Chapter 27 #2
I even hired someone to help tweak my résumé with the little money I had left, convincing myself it was an investment instead of a gamble.
It didn’t matter. Every lead turned into a dead end.
Hiring freeze. Market instability. “We’ll keep your résumé on file.
” After 9/11, it wasn’t just that people’s perspectives changed—the job market did.
Everything dried up at once. Opportunity evaporated.
Maybe that’s why I called Sage.
She was the only bright light I had. She made me feel good about myself at a time when that felt impossible.
I stopped shopping on Newbury Street. We went thrifting instead—Goodwill, secondhand stores, places that smelled like dust and old perfume and other people’s lives.
We couldn’t even find second jobs after our day jobs. Everything was terrible.
One afternoon, she wrapped her hands around her coffee and said, almost casually, “Actually, I’ve been working at night. I’m gonna take a few shifts this weekend too.”
“Doing what, Sage?” I joked. Sort of.
“Dancing?” I said, laughing, but not entirely.
She shook her head. “No. Well—yes. Kind of.”
Uh-oh.
She explained that there were these high-end clubs. The kind with forty-dollar cover charges and nonstop techno music. Places where the crowd wore black and money and entitlement like a uniform.
“They hire me between DJ sets,” she said. “I dance in a cage.”
I stared at her.
“I wear six-inch stage heels,” she went on, totally unfazed. “It pays eighty dollars an hour. The cage is locked. No one touches me. No one talks to me. I’m above the floor.”
She smiled. “It’s my form of therapy.”
Therapy.
“They just look,” she said. “And I dance for myself. I dance for him. I dance to feel free.”
I didn’t know who him was, Ethan? Her dead ex? Or someone new? I didn’t ask either.
“I can get you in,” she added lightly. “I’m the best because of me.”
My stomach dropped. My mom would die. She went to church every Sunday and baked for the bake sale. This was not something I could explain away.
“No one would know,” Sage said. “I’ll give you a wig. I have a bunch. My clothes too.”
A wig?
She stood up, slid her coat on, and said she was done paying for her coffee. We moved to a seat by the window, the city sliding by like it didn’t care whether we survived or not.
Then she told me the other thing.
“You know I work for the law firm,” she said. “Well… sometimes they don’t want to pay for a private investigator. So I do it.”
I blinked. “You what?”
“I’m really good at it,” she said. “My blonde hair stands out, so I use wigs. Glasses. I follow people. I get names, addresses. Photos. Clear ones.”
Cheaters. Affairs. Husbands with men. Politicians. Lawyers. Athletes. She said it all in a low, conspiratorial voice, like we were sharing a secret over coffee instead of unraveling my understanding of who she was.
“They pay me a bonus if the pictures aren’t grainy,” she added. “And sometimes I have to sign NDAs. I see settlement agreements. Confidential stuff.”
Then she smiled—sharp, almost dangerous.
“There’s nothing I love more than busting a cheating man and watching his wife take him to the cleaners.”
There was a strange glint in her eye, and I wondered then if that’s how her family broke apart. If her father cheated. If this was revenge dressed up as justice.
It explained her. And somehow, that made me relax. I took a deep breath and sipped my coffee.
Cage dancing.
I thought about my bank balance.
She winked. “I’ll call my boss. Don’t worry. We’ll get you some sexy high-heel boots. You can borrow one of my dresses. I’ll do your makeup. No one will even know it’s you, Beth. Just dance.”
I told myself it wasn’t that bad. I wasn’t a stripper. It wasn’t dirty. I was just dancing. That’s all.
A few days later, I didn’t recognize myself in the mirror.
Heavy makeup. A push-up bra that didn’t belong to me. A short miniskirt Sage swore no one could see up because it would be dark. A long red wig cascading down my back. I looked like a stranger pretending to be brave.
Her boss eyed me up and down, made me spin, checking whether I looked sexy enough. Whether I could pass.
The fog machines started. The strobes cut the darkness into pieces. The music pounded through my bones.
I climbed into the cage.
Sage winked at me from below. You’ve got this.
I didn’t.
I danced stiffly at first, painfully aware of the eyes on me, of people mouthing, What’s wrong with her? I rubbed my hands along my thighs, my breasts, my stomach, my ass—copying movements I’d seen Sage do effortlessly.
But I didn’t have what she had.
She had that invisible thing. That aura that made everyone want her. Made every man want to fuck her. And I just… didn’t.
I felt like I was being asked to be something I wasn’t. Something I didn’t know how to inhabit.
Still, I tried.
Because I needed the money.
Because everything else had dried up.
Because sometimes survival looks like a cage lit by strobe lights, and you tell yourself it’s only temporary.
And you dance anyway.
They lower me down slowly, the cage sinking through smoke and light.
