one to blame but you.”
Ian grinned, again brushing her threats off like playful banter. He opened the door to the room, a tinier room than the previous night but still well-stocked with places to sit, mirrors, a T.V., and tables of food, beer, and clear glass, blue-lidded bottles of spring water.
“Is that what you’re wearing tonight?”
“No.” He unscrewed a bottle of water.
Jersey grabbed a handful of chips and walked around the room as Ian stood in the middle of it, watching her.
“How old are you, Coop?”
“Thirty-one.”
“You married?”
“No.”
“Girlfriend?”
“Sometimes.” He eyed her while finishing the bottle of water.
“Sometimes you have a girlfriend, or you have a sometimes girlfriend. Like she’s at home or in some fancy place you bought her, thinking she’s dating a famous singer, but when you’re traveling and women give you their panties, it’s a time you choose to be girlfriend-less because it eases your conscience?”
“Are you stereotyping me, Jersey?”
She stopped in front of him and frowned, eyes narrowed.
He tossed his empty bottle into a bin. An inch shorter and it would have landed on the floor, shattering everywhere. “Are you building me up in your mind to be what you think famous people are like?”
She wasn’t. Famous singers didn’t pick up homeless people off the street and reword things to make them easier to understand without ever making the homeless and undereducated young woman feel stupid.
When her resolve started to crack, she retreated several steps and plucked a carrot stick from a vegetable tray. “Are your parents musical too?”
“Musical?” He grinned and shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“What does that mean? That you really don’t know or that it’s none of my business?”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe’s not an answer. I told you about G. I shared something personal with you. Don’t you feel like you should share something personal with me?”
“I think I should get changed before Max brings back fans with backstage passes for photos. And unless you’re wanting to watch me change my clothes, you should go sell some tee shirts and shit like that.”
On a slow exhale, she turned and shuffled to the door, but instead of opening it, she pivoted back around and leaned against it.
Ian pulled a shirt from its hanger on a rolling clothes rack and stilled, glancing over at Jersey.
She tucked her thumbs into the tight, front pockets of her jeans.
“What?” He cocked his head to the side, eyes narrowed into slits.
“I want to watch.”
He studied her in silence, unmoving from his spot twenty feet away from the door.
“At Marley’s … I slept in the back room on this old mat. A room much smaller than this one, much dirtier and smellier. There was a toilet that everyone used, but I’m pretty sure I’m the only one who flushed it. A rusted sink with only cold water. Even the water had this odor to it, but after a while, I got used to the smell. Chris noticed it when he arrived and started staying with me.”
Jersey’s gaze slid to the floor between them. “I dressed in that room, stripped down and washed my naked body with the cold, smelly water and really potent hand soap that left bad rashes on my skin if I didn’t get it washed off good.” She lowered her voice and slowed her words. “Men would come and go from the back room. Sometimes they just needed to take a piss, but sometimes, they stood there and watched me. I let them because they let me stay there, even after Marley died. And some of them brought me food and stole things for me … things I needed to survive. So … I let them watch. If they didn’t try to touch me … I let them watch.”
A deafening silence shrouded the room, leaving the meaning of her words suspended in the stagnant air—whatever the meaning was supposed to be. Even Jersey felt conflicted over her intentions when she volunteered such a personal part of her life. She waited for Ian to say something, but he didn’t speak or even move one tiny inch. He just stood there with a blank expression holding his face hostage.
“I want to know what they felt. Did it bring them joy to watch me? Did they feel guilty? Did they forget me in the next blink, or did the image of me run through their minds when I wasn’t taking off my clothes? I don’t know why men in my life have needed this … but I want to understand it.”
More silence.
Ian glanced away, staring at