Sneak PeEk

Prologue: Eight Months Ago

June

“Melody, your plaid whale is here,” Charise calls to me when I’m mostly upside down. Normally, it’d be hard to hear her over the thump of bass—if not for how empty the club is. Empty enough I’m on stage, walking a new dancer through the basics of doing a pole-assisted headstand.

“Focus on your breathing,” I say to the new girl. She’s maybe twenty, so green she introduced herself to me using her real name: Tina, whoops, I mean Tiara. Mostly, Tiara’s been staring at the pole as if it might bite her. “If you can control your breath, you can control your body. And try to keep your hips stacked over your shoulders.”

“Like this?” She attempts a headstand on a neighboring pole—attempts, but doesn’t quite make it, her legs waving unstably until she returns them back to the stage floor. Her heels are shiny and un-broken-in. She glances around like the few regulars here are going to grade her.

“Better!” I’m not even lying—desperation makes anyone a fast learner. “You really don’t need to be perfect to impress these guys.”

On cue, a customer tosses a fluttering twenty.

“That’s for you,” I say to Tiara.

She frowns. “It’s pity money.”

“Rule one of doing this job”—I lower my voice—“pity money’s still money.”

Tiara finally takes the bill and shoves it into the money pouch she’s wearing around her wrist. “I’m just doing this until I earn enough for a more permanent dance gig.”

A sentiment I’ve heard a lot over six years from other dancers. Part of me wants to tell her to leave this place behind while she can. But I don’t know her life. “Here”—I fold myself into the headstand again—“let’s try it one more time.”

“Melody!” Charise hollers again. “Did you not hear? Got a plaid whale here to see you.”

Plaid whale. What the other girls have taken to calling him. It’s no worse a name than the one he gave me: John. I’ve been working at this club for six years. Every other guy is supposedly named John.

Either way, now that it’s June, John’s mostly ditched the plaid flannel. “He’s here on a Tuesday?” I ask, as I swing myself upright, climb down from the stage, and walk over to Charise, who’s shrugging like she’s equally confused.

Tuesdays are usually slow. On Mondays you get guys on the tail end of a long weekend. By Wednesday, people are antsy to cut loose. I’ve heard a lot of hump day jokes, and I make a point to laugh at all of them. Laughing at men’s unfunny jokes is as much a part of this job as dancing on a pole. Tuesdays, though: everyone’s an angel on Tuesdays. Useless, in other words.

So what’s he doing here? I’m trying not to question that. Money’s money, and John always brings that.

“If you don’t want him, I can take him off your hands.” Charise smirks around the offer as if she knows what my answer will be. Strip club etiquette says a dancer can’t take another dancer’s regulars without a negotiation, but Charise and I trade customers all the time.

I shoot her an exaggerated look. “Seniority says…”

“That you’re a senior citizen?” she finishes, even if I’m all of twenty-five. “Well, Miss My Joints Creak Up On The Pole, can I take him or what?”

“My joints are fine, thanks. And no, no, you can’t.”

Charise puts up her hands in her own defense. “Down, girl. I know you like him.”

“It’s not like that.”

She gives me a raised eyebrow, an amusedly skeptical uh-huh.

Protesting any more will officially verge into protesting too much. “Anyway, I got him,” I say.

“You better work quick”—she nods toward the door—“the Vulture is already with him.”

Of course she is.

Her name’s Veronica, but she fucking swoops in on other girls’ regulars. Thus the Vulture. Management won’t do anything, of course—they believe an occasional girl-on-girl fight is good for business. Well, I’m about to be very good for business.

Before I storm over there, I do a quick inventory. I’d been about to go home. It’s hard not to feel frazzled at the end of a shift.

So I pop in a Listerine strip, touch up my lip gloss, run a hand though my hair. Even straightened and coated in product, it’s always about five seconds from reverting back to being curly-slash-frizzy.

It doesn’t help that this place gets humid: ownership resists running the A/C. Supposedly, they don’t want us to get cold in our outfits—as if working a pole doesn’t build a sweat. More like they don’t want to pay for good infrastructure. Still, it’s hard to grind up on a guy in a chilly room, so I get it.

My outfit is another casualty of the humidity. It’s a favorite—a wine-red lingerie set with a complicated set of straps that offsets my dark hair and eyes. Too nice for a Tuesday. Or was, until John showed up.

