Page 14 of Eye Candy

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. Goodjob. 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,Teddyme—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.”

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