More Than A Maybe (2 page)

“I know about your Book. And your TV . . . ”

That weakened sliver of a smile following this admission brought us together in a way I’d never thought possible. It was acknowledgement, of a kind . . . that the things that were important to me were known to her. Accepted. I knew then that I was looking at the women who had once charmed my father, so very many years ago. For once in my life, I didn’t just have a boss and a disciplinarian. I had a mother.

And then she was gone.

She’d wanted me to continue my studies somehow. Of course she had: my mother had never been a complainer — she’d firmly believed that if you weren’t making it, then you weren’t really trying hard enough. Still, when the money is gone and you’re counting on tips to make the rent, you honestly feel out of options.

So I did what I always did.

I called Jayla.

* * *

Jayla is one of the most blithely cheerful people on the planet — definitely one of the strongest,
most
definitely one of the wildest. She’s the only person I’d ever met who could wrangle a different hair color for every Organic Chemistry class in a given week; the person who first introduced me to the worse-than-crack addiction known as Etsy; the only person I’d ever heard refer to herself as a Hipster of Color. She’d been the one to help me get a little digital freedom away from my mother’s ever-watchful eye: Jayla had been the one to hook me up with her old iPhone to replace my scuffed and ancient Nokia.

We’d met during freshman orientation. Jayla had given me an off-handed but sincere compliment about one of my knit scarves the moment I’d sat down next to her. We’d been fast friends ever since.

Things always seem to work out for Jayla . . . she is the one person I know who never gets in over her head. At the time, however, I thought her one of the sleepiest people I’d ever laid eyes on. She usually claimed that Introduction to Human Biology was her favorite class: it allowed her to get the most sleep atop her textbooks, her peacefully snoozing head perpetually capped by whatever colorful wig she was rocking that day. I couldn’t understand how she kept passing the endless torture of tests and quizzes, but she always seemed to manage just fine. She’d snap smartly awake just as the TA was passing out the xeroxes, wipe the sleep out of her doe-like brown eyes with the back of her hand . . .

And then she’d pass. Again and again.

“You’re either a genius, or you’re cheating,” I’d joked, after she’d pulled out yet another successful squeaker of an exam.

“Me? Never!” she said, giving me a maybe-too-innocent batting of her eyelashes.

Those eyes. That was another thing about her — they were always made up so perfectly. No matter how sleepily she had to drag herself to class, Jayla always had her makeup in place. Nothing too elaborate, but she obviously knew what to do with a powder brush. Those eyes held as much fascination for me as those of the Goddesses I watched under my covers each night. My mother hadn’t seen the need to teach me the ins and outs of cosmetics, beyond the simple application of lipstick. Besides, she’d always assured me, it was
frivolous.

Jayla was addicted to coffee — and it was because of our shared lust for the hot brown stuff that we finally had our first good conversation, at the little campus café next to the medical science building. I liked her immediately . . . we clearly ran with different crowds, but it was always a blast to hear about the clubs she’d just been to, or who she was currently sleeping with. On the reasons for that perpetual sleepiness of hers, however, she’d always been weirdly evasive.

That is, until the day that I called her and told her I was quitting school. She’d rushed over to meet me instantly.

“What!?” she said. “No way. I don’t believe it.”

I poked at the foam at the bottom of my latte cup. “It’s true. I’d keep going if I could. That’s what mom wanted. But with the funeral expenses . . . her hospital bills . . . ”

Jayla stared at me. “There must be something you could do . . . the financial aid office, or . . . I mean, shit, you’re a great student!”

I could only shake my head. “Not great enough for scholarships. I’ve been to see them like three times. They say there’s nothing they can do for me. I can apply for a grant in the future, maybe. That should cover a semester’s worth of textbooks. If I’m lucky.”

Jayla bit her lip and stared off into the distance. I could see that she wanted to tell me something . . . but I could also tell it was difficult for her.

She reached out and touched my hand. “Look. I don’t tell a lot of people this, but . . . okay, look: money’s tight for me, too. I know that I sleep a lot in class. That isn’t by accident, and it’s not just the fact that I’m sometimes kind of a club rat. Actually I have a part-time job.”

