Chapter 2

Aurora

Fred's Fishing Hole was an angler-themed bar only a few blocks down from where I ran into Amy. Her grandfather, a lover of fishing and beer, was the eponymous Fred. He passed away while we were in high school, and the whole town showed up to his funeral. Now Amy's parents ran the bar, and though it still featured lots of tackle and netting as decor, they'd spruced it up to give it a little more of a modern, welcoming feel.

Amy let us in and turned on the lights, sidling behind the bar like it was her own personal liquor cabinet and selecting a couple bottles from the fridge.

"I'm afraid when you sneak in after-hours there's nothing in the taps," she explained, passing the bottle over to me. I sat down on one of the worn barstools, and she grabbed a beer for herself but stayed behind the bar.She felt at home back there, since she'd been helping her grandfather sling drinks since she was a little kid.

"This is great, thanks." We clinked bottles and drank. I loved a good beer, and this one went down pretty damn smooth.

"So what have you been up to lately?" she asked. "I can't believe you're living here still. I thought you went off to Maine for university around the same time I moved to the city?"

I cringed internally. "I did."

"And you moved back here after you finished?" Her full lips pulled together in consternation.

Amy had always wanted out of this place. So had I, at one point. In high school, we used to dream about all the cool places we'd get to go and all the cool things we'd see.

"I didn't finish," I admitted, taking another swig of beer. "I dropped out before third year. You probably heard that my dad got sick?"

Understanding dawned on her face, and her eyes widened with sincere compassion.

"Right, dad told me. I'm so sorry, babe. I meant to come home for the funeral but I was away." She reached out and rested a hand on mine.

"It's fine," I said. "We all knew it was going to happen. And I was able to be there during his last year or so. Even my mom's doing a lot better these days. She's dating some guy named Carson."

"Carson Giles?"

I nodded. "How do you know him?"

"He used to come into the bar a lot," she said, wrinkling her nose. "I would've swiped left if I were your mom."

I laughed, picturing my technology-abhorrent mother trying to use Tinder. Not so much.

"Well, he's making her happy for now. That's all I care about. When she's happy, she doesn't whine so much to me about everything."

Amy laughed. "Things never really change, do they?"

I shook my head. No, they really don't.

"You've changed an awful lot though." I gestured up and down at the sleek black dress she'd exposed when she took off her rain coat. "You look amazing."

Amy flipped some of her hair over her shoulder and smiled smugly. "Thanks! I've been getting a lot of compliments. All the girls we used to hate in high school keep trying to herd their boyfriends away from me. I would've come back to visit sooner if I'd known it was going to be so satisfying."

"Why have you come back?" I asked. "Not that I mind seeing you. I actually really needed to see a friendly face today and I'm glad it's yours."

"I just figured it's been a long time." She shrugged. "It seems like my feet haven't even touched the ground recently. Last I knew I was a small town girl with big dreams heading off to school. I blinked and realized years had gone by."

I wished I could say the same. It felt like every second since I dropped out of college had passed with agonizing slowness, like I'd been trudging through waist-deep mud. Our town felt like the little place time forgot, and not in a charming way.

"What keeps you so busy? Are you still in school?"

"I'm taking my masters now," she announced proudly. "Business Administrations."

"That's amazing!" I exclaimed. I didn't understand how she could afford to take her masters on her dad's meager income, though. She was certainly a smart girl, but I couldn't see her getting accepted for a fancy scholarship either.

She must've read the question in my eyes, as she leaned conspiratorially over the bar and held my gaze.

"I have been having the most fabulous time in New York. I met this guy in my first year, this older guy who just wanted to spend money on me. I was so small town back then that I didn't even realize he was my sugar daddy until I heard someone talking about what a sugar daddy was one day."

My eyes widened. Amy had always been a little wild. We'd both had our times actually. Still, I wouldn’t have expected her to run off to New York and get a sugar daddy. That kind of news would blow the lid off our small town.

But she didn't stop there.

"Well, after doing that for a while, I met a girl who referred me to a madame she knew. From then on I started escorting, and I haven't looked back since." She took another draw of her beer and winked at me. "I go by Tatiana Ivanov when I'm on the job. I look Russian enough to convince all the guys that my family fled the Soviet Union during the Stalinist Purges."

I let out a bark of laughter. Even though I never imagined Amy as an escort, it was exactly the kind of thing she would do.

"That's brilliant," I said.

She laughed. "I wish I could say it was an original idea. Stole it from the great Mata Hari."

"Mata Hari?" I drank some more of my beer, and it settled warmly in my stomach. This drink was doing wonders for my soul. Or maybe it was the company.

"She's my icon," Amy explained. "She was a Dutch escort in the early twentieth century. Told everyone she was Hindu to add an extra element of the exotic to her performances. She was also a spy and a hella rad lady. I really recommend looking her up."

"I'm gonna have to. Does your dad know about this?"

