Page 37 of The End of Summer

“I told you, dude. You won’t have to worry about bills for a hot minute after this.”

When we arrive, we wait out in the parking lot as instructed. The steel door keeps the thumping bass at bay, and at exactly 9:30, all ten of us line up at the door behind Max. Big Mike is at the back of the line, as he’ll remain by the door once we go inside, and I’m right in front of him, last stripper in the lineup.

Arrow opens the door. “Oh, hello,” she says in her over exaggerated, dramatic voice. “How can we help you?”

“We were just on our way to a game and our bus broke down,” Max announces. “Any chance we could use this space for practice?” he asks.

“Hell, yeah!” Arrow shouts. “Right, ladies?”

Screaming ensues as we file in and get into our formation in the area of the studio designated to be our makeshift stage. As we do this, Big Mike shuts the door hard behind him, and I scan the room looking for Gretchen. I see the three pole girls headed towards their –wait a second.

The girl in the middle – it’s –no, it can’t be.

I thought Gretchen was just a shot girl?

The music starts, and I need to focus, but she’s up there spinning and the ladies of the party are howling and I can’t quite think straight.What was the openingmove?I look in front of me.Oh, right. Bat resting on your shoulder.Gretchen climbs the pole.Fuck, Brady. Pay attention.

Somehow, I manage to get myself in the zone and get through the first part of dance #1. When it’s time to grab a girl and put my hat on her, I want to go after Gretchen but she’s –holy shit, she’s upside down –not available at the current moment. So I sidle up to the lady closest to me, and everything is going fine until I actually look at her face. It’s a very specific combination of amused and horrified.

“Brady?!” she exclaims.

No. Fucking. Way.

It’s Miranda.

Other ladies turn around with raised eyebrows, but they’re easily calmed by the elixir of soon-to-be-wet stripper dancing all around them. Up on the pole, Gretchen stops gyrating for long enough to make eye contact with me, and now she looks shook as well. Not, like,Hey, fancy meeting you herehappy to see me; more likeoh my God is that actually youpanicked. But I can’t worry about that right now because my ex-girlfriend is directly in front of me, threatening to destroy what little self-respect I have left. Miranda looks like she’s seen a ghost, and I can’t exactly evacuate the dance floor mid-routine, so I put my hat on her head and just plead with my eyes for her to keep her mouth shut.

That plan doesnotwork.

“What are youdoinghere?” she asks, much louder than I’d prefer, her voice overflowing with curiosity.

I pull her close to me and grind my hips up on her. I really, really don’t want to but I desperately need her to be cool. “Shh,” I say into her ear. “Let’s not makea scene.”

She pulls her face back from me, bewildered. I do a spin and drop down to all fours, hump the floor a few times, then hop back up to my feet and snake my way back up her body. “Besides, you’re one to talk,” I go on, back next to her ear now. I’m holding her by the hip with one hand – the other hand is up over my head when I say, “Shouldn’t you be in California?”

“I moved back east last year,” she replies. “I’m staying at the Truro house for the summer.” I thrust my junk at her in time with the music, as if this isn’t the world’s most awkward situation. I pretend not to notice Gretchen watching me from her bird’s eye view on the pole. “What aboutyou?” she asks. “How did you become a –”

“Nope,” I say, placing my forefinger on her lips to cut her off, letting out a surprised chuckle at the ironyof our chance encounter. “Gotta go,” I add. It’s true; it’s time for the second half of the first dance. I’m back in my spot in the formation of guys, thankfully able to remember all the moves and keep time with Billy, who is directly in front of me. We each grab a folding chair and set it up with a quick flick of the wrist. Then, we put one foot up on the seat of the chair and thrust away into the darkened space around us. Flip the chair and straddle it. Half the guys (not me, thank God) lean backwards, do a complete backbend and kick up and over into a standing position. I am not a gymnast, so my move is to stand up, slide the chair between my legs, pick it up in a flip twist, set it back down and sit in it normally, reclining my shirtless, slathered up body and sliding my hand down my chest to my stomach before grabbing myself and thrusting a whole bunch more. The ladies are quite happywith this, it seems, judging from the screaming. I keep my eyes trained on Gretchen, who seems reciprocally laser-focused on me. I’m not sure what it is about this environment but I’m pretty sure that if we ran into one other in the grocery store we wouldn’t stare each other down like we are right now.

Or maybe I’m wrong.

By the time the first dance ends, we’re back out in the crowd, expected to dance with the hot and bothered ladies who are sucking down Jell-O shots as if it’s their last meal on Earth. This is the moment where I want to go over to Gretchen and dance with her, but she’s still doing combinations on the pole with the other girls. I try not to stare but it’s killing me – just when I thought she couldn’t get more beautiful, there she is, legs for days and a body that could make a priest blush, and she’s gazing down at me like watching me watching her is doing unthinkable things to her.

So that’s going well, until Miranda reappears in front of me. This time, she's more determined. I spin out, trying to avoid full frontal contact with her, but she grabs me by the hips and pulls me to face her. “Brady, how did you get into this?” she asks, moving in time with the beat likeit’s cool, we’re cool, let’s just make small talk like old friends– as if her sexual indiscretions of the past didn’t have repercussions aside from the arson. Once upon a time, this girl actuallyhurtme, and the last thing I need is for her to fuck up my chances with a woman I actually like whoisn’trumored to be in the custody of the state. So I dive down onto the ground and begin crawling away towards literally anybodyelse – but when I stand back up, she’s right there in front of me again. “I had no idea you were such a good dancer,” she says.

Nope,I think,this is not going to be like some Love is Blind reunion show, where I'm the ignorant asshole who didn’t know you were trying to sleep your way into a job at a law firm, only now you see me with my shirt off and you think twice about what you missed out on. No thank you,I decide, as I catch the waist of a different lady to my left and lift her up so she looks like she’s dry-boning me in the air.

“Woo!” the girl shouts.

“Courtney!” Miranda hollers up fromright next to me.She taps the girl on the arm. “This is Brady! You know, my ex? From college?”

The woman –Courtney– loses her smile as her mouth forms the shape of an O. I place her back down on the ground, glaring at Miranda. “I’m here to do ajob,” I say.

She leans in close to my ear. “I just want to talk to you,” she replies.

“No need,” I reply, spinning away from her and lifting my leg up to grind on a different nearby party patron.

From the corner of my eye, I see an obviously frustrated Miranda pull an airplane-sized bottle of Tito’s out of her bra. She cracks it open and sucks down the contents, shaking her head and grimacing at the taste. Miranda never had much of a tolerance for alcohol. I body roll into the blonde in front of me, and she squeals with delight.

---