I smiled. “You’re a secret agent.”

Maybe it was just the tension of the situation, but we both laughed at that. It seemed to give her all the permission she needed.

“I’m a dancer,” she said simply.

It was probably just 
naiveté
, but it actually took me a moment to process what she said. What it meant.

“You mean . . . for money?” I asked, as the sudden understanding sent my eyebrows furrowing together.

“Well, not for free!” she said, raising her voice.

She seemed to take it as an accusation. For all I know, maybe it was one.

“You know what? Never mind,” she said, pulling her hand quickly away from mine.

I felt immediately awful — like I was confirming some long-suspected fear about me. I immediately started backpedaling.

“Jayla . . . that’s not what I meant. Really. I just . . . please understand, I just have no idea about that kind of thing. It’s a world away from how I grew up.” I took a deep breath, and as I did, I saw her face begin to soften. “Seriously. Please. Tell me more. What do you do? How does that work?”

My interest seemed to satisfy her, and I saw her smile return as the warmth came back into her voice. “It’s not really that complicated. I take off my clothes and men give me money for it. Hell — women too, sometimes.” She shrugged. “Simple.”

Simple.
It was like hearing the word for the first time. I’d been told by my mom that women who took off their clothes for money were stupid, or trashy, or even
traitors;
any number of a dozen cruel things.

But I also knew Jayla. She was nothing like that. Besides, more than a few of my Goddesses had done their share of burlesque in their day. True, the dancing Jayla did was no doubt a bit racier than the burlesque shows back then, but still . . .

I raised my eyebrows. “Anyway, that explains why you’re so sleepy all the time.”

Jayla grinned.

“Ha! Sleepy like a fox, bitch. That money pays my tuition, pays my bills . . .” She paused, and a cloud seemed to pass over her face for the briefest of moments. “Look: I never told you this, but my family doesn’t really come from money, you know? They always did their best, but . . . I dunno. Med school was always my dream, not theirs. And if you want anything in this life, you have to get it yourself. Sounds 
cliché
 I guess, but it’s true.”

I realized I was seeing the real Jayla. I didn’t see a sleepy and somewhat irresponsible classmate . . . I saw an independent woman who saw what she wanted and went for it, without worrying about anything else.

It was simple. It really was. I felt a new respect for Jayla growing inside me. There was more than that, though . . .

I saw a person who had something I wanted. I envied her courage; her happy-go-lucky sense of assurance that everything was going to work out just fine. If I was really going to make it on my own, I’d need to figure out where she’d gotten it.

Jayla looked at me — she clearly expected me to say something. “Well?”

I looked back at her, a bit startled. “Well . . . what?”

She blinked. “What do you think?”

Looking back, it was obvious — but I really had no idea what she was talking about. At all.

“I think it’s great,” I said, as cheerfully as I could. “I hope I can figure out something like that.”

It was Jayla’s turn to look startled. “
Like
that?” she asked quizzically. “Why not . . . that?”

I finally understood what she was getting at — but I could only open my eyes in a wide stare.

“ME? Dance? On a stage, with everyone . . . ”

Jayla laughed the same carefree laugh that she always kept at the ready. “Yes, you! I mean . . . okay, not to be mean, but I know you could make more in a single night dancing than you make in an entire week of slinging pancakes at that café. You’re young, you’re hot . . . ”

“I am not. And I’m as flat as an ironing board.”

Jayla shook her head at that. “You bad-mouth those boobs all the time! You gotta knock that shit off, girl. You
are
hot. There — I said so. You could be using what you’ve got! Look, the boss at the club is a pretty good guy. Billy. He’s got a good heart.”

“It’s not his
heart
I’m worried about. It’s the whole idea. I mean, isn’t there like — y’know, a creepy back room or something?”

Jayla just shrugged. “You mean the Champagne Room? Sure. But you decide if you wanna go back there, and who with. Shit, or you could bartend, if that’s not for you. Those bitches behind the counter make good money. Can you make drinks?”