I tried to make it sound as nonjudgmental as possible. I was a pretty liberal minded person and didn't have any qualms with sex work if it was the woman's choice and practiced safely, but I knew that I was among the minority in our town.

Amy snorted. "Like hell he knows. He thinks I've got some cushy concierge job at a high-class hotel in Manhattan. I figured I spend enough time at fancy Manhattan hotels to make it work. He'd have a conniption if he found out."

I believed it.

Amy grinned, displaying a set of pearly whites that was almost blinding in their perfection. She must've had some dental work done since I saw her last. I remembered her as having a little snaggle tooth in the front somewhere.

"Tell me about you," she pushed, already grabbing another couple of beers from the fridge.

Had we already finished our first ones? I looked down at my bottle, which had only a tiny bit left in it. Go figure.

How was I supposed to tell Amy how things had been going in my life when they were going so shit? She was so worldly and cosmopolitan now. What would she think of my pathetic small town life? My own opinion of myself was already low.

"Aurora," she said. "Tell me."

I hesitated too long and now she knew I didn't want to tell her. Oh well. Time to dive in with both feet.

"I just lost my job and I suspect that Nolan, who I now live with, by the way, is cheating on me. He's also kind of an asshole and I've been thinking about ending things more and more recently but I'm scared to be on my own."

It felt good to get it all out, like I was ten pounds lighter. It helped that Amy's expression didn't contain an ounce of judgement. She pushed the new beer toward me and frowned.

"That sucks. Is there something I can do to help?"

I shook my head. "The only one who can help me right now is me. I just need to figure out what to do."

"Well shit, girl. If I wasn't about to go off with a client for the summer I'd say you could come to New York and stay with me for a while. Unfortunately, I already sub-letted my flat."

She took a long drink, and I could see the gears turning in her head. It warmed me to see how much she still cared about me, even though we'd been apart a long time. I bore the brunt of the blame for our estrangement, too, since I'd been so jealous of her New York life that I stopped speaking to her the moment I moved back to Bridgefield. It hurt too much to see other people getting to live the life I'd always wanted, while I was moving backward.

"I still think you need to get out of here," she continued. "It's the perfect time, don't you think? Look at your unfortunate circumstances as a blessing in disguise. You've got nothing holding you back now."

It would have been easy to let myself fall into the dreamy comfort of her words. But reality's a bitch.

"I have basically nothing saved," I said. "And the moment I start making any plans to go, you know my mom and Nolan will do everything in their power to sabotage me."

She nodded. She knew my mom and Nolan almost as well as I did. We'd spent most of our time in high school hanging out at her house for a reason.

"You know what, I think I might have the solution to your problem." She pointed a finger dramatically in the air, her smile lighting the dim bar. "There's this hotel in Queens called the Fox Regent. It's a very interesting place. Most of the suites are designated for guests, but a select few rooms are set aside for the use of Madame Calypso's girls."

"You mean it's a brothel?" I interrupted.

"Yes and no," she replied. "The brothel technically runs inside of the hotel. They have a sort of symbiotic relationship going on. Because the place isn't a known brothel, it allows the clients more discretion. And because brothels make a lot more money than hotels, the hotel owners can line their pockets without even having to lift a finger."

"And what does that have to do with me?" I asked, fearing that she was going to suggest I go down the escort path too. I didn't have any problem with her doing it, but I did not have it in my own constitution. Sex had always been very emotional for me, and I couldn't see myself being able to find the enthusiasm to sleep with someone who not only was I probably not attracted to, but I also didn't know.

"Oh, relax," Amy snickered, reading my expression again. "They're always looking for more girls, yes, but Calypso also needs cleaners and that sort of thing. The hotel staff don't service the rooms Calypso uses. Since it's all under the table, you could go work for her for even just a few days while you get on your feet there. I can put in a good word for you and Calypso will have no problem giving you a room."

It was a generous offer, but it was all a little much to take in at the moment. I'd barely resigned myself to the fact that I was going to break up with my boyfriend, and now I was considering shacking up in a brothel in the big city?

It was the craziest thing I'd ever heard.

It was the craziest thing I'd ever considered.

It would be the craziest thing I'd ever done.

"I'll do it."

The words seemed to come from a deep part of myself that had never come to the surface. Until now, anyway. I clapped a hand over my mouth, feeling my lips turn up against my fingers.

Amy clapped and laughed. "Yes! This is going to be so much fun. I'm gone all summer, of course, but I'll be back to the city in a flash and then we can do all sorts of fun things together! Oh my god, Aurora, you're going to love it there. It's miles better than this shit hole."

I felt tears prick at the corners of my eyes, but I wasn't sure what from. My heart was beating a million times a minute, and just as many thoughts were going through my head.

My excitement overpowered everything else, and I found myself leaping over the bar to tackle my old best friend in one of our legendary flying hugs. We both cackled all the way to the ground.

For the first time in years, I felt like I was back. And I was on the right track.