Tea Leafing: A Novel (4 page)

Sam didn’t remember
small town life as being so charming when she was growing up. In fact, it
sucked. She couldn’t wait to escape. Now that she was gone, it seemed like a
softer, gentler way of life. Most of her high school friends had paired off and
had babies. They worked steady jobs and paid their taxes. Sam had only gone
back for quick trips since she graduated six years ago. Class reunions were out
of the question. Too many lies to keep track of and nothing in common with
those she counted as friends in the past. She had been a black sheep. A
druggie, who left for college, cleaned up, and battled her demons. It was too
much ground to cover during a party designed to show everyone how fabulous
one’s life is. So Sam stayed away.

Biting her lip, she
wanted to tell her parents about Lena. Wishing she could spill all the secrets
she’d been keeping, but knowing that unburdening herself would only be at their
expense, she swallowed the truths.

“Well, I’ll be around
working if you want to give me a ring.” Sam signaled the wrap-up in
conversation as the news ran dry.

“We love you.” They
chimed in unison.

“Love you too.” Sam
said, feeling the tears begin to sting. “Bye guys.”

Replacing the cordless
phone in its charging cradle, Sam leaned against the softness of the
ultra-suede covered custom sofa. Her home was tastefully furnished in warm
palette of brown and cream. Dancing had provided Sam with a comfortable life,
especially considering her young age. Tired of milk-crate furniture and
piece-meal hand-me-downs, she’d craved a comfortable space. A sanctuary. During
her drug years, any tattered thing would do. The need for high quality pharmaceuticals
far surpassed the need for comfort.

Sam had become a bit of
a homebody. Since she worked in a club, ‘going out’ was the furthest thing from
her mind during her off hours. She wanted to burrow into a comfy couch, wrap a
blanket around herself, crack open a book, and drink cocoa with marshmallows.
She craved the feel of safe surroundings. The first thing Sam treated herself
to was what she considered a ‘grown-up’ décor. She couldn’t help but feel
slightly guilty about the splurge, but she was proud as her gaze traveled
around the room, drinking in the space that looked like it was pulled from the
pages of
Elle Décor
. She earned it,
after all.

Expenditures were no
longer calculated in dollar amounts. Table dances were the new unit of monetary
measure. Sam felt it was easier to buy something worth fifty table dances
rather than a thousand dollars. She would break it down in other ways too,
like,
it’s just two hours in a VIP room. Strange how dancers
would change
their
thinking about money since it came
and went so easily. There was always more to be made, and the young never have
the foresight to realize they’ll be too old to dance before they know it.

When it looked like Sam
would lose her struggle with her addictions, her parents checked her into one
of the best treatment facilities in the country. Her father’s insurance plan
refused to cover the cost so they took out a second mortgage on her childhood
home. She knew her mom and dad didn’t regret it. Or if they did, they’d never
admit it. They always told her, “Possessions can be replaced, people can’t.”
She carried the guilt.

Sam was stashing money
away to pay off their mortgages. When she started dancing, she guessed it would
take her a year to earn the money. She’d underestimated the amount she’d make
dancing. She’d also underestimated the funds required to maintain
herself
. The yearly cost of make-up, costumes, hairpieces,
waxing, lasers, nails, tanning, massages and acupuncture, just to keep her
upright and earning, was more than most people make. She realized quickly that
the ‘spend money to make money’ adage applied ten-fold in this business.

Sam had often thought
of returning to a more low-key office job and living like the rest of the
world. The growing gap in her resume would make the hunt increasingly
difficult. Compound that with taking a hundred and twenty thousand dollar a
year pay-cut made the decision difficult at best. She struggled with her
feelings of greed.
Just one more year and
I’ll quit
, she would tell herself, knowing she’d heard herself say the same
words about her first love — drugs.

She pulled the soft
Alpaca afghan off the back of the couch and over her body. The feel of the
fabric nest comforted her, allowing her to put off decisions for just a little
while longer.
She
 
slipped
easily into a dreamless sleep.

