Ceasefire

by Black, Scarlett

  “We’ll see how it goes,” I said. “Say your prayers for me.”

  I kissed Joey goodbye, and Dreama literally shut the door in my face. And you know, I have trouble calling my own mother a wench—respect your elders and all that—but she was toeing the line that day. But, given what happened in the coming months, maybe she had some justification. Maybe.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  As I drove back to the apartment, one simple decision changed everything.

  Isn’t that how it always goes? Rather than eating breakfast at your own kitchen table, you stop at a café and meet the love of your life. Or maybe you take a left instead of a right, and two seconds later you watch as a delivery truck plows through the intersection and demolishes the car behind you. Or maybe you take a later flight and get bumped up to first class.

  The tiniest decisions flip you upside down. If you oversleep by ten minutes one day, maybe you’ll retire in Costa Rica instead of middle-of-nowhere-Kansas. It’s baffling how intertwined, but disconnected, life can really be.

  Instead of heading straight back home, where I would flop face first onto the mattress, I let the guilt of lying to Dreama overtake me. I stopped at a convenience store and bought a newspaper, intending to resume my job hunt.

  And there it was, in black and white, four short lines that saved—and ruined—me in more ways than one.

  WANTED

  Professional Women Only

  Evenings and Weekends a Must

  Earn Thousands for a Few Hours of Work!

  I called the number, for no reason other than to see what it was. I mean, I had a notion, but for all I knew it was something ridiculous like stuffing envelopes.

  “Hello, thank you for calling The Midnight Fantasy Corporation; how may I help you?”

  I almost chuckled. Even an escort service had a better phone greeting than the idiotic one back at my old job.

  “Hi, yeah, I’m—I’m calling about the ad? The one in the paper looking for professional women?” I folded the newspaper and dug a pen out of the glove compartment, ready to take notes. I’m fastidious like that.

  “Oh, yes. Thanks for calling. Let me put you through to Terri, the HR manager. Hold, please.”

  An escort service needs a receptionist? And an HR manager? Interesting. I never would’ve guessed.

  Thirty seconds later, a chipper, bubbly voice said, “Hello, Terri speaking.”

  “Hi, Terri. My name is Kim, and I’m interested in the ad you have in the paper.”

  “Oh, wonderful. So glad you called! We’re always looking for some top notch talent around here.”

  “Ha, well, I don’t know about talent, but could you tell me a little more about the position?”

  I almost added, “Or the positions I would be in?” but decided against it. I didn’t know how the joke would be received, and for damn sure didn’t want to give in to the idea of selling my body if it wasn’t required for the menu. I had values. Good ones.

  At the time, anyway.

  Sure, I would show off the goods to a pansy-ass manager in hopes of keeping my job or manipulating him into more money, but full on sex for cash? Totally different.

  “I’d love to, Kim, but it’s something that’s probably better done in person. Of course I’ll need to see your resume and get a feel for qualifications, things like that. If you could email that to me before you come in, that would be great. And,” she said, pausing, “I always hate this part, but it’s necessary to protect the integrity of Midnight Fantasy’s client relationships. There are certain…standards.”

  I understood what she meant without having to ask for clarification.

  Terri added, “While I appreciate confidence in all forms—it’s a respectable quality no matter how you look at it—I’m sure you’re the best judge of whether or not you’d…whether or not you’d fit in with the staff. I hate to be blunt like that, but it’ll save us both some time.”

  “Right.”

  “So, now that we have that out of the way and we’re on the same page…what are your thoughts? Should I set up an appointment for you?”

  I hesitated. It felt peculiar—the possibility of being judged based on my looks instead of my education and job experience. But maybe it was what I needed, affirmation from a different angle, because I hadn’t gotten it from any other place in a long damn time. A little praise never hurt anyone.

  Did I even want to bother with wasting an opportunity for much needed sleep and rest? I really had no intention of going through with it, no matter how good the money was. It wasn’t something I could imagine myself doing. Not at first.