Deeming myself ready, I march toward the door. Say what you will about stripper heels—they’re great for working up a good head of steam. Tonight I’m wearing high patent ankle boots with broken-in soles that are just on the edge of going dead. Fortunately, Pleasers last longer than pointe shoes ever did.

When I get to the door, there John is, leaning on a chair security normally uses, thick forearms across the chair’s metal crossbar. He’s also chatting with Veronica like old friends.

“Hey, John.” No matter what I do, I can’t avoid my accent slipping out. Jahn, in full Boston.

Veronica’s still talking like I didn’t say anything. “Hey, John,” I say, more forcefully, “it is so good to see you.” It’s possible I aim that more at her than him.

John’s reddish-brown eyebrows shoot up, but he’s smiling. “Hey, Melody,” he calls. A name I should be used to after six years. Melody isn’t my real name any more than his is John, but it’s getting to be like the glitter I’m wearing: harder and harder to take off at the end of the night.

Impossibly, Veronica is still talking. John’s eyes meet mine over her shoulder as if to ask, Can you believe she’s trying this right in front of you?

I smother my laugh in my hand. Until she keeps talking. I’m about to tap her on the shoulder to tell her to go see the bartender—or possibly to go to hell—when John draws himself up. I don’t know what expression I’m wearing, but it must approach thunderous.

“Great talking to you,” he says to her, cheerfully loud. He hovers his hands around Veronica like he doesn’t want to make contact, and mimes scooting her to the side.

I can’t help it. I laugh. Veronica spins around. She’s tall, made taller by sky-high heels, and blonde. Unlike me, I bet her nose has never been called distinctive. “You all partying?” she asks.

I shake my head. “Party of two, sorry.”

“That’s a lot of lumberjack all for yourself,” she presses. I should let it go. She’s just trying to get paid. Hell, we’re all just trying to get paid. I’ve worked here for too long to get in petty fights about whose client is whose.

Except what comes out is, “Back off.” Could be worse. I could have said what I wanted to: He’s mine.

From behind her, John laughs. “Have a good night,” he says to her. It’s a dismissal. And her shoulder almost—almost—brushes mine as she huffs off.

“She a friend of yours?” John asks when she’s out of earshot.

“Nope.”

He laughs again and gives me a brief hug in greeting. Then I register what he’s wearing. Normally, he’d be in plaid if it was cold or a T-shirt if it was warm—and anything above fifty degrees is warm to a New Englander.

Tonight he’s wearing a collared shirt that’s seen an iron recently, even if its buttons are taxed trying to contain the burly expanse of his chest. A few strands of hair curl up in the vee of his collar beneath the groomed square of his beard. He doesn’t have his customary hat jammed on his head. Even his boots—he’s worn boots every time he’s come in here, no matter the weather—are buffed.

Uh-oh.

Guys only come in here looking like this for one reason: they want a chance to say goodbye. Sometimes it’s because they’ve found religion and decided to set aside their supposedly sinful ways. More often, it’s because they’re dating someone and want to “break up” with their favorite dancer.

Usually, men like that are back the next month, drowning their sorrows in beer and titties. Turns out, dating women who aren’t paid to laugh at your jokes is more effort than many guys want to put in. I’ve seen a lot of that over six years: mostly, how guys who vow never to come back here on a Monday are the first ones through the door on Friday.

Not John, though. He seems like a guy who’d make good on a promise.

“You’re all dressed up,” I say, finally. It’s not quite a question.

“You look great too.” Which isn’t quite an answer.

I do a customary twirl, crossing my heels and rotating slowly. “This ol’ thing?”

His eyes sweep up from the floor and eventually land on mine. I’m used to being looked at, usually with the mix of horniness and pity that guys aim at dancers. Not with this kind of warmth. “You’d look good in anything,” he says.

“How about in a private room?” I wink.

And get his grin. “Thought you’d never ask.”

With most customers, I’d work up to suggesting it. You start with offering to have a server bring them a drink, then if they want a dance, and then switch to a room. Otherwise, guys sometimes get affronted when dancers want money for their time.

John, though, is easy. The first time he came in here, it was with a flock of guys all his age who spent more time jawing at each other than paying attention to the girls. He spent the entire night watching me and batting away his buddies who were razzing him. The second time he arrived alone. When I went over to say hi, he dropped a wad of bills on a table and said, I’d like to get to know you better.

