Chapter Nine
Six months ago
There is a space between the walls of the office and the hallway. I don’t know if it was some flaw in the original architectural plans or the result of shoddy workmanship. Or maybe the gap is intentional, a barrier between the ugliness that happens inside this room and the family living space. But I learned as a child that I could fit my body into that space and eavesdrop. Even though I have grown into a woman, I can still fit, my breasts and ass pushed flat against the dusty inner walls.
That’s where I go when I leave my father and Byron in the office. Something about the way they spoke, the energy in the air, told me it was going to be important. So I hide and listen.
Byron’s voice is soft but firm. “We need to announce it. Tonight.”
“So soon?” My father’s voice is a sharp contrast, faint and rasping. So unlike the man I looked up to for so long, the man who could command mercenaries and criminals. Now he suffers every time he takes a breath.
I’m not even sorry.
“This will give us time to make arrangements.”
“She hasn’t even been told,” my father says.
I stiffen where I’m crouched. What haven’t they told me?
“Telling her was your job,” Byron says sharply. “She’s your daughter.”
My mind races, flashing disturbing images behind my eyes, a terrifying slideshow of all the things they could do to me—all the things my father wouldn’t want to say.
Furniture scrapes over hardwood. “It doesn’t matter if she knows,” Byron continues. “She’ll find out with everyone. And she’ll be thrilled. A governor’s son? He’s a bigger catch than I am.”
Ice floods my veins. Oh no. This is so much worse. Because they aren’t talking about me. They’re talking about Clara.
“I’m not sure about the match,” my father murmurs. I have to strain to hear him. “Those reports, in the newspaper…”
“Exaggerations,” Byron says smoothly. Always smooth.
A pause. “There were pictures.”
My heart beats faster. My father never speaks to Byron this way, becoming more meek as he grows sicker. As Byron takes over.
“Pictures can be faked. You know that as well as I do. Evidence only says what it’s meant to.” Even from here I can hear the undercurrent of warning in Byron’s voice. My father is at his mercy, he means. Byron is the one in charge now, despite the deference he still shows my father in public.
There is more murmuring. Then the clap of a fist on a solid wood desk.
“Don’t worry so much,” Byron says in an easy tone. “The governor and I go way back. Pledged to the same frat, a few years apart.”
“It’s not only Clara I worry for,” my father says. “Honor. There are marks…”
Oh God. He’s really bringing them up? He’s really seen them? I shudder, running my hands over my arms. There are goose bumps there. This is too strange a conversation to hear. I wish I’d walked away.
I’ve never been sure whether my father has noticed the bruises. On the worst days Byron would lock me in my room. A cell-phone photo taken by a maid and sold to the tabloid could derail his political ambitions, after all. I guess I’d assumed my father was too distracted—too much in pain—to notice the smaller marks Byron left. It almost hurts worse to know he saw them but did nothing.
Even if he’s standing up to Byron now.
“She doesn’t concern you any longer,” Byron says softly. “She’s my fiancée. Soon she’ll be my wife. Whatever we do behind closed doors is my business.”
“Yes…yes, of course. But Honor is a woman now. And Clara is still just sixteen.”
“Honor is mine to take care of. Clara too, by extension. I’ll watch over them when you’re gone.”
Now the threat is explicit, potent in the air. Even through inches of cherry wood paneling I can feel it. I wait, holding my breath, to see if my father will stand up for his younger daughter the way he didn’t for me.
“Besides,” Byron says, his tone lethal, “Clara isn’t even yours.”
I flinch. The idea doesn’t come as a surprise—everyone in the house, everyone in the extended family, must know the truth. But I’ve never heard anyone speak it before. And instead of growing angry, that seems to win my father over. Or at least wear him down.
“She would only have to date him now,” my father finally says. “A governor’s son. Great connections. Clara will be happy. And Honor too.”
* * *
Anything you do with other people ends up being a performance. I learned to smile the right way, to walk the right way. The way my father wanted me to.
Like many six year olds, I had an obsession with ballet. But unlike other six-year-olds, I wasn’t placed in a classroom full of giggling children and pink ribbon. Instead a tutor was hired—a ballerino from the Royal Ballet in London and award-winning choreographer. There was no room for error. No room for the chubby layer of girlhood. Hours of practice every day honed my body and my mind until all I knew was how to please.
How to perform.
My father had molded me into the perfect stripper, although he would be horrified to find that out. Or maybe he already knew. Fucking me over my father’s desk, the bruises. He’d looked the other way.
“Want to grab a bite?” Lola asks as I head out the back.
I shake my head. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
I don’t bother telling her an excuse, something she’d know was a lie.
