Monica and I sit on her bed pigging out on popcorn and coke, Monica throwing back the occasional shot of booze that soon makes her tipsy. The movie plays out, and she teases me mercilessly when I ask questions about all the strange names of the characters and planets and ships. Near the end of the film, when Obi Wan Kenobi gets cut down by Vader and vanishes, I stare from her to the screen, to her again.
“Wait, where did he go? His robes are still there. Is he wandering around the galaxy somewhere naked now?”
Monica falls back on her bed, howling with laughter. “He’s dead, dumbass.” But there’s no edge to her tone.
“Oh.” I toss a kernel at her and she throws it back. “But why did he disappear?”
She sits up, trying to look serious. “Rat would be able to explain that better than me, but I think he went into the Force, or something.”
“Aw!” I look at the screen as Luke and Han and Leia walk into a grand hall packed with the rebel fleet soldiers to receive their medals. “But he was like a father to Luke. That’s sucks.”
We watch the ending, and I lie across her bed beside her, feeling the happiness already blooming inside me mount at the movie’s sappy ending.
“So, what’s going on with you and Pip?” I ask her as she gets up to put in Empire Strikes Back. “Are you guys, you know, together?”
She looks at me, squatting in front of the Blue-Ray player.
“Well, I just mean, you seem like you’re involved, but I’ve seen you go off with… I mean…” My face goes hot and I trail off lamely. “I’m sorry, I still don’t get how this works.”
Monica pushes the Blue-Ray disk in, but when she sits on the bed, she won’t look at me. She fiddles with the remote and doesn’t press play.
“Sorry. I shouldn’t have asked. It’s none of my business.”
“I guess no one’s ever told you what a club girl is, have they?”
I shake my head. Then my mouth drops. “Wait. Jules called herself that. Oh wow.” I look at the ceiling. “Little slow on the uptake there, Emma.”
Monica gives me a wan smile.
“But why do you do it? I’m not judging, it’s just…”
“You think they make us do it.” She shakes her head. “We aren’t here by force. Club girls choose to be here. We can leave anytime.”
But I can see the sadness in her eyes. “But what about Pip? You want to be with him, don’t you?”
She lifts her shoulders. “If he asked me to be his old lady, I wouldn’t say no.”
“But why doesn’t he? Doesn’t he want to?”
“He can’t. It doesn’t work that way.” At my confused look, she sets her hand on my knee. “Okay, here’s the thing. I won’t say it never happens. But club girls rarely become old ladies. It’s part of the job. We have to take whoever wants us at any time. It’s just how it is. Even if Pip wanted to, he’d have to be patched in to ask.”
“But isn’t he already patched in? He’s a member of the club, right?”
She shakes her head. “He’s a prospect. He has to earn his member’s patch—the symbol of the outlaw skull Spider has on his cut.”
“So, until he does…”
“Until he does, what we have now is all there is.”
“Do you think he’d ask if he was patched in?”
She doesn’t answer, but the silence says it all. Monica sniffs. “Let’s just watch the movie, okay?” She presses play.
Lord, my heart aches for her. When she’d talked of serving the men, I’d seen a strange sort of pride in her eyes that forcefully reminded me of what she’d once told me. We do what we have to for the club. But it was impossible to miss the painful longing in her eyes.
I feel like I only half understand the dynamics at play in the club when it comes to the girls. There is obviously a strictly upheld hierarchy here. In the Colony, there was a hierarchy as well, though it was more unspoken than it is here.
Among the members of His Holy Peace, David Gild’s wife is the same rank as Dee is here. Under her come the pastor’s wives, then those of the deacons, and so on down the line. As a pastor’s daughter, I’m expected to wed a pastor or a man of equal rank. The women are always friendly with each other, but there is