Now, his agreeing to a private room could mean anything—it might mean a dance or a drink. Sometimes he just wants to sit and talk about his job frustrations. Apparently, he’s been up for some big promotion and stuff keeps blocking it.

Or he’s here to apologize that he can’t take care of you anymore and you need to find another well-paid regular. I tell myself it’s fine. I’ve been taking care of myself since I was nineteen. I don’t need anyone else to do it.

Before we go, John plucks something off the folding chair. Flowers. Not just any flowers: a spray of irises and calla lilies, bound up in a soft purple ribbon. 

Years ago, I fantasized about being handed a bouquet like that after a hard night of dancing. I’d be a principal dancer—obviously—at one of the world’s premier ballet companies. I’d glide across stage to swells of polite applause, then adoring fans would toss roses.

Mostly now I get hollered at and what gets tossed are bills.

Well, you can’t pay your rent in flowers. And those are I have a girlfriend and can’t come around anymore flowers. He’s here to have a conversation.

I take the bouquet, cradling it. “Thank you. These are beautiful.” They are. Elegant, thoughtful, expensive. “Any particular occasion?”

“I was in the neighborhood.” What he says most nights—lately, he’s been coming in two or three times a week, not that I’m complaining too hard. Guys who bathe and don’t argue and follow the rules are rare.

Ones who send me money for nails and hair are even rarer.

Ones who I actually like are the rarest of all.

Liking someone doesn’t pay the rent. Still, I offer my arm.

John gives me another grin, then slides his arm through mine, escorting us through the club—past the seating area, the stage, the ATMs for customers who run out of cash—and up the hallway to a room at the end.

“Our room’s open?” John waves to the unlit light bulb above the doorway that indicates the room is vacant.

“Looks like.” Our. I won’t think about that. So I flip the switch, lighting the bulb. That triggers security’s attention to activate the room’s surveillance cameras. Usually, it’s so they can be on hand to intercede if a customer gets out of line.

With John, they mostly give me a joking hard time about how much he’s here. He’s in love with you.

Well, I do love his big ol’…wallet.

But he’s clearly leaving. Guess they’ll have to find something else to tease me about.

Inside, the private room is like all the others lining this hallway. Our. A word I won’t get stuck on as I survey the U-shaped padded bench, the low tables dotting the floor. Lights flash overhead. It’s dim, dark, warm: sexy, or at least as sexy as any place can be with Lysol wipes stashed in strategic locations.

An intercom sits along one wall. “You want a drink?” I ask. “Or another girl in here?” Even if John never asks for that.

John smiles. “You and a beer sounds like a perfect night.”

I order one of those and a club soda for myself. A minute later, a waitress shows up with his beer in a plastic cup and my soda with the can still sealed. She’s looking over my shoulder to where John’s sitting on the bench seat, his arms spread wide, as if she might invite herself in.

“You want company?” she asks.

I shake my head, take the drinks, and maturely shut the door in her face. When I turn back to John, he’s grinning. His beard is trimmed more neatly than it was last week, revealing the plush curve of his lips.

I hand him his beer, then sit tucked close to his side. He always smells the same: like fresh grass, like summer is clinging to his hair.

“Did you go to the barber?” The question slips out, but fortunately I stop before I add because of me.

John rubs a hand over his face. “Nah, I did it in the—” He cuts himself off. “We sometimes have a guy who visits my, uh, workplace and cuts hair.”

I blink. He’s always been vague about his job. What kind of career has in-house barbers? I have a list of running guesses that I sometimes ask him about: stockbroker, competitive baker, world’s buffest librarian. “Are you an Olympic weightlifter?” I tease.

He laughs and shakes his head.

“Heir to a maple syrup fortune?”

Another laugh. “I wish. The only thing I have is the farm.” His fingers stroke the ends of my hair—I usually hate when guys do that, because it’s sometimes a prelude to trying to shove my face in their crotch. But there are customer rules and there are John rules, and he doesn’t try anything else.

He withdraws his hand, then digs into his pocket, pulling out his phone. “I brought you pictures.”

Photos and flowers. Almost too good to be true. “Show me.” I settle myself even closer.

He scrolls through his photo reel: pictures of his family’s dairy farm in Vermont. It’s June, the farm green and lush, the cows munching on the rolling hills. “My sister got a new dog.” He pulls up a picture of a shepherd dog asleep in a pasture, its belly up to the morning sunshine. “We’re still working on his herding skills.”

