by Rose, Rhea
Devon crawled under the train, probably checking to make sure the old guy really wasn’t under there, and he found a half bottle of excellent wine, somehow, in the scuffle and movement the top hadn’t come off. Devon managed to save the bottle and pulled it out with him.
The label read, CHATEAU D'OR.
He grinned and using his slightly pointed teeth he eased out the cork.“Can’t let that go to waste.” He tipped back the bottle and glugged it down, but clearly the wine didn’t have the kind of taste he anticipated. He spit it out and made a face like he’d bitten into a lemon, so he said in the journal, but knowing Devon he probably drank it all and grinned. The journal ended there.
*
I flipped through chapters of the Knowitall – I went backwards to the beginning to see how this book worked and near the end of the first chapter which was incredibly thick, I found a page entitled The Cheshire society, Theodosia and Anesthesia.
Chapter 10
The World: Poles Apart
Emi never did get the dance costume repaired, so we went with plan B—the magical swimsuit and everything seemed to be working. There I was at the Wild Swan on the pole doing my audition dance for the job Maisie wanted me to get. I imagined myself as something right out of Cirque du Soleil and the magic Maisie put into my bathing suit seemed to be working, too. I was rocking the pole. As I was about to make my major move, a side saddle superman, I did my spin to get myself into position when my bathing suit top once again popped open at the back.
The timing couldn’t have been more perfect. And I couldn’t have been more mortified. I hadn’t heard a peep from any audience that might be out there beyond the bright lights. When the house lights came up slightly, I saw more men than I’d expected to be sitting in an audition audience. My top threatened to leave me, and I grabbed at it with both hands which sent me sliding awkwardly down the pole. The men watching seemed to think it was all part of the act, clapping and cheering and having drinks.
I also saw Emilia sitting in the shadows taking in the entire scene, and behind her, in the deeper shadows I noticed Mr. Whitman, my principal, sitting in the back of the room. That made me nervous and I began to screw up my dance even more than I already had. I continued to slip like an unglued gecko down the pole while at the same time I tried to refasten my unhooked top.
Then I heard the audience heckle a little as I tried to do up.
I heard one young guy, who was probably under age say, “Hey lady, don’t break a hip!” Everyone around him laughed heartily.
Vince Cabria, about forty, dark and stocky stepped out onto the dance floor then. He was a fiery, hot tempered hairy guy, and the bar manager, and in charge of hiring and firing the dancers. “Stop,” he yelled out at me. I crawled and slithered along the floor away from the pole. I sat up, ankles crossed, knees together to try to prevent myself from exposing all my girly secrets. I spun around on my bum to face Vince.
“Are you drunk?” he asked me.
“I wish,” I said, under my breath.
“What's your name, again?”
I finally pushed myself up off the floor of the stage and started to walk away. I saw Emi working her way through the tables and chairs headed in my direction. I grabbed my dressing gown with my free hand and pointed toward the backstage for Emi to meet me there. I held my top in place with the other hand, “Jane,” I called out my name over my shoulder to Vince.
“Janey, I need a dancer, not someone swimming upstream on the pole.”
That comment made me furious. I wanted to stop and turn on him, vent my pent up rage at having made a fool of myself on the pole and now to have my embarrassing moment rubbed in by this insensitive, low brow, jerk.
I didn’t say anything, though. All I said was “I got nervous.”
“Nervous?” He repeated as if he heard the word for the very first time from me. He grabbed me by my arm. As petite as I was, I was in rocking platform, high heeled sparkle shoes, and I looked down on his thinning hair. He stroked my arm in a creepy kind of sexual way. I pulled away from him.
“I'm gonna go change,” I said.
“Hey, Janey, baby, I like your outfit. It's magic under my lights.” Vince changed his tune.
I stopped then and turned on him. Emilia had just come up behind Vince. Her sword seemed to be missing. I mouthed the words, DOES HE KNOW? I wondered if Vince knew about the magic in my swim suit. I never knew who was in cahoots with Maisie and who wasn’t.
