"I think what we do is great," she says. It takes me a second to figure out what specifically she's referring to there. "It can tire me, but I love it."
Emily hangs up, and I draw a line connecting one grotesque breast to the other, a sexual barbell. As a kid, I idolized Amelia Earhart, Joan of Arc — lunatics who dressed up in knickers. I was always the dirtiest girl at recess. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em, my Mom told me.
"If you can't beat them, beat their dicks and take their money," I tell Emily.
"Yeah, don't," Angela said when I told her on my first day that I'd originally been thinking about stripping. "The managers can be awful, and they're usually men. This is so much better. Here, you control the situation. You own it."
"You went so fast to last resort!" my boyfriend yells. "You could've applied to different restaurants, or something!"
"It's not a last resort," I say through a stupid fog of tears. "Do you think it was better for me to waitress? To spend three hours cleaning chairs while I was having a panic attack over the papers I had to write? To work for that perv of a manager?"
"Well, at least you wouldn't be giving him a handjob. It's dirty."
"Life is dirty," I tell him. "A handjob's honest."
"Get your dirty hands off of me," he says, pushing me away. He's never done this before. I slip out of myself, stare from the other side of his small bedroom. I can't stomach his judgment. I don't want it on me. At work the next day, I feel like he's followed me there, holding my soul between his fingers like a goldfish over a toilet bowl. We make plans to "talk." I scribble all day in my notebook, preparing my manifesto. I quote Whores and Other Feminists, which I bought at Bluestockings along with Slut! and The Beauty Myth. My sister laughed: "This is your get-over-him reading list? We already have two copies of The Beauty Myth, you know."
I tell my boyfriend that I don't like lying, that I was often emotionally torn but never politically torn. I tell him it's not cheating, not to me, because I'm not involved, it's not a two-way street. I tell him that making up to $700 a day and having the rest of the week to work on my films is a godsend. I accuse him of hypocrisy: wasn't he a bit of a strip-club junkie? I tell him that as a man, he has no right to judge me. I remember what an asshole I was to my Mom when she tried to tell me all this stuff before. I
My boyfriend holds my letter in his hand gingerly, like it's a job offer he's not certain he can accept.
remember hating her because she wouldn't shave her armpits and how that made all the preppy girls from field hockey — with their bake-sale moms and hair ribbons — think I was that weird, too. I remember sitting in the Corolla with my sister while my Mother was inside her ex's apartment, fighting, I guess, about secrets. When she came back with a Sears bag of clothing, my sister asked nice, caring questions. I acted bored and irritated, listening to the Bangles on my Walkman in the back seat.
My boyfriend holds my letter in his hand gingerly, like it's a job offer he's not certain he can accept. He leaves, and instead of throwing myself on the bed and sobbing, I feel a hell of a lot better.
A few days later, he calls. He has confused my essay with a request for reuinification. He's over it, he says.
"I don't want a relationship right now," I tell him.
"Is that why you told me about your job?" he asks.
Yes. "No," I reply.
In April, Robin buys new computers for the offices and I start reading the internet history, looking at what sites the other girls visit when they sit at the desk. Explorer keeps the information in a pull-down menu for a week, or until I erase it after my shift. All the girls, even the ones who seem the most content, are looking for more — apartment listings, personal ads, jobs as secretaries or models.
When summer begins, Robin starts replacing the girls we've lost, such as Tami, Hailey and Laurie, a blonde film student who vanished in March. In February, Robin had given Francesca's Midtown shift to me after "taking great pleasure in firing" Francesca for leaving the candles burning overnight three weeks in a row, but now I'm cutting my Upper East shift with Sadie because I'm working at a film-production company.
I like the midtown office. I have time to do work between clients, and the place is spacious and clean with big windows that lead to a fire escape where I sneak cigarettes and breathe. I can dance naked while I mop. I don't have to describe the other girl when a client calls. It's me, baby, take it or leave it.
I remember how, at first, I felt as if I were always at Annette's. I felt addicted to it sometimes, like I needed it. Now it fits neatly on my shelf, like the musical-theater soundtracks I've shoved behind the intellectual hip-hop — it's only there if you look for it.
"You never worry about being some old spinster?" my sister asks me. She worries about it all the time.
"I dunno, I figure that if I ever really want to get married, there'll be someone. I have like, three or four backup guys."
"God," she sighs. "How did you get so confident? Is it because of your job?"
I shrug. I used to love the power trip of eyeing a man, choosing him, reeling him in. Now I get that affirmation constantly. "Maybe," I smile. "You should try it."
"Yeah, right," she says, slapping her generous ass, which has the same bump and curve as our mother's. "I don't think anyone would pay to see this."
"That's the thing," I say, holding both of her palms like I'm handing wisdom to the Karate Kid. "They totally
I used to blast "I Want You to Want Me" when I went out. Now I detest that song.
would."
Without the need for validation, I'm no longer certain I like men more than I like women. I'm not positive that I even want to marry one.
I meet a boy in a bar. I kiss him because I want to. He tastes like beer, but I let him take me home because he's hot and I'm horny. When he tells me I'm sexy, I laugh and cover his words with my mouth. After a few weeks, there are no sparks, so I let him loose.
I meet a girl through a friend. She's an athlete, she wants a massage, I straddle her on her bed in the dark and do what I can. When her hands wander, I have no urge to swat them away like I've done to four men at work that same day. Instead I ease up, let her flip over and face me, and then I meet her there. I grab her hair, kiss her, grab her breast; everything is electric.
I used to blast "I Want You to Want Me" when I got ready to go out. Now I detest that song. These days I listen to Jessica Simpson doing "These Boots Were Made For Walking," in earnest.
In two weeks, I turn twenty-four. I've made a man orgasm from kicking him in the balls and brought another to climax by tying him to a coat rack with a necktie and sticking a dildo up his ass. Sometimes dicks are like peppermills I grind to pay the rent, and sometimes they're just good company. I'm jaded, but I'd rather be jaded than needy. I can watch porn by myself and not feel dirty. I'm harder to get into bed, but I think that's a good thing.
"Does it make you have less faith in men?" My sister's friend asks me at dinner one night. "Does it make you hate them?"
"Not really." I say. "I'll let you know in a few years."
"What if you meet someone?" she asks.
"I'd understand if they wanted me to quit. I'd quit for the right person, I think."
"Maybe the right person wouldn't want you to quit."
I shrug. When I worked in a restaurant, other waitresses would tell me that people shouldn't be allowed to dine out until they've waited tables. Now, when I meet boys, I think about whether I'll ever tell them about my job. I wonder if they'll find out that I already know their secrets. n°
