Offensive Behavior (Sidelined #1) (28 page)

TWENTY-FOUR

Zarley nearly broke her nose on the door when it didn’t open. She
saw the notice taped there at the same time as Vi opened up and hustled her
inside.

“What’s
going on?” No customers, only half the lights on. Lizabeth sat on a barstool
with an open bottle in front of her. Zarley clocked Vi’s expression. “Tell me.”

Vi’s
face crumpled and she let out a sob. “Lou had a heart attack.”

Zarley’s
hand went to her mouth. “Oh my God. Is he all right?” Therese came in from the
kitchen carrying a pile of plates. Everything was out of order.

Lizabeth
got off her stool and put her hand on Vi’s shoulder. “He died.”

Someone
was knocking on the door. Kathryn came in. “What’s the deal?”

“It’s
Lou,” said Vi. “He’s gone.”

“Gone where?”

“The
big beer keg in the sky,” said Lizabeth.

“What?”

More
banging on the door. Therese let Melinda in. “Health violation. Goddamn, Lou,”
she said and froze. “What?”

“Health
inspectors slapped a closure notice on Lucky’s this morning. Five minutes after
they left here, Lou had a heart attack,” said Lizabeth.

“He
drank and smoked too much,” said Melinda. “What hospital took him?”

“He’s
dead,” said Vi. “Dead before the ambulance got here. I tried.” She broke down
again.

Lizabeth
took over. “Vi tried to revive him. Hospital said he was probably dead before
he hit the floor.”

Melinda
moved to stand in front of Vi. “That’s a terrible shock. We need to take care
of you.”

“There’s
food,” said Therese. “We’ll have to throw it out if we don’t eat it.”

Melinda
was a mediocre pole dancer but a great nurse. She took care of Vi, made them
all sit and eat, told them what happens when someone has a heart attack. Zarley
felt dazed. She ate the pasta Therese dished up and drank a single glass of
wine in a toast to Lou. He was sixty-three years old. Long divorced. Lived
alone. He was a big man with a beer gut and a loud voice. He had a black beard
and a gray ponytail and liked his Jack. He didn’t like men touching his
dancers. He was the leaseholder of Lucky’s and had run the bar as long as Vi
had worked here. And that’s all they knew about him.

“He
wasn’t a bad boss,” said Lizabeth. “Had worse.”

“There
is nowhere in the city like Lucky’s,” said Melinda.

Part
bar, part club, too wholesome to be a regular strip joint, not sophisticated
enough to be a popular night spot, not rundown enough to be outright skanky, or
aimed at pulling in men who fancied themselves high rollers.

“He was
good to me,” said Vi.

“Did he
have any family?” Kathryn asked.

He’d
had two daughters. One was killed in a car accident when only a toddler and the
other died of a drug overdose while still in school.

Too sad,
they agreed.

“What
happens now?” Therese asked.

“We’re
out of work,” said Kathryn.

“Out of
money,” said Melinda.

Out of
luck.

They
parted with plans to stay in touch. Vi promised to let them know whether Lucky’s
could reopen, but she was as much in the dark as the rest of them. Zarley
walked back to Reid’s, she wanted time to think.

She was
homeless and jobless, but she had a rich boyfriend who wanted to take her to
Paris. Reid shocked her with the idea of trying out at Madame Amour. It’d never
crossed her mind as anything more than a pipe dream, but now it made her
wonder. What if she could get an invitation to perform? What if she won? The
scholarship would pay her student loans.

If
Lucky’s didn’t reopen she had to find another job. In every other club in the
city, the dancers had to pay a fee for their turn on the stage and were
expected to give private sessions, dancing for up to an hour at a time for any
customer who paid for the privilege. That was in addition to lap dances.

She’d
be expected to work topless and drop the artistry of her pole routines for the
more regular bump and grind. She could be cute and sassy at Lucky’s, but
anywhere else sexy was more narrowly defined. She’d be expected to make friends
with the customers and use social media to encourage them to come back.

It was
so far from gymnastics it might as well have been cooking.

There really
was nowhere else like Lucky’s.

But
there was Madame Amour, where the feature performers included Vegas-style acts
and the dancers were ballerinas and acrobats, where maybe a gymnast had as good
a chance as anyone to take the prize money.

What
was the reason not to try?

There
was that pesky airfare for one, and the sense of obligation that went with it. Had
Reid genuinely thought she was staying with him because she pitied him?

She
could always try waitressing or retail, though with no experience to trade on,
it could prove difficult to get a job there.

She
rang Cara and filled her in on Lou, told her about Reid’s offer. “What would
you do?”

“Can
you win?” They’d both watched the artists on the Madame Amour website when
Zarley was first putting her routines together for Lucky’s.

“Maybe.”
A strong maybe, but it depended on what the judging team was looking for. They
gave points for skill, thrill, appeal and entertainment value; a criteria far
more rubbery than for an Olympic competition.

“Remind
me how it works.”

“It’s a
twenty-five thousand dollar cash prize. And there’s a month left in the
competition.” She had to check that from the poster in the dressing room. “But
you have to be selected from an audition tape to get an invitation to perform
and I haven’t applied.”

“How
much do you like this guy?”

“More
than I should.” More than any man. A dangerous thought. She had memory loss
when he was around.

“Because?”

“Because
I need to be focused on study.”

“Because
people who study don’t have boyfriends.”

Zarley
watched the street and crossed when it was clear. “Not the smart ones.”

“So you
pay him back.”

“In the
year 3027.”

“So
offer him interest. That’s a good deal.”

