the desk to answer phones or do whatever-the-fuck it is she does here. That’ll be the last time she tells me what I can and can’t do.
“My girl, you’re here.” Inez welcomes me with outstretched arms. She comes to me as I’m dropping my purse in a chair, holding my face in her hands. Inez kisses each one of my cheeks. “It’s been too long, Lydia.”
“It’s been a week,” I remind her.
“We really should get together more often. Why don’t we eat dinner somewhere? Or you can come to my place and I’ll cook you a meal.” Inez sits in front of me on the edge of her desk. She’s dressed in a navy-blue suit that sets her red hair on fire today.
Retrieving the envelope with Inez’s cut from my earnings this week, I ignore the dinner invitation like I’ve ignored all invitations for dinner I’ve received lately. The grimy, inky-cotton sent of cash disappears once she takes the envelope and places it behind her on the desk. There’s no need to count it. Inez knows it’s all there.
“Fine. No dinner then,” Inez says with a shake of her head. She knew when she asked that I’d refuse. “There have been quite a few calls for you this week. You’re booking out six weeks, and I don’t think we should go out farther than that. Can you double up a couple of days a month? Would you mind that? You’re such a popular girl and the only one who works like this.”
“I’m not doubling my days, Inez,” I say with an air of finality.
Inez hands me a sheet of thick paper with the names of potential clients listed, complete with a short description of each. There’s a doctor, a pilot, and a few men in finance. A lawyer named Talent Ridge isn’t listed, and I don’t admit to Inez that he’s interested. The disaster that happened at Ridge & Sons hasn’t come up again since I told her coffee with the younger Ridge son went well. I’d like to leave it that way.
“How many of them check out?” I ask. By this I mean, how many of them qualify to be on my books.
“All but two. The doctor has terrible credit, and one of the finance managers has been arrested for solicitation of a prostitute. The idiot will never get a chance with any of my girls for being a dirty liar.” Her eyes meet mine. “These arrangements don’t work without honesty.”
Omitting information about Talent isn’t lying. Everything I’ve told her about my interaction with him is all true—the coffee date was a success and we agreed the night in his office was a mutual misunderstanding. She doesn’t need to know that he kissed me, or that he’s texted me almost every night since then. He’s not paying me, and I’m not sleeping with him. Inez has no place in this equation.
I’m allowed a personal life.
Passing the list back, I say, “Put them on my schedule. If they can’t wait, you can fit them with someone else.”
Inez pinches the bridge of her nose. “Must we continue to have this discussion every week, Lydia? These men want the arrangement only you offer. You make double what my other girls make an hour, but they take home more on a weekly basis because of your refusal to take more than one appointment—”
“I said no.” Unwavering, I match her frustration and lift my chin in defiance. “These men kiss me, touch me, fuck me six days a week. I get one day off to brace myself for it to happen again for another six days and another six days and another six days. One client a day is all I can stomach, Inez. Twenty-four hours isn’t long enough to recover from more than that. If they can’t wait for me, find another girl to do it.”
Inez’s defensive posture melts, and her expression softens with compassion. It’s not very often I confide in her my struggle. It’s not very often I admit that I do struggle. My heart turned to stone along my journey from a child watching her mother dance for money to now, but I am human.
Normalcy isn’t a concept I come face-to-face with on a regular basis, but I felt like a fraud sitting in that coffee shop with Talent. It was harder for me to act like I belonged there than it is for me to stare at a man’s cock and pretend I want it. Fitting in among people