Calling Out (26 page)

I'm having dinner at Saharan Sands, Mohammed's
restaurant, for the first time. Nikyla is meeting me here
for a celebratory dinner. She is probably the only escort in
history to give two weeks' notice. I feel like I'm back on
the other side of the line, looking in instead of looking
out. I'm no longer privy to what goes on a few doors
down at Premier. No one calls me Roxanne.

Up close, Mohammed's wife looks tired around the
eyes but she is prettier than I'd thought from just seeing
her through the window, her features delicate and composed. She is, surprisingly, very pregnant. Even if I might
look familiar to her, I imagine she blocks out her husband's other business. She doesn't consider that I might
be one of those girls.

On my last day in Moab, Ford took me on a hike in
Arches National Park, up the smooth rock hills, through
the chasms, and along the narrow pathways to the monolithic spires and ridges, and the gravity-defying red sandstone arches. The unlikely formations are bold, graceful,
daring, without real purpose. Under the dwarfing span of
Delicate Arch, against an endless blue expanse of sky, I felt
lighter than I have in years. Ford said he thinks people like
to find places that remind them of their fragility. He took
my picture under the famous arch but he had to stand so
far back to get the whole thing in that I'm not sure I'll be
recognizable.

Nikyla, her skin perfect and radiant, sits down across
from me smelling of vanilla and soap. She grabs my hands
across the table.

“I'm so glad you called. I have such a craving for
falafel,” she says.

I raise my water glass.

“To the end of your escorting career,” I say.

“
Our
escorting career,” she says and clinks my glass.
“You're not going to move back to New York now, are
you?”

“I promised my friend Ford I wouldn't give up yet on
Utah.”

“Good,” she says. “I want you around to babysit.”

The thing about Utah is that despite its wholesome
veneer, I've come to see it as it is, to know it in my way,
and it's a lot messier and more alluring than it appears on
the surface. And the truth is, I don't need a promise to
Ford to keep me here. I can now say, yes, given the
options, I choose to live here, to pitch my tent in this place
that's seemingly far away from everything. For now,
anyway.

I'd forgotten that when Marisa isn't answering phones
at Premier, she comes here to belly dance. Over the stereo
speakers, a pulsing drum-and-cymbal beat precedes her,
and she sways out from the kitchen with no introduction,
just the tinkling beads of her costume as her hips snake in
tiny figure eights. This is the first time I have seen her
dance, and Mohammed is right, her hips have a life of
their own. Nikyla lets loose a catcall and the men at the
table next to ours put down their forks to focus on the
dancer. They
are hooked. I smile encouragement at
Marisa but she doesn't seem to notice.

I got a letter a few weeks ago from Ember. She never made
it to Spain. She eventually ended up back in Milwaukee,
where she's been trying to stay clean. She lives with her
mother, who's also on the wagon, and waits tables at a
diner. If she has a boyfriend, she didn't mention him. Milwaukee, she said, is still the pits.

Mohammed closed Premier Escort because of an unsavory audit and, I like to think, my influence. Some of
the escorts went over to Baby Dolls. None of us ever heard from Jezebel again.

Nikyla married her boyfriend just before giving birth to a baby girl she named Spencer. They now live in a sunny little apartment not far from the mall where she
and her husband are both managers. I take Spencer every couple of weeks so her parents can go out on Saturday
night—they're finally old enough to get into Club DV8. Spencer has silver studs in her ears, perfect chubby legs,
and Nikyla's green eyes. I like to take her on walks through the shady evening streets of the Avenues.

Mohammed hired me to manage his rug store, since renamed Pasha after his new daughter. We've secured a
lease on a new space with a much-needed front display window and good foot traffic up near the university, next
door to the King's English bookstore. Our Web site has been up and running for four months and we've already
shipped orders from as far away as Hawaii. I've been pestering Mohammed for a raise, and although he hasn't
granted it yet, he did give me a gorgeous burgundy Persian carpet that now covers the floor of my living room.

Ford is finally moving up to Salt Lake for good. He
has accepted a job as an avalanche forecaster and he's
coming this weekend to look for an apartment. He's
keeping the trailer in Moab—his country house he calls
it—for frequent visits.

This is my second fall in Utah. Outside my kitchen
window, the cottonwoods are orange, the walnut trees
yellow-green, and the scrub oaks red on the mountains.
Despite the drizzle, the colors are electric. On Saturday,
Ford has promised me a hike out in Little Cottonwood
Canyon, where the autumn chill will be settling in around
the mountains and the yellowing aspen leaves will be
aflutter in the wind like thousands of tiny clapping hands.