Page 102 of Waking Olivia

Olivia

The good newsis that Sean lives in a nice section of town. I guess his parents didn’t want him to suffer while exploring his “craft”. The bad news? Sean is high as a kite, and I can see cocaine residue laying right there on the coffee table.

“Olivia!” he says. “Hey, hey, this is so awesome, so fucking awesome. You can totally crash here.”

He tells me he’s having a party. He asks if I like to party. I assume he doesn’t mean with cake and gifts. “I have a lot of parties,” he tells me.

I’ll just bet he does.

Things Sean is notgood for: providing a place I can sleep without finding a roaming hand sliding up my shirt, or providing a place where any reasonable human being could hope to sleep or stay sober before around 6 am.

Things Seanisgood for: finding me work.

By Wednesday, I’m already working at some strip club where he knows the owner. I’m not old enough to tend bar for another week, and I’m technically not supposed to serve drinks either, but his creepy friend says he can overlook it. Of course, he seems to be overlooking it by instead focusing on me in a skirt that doesn’t entirely cover my ass and a shirt that covers little more than a bra, but so be it.

Obviously, I can’t keep living with Chris Cocaine for long, so I need to make some damn money. And fast. Nothing came today from the Fumito guy, which is troubling. He said he was overnighting it. An endorsement, even a small one, would be enough to get me out of here, but now the whole thing seems a little weird.

By 9 p.m., it feels like it’s already been a very, very long day. I’ve been here since three, and there’s nothing sketchier than guys who hang out at a strip club in the middle of the day. It’s finally starting to pick up, and with guys whodon’tlook like Jack the Ripper, but my feet are killing me in these heels they make me wear and I’ve got a whopping total of $35 dollars to show for the six hours I’ve put in so far.

“You can make a lot more money up there,” one of my customers tells me. “Or in back.”

Is that where this is headed? Am I eventually going to be desperate enough that I wind up on stage?

No. No fucking way.

I’m going to do this for a few weeks until I get enough money to head to Seattle, and then I’ll start training. This isnothow I’m going to end up.

I refuse to think about Will. Okay, yes, I thought about him the entire bus ride and during Sean’s parties. And every two minutes I think of something I want to tell him, think of a joke he’d find funny or remember him above me. And every time I realize these things won’t happen, I grit my teeth. I’ve been stabbed before, I’ve been assaulted. I was hit by a car and broke 4 bones. I came home one day and discovered that my grandmother had no idea who I was. I survived all of that. I’ll survive this too.

“Come here, honey,” calls a businessman with three other guys, all in suits. “We want a lap dance.”

I shake my head. “Sorry, I just serve drinks.”

“Even better. A lap dance virgin. I’ll give you $500 to come dance for my friend.”

I shake my head again. “Sorry.”

$500. $500 for three measly minutes of dancing? I must be insane to turn it down. I just worked360minutes for $35 freaking dollars. They wouldn’t even be allowed to touch me, although this club seems to have a veryflexibleapproach to the rules.

I can’t.

I take $500 for a lap dance tonight, and next time I might be rationalizing making a few grand to do something far worse.

The next guy swats my ass, and the guy after him asks if I’d consider going to the back room. And I have to stand here being cheerful and cute about it so I get my tips at the end of the night. Sean assured me this place was “cool” but I’m thinking he was talking about the customer experience, not the employee one.

As time goes by, The Suits are drunker, rowdier. Their leader flags me down again. Asks me again about the lap dance. “Come on,” he wheedles. “My buddy here’s getting married.”

I smile and put my hand on my hip, imitating the kind of girl I’ve always hated. “Now you know I can’t do that,” I say with an accent I don’t actually have. “How ‘bout I get y’all another round instead?”

I go back to the bar and wait for their drinks. All of them drinking whiskey on the rocks and chomping on cigars they aren’t allowed to smoke, the biggest caricature of all time.

“I’ll give you two grand,” he says when I return. “Two grand to give my friend here the best lap dance of his life.”

And I hesitate. Because I need to get out of here. Because I need to be in Seattle so I can maybe find a way to keep running and stop wishing I’d died when my brother did.

“$2500!” he shouts. “That’s my last offer.”

I set the tray down.Hello, slippery slope.

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