CHAPTER 5

Returning to work the
following evening, Sam heard Gio’s mother, Pietra Maria Speranza DiFrancesco,
approach before actually seeing her. Even over the din of the club, the sound
and smell of Pietra was unmistakable. The click-clack-smacking sound of kitten
heels, the jangle of gold chains and the heavy scent of slightly fermented
Halston laced medicinal cream, were sure signs Pietra was near.

In the middle of a
table dance for an engineer from Boise, Sam flipped her hair and moved slowly
in time with the music. Turning her back to her customer, she spotted the third
generation Italian’s orange hair a few yards away at the top of the steps of
the main floor. Judging by the hairspray lacquered
style,
Sam was certain Pietra had a weekly standing appointment at her favorite salon
to have her hair ‘set’.

Pietra plunked her
hands on her ample hips as if all she was surveying was hers, and hers alone.
Her elbows stuck straight out from her body, making passage around her
difficult at best. She was squeezed so tightly into her leopard print shirt the
buttonholes strained to keep their agreement with the buttons. There was a
puddle of soft wrinkled skin at the apex of her cleavage and a wattle dangling
under her chin, framed by several thick gold herringbone chains. A
diamond-studded crucifix surfed the waves of skin as a gauche reminder of her supposed
devotion to God. Her white clam-digger slacks fit so snuggly in the crotch, she
looked more obscene than the scantily clad twenty somethings that darted around
her. A stack of gold, rope chain ankle bracelets rested above her white patent
leather slides. Her nails were painted an orangutan red that was an almost
perfect match for her hair. A bottle tan streaked her skin with an orangish
glow creating the overall effect of an Italian pumpkin partially eaten by a
wild beast.

Clicking her gold,
chain-link belt with long, thick acrylic nails, her heavily mascara’d beady,
dark eyes darted around the floor from girl to girl, assessing what she
perceived as her competition. The way Sam heard the story, Pietra once confided
in one of the girls, saying that she was sure her son, the night manager,
Giovanni Enzio DiFrancesco, was secretly in love with her. She felt that he had
an “Ea-da-puss Complex.” Supposedly, the girl was fired shortly thereafter for
laughing so hard she shot champagne through her nose onto Pietra Maria
Speranza’s imitation Gucci bag.

Sam turned back to
Boise and continued her dance, praying Pietra wouldn’t decide to intrude on the
hypnotized state she’d worked so hard to lull her customer into. No one knew
why Pietra would stop by the club on random nights. Sam was boggled by the
inappropriate nature of her presence, but not surprised by the bright, summer
white she continued to wear after Labor Day. Even strippers knew the basic
rules of fashion.

Focusing on her dance,
she gazed at Boise with a practiced sleepy, sexed up bedroom look. Rolling her
hips in an invisible figure eight, Sam looked down at her own bare body, slick
with sweat, her muscles flexed beneath her thin, tan skin, then back to Boise
in a nonverbal plea that let him think ‘
If
only we’d met somewhere else, we could have fallen in love and lived happily
ever after.
’ The ploy worked. It always worked.
  

Table dances at the
Pussycat were performed on the floor, rather than on a table. Yes, some clubs
do require a table dance to be on the table — a precarious feat in
stilettos. Sam stood just inside Boise’s knees, leaning against them at times
for support. The rules at clubs vary more than the denim selection at The Gap.
Some are nude, some topless, some bikini bars and the level of contact varies
widely. A good rule of thumb is the more clothing, more contact — less
clothing, less contact. For that reason, Sam chose a nude club with a reputation
for a high-end clientele. Customers were not allowed to touch dancers at all
when they were disrobed and limited to a hugged greeting when dressed. Lap and
friction dances, were strictly verboten. So Sam danced,
table
danced, for her money.

The music pulsed, and
Sam breathed in the second hand smoke and industrial strength orange-scented
air. She learned early on that mundane matters are for real life, not for life
behind the heavy doors of a gentlemen’s club. Things like inflation, health
problems, mortgages, taxes, children, petty arguments, politics, economics,
career difficulties, relationship troubles or anything else that might detract
from the fantasy is not conducive to a festive,
money-making
environment. Customers want to feel special. Good dancers were well aware their
job was to give the white glove treatment the customer missed during their
nine-to-five rituals where they were stepped on, picked at and pushed around.
No matter how important they are
,
everyone’s got a
boss.
Except maybe God and Pietra.

