly grew lighter. She nodded her head, faintly at first, then with conviction. “You're right. I've got Maximus. I'll be fine. We'll be fine.”
She prayed they would be.
“What?! A Hummer stretch limo?! To take us to the airport?!” Mags' bawdy laughter spilled from the bedroom.
CHAPTER SIX FOURTEEN MONTHS AGO
GRETCHEN WAS HEADING back to Brooklyn after a rare afternoon flight. Nickel and Dime had merely rapped her knuckles and docked her wages $25 a week for a month. Now that Mags and Shirl's two months' grace period had long since ended, this was tougher to deal with than Dennis' endless smirks. She and Maximus would have to pay the whole rent themselves for the first time. For trendy Williamsburg, a two-bedroom at $2000 was a steal, but for Gretchen and her paltry paychecks, the first of the month and $2000 loomed like twin blades of a guillotine.
The stench of homelessness permeated the subway car she had chosen, but the culprit had fled, maybe to infest the next car. She was sitting, as usual, opposite the employment posters. She had won $2 on the Bonus Billionaire Bonanza scratch card from Tuskegee, AL, home of the infamous syphilis experiment (she had read in Nickel and Dime's Exciting Destinations pamphlet). She tore up the other losers and placed the shreds in a compartment of her wheelie bag until she could find a garbage can. She wondered what Maximus had to tell her.
“Ive got something to tell you! Ill wait til your home!” he had texted, followed by three smiley faces. Her own three answered. Why couldn't he just say it? He was irritating at times, but still sweet. Thankfully.
As the train trundled along, Gretchen thought about her love life. Living with Maximus was different from living with Sam. Sam had been alright, in a back-slapping, beer-swilling, I'm your best buddy overgrown jock frat way. Except when he asked her to shave his back hair. She had put up with waitressing his poker parties, laughing at his lame jokes and rooting for teams of games whose rules she couldn't grasp. But then the beer-swilling had become constant and, of course, he had turned off that alarm.
The subway doors opened at Union Square and hoards of people got out and got in. Gretchen scrunched herself up to accommodate the bulk of the man who had squeezed next to her.
She remembered, back when rooming with Mags and Shirl, the few times Maximus had slept over. It had been difficult with her sleeping on the sofa in the living room, but it folded out into a bed. One morning after Maximus had gone to work, she noticed his toothbrush had appeared on the edge of the bathroom sink. How many times, preparing for another hard slog across the US, did she stare fondly down at the bristles, then look up, her haggard face at the mirror a sharp contrast to his bright, shining one. How she envied his love of life. Where has mine gone? she wondered as the train stopped at Third Avenue. Ground out of me by Nickel and Dime. But with Maximus' help, maybe I'm slowly learning to laugh again. I laughed last night, didn't I?
Now, not only would his toothbrush be at the sink waiting for her when she returned home, but his razor, his shaving cream, his deodorant, his colognes, his manicure set, his body creams, his face creams, his wide array of haircare products she was dying to try; he had many more than she did. She was happy to have a man who kept himself well-groomed. There was something metrosexual about Maximus, and she loved it. It sure beat Sam's shit-shower-and-shave.
The second bedroom had been made Maximus’ office, his library, his den. He would write his poems there. Maximus christened it the Room of Dreams. His Room of Dreams. She had had to stifle a bark of laughter. Gretchen would've loved it as a walk-in closet and home gym, but she let him have it. Let him be creative. She was repulsed by poetry, but that didn't mean everyone was. Somebody had to read it, didn't they? And, you never knew, he might hit it big on the poetry scene. Wherever that was.
After he had moved in, the first thing he did was ask her to come into his Room of Dreams. He clicked on his computer and went to Facebook.
“People seem to be having trouble finding this,” he said, fingers tapping the keyboard. “But I wanted to show you. My poet fan page.”
He fl
ipped the screen towards her. It had three likes. Her heart went out to him. But then, he was the one damned to be creative in an art form that had, as far as she could tell, no relevance in the world today. Grudgingly, with a sense of loyalty, she clicked the button. Now he had four.
Then they had made love, and it was the best sex she had ever had. He always devoured her body the way he devoured life, with bawdy romps in the sack that passed like minutes, though hours went by.
She wondered at times what the neighbors must think. There were occasional thumps on the wall. Gretchen always set a note and a little gift on the neighbor's filthy welcome mat to apologize. But how could she keep silent when the things Maximus was doing to her body were so mind-blowing?
She hoped, when the time was right, those bedroom acrobatics would produce a child. Children. She was feeling increasingly broody. She wanted to nest. It was about time. Her twenties were drawing to an unexpected end, she had already tried the fame-seeking thing with the Sparkly Earrings and failed, so now, if she indeed had found her soul mate, the only thing to look forward to was the patter of tiny feet on the cheap linoleum of their kitchenette. They would have to get a larger apartment. What would their children look like? Half-him and half-her? How would she arrange child care with her crazy schedule with the airline?
Emergency Exit (The Irish Lottery Series Book 6) Page 7