Tease (Songs of Submission #2)(3)

“Hi, Lil.” I slid my tray onto the bar and pressed a damp terry towel to my soda-sticky palms before offering my hand. She shook it, but only for a second, as if the familiarity made her uncomfortable.

Lil handed me a small beige envelope that seemed only wide enough for a check. My name was scribbled on the front in blue ballpoint.

“It’s not a subpoena, is it?” I joked.

“Nah.”

I looked from her, to Debbie, and back. Lil gave me a short nod and said, “Thank you,” before walking out.

“What was that about?” I asked Debbie.

“Yeah,” said Robert, appearing like a bad penny, elbow on the bar, peering at my envelope. I smacked him with it.

“Take your break,” Debbie said to me. “Maddy has you covered.”

I took my little envelope to the back room, which had a few long tables, a vending machine, microwaves, and our lockers. I was alone. I opened the envelope.

Dear Monica,

Can you meet me at the Loft Club after work? I’d like to talk to you, at length, until morning if possible.

Lil will meet you out front after your shift.

If you can’t make it, let her know.

—Jonathan

The print was tightly written with the same blue ballpoint. As though he’d dashed it off without thinking, or as if he had been in a rush. For the billionth time that afternoon, I counted the days since we’d last seen each other. He’d said he was going to Korea for two weeks, and it had been just about that. I put the paper to my nose and got his dry smell full in the face. A controlled scent, it was truly original.

I had no idea how I would get through the second half of my shift. I had a gig that night, and it was an important one. According to the assistant’s assistant I had spoken to at WDE, half of their talent agents would be at Frontage to see me and Gabby, though she and I were still a nameless pairing. I had four hours between my lunch shift and my gig. I could squeeze Jonathan in. Making plans with him before the gig was foolish and reckless, but I wanted to see Jonathan Drazen almost as much as I wanted to play.

CHAPTER 2

Lil waited out front, leaning on a grey Bentley in a loading zone. When she saw me, she opened the back door.

“Hi. Uh…” I felt weird getting into the car without knowing where I was going or who was driving.

Lil spoke as if reading my mind. “I’m Mister Drazen’s driver. I’ll take you there and back. If you’re going to be out late, you can give me your car key, and I’ll take care of your car for you.”

“How?”

“Take it back to your house.”

“How would you get back to your car?”

Lil smiled as if I was a seven-year-old asking why water floated down, not up. “I’m not the only staff. Don’t worry. Please. I do this for a living.”

I smiled at her, broadcasting pure discomfort, and slid into the back seat.

I’d never been in a car like that before. Darren and I had taken a limo to prom, but it smelled of beer and vomit and the carpet was damp from a recent shampoo. I’d ridden in Bennet Mattewich’s Ferarri down the 405 at two a.m. He thought the ride bought him a blow job, but it almost bought him a slashed tire. We’d stayed friends, but he never took me out in his dad’s car again.

The Bentley was huge. The leather seats faced each other and it had brushed chrome buttons I didn’t understand without a crumb or speck of grime anywhere around them. The paneling was wood—real wood, dark and warm—and though the ride took about ten minutes, I felt as if I’d been transported from one world to another via spacecraft.

The car stopped on a dead end street in the most industrial part of downtown, somewhere between the arts district and the river. Next to the car was an old warehouse with a top floor made exclusively of windows. The side of the building facing the parking lot was painted in matte black with modernist lettering listing each tenant. No mention of a Loft Club or anything like it.

I’d seen enough movies to know I should wait, and Lil was at my door in two seconds flat, as if I was incapable of opening it myself.

“Go on in to the desk, and the concierge will take care of you.” She handed me a cardboard rectangle the size of a business card with a few numbers printed on the front. The word LOFT was printed on the top, in grey.

“Thanks,” I said. I walked up the steps and inside. When I showed the card to the Asian gentleman behind the lobby’s glass counter, I was still convinced I was either in the wrong building or the whole thing was a cruel joke.

He checked the card against something written in a leather book in a way that wasn’t rude but was somehow officious. I shifted a little in my waitress getup: a black wrap shirt and short skirt, from Target and the thrift store on Sunset respectively. I felt as though my clothes exposed me as an outsider or worse: a liar and sneak. But he looked up with a smile and said, “Down this hall behind me. Pass the first elevator bank and make a left. I’ll buzz you through the doors. There’s another elevator at the end of the hall. Take it to the top.”

“Thank you.”

My heels clicked on the concrete floors. I shrugged my bag close. I passed the first set of elevators and made the left. A pair of frosted glass doors stood in my way, and I noticed a camera hovering above them. A second later, a resonant beep preceded a click, and the doors whooshed open.