Three days went by, then four. More calls, more texts, all ignored. He stopped contacting her and decided he had to try another way. The kind of thing she couldn’t ignore. Desperate? Yes. But did he care? No. If she wanted something bigger than calls or texts, that’s exactly what he would give her.
The plan was expensive, at least for him. Didn’t matter. He scraped up the money any way he could.
It began with a bribe to her roommate. A nice-enough girl, but she drove a hard bargain when it came to money. She gave him a key and agreed to be gone for the night. Wes went in as soon as Ivy left for her part-time waitressing job.
When she returned, Ivy walked in and stopped dead. Wes was sitting on her bed, eating a Butterfinger, with a bag of Harvest Cheddar SunChips in his lap, and he had opened a two-liter bottle of Fresca. The whole room was packed with her favorites. On her desk, on the bed, on the dresser.
“I was wrong,” he said. “You always picked the best junk food.”
For a second, Wes thought she was going to scream at him about boundaries and invading her privacy. She didn’t.
“See,” she said. “I knew we were meant for each other.”
20
Ivy is a little bit offended Wes falls asleep so easily. After leaving Maxwell’s, his anger was simmering right beneath the surface. So close, but he managed to keep it in check. Ivy never doubted she would be in his bed tonight.
Angry sex, even rough. The real argument never happened, and all that tension had to go somewhere.
He talked to her, too.
Wes thinks she falls asleep even quicker than he does. That’s when he talks. Not always, but enough. Sometimes he says she’s beautiful or he loves her. Sometimes he says she’s crazy. Her favorite was when he called her a sorceress.
Tonight he asked a question:
“Why?”
Why what? she’d wanted to ask. But if she had, he would never believe she was asleep again.
She turns over, toward the window. Light from a streetlamp sneaks in through a break in the curtains. Her new dress is crumpled on the floor, one sleeve now torn. Ripped right out of the seam.
The way Wes talked about it at dinner comes back to her.
Nice dress.
Did you get that for tonight? Just for me?
The words had been thrown at her like daggers. She had no idea why. And she never thought it was about the dress itself; it was about his mood. Now she realizes she was wrong. The dress was the why.
Sky blue.
Maybe her subconscious was ahead of her again.
* * *
—
Seven years ago, Ivy wasn’t sure if she could go through with it. She walked inside anyway. Even during the day, the neon sign of the Fine Line gentlemen’s club was turned on.
The interior was dark, not a window in sight. Like a casino, where it was impossible to know what time it was. Not too many customers on a Wednesday afternoon. Not too many dancers, either, but the ones Ivy saw made her self-conscious about her body. She had no reason to be. She had just turned twenty-three and was in good shape, lived a healthy, outdoorsy life. But she didn’t look like the women on the stage.
“Looking for someone?” the bartender said. Another gorgeous woman, albeit one wearing a small amount of clothes. “Boyfriend?”
“Job.”
She looked Ivy up and down, slowly, not trying to hide it. “Hang on.”
A man showed up a few minutes later. Clean-cut, wearing a suit exactly like the men Ivy worked with every day. No garish jewelry, no visible tattoos, no sleazy smile. A businessman who looked Ivy up and down the same way the bartender had.
“Have you ever danced before?” he asked.
“Oh no,” she said. “I’m here to apply for the waitress job.”
“Have you waitressed before?”
“Yes.” In college, at a restaurant. But never in a bar, much less a strip club. She didn’t tell him all that.
He pointed to the one waitress who was on duty. She was at the end of the bar and appeared to be bored. She was dressed like the bartender, wearing something similar to a bikini. Bright yellow and a lot more revealing than anything Ivy had seen in public.
“That’s what you’d have to wear,” he said.
Ivy almost left. No way she could walk around with her butt and boobs hanging out like that. No way she could stand the way men would look at her. Like a frat party times a billion.
That final thought is what made her stay. The only thing she hated more than fear was allowing men to dictate her choices.
“I can wear that,” she said.
They talked about the schedule. She needed something part-time, a couple nights a week, just enough to supplement her income. The man brought her backstage, into a cramped dressing room filled with racks and boxes, and a long counter packed with makeup. The music was a tad muffled, making it easier to talk. Ivy was introduced to the woman who both managed and mothered the girls.
Coral was in her thirties, at least ten years older than all the dancers and waitresses. She had dark skin, red hair to match her name, and her breasts were twice the size of Ivy’s. She looked Ivy up and down much faster than the others.
“You need a name,” she said. “Customers are going to ask, and you can’t give them your real one.”
A list of names ran through Ivy’s mind. “Crystal?”
“Already used.”
“Ummm . . . Brittany?”
“Nope.” Coral shifted her weight, turning toward Ivy with a sigh. “It’s good to have a hook. A theme. Something that’ll make the guys remember you.” She winked, and somehow her fake lashes didn’t get stuck together.
“A theme,” Ivy repeated. Now her mind was blank.
Again Coral looked her up and down, a little slower this time. “Nice tan. You spend a lot of time outdoors?”
“Yes.” She and Wes were always out hiking or riding bikes—even more so since they’d started working. Being stuck in an office all day made her want to run out and get some fresh air as soon as she could. Even her hair was lighter from all the sun.
“Summer,” Coral said. “You look like a bright summer day.”
“Okay.” Summer wasn’t a bad name. Ivy could think of worse.
“What are you? 34C?”
“Um. Sure.”
Sort of. Ivy was more like a 34B most of the month, a 34C when she was bloated.
It was one of the weirdest conversations she ever had. The weirdest thing she had ever done, too. The question on her mind was: Could she do it?
Apparently, yes.
Coral dug through a box, pulling out two packages and handing them to Ivy. “Your uniform. You get two free. If they get lost or damaged, you pay for the replacement.”
Ivy took the cellophane-wrapped bags. A small picture of a woman appeared at the top, in the corner, and she was wearing an almost-bikini like the one worn by the waitress on duty.
Hers had been yellow. Ivy’s was sky blue.
21
Bianca gives her computer screen the finger. It doesn’t react, doesn’t give her what she wants, but it makes her feel a tiny bit better. Information isn’t always easy to get, but it shouldn’t be this hard.
Bianca is at work early again, and she’s already found everything she can on the internet. Searched through every post made by Ivy and Wes, read every comment, looked at all the tagged photos on other accounts, and all the free public records. What she can’t get are police reports. For those, she is required to go down to the station and pay a five-dollar fee. Cheap, but she’d have to fill out a form and give them her name.