Our ex-foster mom’s the one who got me into all that stuff. She'd let me sit on her bed and watch as she curled and coiffed her hair in the vanity mirror. She'd put on her face, as she called it, and then let me apply her lipstick. If I did a good job, she'd let me paint my lips the same color.
I pulled out my right earbud. “What’s happening Saturday?”
“Remember that woman I told you about?” Kenzie asked. I vaguely recalled her telling me about a woman she’d met during a shift. “She came back to the bar tonight. Her name’s Steph.”
“Oh?” I’ll admit, I was only half listening at the time. I’d drifted off while watching makeup tutorials shortly before she got home.
“She gave me a huge tip. Like fifty bucks, even though she only ordered a glass of wine. She asked if I might be interested in coming to work for her. Freelance. No tax man involved.”
That caught my attention. “Doing what, exactly?”
“Being my charming self.”
Kenzie chewed her thumbnail. By then, my hackles were fully raised. I pulled my remaining earbud out.
“She wants to pay you to go to a party?” I asked.
“Sounds awesome, right?”
“If by awesome, you mean too good to be true, then sure,” I said. “Where’s it happening?”
“Some guy’s mansion up north. Apparently, he has an infinity pool.”
“Good for him.” I could tell Kenzie was holding back when she wouldn’t meet my gaze. “Will there be other girls getting paid to attend?”
“A bunch of us, yeah.”
A vivid and disturbing picture was beginning to take shape in my mind. “Who else is going to be at this party?”
“I don’t know.” When I didn’t respond, she added, “Steph says it’s an exclusive club. You have to be invited.”
“So, let me get this straight. You and a bunch of other hot girls are getting paid to party at some undisclosed rando’s mansion on a Saturday night.”
“Well, when you put it like that...”
“You do realize this is a sex thing, and she’s clearly a pimp.”
“What? No!” Kenzie said, balking. “Okay, maybe, but why is that a bad thing?”
“Kenzie, she wants to pimp you out to a bunch of old men!”
“No, she doesn’t.” She shifted onto her knees. “Steph says all I have to do is flirt and look sexy.”
“And suck some wrinkly old dick.”
“Sex is totally optional. It’s basically the job I already have, only I’m not the one serving the drinks.”
“How much is she paying you?”
“Two hundred,” she said.
“Oh my God, Kenzie.” I balked. “No one is going to pay you two hundred dollars just to drink and flirt.”
“I know that,” she said, and I could tell she really did. She knew exactly what this was, and she still wanted to do it. “But I’m tired of getting paid peanuts to literally serve peanuts and wag my ass around. And I’m sick of living in a shitty motel room with spotty wifi.”
“I thought we were doing okay.” I glanced around at the peeling wallpaper, the carpet from the sixties, the television that only gets four clear channels when it rains. We’ve been working our asses off these past few years, and this was all we had to show for it. Without driver’s licenses or high school diplomas, our options are painfully limited.
“We are okay.” She squeezed my hand. “Considering where we started, we’re amazing. But I want more for us. Don’t you?”
“You know I do. You and I just disagree on how we get there.”
She smoothed her lips together, her thumb stroking the inside of my palm. “Steph said I could bring a friend.”
“Not happening,” I said sternly.
“No, of course not. I would never presume—”
“Sure, you would.”
Kenzie smiles sheepishly. “Okay, fine, I would. But do the math, Hollywood. One night of schmoozing with a bunch of geezers could buy us two weeks in this room. Steph says these parties happen once a month. We’d only have to do like three of them to start saving for a better place.”
“I haven’t even agreed to do one.”
She sighed. “Don’t you want to find a job you don’t hate?”
“You know why I do this job,” I said quietly. The one nice thing about working in housekeeping is that you don’t have to interact with too many people.
“I know, and I’m not saying you have to stop scrubbing toilets. I’m saying, wouldn’t it be nice if you could keep all the money you make from scrubbing toilets, instead of forfeiting it to some bitch who already pays you far below minimum wage.”
Kenzie knows better than anyone how much I can’t stand my boss, Doreen, who also happens to be our landlord.
“I’m not sure how some old guy slipping his hand up my skirt is a better alternative,” I said.
“Well, as someone who’s used to letting guys they don’t particularly like into their pants in exchange for food and basic goods, let me tell you, getting fucked for money feels a lot better than getting fucked over.”