Page 45 of Ruined
“It’s my mother,” she said. She bit her lip. “Dahlia said I should be pole dancing. And Mama worked at a strip club right before she died.”
“You associate her death with pole dancing?”
“I associate way too many things about my life with her death,” she said, staring down at her empty palms. “She was in a car accident. It all happened so quickly. She was fine one day, and gone the next. But she was pregnant again, and she refused to get an abortion. And I’ve always had this sick feeling that whoever got her pregnant at the strip club, got rid of her on purpose.”
How could you live with something like that?
“It may have been chance,” I said. Choosing my words carefully. The last thing she needed was to think that I wasn’t on her side.
“She knew it was coming,” Haley said. “She told me I had to—”
And then she stopped. Bit her lip again. What was she holding back?
“You can tell me,” I said.
“Not here.”
Fine. I could agree to that for the time being.
“Dahlia suggested you pole dance,” I said, continuing the conversation. “It doesn’t mean you’re going to die in a car accident too.”
Tears were in her eyes. “You must think I’m being silly for being so superstitious.”
“I don’t,” I said. Her anxiety over the situation was warranted. It was understandable to be hesitant of a certain kind of dance, if you associated it with your mother’s death. But she needed to change how she processed it.
Haley turned frantic as if she was afraid and needed to get everything off of her chest now. “Dahlia wants us to do more for our money. She never said what, but we all know what she wants.” She shook her head. “Some people think the club isn’t making enough money, so this is what she’s doing. Making us domorefor our money. I don’t care what the other servers do, but I willnotdo that when there’s too much at stake.”
“What’s at stake?” I asked. But Haley’s lips were sealed tight. Alright. We didn’t have to talk about what she was protecting. We could talk about something else, and get to that later.
I would have to go about this delicately.
“Pole dancing is a sport, like silks or the hoop,” I said. “Isn’t a pole just another apparatus?”
“Mama pole danced here,” she said, ignoring my question. “She was really, really good at it. Got an award at a competition one year. But where did that leave her?”
Haley was on the verge of breaking down. It was becoming clear: the request, or order, from Dahlia, was making Haley face her shame for sex and her fears of death.
I pulled her up, never letting go of her hand, and led her to the Terrariums. She didn’t say a word. I asked a wandering waitress to bring us water.
While we waited for the drinks, I took off my jacket. Haley wrapped her arms around herself, pulling the sides of her robe tighter. I put the jacket on her shoulders, hoping it helped. She looked up at me, and I put an arm around her.
“You don’t need to do anything you don’t want to,” I said. “You’re safe with me.”
As soon as I said it, I was stunned by my words. What was I thinking? Haley wasn’t supposed to be important to me. I wasn’t supposed to protect her.
But some instinct inside of me wanted to help her. Saw her as more than a tool. Saw her as a person. Someone who had values that mattered to them.
And what did I have, if I was willing to play with her future for my revenge?
I held her like that for a few minutes, feeling the warmth of her small body against mine. The waitress knocked and left the bottled water outside of the door. I gently lifted my grip off of Haley and retrieved the bottles for us. I opened the first and handed it to her.
She drank.
“Thank you,” she said. I shook my head, about to dismiss it, but then she added, “For everything. Being there for me. For this,” she lifted the water bottle. “You’re not making me drink away my sorrows. You’re just letting me be.”
“You’re more than a server,” I said.
A smile stretched across her lips for the first time that evening. “Thanks.” Then a change transformed her. She pulled the robe and the jacket off, putting them on the side of the couch. “Let me make it up to you.” She straddled my lap. “I want to dance for you.”