Security is already there when my feet touch the floor, big bodies forming a wall around the opening as the door unlocks. Sage is lowered down beside me, her boots hitting the ground with confidence, like this is just another day at work.
The moment we’re free, she grabs my wrist and drags me backstage.
The private makeup room is small and hot and smells like sweat and hairspray. She turns on me, eyes sharp.
“You’re gonna get fired, Beth,” she hisses, pulling me close. “He’s not gonna bite you back. You’ve got to relax. You’ve got to loosen up.”
Before I can answer, a tray appears. Shots.
She pushes two into my hands. Then two more.
“Beth, it’s free. Take it. Just drink.”
I think about the eighty dollars an hour. About how she never told me this wasn’t just between sets. From ten to two a.m., we’re doing nothing but dance. Four hours straight. Thursday, Friday, Saturday. Cash.
Three nights a week.
I swallow the first shot. Then the second. Then the third.
“That’s not all,” she says casually. “Sometimes a few VIPs will ask for—”
“Don’t say private dances,” I cut in.
She laughs. “No. Just to talk to us. Flirt a little. Bring them a bottle of Dom or whatever they’re drinking. Courvoisier. We sit. We chat. Like hostesses.”
This sounds awfully like a call girl.
I feel it in my gut. A slow, creeping fear.
“What if this is just step one?” I whisper. “Cage dancing. Step two is bottle service. Step three is escorting.”
I shake my head. “I have a bad feeling, Sage.”
She stares at me like I’ve insulted her.
“You think I let any of that shit happen anywhere near me?” she snaps. “I might be a lot of things, Beth, but I’m no one’s fucking side piece. And I don’t have sex for money.”
“That’s not what I’m implying,” I say quickly. “I’m just scared that someone’s gonna look really scary.”
“I’ve got this,” she says. “I’ll tell them we just dance. That’s it. I’m doing bottle service. You should try it. They pay you extra. And men tip.”
I bite my lip.
Every job recruiter has been a dead end. Every door closed.
I tell myself: one month. Maybe two. Until Christmas. Enough to buy my mom something nice. Enough to rebuild a nest egg.
Because everything is gone.
Car payment. Rent. Student loans.
There is nothing left.
I nod.
I do the shots.
When I go back up into the cage, I do feel looser.
Freer.
I stop thinking about the men watching. I stop thinking at all. I let my body move. I let the music carry me somewhere else.
Later, a finger crooks at me.
VIP.
They lead me upstairs to a dark booth with an old man whose breath smells like cigars. He laughs at his own jokes. Thinks he’s charming.
His hand finds my knee.
I nod. I smile.
He tucks a fifty between my breasts.
I smile more.
I feel sick.
I feel gross.
I feel used.
“Thank you,” I say, standing.
He calls me a cold, frigid bitch.
I want to say I’m not for sale.
I want to say I see the pale mark where his wedding ring was an hour ago.
I say nothing.
Because I don’t want to get fired.
That night, someone walks us to the car.
I stay at Sage’s.
We spread the money on the floor. Cash.
Three hundred twenty-five dollars.
I don’t plan to declare the tips. Fuck it.
Sage has almost five hundred. Men tipped her more. Requested certain moves.
I feel like I’ve stepped into a secret life.
Into her life.
We take off our makeup. Open the futon. Turn on the TV. Curl up together under a blanket.
“I hate that I’m pretty,” she says quietly. “I hate that I have to use my body to make money. I hate them all.”
I smile sadly. I understand.
“I tried being an attorney,” she goes on. “No one took me seriously. They just looked at my legs. My breasts. So I got a boob job. I thought—why not use their weakness against them?”
She shakes her head. “I’ve never gone after a married man. I’d never do that. But sometimes it’s just so hard to afford a life.”
“I know,” I say. “That’s why I came to the city too. I don’t want to be a housewife yet. I want my own dreams.”
She nods. “At least here, we drink for free and make money while we’re out.”
“Temporary,” I say.
“Temporary,” she agrees. “But I feel better knowing you’re here.”
We squeeze hands under the blanket.
We tell each other our secrets.
She tells me about Ethan in Vermont. How he needed a break from everything almost like a reset button. “I’m going to work on myself too. I’m going to prove t0 him, I’m the one. That I can change and be the woman he needs.”
I turn to loo at yer
I tell her about the office. About how nothing is the same. About how I thought I’d be engaged by Christmas.
“And now I’m dancing in a cage,” I whisper. “Me. The debate team girl. The clarinet player. Girls like you made me the butt of every one of their jokes in high school and now you’re my best friend.”
She laughs softly. “Tell me their names. I’ve got skills.”
We giggle until we fall asleep.
And as I drift off, I think:
We might both be single.
We might both be lost.
But I’m not lonely when I’m with her.
She takes the loneliness away.
And that’s everything.