We. What he says each time about the farm. We visited the sugar shack in spring when the sap finally started running. We took a course on cow acupressure as part of our organic farm certification.

“Here, I had to show you this one—” He pulls up another picture, the puff of steam from a cow’s nose in the early morning cold.

“Did you save this just for me?” I tease.

He blinks—he has eyelashes as thick as the rest of him, surrounding forest-green eyes. “Yes.” As if it’s obvious. He toggles something on his phone until the name of the album appears. Farm pics for Melody.

Something in my chest constricts. This isn’t real, even if the glow that’s settled somewhere below my sternum disagrees. “You must really love that farm.”

“I do,” he says, simply.

Why’d you leave it if you love it so much?

But I know the answer, at least broadly: you can love a place and still leave it.

It occurs to me that this is the last time he’ll come around with pictures. Something about that makes me sad—that I’m losing more than a loyal customer. “Thank you for showing me these.”

“Thank you for wanting to see ’em,” he says. “My ex wasn’t that interested.”

“She not a farm girl?” I ask, though it’s not like I’m one either—I grew up in Boston and the farthest I’ve made it to the country is here in Worcester.

John shifts on the bench. “They, uh, weren’t a big a fan of being out in the middle of nowhere.”

So not a girlfriend. John’s looking at me as if he’s expecting me to react—to say something or ignore that he said they and not she, which is itself a reaction. “Half the girls here are dating the other half the girls,” I say and get the boom of his laughter.

“You’re not dating anyone, right?” he asks.

I’m not. Even if that doesn’t feel like a hundred percent the truth. So I don’t answer, just swing my legs onto either side of his lap. He laughs and grips my waist. Technically, it’s against the no touching rule, but technically I’m the one who enforces the no touching rule. His palms are work-callused, his hands big enough to span most of my back. Facing him, the world is just the two of us.

“You want to pick out music?” I ask.

“Would I have to move?”

“Yes.”

He pulls me to him. “Then absolutely not.”

So I laugh and grind to whatever’s been piped in, music with heavy bass and ignorable lyrics. Less ignorable is the sweep of his hands up my sides.

Most nights, it’s easy to remember that this is a job. That nothing that gets said or done here is real. Except for the tree-trunk strength of his thighs under mine, the gap between his shirt buttons revealing glimpses of his chest. Except for the way he’s breathing in my ear, the occasional brush of his stubble against my shoulder, my neck. Sometimes glancing contact happens—lips meet skin and I remind customers they’re paying for a dance and nothing other than a dance.

Now his mouth narrowly misses my ear. Kiss me. I shove that thought away. He isn’t mine. I don’t know if he has a partner or a wife or five other dancers he sees on the nights he’s not here. But, for the briefest second, I can pretend.

What I can’t pretend is that he isn’t hard in his pants, a bulge that digs into my ass. “That all for me?” I whisper.

Usually men take that as an opening—to tell me all the ways they’ll fuck me. To say how they’re gonna be the best I ever had, even as I’m counting the seconds left in the song.

John bites his lip. It’s hard to tell in the dim lighting, but his cheeks might darken slightly. “Yes,” he breathes. “Whatever you want.” As if he’s mine for the taking.

One song ends. Another comes on that vibrates the speakers in a deep melodic growl. It’s romantic or as romantic as a strip joint called the Ugly Duckling can get. I match my movements to its tempo, slower, slower, until it’s less like a grind and more like the two of us working in sync: the way a good dance attunes your body to a partner’s. The way good sex attunes your body to a partner’s.

Usually I train my gaze over the customer’s shoulder. John’s eyes are green, and they catch mine, and I’m breathing with him, and I can’t look away. The song slows. We’re barely moving. He traces a hand down my face—fingers at my cheek—and looks at me like he has a question on his tongue.

Kiss me, I think, louder. Something I shouldn’t want. Something I do.

Maybe it shows, because he pauses then gently but firmly pulls me off his lap.

For a few seconds, we both catch our breath. He parts his lips—oh, here it comes. I’m seeing someone. I can’t do this. Goodbye.

“Did you always want to be a dancer?” he asks.

That catches me off guard, even if it’s a normal question. Some guys need the lie of, Yeah, I’m doing this to pay my tuition, like they’re rescuing me even as they’re coming in their pants.