Emilia shrugged at me. She had no idea what I was getting at.
“Did Vince know there was magic in the bathing suit?” I said in a loud whisper that I’m sure Vince heard, but he paid no attention.
“I want to get a few for the girls,” he said. He pointed to my outfit and fingered a spangle hanging at my hip.
“You'll have to talk to Maisie,” I said.
“Oh? Who? She your agent?”
“Yeah, you might say that. She makes the outfit. It's got her touch.” I pulled the spangle out of his fingers. Vince took that move as an invitation to touch me a again.
“Funny, looks kinda like a swim suit.”
I danced away from him and turned once to see if he was following me. He was, but not very quickly.
“Janey, did you design it? I have investors I'd like to introduce you to. Guys interested in giving you money for your business,” Vince called out to me.
In the background Emilia watched us. She leaned on her sword, a look of amusement on her face. At the mention of investors I remembered why I was here giving my time to this creepy man,This was the guy that tricked Maisie out of her investments. I needed to find out fast, to sew up this case and be done with it. I really didn’t want to stay here a minute more than I had to.
I slowed my walk. “Investors? Really?” I said as I tried to sound interested.
“No shit,” he said, catching up to me.
“What do you get out of it, Vince?”
“A dancer?”
“Sure. So, uh, I got the job?”
“On the pole?” he asked, sounding incredulous.
I nodded, wondering what he was getting at. He looked at me like I was nuts and then he laughed!
“Come on, baby. You're not serious. Nooo. You're no pole dancer.”
I was crestfallen. I turned away from Vince. Emilia came over and put an arm around me.
“Well, I might want to take you up on that investment offer, Vince,” I said as I walked away from him.
“I’m sure I can find some other work for you. Stick around. I'll introduce you.” He was all smiles, and just when I thought I was out of his reach, he patted me on the butt cheek. “I gotta make some calls, baby Jane. Catch you later.”
“Sure, you do that,” I said to him. I turned and was about to slap him upside the head when Emilia stopped me by grabbing my hand. He was looking at his phone, so he didn’t see me when I made my screwww-you-face at him and flipped him my middle finger.
Emi stepped between us. “I think you found Maisie's Ponzie man -- can't believe she'd fall for that snake oil guy.”
“Yeah, no kidding –. “There's my principal!” I spotted Whitman in the crowd. He chatted with a few people at the bar and hadn’t noticed me, but I knew that had to be impossible.
I just pole danced. There was no way he missed that.
“Serious?” Emi said, as she turned to look at Whitman.
“Yup. I'm gonna go talk to him.”
“Uh, do you think that's a good idea?”
“No, but I'm sure he saw me. There's nothing left to lose.”
Chapter 11
The Tower: A Key Player
I headed for Whitman. I hadn’t let Emilia know that thanks to William I knew something about him that neither Emi nor Maisie did, otherwise there’s no way I’d be so bold.
I knew what Whitman’s ring of keys could really do. And I needed to get my hands on them sooner rather than later. I needed to confront him, and try to convince him that I wasn’t really here looking
for a job; Now more than ever I needed to keep my part-time teaching job at the academy. I’d already figured out what I was going to tell him. I was participating in a girl’s stag, yeah, that was a good cover, but before I got to him, he slipped away from me.
I figured he was headed for the men’s room. I caught glimpses of his white hair as he wound his way down the narrow, dark halls in the back areas of the pub. If he was headed for the men’s room, it was sure out of the way.
He went through a small door. When I turned to see where Emi was, I nearly bit her. She was right behind me.
The girl had my back.
I didn’t know whether to laugh or be annoyed; we stared at each other a minute, each trying to figure what the other was doing. Then my cell phone chimed in. I’d down loaded a little witch icon and set the ringer to play “Ding Dong the witch is dead” for calls from Maisie.
Sure enough, it worked.
“Maisie, what's up?” I asked, sounding overly cheerful even to myself. “Yeah, it went great. Yeee--ah, I got the job.” I lied and looked at Emilia. “Did Emi give me the repaired magical dancer’s outfit?” I looked at Emi again with big question marks in my eyeballs.