  My curiosity got the better of me. I had to know what it took—what was involved—to earn thousands of dollars for a few hours of my time.

  “Yes,” I said, “I think we should.”

  “Excellent. What’s your schedule like? It looks like the morning is open if you’re free.”

  “Absolutely. I can be there in an hour. I’ll see you then.”

  “Oh, not me, I’m afraid. I’m an off-site contractor. You’ll be meeting with someone else.”

  “Either way.”

  “Good, good, I’ll put you on the calendar and make sure they’re expecting you up front.”

  “Just one question.”

  “Yes?”

  “I don’t want to sound…naïve, but how should I dress?”

  I could almost feel her smile over the phone. “Dress for the part. Go classy. Or better yet, elegant, if you have anything like that hanging in your closet. The bigger your image, the better your chances. Just send along your resume and I’ll ping you back with any issues. If you don’t hear from me, good luck!”

  I jotted down the address on the newspaper and then rushed home, blowing through a couple of yellow lights and doing slow rolls at stop signs. Hurtling through my front door, sweats and sneakers went flying as I sprinted into the bathroom and quickly rinsed off the funk. I didn’t wash my hair because I never would’ve made it in time.

  One quick email later, with my resume attached, I began to flip through my clothes, cursing my wardrobe and mumbling, “No…no…no,” over and over. How many dresses did I own? Six maybe? All of them sundresses, nothing classy. I’d tossed out the short skirt I’d worn the day I lost my job. The thing was a bad omen. And besides, it wasn’t classy or elegant by any stretch of the imagination.

  Could I go in a pantsuit, the one I’d worn so many times to failed interviews? Nope. Professional, but not classy. Not in the right way.

  I flopped down on my floor, grabbed a handful of the towel and balled it up in my fists. Admittedly, I was bummed for a couple of minutes, because I knew I didn’t have the right things to wear and certainly didn’t have enough time to go shop for something appropriate. I had to laugh at myself, too, because I was getting all worked up over a job I didn’t necessarily want.

  Then I remembered—hanging in the coat closet, by the front door, was the one clothing item that I’d sworn would never touch my skin. Dreama had given it to me so long ago that I’d forgotten I had it. When Joey and I moved into the apartment, it went into the closet and stayed buried behind a wall of parkas and windbreakers that I hadn’t worn in ages either.

  A champagne colored bandage dress by some designer who Sharon knew firsthand and absolutely swore he would be the next big thing. It cost more than my car, I’m sure of it.

  Why had I sworn never to wear it? Because it was a ridiculously expensive, over-the-top attempt by Dreama to mold me into the daughter she wanted me to be.

  Need I say more?

  I let a smile work its way across my lips. Wouldn’t it be such perfect retribution to wear the dress to an interview for a job as an escort? I thought so, too.

  It was wrapped in the same plastic packaging it came in, and when I peeled the dusty cover away, I took one look and thought, God, I’ll never fit into this thing.

  I’d gained a pound or eight over the past five months. I partly blamed Finn—in the couple of weeks I sat
waiting around for him to call, I’m not stretching the truth too much when I say I ate my weight in Rocky Road ice cream. And to top that off, I’d been living on the cheapest food I could possibly find at the grocery store. You’d think I would’ve had plenty of time to exercise without a job, but my heart wasn’t into it. I was too tired, too depressed, and too stressed to even go for short runs.

  I carried the dress over to the mirror and let the towel drop to the floor, checking out my body, studying it with a critical eye—the eye of someone that might want to do wicked things to it.

  It wasn’t that bad, and truthfully, the extra pounds had done me some good. My breasts were fuller. I had some actual shape to my hips. I couldn’t count my ribs.

  Before, I’d been too skinny, trying to live up to the not-an-ounce-of-body-fat image that Dreama desired. Or maybe demanded. And it’s not like I wanted to—I generally fought back against most of the demands she tried to force upon me—but if you grow up a certain way and stick with one thing long enough, whether you like it or not, it tends to become habit. Like the way I always put my right shoe on first. Why? Couldn’t even begin to tell you. Muscle memory, I guess.