She looks me up and down. “Wouldn’t hurt you to eat.”
We’re all slender here. The difference is she has curves that balance out. I trained my way through the time I would have grown breasts, and at twenty, I doubt they’re going to grow. “The men seem to like me okay.”
“Because you dance like a fucking ice princess. You’re untouchable.”
“The men seem to touch me okay too.”
She smirks. “You should borrow Candy’s outfit. You’d pass for thirteen.”
I make a face. “Don’t be like that.”
“Honest?”
“Mean.”
Her gaze flicks down, but I see the hurt before it does. “Same thing around here,” she murmurs before turning away.
My hand reaches for her—to apologize, to tell her I’ll eat with her after all. We’ll find some greasy diner and spend five bucks on rubbery egg whites. It wouldn’t be so bad. But I can’t give up this time.
I learned long ago to keep some things to myself. So I curl my hand into a fist and push out the back door. There is only one place around here I’ll find privacy. Not onstage. Not even in the motel room I share with my sister. No, my refuge is the roof of the building, behind the stairs.
Metal creaks as I climb to the top. The old fire escape isn’t remotely stable, and that means I’ll be left alone. Cracked concrete and debris, so different from the fine ballet floor my father had installed.
No one can see me here, and when I dance, I dance for myself.
A simple dance, without music—only the sound of my breath. Plié. Relevés. I dance for myself as the sun spreads over the city, yellow hands reaching building by building, until my muscles are sore and my breath comes short. I stretch my body in a grand arabesque until it becomes my own again—no longer a thing to be wrung out by other hands. I push myself now.
I make myself hurt.
If I’m too late, Clara will worry. So eventually I grab my duffel bag and head for the stairs. I climb down, yanking at the strap of my bag where it gets caught on the metal.
“Need a hand?”
I jump and almost bang my head into the railing. That voice. It rumbles through me, diving for every soft and vulnerable space, making me flinch. Kip.
I whirl to face him. “You scared me.”
He raises an eyebrow, looking wholly unconcerned. “I wondered where you went.”
My heart is still beating too fast, and I take the opportunity to examine him. He wears his usual dark T-shirt and dark jeans, with a black leather jacket. I don’t fuck around, the clothes say. I’ve seen a lot of posers come through the club, but the watchful eyes and scarred hands back up his claim. This is a man who knows how to fight. This is a man who has fought before—and won.
I have no business with a man like this. I don’t need another person to perform for.
“Don’t,” I say flatly. “Don’t wonder. If I’m not in the club, I’m unavailable. If I’m not there, I don’t even exist. Forget you even know me.”
He smiles without humor. “I’m afraid I can’t do that.”
Of course he can’t. Or won’t. But then, I can’t seem to stop thinking about him either. And not just when he’ll show up again and whether he’ll fuck me. Not just how much he’ll pay me. No, I can’t help wondering where he goes when he leaves. If there’s a woman waiting for him. Hoping there’s not.
Crazy.
I heft the bag high on my shoulder and push past him. “I’ve had a long day.”
“Let me walk you home,” he says. And then he plucks the bag off my shoulder without waiting for a response. “I already know where you live,” he says when he sees me open my mouth. “So you’re not giving anything away by letting me come.”
I snort. “Right.”
“I’m just walking. Making sure you get home safe. Then I’m gone.”
I shouldn’t believe him.
Hesitating, I wrap my arms around myself. A shudder runs through me. Sometimes I just get so damned tired of protecting myself—of protecting Clara. Of being vigilant against everything and everyone. Sometimes I wish someone would be on my side, someone I wouldn’t have to protect.
“Hey,” he says, his expression softening. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
“Aren’t you?” All my bitterness, my fiercest wish for relief comes out in the question.
His eyes widen a moment. Then he looks away.
And isn’t that my answer right there? It’s not even a surprise. The bile that rises in my throat is completely uncalled for. He’s just like all the other men in that building.
Worse, because he makes me hope for something more.
He seems to be struggling with himself. Over how much to tell me? Over whether to hurt me? As rough and cold as he is, I can’t really imagine him dragging me into the nearest alleyway and beating me. But then again, most men didn’t see Byron as a monster.
The woman. The woman closest to a man can tell you what he’s really like. Sometimes she’s the only one who knows.
“I just want to walk you home,” he says quietly, and it has the ring of truth.
And I can’t fight him anymore. He’s here with his tiny drops of kindness, and I am dying of thirst. “Fine. Walk me home then. But you have to tell me something about yourself. Something other people don’t know about you. That’s the price.”
He will have to perform for me instead of the other way around.