“You’re
supposed to be talking me out of this. You don’t like him. He’s obnoxious,
remember.” She could hear Cara moving about, the sound of a television in the
background.

“He
grows on you.”

“What
am I missing here?”

“I had
a call today from Plus. I have an interview tomorrow. There might be a job in
their customer care team.”

Zarley
stopped walking. “For real?” She was one of those annoying pedestrians. A man carrying
shopping stepped around her with an exasperated look. She let him pass, he wore
a business suit but sunny yellow socks that reminded her of Dev.

“It’s
probably not going to happen, I’m not the only candidate but it’s something. Did
you look at any news websites?”

Out of
solidarity she hadn’t. If Reid didn’t want to know, she didn’t need to. She
walked on, listening to Cara.

“The
media savaged him today. He wrote to staff and a couple of websites got hold of
it, and you probably already know this. You should go to Paris. It’s a once in
a lifetime opportunity, Zar.”

She’d
had the chance at once in a lifetime and blew it.

“We
could go and I might never be invited to perform.”

“So you
have a once in a lifetime holiday in Paris with a man you like a whole lot.”

More
than like. “I don’t know if my passport is still valid. I don’t even know where
it is, burned up, probably. It would take too long to organize a new one.”

“It was
with my birth certificate in my button box. I’m looking at it now.”

Another
weak excuse bites the dust. “It’s not only the airfare, it’s accommodation and
food.”

“Then it
will be 3050. He can wait.”

“That’s
not right. I don’t want to feel indebted to him.”

“How do
you want to feel toward him?”

She was
outside Reid’s place now. He wouldn’t expect her for hours. She wanted to feel
excited and respected, challenged and cherished, and he’d shown her all those
feelings in a hot mess of greedy impulse and irresistible longing. She wanted
to feel loved again after so long feeling like failure.

“I’m
here now. I should go in.”

“Zarley,
I’m sorry about Lou.”

It
didn’t seem right he was gone.

“And it’s
okay to want to be with Reid. He’s not like the others and you’re not like you
were when you slept around for a fun fix.” Wasn’t she? That’s how it had
started with Reid. “You haven’t been for a long time, but you’re still
punishing yourself.”

“I lost
a lot of time. I lost my family.” Lost herself.

“Maybe,
but maybe you needed to have that happen to be who you are today.”

She
groaned. “Unemployed, homeless and broke. If you’ve been reading self-help
books, they’re not working.”

“I
haven’t. Okay, I read one. It’s called
Get Out of Your Own Way: How to
Overcome your Insecurities and Limps
.”

Zarley
laughed. “It is not called that.”

“Close.”

“Did
you buy it? I think I’m going to Paris.”

“Lord
no, it’s Gavin’s. Bring me back a baguette and a cute Frenchman.”

She
pressed the access code to Reid’s building. “I’ll need to borrow a big
suitcase.”

Cara
said, “I only need a small Frenchman.”

It made
her smile all the way to Reid’s door. When she let herself in she heard music. Not
from the television. He wasn’t gaming. They’d spoken once today. He was avoiding
his cell and computer, having set an out of office message on all his devices. She
followed the sound.

Reid
was on the treadmill. He was barefoot, pounding it out. He was shirtless,
wearing track pants, and he was drenched with sweat. Zarley kept close to the
doorjamb so she could indulge in watching him. She was more often the watched
than the watcher, though she’d studied plenty of male gymnasts, their perfectly
sculptured physiques on easy display at training camps and competitions, but there’d
been something clinical about that.

With
Cara at her side, she’d engaged in professional objectification. They’d
compared the abs and pecs, triceps, lats and quads, chest expansion and
skeletal structure of each of the men in the US team. Never with the intention
of licking them.

Reid
wasn’t built like a gymnast. Too tall, his muscles were bunched, functional not
showy. He didn’t have a gymnast’s learned grace or explosive power and iron
control. He could be gawky, halting, unsure of his own strength, like he hadn’t
read the user instructions for his body and was still fumbling it out. But looking
at him made her go tight with want. And if he’d let her, she’d lick that
rivulet of sweat that ran from his collarbone, across his tattooed pec and down
the ladder of his abs into the waistband of his pants. She’d tongue him dry.

And
then start on making him sweat for her all over again.

When
the programming on the treadmill ended he slowed and stopped. He didn’t see her
till he stepped down. He was overheated but he flushed further when their eyes
met.

“How
long have you been here?”

“Little
while.” Long enough for it to affect her heart rate. To almost forget about
Lou. For her emotions to get screwed up and to feel teary.

“Did I lose
time?” He dragged a towel over his face and chest. “Zarley, what happened?” He
stepped in close, but didn’t touch her, aware of his state.

“Lou
died.”

He
forgot about being considerate and wrapped her in a slippery, smelly hug. He
didn’t say anything. He scooped her up and carried her into the bathroom, where
he ran the bath and held on to her as she cried the tears she hadn’t shed at
Lucky’s.

When
they’d undressed and she was curled against him in the warm water, he said, “Baby,
who’s Lou?”

It
almost made her laugh. She told him what little she knew about Lou and when she
finished he was so quiet she turned her face to check he hadn’t fallen asleep.

“I know
what I want to say, but I’m worried it’s the wrong thing.”

“Say
it.”

He
nuzzled her cheek. “Run away with me. I don’t care where we go. Vegas, Portland,
your Waco waterslide, it doesn’t matter to me. I don’t have a job, my friends
don’t want to know me, the media want to catch me doing something else dumbass
and my girlfriend is on a break.”

It was
a nice way to put it. So far he was doing well. Not turning the pressure up
like she’d expected.