My car gleams in the parking lot, but a hand stops me as I try to leave the club.
“What do I call you?” the dancer with the coppery blonde hair asks when I turn around. She’s tiny, even smaller than Kathleen is, but her eyes burn brightly.
“Sorry?” I return, staring down at her where she’s clad in her glittering lingerie.
“I’m Chrissy,” she says, putting out a hand. “What should I call you then?”
“You can call me Eddie,” I tell her, though I’m not sure where she’s going with this.
“Eddie,” Chrissy nods, blowing her hair away from her eyes. “Kathleen is only nineteen. She turned nineteen about three months ago. She’s not twenty-one yet.”
“Why are you telling me this?” I wonder, squinting in the dark. I was almost sure that Kathleen wasn't old enough to work in the club earlier. I know now.
I wonder if this woman wants me to fire her or if she just likes to rat out her co-workers. If anything, it just makes me feel even more protective of Kathleen.
“Peter knew she was too young, and he hired her anyway,” Chrissy explains with a hand on her hip. “He thought she might bring in more customers, and he didn’t care about her safety.” She gives me an icy look. “She needs this job, but you’re not Peter.”
“So, what are you saying?” I can’t for the life of me understand what she wants.
Chrissy pats my chest, and her nails are sharp to dig through my shirt. “I’m saying you need to care about her safety more than Peter, but not enough to fire her for it. Can you do that?”
“I would have kept her safe either way,” I tell her. “But she’s not getting fired.”
Chrissy looks as if she can see right through me. “You know her, don’t you?”
She’s much more intuitive than I would have originally given her credit for.
“I should be getting home,” I tell her firmly, turning around again. My whole body feels hot.
Any mention of Kathleen lights me up with heat, it seems.
“Just don’t give up on her!” Chrissy’s voice follows me as I leave.
I wonder if there is something on my face that screams,I want Kathleen!!!
Or something similar.
Chrissy continues, as I leave. “She needs someone more than she knows.”
The drive back to my apartment is silent, the sidewalks empty at this time of night.
“Where did you slink off to? We needed you to grab more drinks,” Robin questions from my couch as I push my apartment door open in the early hours of the next morning now.
My sister’s red hair is in shambles, a ridiculous and tangled bird’s nest on her head. I want to laugh, but I’m too tired.
Their company isn’t unwanted, though. My sisters have a way of making my stressed-out mind focus, even if they like to take jabs at me but that’s family.
“I was talking to an old friend,” I tell her grudgingly. “You’re supposed to call first, you know. You can’t just walk into someone’s house.”
I shrug off my leather jacket, smoothing my long hair back with my fingers.
“You pointed Harlan’s daughter out to him, didn’t you?” Robin asks Allison, who is Riley’s best friend and also her maid of honor. Robinrefusedto take the job as maid of honor in order to evade helping out with the wedding planning.
Allison’s hair is just as bad as Robin’s, tangled into a dark, sweaty mess.
Riley looks tired, but she’s the cleanest of the three. Bride’s privilege, I guess.
Allison can’t seem to help her errant smile before she turns an apologetic look on me.