12. CHAPTER ELEVEN #2
“Same. It’s one thing to hand out shots, but it’s quite another to swing around on a pole all night long. I may have given myself vertigo at one point. I’m not exactly what you’d call a natural.”
“Think you’ll do it again?” I ask.
She considers the question. “Depends.”
“On?”
“How bad you think I was.” Her expression challenges me.
“You were great,” I reply, meaning it.
“Stop it.” She takes another bite of noodles, smirking.
“You were,” I insist. “You were beautiful.”
“Were?”
“Are.”
An awkward silence descends upon the space between us. She’s smiling into her soup, and a hearty slurp punctuates the otherwise possibly sensual moment.
“What about you?” she asks. “You think you’ll keep stripping?”
“Depends,” I say, echoing her answer.
“On what?”
“My grocery situation in a few weeks?”
“That’s fair.”
“I’m sure this can’t be what you dreamed you’d be doing, though, right? Or maybe I’m wrong,” I surmise. “Did you study fashion design in college? Because your getup these past few times I’ve seen you has really been some red-carpet business.”
“Ha,” she says. “Cute, Brady. No, actually my degree is in Elementary Education.”
“Stop lying. You’ve got a teaching degree? What were you doing working as a waitress?”
“I’m still in grad school. I’ve got one more class and my field work left, and then I’ll be done.”
“So, help me understand something. Is this what teachers do to make ends meet? Good lord. All my childhood fantasies about Miss Johnson are coming true right before my very eyes.”
“Who’s Miss Johnson?”
“She was my sixth grade teacher. I had the biggest crush on her. I used to keep my sixth grade class photo on my nightstand.”
Gretchen coughs, almost spitting out a mouthful of soup.
“Gross.” But there’s a light in her eyes when she says it, and it intoxicates me a little bit.
I feel a shift in my shorts. “And, no, as I said , I’m not a teacher yet.
Just a waitress. Well, I used to be. Now I’m just – a glorified shot girl, I guess. ”
“In mermaid panties.”
“Not tonight, thank you very much! Besides, who are you to judge, Zorro?”
“No judgement here. On both nights, you looked… convincing,” I say.
“Careful,” she warns me. “If you insult me, I might just have to spill this hot bowl of soup all over your junk. It’s kind of my specialty, you know. Falling down? Spilling things?”
“That’s fair warning, thank you. Let’s just say, last night you had the Ariel look down.
I mean, all the way down to the hair.” I restrain myself from touching it again.
“I never saw a mermaid in fishnets, but you definitely pulled it off. And then tonight, well.” I pause, intent on not delivering a commentary about her sex appeal.
“Let’s just say that any man who gets to be with you is incredibly lucky. ”
Her lips purse together. “Thank you,” she says, looking down at her soup bowl. “That’s very sweet. If we’re doling out compliments, I suppose I can share that I think you’re a great dancer.”
“Thanks. I’ll add it to my resumé. All the marketing firms will be so impressed.”
“Is that what you studied? Marketing?”
“Economics,” I clarify. “I think money is interesting.”
“Interesting? That’s an odd way to describe it.”
“Think about it,” I say. “How whole economies thrive based on particular industries. Like here on the Cape. We’re a tourist economy.
That’s why I can’t find a job. Supply and demand, you know?
The jobs are in high demand but the J-1s come in from all over the world to fill those jobs.
So, high demand is met by an even higher supply. ”
“I’m glad you didn’t lead with this lecture in your baseball uniform. The ladies might not have been quite so worked up."
I laugh. “Sorry to bore you.”
“I’m teasing you, Brady. I understand completely.
I tried so hard to find a job that was more along the straight and narrow, but everything was gone by the time you – um, your dad – fired me.
I mean, well, not everything. But I wasn’t going to match my Diamond Excelsior tips over at the bowling alley. ”
“Exactly.”
“You may just be the smartest male stripper I’ve ever met.” Gretchen smiles at me.
“You know a lot of male strippers?” I ask.
She shakes her head, but she’s got that smug look on her face again.
The sight of those lips smirking like that takes me back to our dance last night in the darkness of the pole studio.
But I’m an awkward mess – just a jumble of adrenaline, exhaustion, and cheap ramen.
The few drinks I had at the studio wore off a long time ago and I’ve got no social lubrication to replace them with.
Nervous that the conversation might hit a lull, I suddenly remember I wanted to ask Gretchen something else.
“Hey, I was wondering – how come that girl – Arrow?”
“My boss?”
“Yeah, her. What did she think was unacceptable about your name?”
“I guess it wasn’t on-brand for her studio. All the girls have fake names. She calls them Cherry and Saffron and Indigo. Instead of their real names, which are Cheryl, Maria, and Kim.”
“What’s Arrow’s real name?”
“Funny. I have no idea. I always just assumed it was Arrow.”
“Well, I like the name Gretchen.”
“Thanks,” she replies. “I’ve never had a problem with it. It’s my grandmother’s name.”
“It’s pretty.”
She smiles, setting her fork and spoon down into the bowl and pushing the chair away from the table. “So, you working tomorrow?”
“No. I don’t think so, anyway. I only snagged tonight’s gig earlier this afternoon.”