He doesn’t seem surprised. He nods and starts walking. I follow him, reluctantly curious to hear what he’ll tell me. I have to admit, it’s kind of nice without the strap of the bag digging into my shoulder. And it’s very nice not having to watch every shadow against some unseen attacker. No one will bother me with Kip at my side.
“My mother,” he says. “She sang. Professionally, for a short time. Plays and stuff, before she got knocked up and married my asshole of a father.”
“Wow.”
“She had a beautiful voice.” He laughs softly. “Not many toddlers get sung Madame Butterfly for naptime. She wanted me to be better than this.”
My heart clenches at the hardness in his expression, like he’s holding something back. Emotion. I guess even men who fuck strippers in back rooms and then stalk them have feelings too. I don’t want to care, but empathy creeps over me like the sun to the city—unstoppable.
“I’m sorry,” I say finally. Because even though I don’t know the end to his story, I do. Whether that asshole father was abusive and eventually killed her or whether she just died a sad death, I know the ending isn’t a happy one. I know that from the clench of his jaw and the tightness of his fists.
I swallow, thinking of my own mother. Surely she wanted better for me than this, than a stripper for a daughter. “Maybe she understands,” I say, voice shaky. “Maybe she knows you’re doing your best.”
He looks down, and I can only see him in profile. We walk another block before he brings himself under control. “You remind me of her,” he finally says.
I almost stumble even though there’s no crack in the sidewalk. And I’m never clumsy. There’s nothing to blame this on except pure shock. But I force myself to keep walking, head down. It may not be what I expected, but I know that from him it’s the highest compliment. “Thank you.”
“She had so many dreams. And no hope.”
Or maybe not a compliment. And it makes me angry for him to think of her like that. To think of me like that—so many dreams and no hope. “That’s not fair. She could’ve hoped and not told you.”
He laughs. “Oh, she told me. She told me about the mansion we’d live in and about traveling the world. We lived in the fucking rubble of those dreams. We lived on them. There was damn well nothing else. Instead of enough food for dinner, we had stories. She didn’t deserve that. And neither do you.”
“That’s not what I’m doing. I’m not waiting around for someone to come with a mansion or a plane ticket.” Actually I wouldn’t mind the plane ticket right about now. But I’ve had more than my fill of mansions and their locks and their secrets.
“Do you know how the tiger got his stripes?”
“Should I?”
“Probably not. It was in the book of stories from Kipling, the garage-sale antique.” His smile is both mocking and fond.
It makes my heart ache, imagining him as a little boy—hungry and yearning. “So what is this story?”
“It’s dark,” he warns, “as these stories often are. The animal kingdom is a violent place.”
Not so different from the human world then. “I’m not afraid.”
“Aren’t you?”
I don’t answer.
He tips his head down, hiding his expression. “So the tiger used to be the king of the jungle. Not the lion. Back then the tiger didn’t have any stripes. And he ruled with complete wisdom and mercy.”
“The good old days,” I say, voice wry.
He glances at me, lids half-lowered. “But one day two bucks came to him for advice, covered in blood. The tiger was taken by bloodlust and jumped on one of them, ripping out his throat.”
I swallow. Not so different from the human world at all.
“And so the tiger left the jungle in shame. When he came back, the weeds and the marshes rose up and marked him with black stripes so that everyone would see what he’d done.”
“If only the real world had that,” I say. “Then we’d know who was bad and who wasn’t.”
“I think maybe it does. Look at me. Most people know on sight that I’m bad news.” He’s talking about the tattoos that wind their way up his forearms. And maybe also the leather jacket and the boots.
And the grim air of danger that surrounds him.
“You put those on yourself,” I say softly. “Not like the tigers.”
“To me that’s what the story is about. The things we do to ourselves. The way we hurt ourselves and mark ourselves.”
It’s a cautionary tale. He’s warning me away from him.
I don’t say anything until we reach the thin, sagging palm tree that marks the perimeter of the Tropicana motel. I feel a little sick imagining a tiny version of Kip, a little boy watching his mother mourn the life she wanted. I feel sick imagining the tattoo gun piercing an older Kip’s skin while he looked on, thinking he deserved it as some kind of penance—as some kind of warning to the world around him.
But he has no idea what I deserve. “I’m sorry for what happened to her. But I’m not her.”
“I know that.”
“And you can’t save me or whatever you’re trying to do here.”
A sad smile flickers across his face. “I know that too. That isn’t what I’m doing here.”
He hands me my bag and stands with his arms at his sides as I start to walk away. My fists tighten on the straps of my bag. I stop, staring straight ahead, away from him.
After a beat, I ask, “Why are you here then?”
It can’t just be for sex. He could get that in the Grand. Why does he want to spend time with me?
But when I look back, the sidewalk is empty. He’s already gone.