  I stepped into the dress and lifted it up, sliding the wide straps over my shoulders. It didn’t go on easily, but I didn’t struggle too much either. I fought with the zipper—where’s a helping hand when you need it?—and then tiptoed into the bedroom for a pair of heels that would work. None of them matched perfectly, but I chose a pair of beige platform pumps that were close enough. Yet another gift from Dreama that I’d never worn.

  When I got back to the mirror, I held my breath and counted to five, then stepped gingerly sideways, sort of dreading what I might see.

  Wouldn’t you know it?

  Hot.

  Damn hot, actually. There was no way in hell I’d ever tell Dreama that I liked it—no, loved it—but the woman had taste and knew her daughter well. All the right lines. The cut was perfect. My tummy didn’t show.

  And wow, my legs looked incredible.

  See what you’re missing, Finn?

  One quick look at my email revealed nothing negative from Terri, so I assumed I was good to go.

  I checked the time. Twenty minutes left. Just enough to throw on a dash of makeup, ensure my hair was fine, and sprint out the door. Well, as best as you can sprint in platform pumps.

  As I fought traffic and cursed every late morning commuter and elderly person going five miles under the speed limit, I slapped the steering wheel and begged them to go faster. I began to sweat, stressing out over the possibility of being late. Not good. Although the dress was sleeveless, it wasn’t the kind of image I wanted to project. If I walked in there dripping from my armpits like some construction worker, instead of the graceful poise of a woman in control, it could ruin everything.

  And then it hit me: why in the hell was I stressing out over a job I neither wanted nor had the time for?

  I eased back into the driver’s seat and took a deep breath, then another.

  A call girl. Or “professional escort,” something like that.

  I wondered if there was a difference. At the time, I was too inexperienced to realize that yes, there was. I turned on the air conditioning and lifted both arms at the shoulders, trying to dry off. Quite an awkward sight to anyone that noticed.

  I thought, borderline prostitution? Really? Am I that desperate?

  It didn’t take me long to understand that the hours would never work, but God, I really needed the money. And yet, I didn’t know the first thing about being an escort. Did they always have to have sex with their clients, or did they sometimes do nothing more than simply dress up, allow a senator or billionaire to hook an arm around their waist, and play nice for a few hours?

  I drooled over the possibilities—paying off the debt I’d racked up, stashing some money away while I looked for a real job, and maybe we could find a nicer apartment, one with faucets that didn’t drip all night and a toilet that flushed without jiggling the handle at just the right angle.

  How many clients could I avoid sleeping with before someone complained?

  Was it possible? There had to be a way around spreading my legs for some rich businessman in town for the week.

  Could I do it for a while, long enough to earn a safety net, something that would keep me afloat for the foreseeable future?

  If I could pull it off for a couple of months…

  Could I somehow convince Dreama that I had strange hours at the new, fake job? Maybe until the end of the year? Four months? I began concocting stories in my head, coming up with reasons why I had to work from six to midnight during the week and at erratic, weird hours on the weekend.

  I concocted fantasies for something that might not even become a reality.

  “Might” being the appropriate word.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  I pulled into the parking lot of a large, red brick office building with two minutes to spare. Thankfully, by whatever miracle of the traffic gods, I caught four green lights in a row and made up some time. Damn the blue hairs and cotton-tops with their feet riding the brakes—when luck is on your side, you take it where you can get it.

  My heels clicked across the concrete as I pulled open the front door and searched the building directory for “The Midnight Fantasy Corporation,” expecting to see its name alongside the others like The Acupuncture Zone and Williamson Family Dentists. No dice. Slightly panicked, I checked the address number to make sure I was in the right place—I was—and then scanned the list of names again.

  Gotcha. There you are.

  It was listed as “TMFC” about halfway down. Sixth floor, Room 602.