She nods. “I have tow lot in the afternoon.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s where I hang out so the girls who were too drunk to drive can come pick up their cars.”
“I thought they came in on a party bus.”
“Three of them met the bus there. So I’ve got those ones to wait for.”
“Is there another party tomorrow night?”
“Yeah,” she confirms. “Not as crazy as tonight. Sunday night parties tend to be a little more tame.”
“Would you like some company?”
“At the party?”
“No,” I laugh. “At the car pickup thing. I could hang out with you if you didn’t want to just sit there alone.”
Gretchen smiles at me with her eyes. “It’s your life, Brady. I can think of like a million things I would rather do on a Sunday in the summer than wait for three hungover girls to come get their cars.”
“You really know how to sell it.”
“I’m happy to have you there. But no pressure if you change your mind,” she clarifies.
“Now, at the risk of never seeing you in a thong again, I’m going to head home.
” She stretches her arms up over her head, revealing a sliver of her stomach.
“I’m exhausted, and my ass hurts. I need to take some Aleve. ”
Inside, I feel a pang of panic. I don’t want her to leave, I realize. “Did you want to see me in a thong again?” I ask, then immediately regret it. What the fuck? This is your A-game?
“I’ll be honest. The thong didn’t do it for me. I mean, you’ve got a nice –” here, she waves at my posterior, “but I’m not really into guys wearing thongs.”
My mouth develops a mind of its own by making things worse as I blurt out, “So, what are you into? Boxers? Briefs? Commando?”
She looks up at me. I can’t help but notice how short she is without those stupid heels on. “I’m into dancing,” she says, giving me a look that suggests she could be into a whole lot more than just dancing. “Like I said, you’re an excellent dancer, Brady.”
I feel my cheeks get round as my mouth curves up. “Maybe we’ll dance together again sometime,” I say.
“I’d like that – but not for money.”
“No, not for money.”
“I’d rather you be dressed.”
I laugh. “Me, too.”
“Just one last question, and then I should really go.”
Please don’t go. “Shoot.”
“How come you took off the other day? After I broke your mask? Was that, like, the moment you realized it was me?”
I let go of the breath I didn’t realize I was holding.
“If we’re being honest, yeah. The mask was pretty hard to see through.
I thought the shot girl looked like you, but it was totally out of context.
I recognized the fishnets from the day you came here to yell at me.
And the hair color – because, well, I mean that’s kind of your signature thing. ”
She nods, thinking. “So, why did you leave so suddenly?”
I shrug. “I was embarrassed. I wasn’t sure it was you, because you still had a mask on. But I thought it might be. And you could see me. Like, all of me.” I take a deep breath. She stands there, waiting for me to continue. “Also, I thought you hated me.”
“That’s fair, I suppose,” she admits.
“So I was scared that if it was you, and you saw my face, you’d freak out.”
“So you freaked out before I could?”
I chuckle. “Basically.”
I don’t say the rest of what’s spinning around inside my head.
I don’t tell her that I can’t remember the last time I felt the kind of instant chemistry I found with her hands in mine, the way our bodies could have fit together like a glove, if we’d let them.
How vulnerable I was, wearing basically nothing, shaved from the neck down, slathered in coconut oil, my pride and my anatomy on full display.
And how every time I looked at her and she looked back, even through the stupid snake mask, it felt as if we connected on a visceral level.
At least, that was how I experienced it.
I don’t tell her that the memory of it all kept me up the entire night and almost resulted in the embarrassment of sticky sheets.
Instead, I stay silent. Staring at her. Searching her face for clues about any impressions our encounter left on her.
I take a step towards her, slowly, tentatively. My gaze travels down to her mouth, and I notice the way her top teeth chew on the flesh of her juicy lower lip.
“Gretchen,” I whisper.
But she takes a step backward.
“I, um. I should probably go,” she mumbles.
I freeze. “Okay,” I reply begrudgingly. I can’t read the moment.
I feel flooded – like I could just float away, and she looks at me like maybe she feels something similar – but, she’s leaving.
Aching for her to stay, I spit out more words.
Anything to keep her here another minute.
“I’ll come to the car thing with you tomorrow,” I say. “What time?”
“Oh. Um. I usually get there around three. Tomorrow, I have brunch in the morning with my parents and then I'll probably head straight there.”
“Okay. I’ll meet you.”
“Sure,” she nods.
“I scream inside my head. Sweet Jesus! You are the worst with women! Do something hot, for fuck’s sake! “Uh, Gretch?”
“Hm?”
I grab a pen out of the junk drawer in the kitchen, click it, and take her by the hand.
I’m not sure what comes over me as I hold her, palm side up, and press the pen into her skin.
“IOU 1 dance,” I write. She watches me, amused.
I feel the warmth of her hand in mine. I lift her palm to my face and press my lips against it.
When I let her go, she looks at her hand.
She blows out a breath – this is more than just an exhale.
I’ve left an impression on her. I can tell.
Then, she smiles – one of those expressions that transcends just her mouth and sets her whole face aglow.
Without words, she burns her image into my brain, letting herself out of my apartment but locking herself in my thoughts. “See you tomorrow,” she whispers.
“Bye,” I reply, biting back a grin.
Fuck, I think. I’ve got it bad.