Emilia’s eyes went wide. She held up her hands, empty of any costume and shook her head, no. I gave her my best confused looked and mouthed the words WHERE IS IT? Emi only rolled her eyes at me.
Omg, she didn’t have it!
“She--did, yes, she did give it to me. And it worked, because I got the job,” I said, closing my eyes, which is a habit I developed whenever I lied. It made me feel like I wasn’t really lying. When I opened my eyes again, Emi gave me the two thumbs up and then she looked consumed with dread, and so she should I thought. I ended the call.
“Where is it?” I asked, checking her out to see if maybe she had it hooked to her belt or some other crazy place.
“Long story, sweetie. Put it this way, that outfit is out to lunch.”
“Are you serious? I need that costume more than ever. I told Maisie I got the job, and wants me to do some dancing, but not on the poles.”
“I took it to the cleaners, and this crazy old whino was camping out there. He had a nasty sleeping bag and empty bottles in the back of the shop –“She was interrupted by Whitman noisily pushing his way past us as he now headed back to the action.
We both breathed in as he squeezed by, but he didn’t seem to notice either one of us.
“Tell me later. Whitman's getting away. Come on,” I said. But Emi caught my elbow and pointed to a sign above the door Whitman had come out from. It read Vince Cabria, OFFICE. It appeared as if the two ‘gentleman’ had a cozy relationship.
We looked at each other like the idiots we were. He went into Vince’s office, not the men’s room. I guess that made more sense. Cabria’s office was way out of the way. What a couple of space cadets Emi and I were. I had no time to wonder what business Whitman had with Cabria, I needed to make things right with my principal, so that I could stay close to his ring of keys, and I guess my job at the school meant more to me than I thought.
I was beginning to think that maybe he hadn’t noticed that one of his teaching staff had been making a fool of herself earlier on that pole. That was wishful thinking, and Whitman was getting away.
By the time I caught up to Whitman I saw that this time he really was headed to the men’s room, but by now I’d lost Emilia. The Wild Swan now had more of a crowd because it was later in the evening. It was getting harder than ever to maneuver through the joint.
I let Whitman go ahead and step into the real men’s room. I decided to wait for Emi to catch up. She did and I told her to wait outside and watch the door. I planned to go into the men’s room and let Whitman know my thoughts.
Emilia thought I‘d lost my mind.
“Are you nuts? Or do you just want to see his.”
“Groooo—ss,” I said, disgusted with the thought. “If I go in then I’ve got his undivided attention.”
“Yeah, and every other man’s undivided attention.” She made a gesture at her crotch, like she was holding an imaginary sausage.
“He’s the only one in there! I’ve been watching. Tell anyone who wants to go in that it’s out of order and to use the men’s room at the front of the pub.”
“Oookay,” she said, but she looked skeptical.
“Trust me on this. And be ready. I might need some backup.”
“You think so?” she said sarcastically.
I stepped up to the men's washroom door, and motioned for Emilia to wait right there, then I pushed in.
*
I was in stealth mode, and so quiet I thought I should make some sound, so that I didn’t frighten the man to death. While I crept in I heard a noise I hadn’t been expecting, key’s rattling, hundreds of keys jing-a-jangle.
Whitman’s key ring, he was looking for a key!
Peeking around the wall of the bathroom stall, I was in time to see Whitman insert a key into the wall opposite me. When his key touched the wall a door appeared. He opened it and walked through. One moment he was right there in front of me and in the next he was gone, but I didn’t have time to worry much about it because there was a loud commotion outside the men’s room. I figured Emi was trying to stop someone who really needed to go from getting in. I decided to get out before I got into trouble.
*
Emi was gone.
The racket I’d heard through the flimsy washroom door came from down the hall. Vince argued with a young woman. I knew her name was Jackie because earlier she’d given me a few tips on the dos and don’ts while on the pole. Jackie was beautiful, a twenty-one year old raven haired bombshell. And she had hardly a thing on.