I shake my head. “No. Maybe I could mix a gin and tonic, but . . . ”

Jayla smiled. “Well, whatever. It’s fine if you can’t. But look . . . I’m not trying to pressure you, okay? And there isn’t a girl at that club that loves doing that job. But it lets you take charge of all the shit in your life, you know? Take control. And that can get you
any
where.”

She reached into her purse and pulled out a card. “Amateur Night is Fridays.
Amateur School,
they call it. I’ll introduce you, walk you through it. Let me just put my work cell on here . . . ”

Are you serious?
I thought.
Amateur School!?

I tried not to let my feelings show on my face as Jayla wrote out her digits and placed a card on the table in front of me.

I looked at it doubtfully:

M I R A G E S

Gentlemen’s Club

Jayla tapped the card. “I keep this part of my life separate. If you want to talk about it, call me at this number, okay?” She checked her watch, then stood as she pulled her bag over her shoulder. “Sorry . . . look, I’ve got to go. But listen . . . I’m not saying you’re out of options or nothing. There are always options. I’m just saying you should think it over. Yes or no, you can call me anytime. You gotta know that by now.”

I nodded and forced a half-smile. “I know.”

She leaned over and gave me one of her big squeezy Jayla hugs . . . and then she was walking away, with the strong and steady step of a girl who knew exactly where she was going.

After feeling that new closeness to Jayla, after learning that secret part of her life, I now felt incredibly alone. I looked at the card on the table and sighed. A moment later, I’d finished my coffee, and I was on my way as well.

Jayla’s business card, however . . . well, that went with me.

I didn’t do anything about it, though. Not right away.

Okay, to be honest, that night after the conversation with Jayla, I’d actually entertained the wild suggestion for a moment. I’d gone into my room, put on a deep-red dab of lipstick, and tried to do a few steps of Marlene Dietrich’s sexy gorilla-suit striptease from
Hot Voodoo.
Still, it wasn’t working. I didn’t have Marlene’s style, or her grace, or her fantastic set of curves. I just had flat-and-bashful Alice, a million times more colorless than any of those Goddesses on my black-and-white Watchman.

And so for a few weeks I’d tried denial — that, and a return to the same-old-same-old. Or, at least, some semblance of it.

Although I was dropping out of the pre-med program, I told everyone that I was just taking a break. I promised my professors that I’d keep my nose in the books, and I did . . . for a while, as best I could. Still, more and more the coffee refills and scrambled egg platters of my waitressing world did their best to fill up my days. I would wake up, dress, spend a grueling eight or ten hours waiting tables, gather up my tips, and then go home and study my old textbooks until my eyes were too tired to keep open. Lather, rinse, repeat.

For a short while I was able to keep my head above water . . . at least, that’s what I told myself, holding on to the self-assurance that everything would work out. Pretending is what got me through my days: through the daily hassles of tip-stiffing customers, orders of burnt toast, the shouting of my short-tempered manager . . . that’s what sustained me. That, and those stolen hours of classic film, that would whisk me away to a long-gone world of captivating monochrome.

But the nights became darker, and my pretending began to break down. There, all alone in the tiny apartment home my mother had worked so hard for . . . that’s when the tears came.

I realized that I had a choice: I could take the card that Jayla had given me, call her number, and let myself be introduced to a world that, while scary and even dangerous, at least offered a clear way out. A clear way up. Or I could continue to work hard, follow the rules, and hope that other people would see fit to give me enough money to live on. That’s what I’d always done . . . except now, that train had completely slipped off the tracks.

And so I made my choice: I took the number and dialed. That action — that simple action — filled me with a tiny new bit of real, genuine hope . . . the first I’d felt in a long time.

Jayla answered the phone — her voice was groggy, but perked up immediately.

“Alice! What’s up?”

I took a deep breath. “I’m in.”

There was a pause on the other end of the line. When she spoke, Jayla sounded serious.

“You know . . . I knew you’d call, somehow. I knew it.”

I tried to force a laugh. “You thought I had no other choice, huh?”

“No way, girl! I just felt like you were ready to start making a couple of choices on your own.”