Chapter 7
CHAPTER 7
CAROLINE
The next day Gerard finally called and I relayed my success at the gallery.
“See, Kiwi? I told you it would be easy,” he said smugly.
I rolled my eyes. Easy for him .
It was mid-afternoon on a sunny weekday, and I was sitting on a bench in Washington Square Park with a fistful of fresh peonies. As I’d waved my card at the bodega to pay for them and the bag of flour Lyssa needed for something she was filming, it felt like spinning a roulette wheel to see if the transaction would clear. It did, so I was in an excellent mood. I refused to let financial fear obsess me more than was absolutely necessary—showgirls didn’t do anything so gauche as worry! They held their course .
That was my NGU gene again.
Tomorrow, a payment for a gig I’d worked last month would come through, which would buy me a few weeks, and Gerard officially owed me the second half of his payment, since I’d completed his silly little prank.
Gerard said in my ear, “You played this well, Caroline. Good job. It’s like I said, people see what they want to see. These people wanted drama, and you gave it to them. You’ve got better acting chops than I thought.”
Wow, fuck this guy.
I mean—Fanny Brice this guy .
Gerard had been watching from the bar the night of my Dragonfly Den performance, when only one person clapped and I got tipped a dollar. He had immediately noticed my resemblance to Teddy Bircher—we have the same butt chin, as my brother called it. I didn’t know Gerard very well, but I knew the flamboyant club owner was not one to pass up an opportunity when it landed in his lap. Or in his dressing room.
I’d planned to remind Gerard to Venmo me and leave it at that, but if he somehow found out about the flirting and the strip chess later, he might demand his money back.
So I leaned back on the bench and confessed the shitshow that had gone down in my building last night when Chase had shown up and told me that pussy was his favorite meal—although I didn’t share that specific part.
“You lectured Chase Sanford about an old movie,” Gerard said flatly.
“Not any movie! Ziegfeld Girl ! The silver screen’s best homage to the showgirl! I know it’s kind of a Caroline topic?—”
“ Kind of ?”
“Gerard, he didn’t know who Hedy Lamarr was.”
I waited for his shock, but he was silent.
“Hedy Lamarr!” I repeated. “Everyone has a breaking point, Gerard, and Hedy Lamarr is mine. So many historic icons of the stage and screen have their legacies reduced to one tiny thing. People know about Marilyn and the white dress but not her antinuclear committee work. They know Josephine Baker and the banana skirt but forget her activism changed lives. And Tempest Storm?—”
“OK, OK.” Gerard cut me off. “I get it, Kiwi. You like the old hotties and you made a fool of yourself playing chess. ”
“I wasn’t that bad,” I said, feeling wounded. “Because Chase invited me—well, Teddy me —to a party Greta Winters is having this weekend.”
“Are you for real?”
“Yeah, do you know Greta Winters? She’s another person in their rich-people circle. I’m not going, obviously. I already did what you paid me for.”
“Chase asked you to come? Specifically?”
“Yeah.”
He made a satisfied noise. “Sounds like Mr. Moral might have a thing for you, Kiwi.”
“It’s not like that.”
A person who’d sat on the bench next to me got up, making an attempt to steal my peonies when they did. I ripped my stems back and glared my best I-will-cause-you-pain glare, which was the look I’d perfected for the subway.
The would-be peony thief slunk off.
“You need to go to this party,” Gerard said.
“No. I’m done. You said?—”
“Go, and I’ll give you thirty thousand dollars and a regular slot at the Dragonfly.”
“ Thirty thou ?—”
“Is that enough to save Pop’s little café?”
More than.
He sensed I was on the hook. “That’s in addition to the twenty for what you’ve already done. I don’t know how good the school was in your little town, Caroline, but to be clear, that makes it fifty all up.”
“I don’t know if I can…” I hesitated.
“It’s easy Caroline. Just be Teddy one more time, twirl your hair and flutter your lashes a bit, get Chase Sanford panting over you. It’s not a big deal. This is what you do, isn’t it?”
It was not. But of course Gerard thought that.
“Chase Sanford is an uptight prick,” he continued. “If you can get him to show everyone his hypocrisy by fawning over you, I’ll make it worth your while. Just one more time, Caroline.”
“What’s your obsession with these brothers, anyway?” I asked.
I had three theories:
The Sanford brothers had skipped out on their Dragonfly tab,
They’d left a scathing Yelp,
They’d gone to the Dragonfly in Joe’s wild days and he’d made a dick of himself, probably resulting in property damage and significant personal insult to Gerard, and Chase had tried to paper over his brother’s mess by keeping the whole fiasco quiet. Gerard, like most of us in his position, was still seething to see rich people who had wronged him enjoy success without consequence. So, when a conveniently butt-chinned desperado such as myself crossed Gerard’s path, he’d seized the opportunity for petty revenge.
I was betting on number three. And honestly? Queen shit. There was a burly in Melbourne who was loud with her beliefs that burlesque should only be for thin, cis, able-bodied women. She was as wrong as her acts were boring. But because the world was unfair, she booked gig after gig and was a highly sought-after performer. If an opportunity to publicly humiliate that troll ever fell into my lap, I’d seize it.
But I knew Gerard wouldn’t answer my question.
Sure enough, he said, “That’s above your pay grade, Kiwi.”
I rolled my eyes.
“This is the easiest thirty grand you’ll ever make,” he continued. “Just show everyone that the man known for his preachy little blogs is a hypocrite, then you can have the career you’ve always dreamed of.”
“I don’t know … ”
“Yes, you do. Now, I’ve got to go.” Like a TV villain, Gerard didn’t say goodbye, he just hung up.
I sat in the park as the sun fell below the trees and the air cooled, twirling my peonies. I thought about what Chase would say when he learned—as he inevitably would—that I wasn’t Teddy and that I’d been hired to mess with him and his brother because once upon a time they’d pissed off the world’s pettiest club owner.
Another outing as Teddy would be high-risk for me. I’d done well the first time, but all it had taken to trip me up was a handsome, starchy man who looked more carefully and listened more intently than his rich friends.
But thirty grand.
It wasn’t really a choice.
I could do it. I had to. But I would have to be more disciplined and serious this time. No more eye-fucking, no more obsessing over Chase’s favorite meals. Besides, Chase had a date for this event anyway. He’d told me so. Gerard was wrong, he didn’t have a thing for me.
Really, the task was simple. All I had to do was show up at this thing and be so outrageous Chase couldn’t stop looking at me (because everyone was looking at me), and then that was job done. I’d be sitting pretty with a healthy bank account, and a guaranteed job where I could make real connections, and build a portfolio of work here.
I messaged Gerard and said I’d do it.
The club owner was always notoriously slow to reply to my messages, but this time my phone lit up instantly.
You got it, Kiwi. Now, do you want the first half in cash?
Did ripping off tit tape hurt?