She was one of Vince’s performers and she was his star. I crept closer to get a better view and listen in. She grabbed her dressing gown from the back of a chair.
“I quit! Take your pole, Vince, and go polish it. And I expect all my money, pay and the savings I gave you to invest.”
“Calm down Jackie, baby. Stay. You know you're my star.”
With only her dressing gown wrapped around her, Jackie made a dramatic exit out the front door. Vince made a good riddance gesture at her. A few of the regulars at the bar looked up a moment, then got back to their drinks and the sports on the bar TV.
I raced after Jackie.
*
“Wait. Jackie! I need to talk -- about your investments!” But Jackie had already left, the door swinging behind her. I ran as fast as the platform sparkle shoes I wore would allow. I couldn’t afford to twist an ankle.
I raced out the front door and bumped into Emi, who handed me a brown paper bag. I took the bag from her without taking my eyes from Jackie and tried to side step my sidekick, but she was having none of it.
Jackie already headed across the parking lot. I gave Emilia my annoyed look.
“Where'd you go, Ms. Backup?” I said in a tone.
“What's with Barbie?” She jabbed a thumb over her shoulder. We both watched as Jackie got in her car and drove away.
“She quit,” I said. Emilia didn’t look too concerned; in fact she tapped at the brown paper bag in my hands and opened the top for me. When I didn’t pay attention, Emi took the paper bag from me, then handed it back.
“Here.”
“What’s this?” I was trying to see around Emilia but there was no getting past her. That was the end of Jackie. I watched her oil burning vehicle take off out of the parking lot and head into traffic.
“After your conversation with Maisie I thought I'd better go back to the cleaners to get the outfit. It was on the counter all fixed, but still no one there at the shop.
I stared at her. “Now, you bring me the outfit.”
“You're welcome,” she said.”
“We’re on a mission, remember?” I said.
“They’ve got a new star now,” Emi said, all twinkly.
She hustled me back into the Wild Swan.
*
When we got inside Vinc
e was waiting. “Well, hello. I was just looking for you.” He took me by the arm and escorted me over to the pole on which I’d made a fool of myself. His face looked bright and happy, as if he saw me in a new light! I looked at Emilia who gave me a nod of approval.
“What's up, Vince?”
“You are, babe. I want you to practice. I'm gonna give you a chance.”
“You're so kind.”
“You're a bit old for our clientele, but once you get going, it all shakes out the same. Know what I mean?”
Again, I gave the creep the finger, but he looked away for a moment and didn’t see it. When he looked back I let my dressing gown fall seductively open and Vince didn’t raise his eyes above my “old” chest.
“Sure, Vince. I know what you mean and I love Theodosia.”
Vince looked at me, confused.
“My cat, Theodosia. I love her and that’s why I’m doing this.”
He looked convinced. He nodded his head in agreement.
I mouthed the word ASSHOLE to Emilia and she nodded then said, “She'll be even better now, Vince. You’ll see.” Emilia headed for a front row table.
Vince seemed to notice Emilia for the very first time. He gave her a very nasty stare and his eyes fixated on the handle of the sword sticking up over her shoulder. He obviously didn’t like anything about her. “No weapons in here, lesbo fro freak.”
Emilia had been heading for a table up front, to watch me perform when she stopped dead in in her tracks and pulled out her sword.
“Someone’s going to die. They always do when she takes out that sword,” I said to Vince warningly.
One of Vince’s bouncers noticed the change in Vince’s body language and started to make a move toward the three of us, but before he took two steps, Emi had her sword at Vince’s throat.
Vince looked nervously at me. “She’s a friend of yours, right?”
“Right,” I said.
“Good.” He choked the word out. He signaled the bouncer to sit down and as soon as the big lug was settled Emi released Vince, who in turn gave her a killer look. Emilia licked her sword blade and stared Vince down. He turned back to me. “Janey, I need a pole girl. Jackie, the bitch, quit on me. She'll be back. She's addicted to the pole. In the meantime, I think, you’ll do the trick.”