The Lights of Tenth Street (45 page)

“Please!” The woman laughed. “Call me Jo. Mrs. Woodward sounds so
old
. Well, let’s not stand out here in the heat. Come on in.”

Mrs. Woodward held the front door open, and Ronnie ventured inside. She hadn’t been in a church in years—not since one of her friends was killed in a drunk-driving accident.

She looked around the large foyer, surprised at the contemporary look of the place. Good Shepherd Church was large and airy and didn’t look like … well, like a church.

Mr. Woodward pointed toward a set of doors off to the side. “The dinner is first, in our fellowship hall. The college fair is afterwards, so you can take as much time or as little time as you want.” He looked at his watch. “I need to leave you all now to go coordinate with the host for the evening. Ronnie, you okay?”

Ronnie nodded, not at all sure that she was.

Mr. Woodward kissed his wife on the cheek and vanished up a nearby flight of stairs, just as a group of women came up to chat with them. Ronnie stuck close by her host’s side as the introductions were made. She had the prickly feeling that people would be able to see right through her charade.

“Well, welcome, Ronnie.” One of the women gave her a broad smile. “We’re always glad to meet young students. If you don’t have a church, we’d love to have you come worship with us.”

Ronnie shifted, uncomfortable.

“I’m sure Ronnie appreciates the offer,” Mrs. Woodward said. “Right now, though, she just wants to know how to get through the first week of fall classes!”

The women laughed and backed off. Ronnie relaxed a bit as Mrs. Woodward steered her into the large dining area and began looking for a seat at one of the half full tables.

Ronnie glanced around at all the hustle and bustle … and froze. A man stood at the front of the hall, not twenty feet away, setting up a microphone on stage.

She recognized him. He always sat near the back of the club—sometimes with a group, but more often alone—looking slightly ashamed of himself

He turned, microphone in his hand, and headed toward the doors, coming in their direction, muttering about a missing circuit. Ronnie felt detached from her feet.

Turn away! Run to the restroom!
She couldn’t make her feet work.

Jo tapped him on the arm as he passed. “Hey, Bud.”

“Hey, Jo.”

“Can I introduce you to a new friend of ours? Ronnie, this is Bud. He’s one of our best production guys. A real whiz.”

Bud shook her hand, distracted, then looked into her face. She saw the belated flash of recognition, the blank shock … the flicker of shame and anger.

Ronnie made her mouth work. “Nice to meet you, Bud.”

He dropped her hand and took a step back, a strange look twisting his lips.

“I’ve got to get this mike working.” He fled out the doors.

“Guess he was in a hurry,” Mrs. Woodward said. “Sorry about that.”

Ronnie’s mouth was too dry to respond, so she merely nodded and allowed Mrs. Woodward to guide her to a seat. She sat down, stiff, hardly hearing a word of what was going on around her. What was she doing here? This wasn’t her world! The people at her table, the others she had met, they were doctors and lawyers and teachers. She might make just as much money as some of them—more probably—but she was still on the wrong side of the tracks.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the man with the microphone reappear at a different door, gesturing another young man forward. He whispered something to the other guy, a rascally smile on his face, then pointed in her direction. From this distance all his timidity had gone, and he was busy spreading the word.

The other guy shook his hand as if he had been burned, and punched his buddy on the arm. An older woman came up and wagged a finger at the two friends, then was stopped short by whatever they told her. She glanced in Ronnie’s direction and vanished from the doorway.

Ronnie tried not to look, not realizing until that moment how much she wanted to be accepted in this world. This, after all, was where she wanted to head; the whole reason she wanted to go to college in the first place. She could feel tears welling up and blinked them back.

Buck up, girl. Remember, life stinks
.

How long before the rumor got back to the Woodwards that they had hosted a stripper at their table for the night? How long before her financial aid package was history, before Mr. Woodward started turning his back in the hallway instead of giving her one of his quick hugs? Her lip trembled. How long before the juicy fact that she was a stripper made it into some file that future employers would look at and blackball her before they ever met her?

She was smothering. She couldn’t breathe. She had to leave. Now. Leave.

The older woman reappeared in the doorway and headed into the room, closely
followed by two or three others. The woman pulled aside a man in a clerical collar for an intense chat.

The man glanced Ronnie’s direction, then shook his head and said something to the determined older woman. She practically pointed toward the table where Mrs. Woodward sat, deep in conversation. Several heads near the whispered discussion began to turn, ears perked.

Ronnie hugged her purse to her side and stood, forcing the tears back. Mrs. Woodward broke off her discussion and looked up.

“Do you need something?”

Her own voice sounded strange in her ears. “Where are your rest rooms?”

“Just through those doors we came in, straight across the lobby.”

“Thanks.”

She walked out of the fellowship hall, her back rigid, feeling all the eyes on her. Once in the lobby, she headed straight for the exit.

Hold it together, hold it together, hold it together
 …

Her steps quickened and she slammed out the doors, pushing them open with a furious force, jogging down the sidewalk, the tears blurring her vision.

She was running now, heading for her car, the nice car she had bought by taking her clothes off for the man in that church. She was crying now, picturing Mr. Woodward’s face when he learned.

She fumbled with her keys, opened the lock with shaking hands. She knew she had just lost a friend, the only person who had seemed to believe her capable of a better life. She collapsed into her front seat and slammed the door.

She caught a glimpse of Jo Woodward running out the front door, her eyes scanning the parking lot, her face worried, intense. Ronnie caught her breath on a sob and slammed the car into drive, her tires squealing as she sped away. She averted her blurry eyes from the rearview mirror, away from the woman who tried to run after her, calling, then stopped, her hands to her cheeks.