But John said dancer and not stripper. If this is the last time we see each other, what’s the harm in the truth? “Yes.” It comes out as breathless as I feel. “I wanted to be a ballerina.”

John studies me, like he’s reassessing my build—I’m short, heavier than I was when I seriously did ballet, wearing boots instead of open heels because ballet isn’t kind to your feet. “I could see that.”

It didn’t work out. Something I don’t need to say, because I wouldn’t be here if it did. Growing up, my parents told me if I made the smart choice—which for them was the safe choice—to go to college, to get my law degree, everything would work out how it should. Well I didn’t and it didn’t. Guess they were right. That’s too much to put on John, any night but especially tonight. So I settle for, “Thank you.”

“You like being on stage?” he asks.

“I do.”

“Huh.” He says it like he doesn’t understand that as a worldview. “I guess people don’t boo you, right?”

“Boo?” I laugh. “Not really. But, well—I’m not everyone’s type.”

He looks at me again, this time in surprise. Guys call me beautiful all the time—sometimes as a compliment, sometimes as an insult—but John’s forehead is pinched in genuine confusion. “De gustibus non est disputandum, I guess.”

I glance down at his work boots as if there’s been some mistake, because that sounded like Latin. “Wait, I think I know that one,” I say before he can translate. I wrack my brain for the vestiges of high school Latin—what I took because my parents told me classics majors had the highest rates of acceptance to law school, and didn’t I want to ensure my future success? I should know what that phase means, but of course, I don’t. Latin, atrophied like an unused muscle. I shake my head. “Never mind.”

“It means, in matters of taste, there can be no dispute. Even if…” John’s hand caps my shoulder, fingertips playing with the straps of my top. “Some dudes are idiots.”

“That I’ll drink to.” I raise my club soda and he taps his cup against it. He drinks, long and deep, like something is bothering him. Half this job is helping guys forget the world beyond the walls of this club. I could climb back in his lap, whisper things in his ear until he looked up at me with unrestrained lust.

“Everything okay?” I ask him, instead.

“Fuck.” He sets his beer down and pinches his nose with his hand. “Remember that promotion? I got it.”

I blink. So not a partner. A new job. “That’s good, right?”

He heaves a shrug. “It’s gonna mean a more public role—a really public role since I’ll be working in Boston and not Worcester. That town’s pretty unforgiving.”

I snort. Boston. Yeah, we’re Massholes. “We are honest and direct with our feedback.”

At least that gets him to laugh. “Well, I’m probably gonna get honest and direct feedback about my batting average.” He says it and then his eyes widen like he didn’t mean to.

So not an heir to a maple syrup fortune. An athlete. A baseball player. With his size, I would have assumed football. With the slight French flavoring his accent, it could have been hockey.

I’m also not surprised he kept it from me.

Professional athletes treat dancers one of two ways: you either know they’re an athlete within five seconds of meeting them or they get tightlipped like we’re using them for the money. As if they hadn’t tacitly agreed to be used for their money when they walked into a strip club.

Or a third option: how John’s looking at me in faintly pleased embarrassment.

“You play for the Monsters?” I ask.

“I’m about to be their new first baseman, since the current one just busted his knee.”

“So why are you worried about being good? The team sucks.” It slips out—the team won a few championships a decade back then promptly went into a deep tank. Not a Melody thing to say.

John’s laugh fills the entire room—and tickles the places we’re still touching. “See, there’s that honest and direct feedback I came here for.”

“Okay, but also, holy shit. That’s the promotion you’ve been worried about? I thought you were like some middle manager somewhere.”

“Nope, just a ballplayer.”

“Oh, just a ballplayer?” I pick up my can and wave it until John does the same with his beer. We bring them together in a toast. “Congratulations,” I say. “Is that what the flowers are for?”

John’s lips press together in a smile. “I wanted to celebrate.”

So you came to see me? “Are you excited?”

He nods.

“But—?”

“You ever chase something so long that you almost regret getting it?” he asks.

“Sometimes good things take a while to happen.” And sometimes they never work out. “Congratulations. For real.”

He smiles.

If this is our last time seeing each other, I have to know what that smile feels like. I stroke my hand along the neatly trimmed hair of his beard. Not a place that’s really dancer-customer appropriate.