  The initials were obviously an attempt to keep things discreet, which I appreciated. With all the standard businesses that called the place home—law offices, chiropractors, real estate agencies—my biggest fear had become running into someone I knew. Or worse yet, someone that knew Dreama.

  I pressed the elevator button and waited. And waited. It gave me too much time to dread the scenario. I could see it play out in my mind: “Kim? Hi, what’re you doing here? That’s a nice dress. Did your mother give you that?”

  I shook the thought from my mind, kept my head down, and dashed for the stairs, climbing up them as quickly as the tight dress would allow.

  At the landing, I checked the office numbers and followed the arrows down to the end of the hall, which had champagne colored walls and matching carpet. An interesting color choice, to say the least, and if I’d lain down or backed up to the wall, I could’ve disappeared within the unintentional camouflage.

  I pushed the door open and had to refrain from actually plowing inside.

  Right on time. Barely.

  A woman, wearing a floral-print dress and black-rimmed glasses, sat behind the counter talking quietly into the phone.

  Her nameplate read, “ALICE WILKINS.”

  She hung up and smiled when I approached. I got closer and noticed the heavy streaks of gray in her hair and loose skin around her upper arms. Somebody’s grandmother probably, and I wondered how she felt about working where she did. What if it was her granddaughter coming in for an interview at an escort service? Maybe it didn’t matter. Maybe she didn’t have grandchildren and what the girls there did with their bodies was none of her concern. Or maybe she’d been in the same position as me—unemployed and desperate—and accepted what had finally been offered.

  “Well, hello, sweetheart,” she said, and I instantly fell in love with her. Kind words, sweet disposition. Welcoming. She reminded me of Lois, Dreama’s mother, who’d passed away when I was fifteen years old. I had so many fond memories of my time at Lois’s house and still missed her too much, all those years later. How the sweetest woman in the world had given birth to the spawn that became Dreama was anyone’s guess.

  “Hi, Alice. I’m Kim Baker. I called earlier and have an interview scheduled.”

  “You certainly do,” Alice said, checking her computer screen. “You
’ll be meeting with Roman.”

  “Roman?”

  “He’s the owner. Can I get you anything? Coffee or tea? Anything stronger?”

  “Stronger?”

  “To help you relax, dear. Your hands could mix paint the way they’re shaking.”

  It was true, and I’d been so stuck inside my own head contemplating what in the hell I was doing there that I hadn’t even noticed. I clasped my fingers together and then held my purse against my waist, trying to steady my hands. “Sorry about that. I’m a little…nervous.”

  Alice gave me a knowing look, like she’d heard it hundreds of times before. She said, “They all are, honey. Everyone that walks through that door for the first time. Now, how about that drink?”

  “Scotch, I think. That’s classy, right?”

  She winked at me. “You learn fast. Roman will be impressed.”

  ***

  A couple of minutes later, I sat in a tiny waiting room off to Alice’s right. With my legs crossed, I tapped a foot on the floor and tried to keep the ice from rattling in my tumbler. The scotch was strong with a hint of caramel flavor on the back of my tongue. It burned going down and it wasn’t long before I began to feel the effects. I hadn’t had a drop of alcohol in months. Couldn’t afford it. The result of a bottle of wine, alone, wasn’t worth the expense, no matter how stressed or depressed I’d been.

  The waiting room had the distinction of being plain but strangely decorated at the same time. Lime green walls, fake flowers, and famous art reprints. A small coffee table sat in front of me with an odd statue of a golfer in mid-swing, which served as a centerpiece. The couch I sat on was faux leather, but deep and cushy, so I didn’t mind its fakeness too much. Being comfortable when you’re about to pee yourself is a much-needed benefit.

  Across from me was a matching love seat and next to that, a stack of magazines on an end table, their covers adorned with more golfers in ridiculous clothes and awkward poses. It had to be where they deposited all the male clientele, if any of them were bold enough to visit the office instead of calling in an order.