Ronnie made it two miles before she began to shake. She pulled into an abandoned parking lot, fell across the front seat, and sobbed.

T
he next few months passed in a blur. Ronnie kept her head down, going from school to work to Glenn’s bed with numbing regularity. She was rolling in cash, but took no pleasure in it, was taking interesting classes, but found them lifeless. Her secret was out, and the reason she had wanted to go to school—to make something of herself, to maybe even be a physical therapist someday—seemed as distant as Mars.

She had seen Mr. Woodward a few times on campus since that dreadful night, but had always darted into an empty classroom or around a corner before he spotted her. She had ignored the few messages left in her school box or on her answering machine, asking her to come meet with him, to call his wife at home. She tore up the notes and pressed “delete” on the voice mail messages without listening to them. After a while, they stopped trying.

She threw herself into her work at the club, boxing into a little corner of her mind the table dancing, the lascivious looks, Glenn’s increasing demands. And she did it well, enough so that she was the top moneymaker for three months running, much to Tiffany’s disgust. Tiffany, of course, sensed her detachment and asked from time to time what was wrong. Ronnie always blew her off, making a joke of it, locking away her feelings about that night at the church.

What did those people know anyway? It wasn’t like what she was doing was wrong—it was just unacceptable to the respectable crowd. The lily-white people at their church dinners were just uptight. And hypocritical, too. If she’d looked around the room, she might have recognized half a dozen other men. Why should she care what they thought?

She had nothing to be ashamed of.

As the months passed, she sensed a change in the atmosphere of the club, of Marco … even Glenn. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but everyone was stressed, angry, tense, stretched like a bow string ready to snap. Thanksgiving brought no merriment, the first days of December no holiday cheer. Glenn had become abrupt, even rough with her at times. And Marco began snapping at everyone,
ordering them around like a field marshal. There were more closed-door meetings, more visitors to Marco’s back office, more demands on the girls to do the special parties, to act as messengers, to broker deals. They were all well compensated and no one complained. On the contrary, they jumped at the lucrative opportunities. Ronnie wondered if anyone else noticed that the same girls—herself, Tiffany, and two or three others—were always selected for the out of the ordinary jobs. Out of the ordinary, of course, except that one way or another they always involved taking their clothes off.

But no … she was the only one who was detached, who seemed to be observing it all from the outside. She wished she could snap back into one world or the other wholeheartedly, but she couldn’t. She’d tasted the other world, but couldn’t have it. So she lived in the club world, and tried to drown the secret longings.

Life stinks, remember?

“Macy!” Marco stuck his head out the door and hollered for her. Ronnie came running down the hallway. “Glenn is on the phone. He says he’s been trying to get you for hours. He can’t make it over here tonight and wants you to meet him at his condo when you’re done. Here, can you talk to him? Make it fast. I’m expecting a call.”

She forced herself to smile and took the phone from Marco’s hand. “Hi, Glenn.”

“I need to see you tonight. What time can you be here?”

She tried not to give an audible sigh, to keep her voice soothing. “Oh, baby, tonight is not a good night. I’m supposed to work late and—”

“Any night’s a good night, if I say so. Be here by two o’clock.”

“But the club doesn’t even close by then, and I have that test tomorrow—”

“Two o’clock, Macy. And wear that little blue skirt I got you.” He hung up the phone.

She set the receiver down, slowly, aware that Marco was watching her. He raised an eyebrow. “Everything okay?”

“He was ticked. He’s been so stressed lately. What on earth is going
on
with everybody?”

“Yes, well, people just need a break sometimes.” Marco bustled her out of the office. “Maybe you can convince him to go on a vacation. Take you to Cancún or somewhere.”

Ronnie sighed and turned away as he closed the door behind her. She fingered the diamond-and-platinum bracelet that sparkled on her wrist, the latest gift, and set her will to the long work night ahead of her.

“Where’s the blue skirt?”

Ronnie stared at Glenn, her stomach churning. She had crept into his condo, using her key, hoping against hope that he might be asleep. But he was lounging on the wide couch in the living area, staring at the door, his eyes glassy and a tall-neck beer in his hand.

“Oh, honey, I’m sorry. You said you wanted me here by two o’clock, and I didn’t have time to go home and get it.”

He rose from the couch, his voice grating. “And you’re late. I’ve been waiting for thirty minutes, Macy. And you know I don’t like waiting. I’m not good at waiting. Come here.”

“Glenn, you’re drunk. I’m not sure—”

“I said—” he flung the beer away from him, smashing it on the floor behind him—“come
here!
”

She fled for the door. She gasped as she felt him grab her hair, pulling her back and down. Her knees hit the cold tiled floor, and she yelped in pain.

He bent over her, his fingers intertwined in her hair, pulling her head back, forcing her to look up at him.

He pulled her up again, her head still bent back, and steered her toward the couch. He pushed her roughly down. She sprawled on the soft material, panting, hyperventilating, as he removed his belt.

Her eyes wild, she knew what was coming. She’d seen what had happened to her mother when she resisted—and what had happened to her. From experience she knew it was better to put up with it, to close her mind to what was happening. It would be over soon enough.

Ronnie slipped out the door of the condo, shaking, trying not to limp from the pain. Glenn was sprawled on the sofa, snoring, his appetite sated. Until the next time.

Ronnie pressed her hand to a bruise she could already feel, tender on her cheek. There couldn’t be a next time. She couldn’t do this, couldn’t allow him to do this to her. But how could she stop it? Who could she talk to?

The image of Mr. Woodward rose in her mind. She pushed it away. Yeah, right. Where had that come from? She must be hurt worse than she thought, if she thought
he
would help her.