Especially not when John runs a possessive hand up my back. This time, when he pulls me back onto his lap, there’s no mistaking it for a dance. My knees settle on either side of his thighs; the curtain of my hair hangs down. We’re breathing the same air. My lips part.

He pushes a lock of hair from my face. “Is it a problem if I kiss you?”

I’m not supposed to. Kissing John would break every rule I’ve ever set for myself—in my heart, I’m still like Tiara, still telling myself that this is a job I’m only doing until I land something else. Nothing here is real…right? Except for the way John is looking up at me: hope in his warm green eyes. No, my common sense says. Yes, every other part of me says. I dab a tongue over my lip gloss. Smile. “It’s not a problem if you kiss me. It’s a problem if you don’t.”

He laughs as his hands settle at my waist, our bodies flush. His lips touch mine, careful but not hesitant, like he’s drinking me in. I kiss back with an urgency that grows with each press of our mouths, with the slide of his tongue against mine. His grip tightens.

Yes. Please. Make me yours.

I don’t care that security is watching, that I’m probably going to be teased for this later, that word will get around that I was doing this on the clock. Worse happens back in these rooms. Or perhaps not worse, because the worst part is that he has to leave at the end. That this is a kiss goodbye.

Eventually, we pull back from each other. “I’ve been dreaming about that,” he says. “Melody…” He touches his forehead to mine. “Come with me to Boston.”

I blink. I must have misheard him. He can’t be asking for real. But he’s looking at me as if he is. I slide off his lap, scoot away on the bench, and take several deep cycles of breath. He came here to ask me to run away with him. My heart beats against my ribs—excitement, followed by a cold splash of reality. “What?”

“I just thought…” He glances around like he’s reminding himself of the room we’re in. “I thought maybe you’d want to come.”

You don’t even know my real name. I don’t know your real name. Though now that I know he plays, it won’t be hard to look it up. I usually have a speech for when customers ask me things like that. How I really appreciate getting to know a guy, but I prefer that what happens at the club stays here. John—or whatever his name is—deserves something better.

“We’re friends,” I say, “but—”

“Forget I said it. I know it’s not a good idea. You don’t have to let me down easy.” Though he’s looking at me with a mix of hope and regret that makes my chest ache. “I’m sorry I asked like that. But…if things were different, would you?”

Yes. The word sits behind my teeth. Yes, I like you. Yes, we could try this. Yes, let’s just throw caution out the window. I did that once when I was nineteen. I turned down a guaranteed life—high school salutatorian, college acceptance, life on a conveyor belt toward success—and struck out to become a world-renowned dancer. Look where it got me.

I swallow. If things were different… Things aren’t different. I learned to accept that years ago. “Hey, why don’t we get some champagne? Really celebrate?”

For a second, John doesn’t say anything. Sometimes, when a customer tries to take what’s in the club into the real world and I turn them down, they press harder. Sometimes they get mean, and I have to have them hauled out by security. Even if I like John, I don’t really know him. People can surprise you, usually not in good ways.

“Sure,” he says finally. “Another drink sounds good. I’m buying.”

*

Getting ready for work takes approximately an hour between my hair and makeup. Leaving takes about ten minutes. I tip out the DJ and bartenders and house mom and security guys, some of whom wink and whistle at me until I tell them to cut it out. I change back into the sneakers and sweatsuit I wore for my drive. With my makeup wiped off and my hair up in a ponytail, I’m no longer Melody but Shira, who’s tired and wants to go home.

I shove my stuff into my wheeled duffel and roll down the hallway to the club’s back entrance. Of course, the light by the parking lot door is busted again. Of course it’s a moonless night. Of course the flashlight on my phone only illuminates so much.

The employee area of the parking lot is a mess: it needed to be repaved about five winters ago. Potholes pit its asphalt surface. No way my rolling bag will make it across without twisting out of my hands.

I check the hallway—and get a glance of a dark figure, lurking like he doesn’t want to be seen. “Whoever’s there, get the fuck out,” I call.

No one answers. The shadow recedes. Typical. Guys who lurk around to harass dancers are almost universally cowards. I could yell for security to walk me to my car. Or see if John’s still around and ask for an escort across the lot. As if we just could get in my car and drive away from everything. As if things could be that simple.

No, I’ve been on my own for six years. I’ll be fine. So I shoulder my bag and start walking.