So, if only for a
little while, customers want to suspend reality. That’s why places like the
Pussycat make the money they do — strip clubs are one of the last
holdouts where customer service is king. In fact, customer service is the
primary commodity, the tits and
ass just happen
to be
an appealing delivery system. Anyone who tells you differently doesn’t
understand the game.

Pietra posed a threat
to the controlled social terrarium and everybody knew it except for her
otherwise savvy son, Gio. Bouncers, waitresses and “Pink Pay” girls all
scampered to get away when she came through the doors. One of a brave few might
make a beeline for her, like a soldier throwing himself on a grenade for his
platoon. It was a slow-motion symphony, with the customers oblivious that they
were in the presence of the most arrogant and ignorant woman south of the
Mason-Dixon.

Sam knew about the
communication networks that exist in all clubs like the Pussycat, some subtler
than others. The key to making men spend is to perfect the illusion of careless
freedom and easy relaxation. When Gio’s mom showed up, a call went out from the
front door to the bars and the DJ booth —
 
“Pietra Alert” — which was nothing more than a futile
attempt at damage control and a warning to take cover. Using closed-frequency
headsets, the valets would radio the door girls, who radioed the bouncers and
the bartenders, who radioed the housemom, who radioed the DJ. From there, the
bartenders would tell the waitresses, who in turn told the Pink Pay girls, who
would pass it along to the dancers. News spread like a virus through the club,
and within minutes everyone was aware of her presence. The idea that these
places are low-tech sleazy dumps is perhaps true of some. But the best clubs in
the country are more wired than the F.B.I.

As the song ended, Sam
needed to give her aching muscles a rest. Instead of asking Boise if she should
continue dancing, she reached for the soft, red, strapless dress she’d draped
across his knee and stepped into it. Having learned long ago that every
movement was watched, she threaded her legs slowly into her garment and slid it
up the length of her body in one fluid motion. Throwing the dress over her head
and working it down would have been infinitely easier, but sexy? No. It was an
unwritten rule that every stitch of clothing went back on from the bottom up.
Having learned from experience that pulling things over your head would quickly
wreck hair and smear make-up into an unpleasant mess. It was a rookie move only
new girls tried before the more seasoned dancers trained them as to the ways of
seduction. Settling herself back into the seat next to Boise, she reached for
her champagne flute filled with ginger ale.

Fixing her customer
with an inconspicuous look, she said, “So, where were we?”

“Sam! Dawling, have you
gained weight or a’you just bloated?” Pietra’s voice cut the mood like a chain
saw. She had wandered down from the steps and positioned herself a few feet in
front of Sam.
 
Her thick Jersey
drawl pierced the air above the thrumming music. Pietra leered through eyes
squinted into slits, a result of her refusal to wear glasses. Her face twisted
into a scowl that could only be prompted by strong liquor or lemon juice. Or
both.

Sam patted Boise’s leg
and gave him a wink. “Sorry sweetheart, let me take care of this. I’ll be right
back.” Her face flushed with anger.

“Pietra, how are you,
dear?” It pained Sam to not let loose on Pietra, but social and professional
survival at the club involved tolerating her sardonic demeanor without
retaliation. She took Pietra’s elbow and steered her away from Boise. “You look
incredible, is that a new necklace I see? You’re so lucky to have a man like
Giovanni Sr.” Sam referred to Pietra’s rarely seen, hen-pecked husband.

Flattery, no matter how
insincere, was the only way to soothe Pietra’s bitter temperament.

“Oh, well yeah in fact,
Giovanni Sr. gave it to me just b'cause. I’ll never forget how that man begged
me to marry him . . .”

“Of course,” Sam nodded
having heard the story twenty times before. She guided Pietra toward the
office,
“Anyone would know that just by looking at you! I
remember you talking about how people used to mistake you for Anne Margaret? Or
was it Sophia Loren? You could double for either one.”