I swipe a hand down my beard and look to the heavens. “Seth, focus” is all I say.
“Right. Ummm… da, da, da, exotic dancer, missing friend… Oh! That’s it. Okay, so the original report was filed a week and a half ago saying that this exotic dancer’s bestie-slash-coworker just up and disappeared one night. She didn’t show up for work at A Secret, with no notice, and she realized she hadn’t talked to her all day, which wasn’t abnormal, because they sleep during the day and work all night. This girl was gone without a trace. Left all her shit at work and never even came home.” I hear papers shuffling on the other end of the line before he continues.
“But then, plot twist! She calls her bestie alive and well in another state, and the next day, all her shit from her apartment was picked up in a moving van. Some big opportunity she couldn’t pass up and was just going to come back for her belongings later, which apparently she did. Just not the stuff at work,” he finishes, and I lean my head back against the seat, looking out the front windshield as a valet hops into a golf cart to ride back to the mansion after dropping off another luxury vehicle in the lot surrounding me.
Suddenly, there’s a knock on my driver-side window, and my head whips around, startled, because I hadn’t been able to see whoever it is approach, because I have my phone up to my left ear.
I find Astrid’s grinning face peeking in at me, her hands cupped around her eyes, trying to see in through the dark tint. She must’ve at least been able to see my sharp movement, because she giggles and says, “Boo!” and I chuckle, shaking my head as I push the button to lower the window.
I put Seth on speakerphone, because I know he’ll want to tell my girl hi. “Astrid just got out, Seth. I’ll talk to you tomorrow,” I tell him.
“Sounds good, bro. Bro…. Bro! O-M-G, Doc, you realize when you marry Astrid, we’ll be married to sisters, so that’ll make us like… for real brothers then? Holy shit!” I shake my head, and Astrid’s eyes widen. “Hey, sis! Congrats on your first day at your first big-girl job! Proud of you, lady,” Seth tells her, and her face softens.
“Thanks, brother-in-love. Tell my sister I love her and that we’ll make plans to get together this coming week to catch up and so I can kiss the belly. This past one kind of got away from me,” she tells him, and her cheeks turn a pretty shade of pink as her eyes meet mine, telling me she’s thinking of the fact that we’ve spent every evening together enjoying each other’s company… and body.
“Will do! Goodnight, y’all,” he says and disconnects.
“I’d get out and open your door for you, but if you’re looking me in the eye right now, that means your perfect little body is precariously perched atop my running board. Get in, goddess. I can’t wait to hear about your night,” I tell her, and she grins and hops down then rounds the hood of the truck to get in.
When she’s all buckled in, purse in her lap, she pulls a wad of cash out and spreads it out like a fan. My eyebrows go up when I see they’re all hundreds except for one twenty. “Three hours, Neil. Three hours of playing dress up with a bunch of real-life Barbie dolls, and they hand me this.” She squeals, shoving it at me. “It can’t be real, right? This is too good to be true. Can you like, look at them and see if they’re fake? I mean, I’ve never actually seen these newer hundred-dollar bills in person before, so it could be Monopoly money for all I know, but it smells real. Surely they couldn’t fake that very distinct smell, right?”
She’s trembling with excitement and nervousness, and I flip on the overhead lights, holding the bills up one by one to take a good and close look. I hand them back to her, and she grips them tight while she waits for my verdict.
“That’s definitely not Monopoly money, goddess. Congratulations. You just earned your first paycheck—well, not paycheck. Payout. But you know what I mean,” I tell her, and she squeals again, flapping the cash in the air. I can’t help but laugh at her giddiness, some of the uneasiness I felt earlier calming a bit.
I turn off the lights inside the cab and put the truck in Drive, pulling out of the parking spot and making our way toward the gate. It opens automatically at the exit, and we pull onto the main road. “So tell me all about it,” I urge.
“Well, I showed up, and this place was crazy on the inside. Like, empty out a giant mansion and turn one of the big-ass great-rooms into a bar with a stage and like… the huge fancy formal dining room into a dance club with all the lights and DJ booth and all that. That’s really all I saw before I found where I was supposed to be. I suppose it was maybe the staff quarters or something that they turned into a humongous dressing room. But I’m not talking about some little changing area with a mirror and secondhand vanity. I’m saying this thing was a girly-girl’s dream. With an entire wall of clothes. Like, take all of Barbie’s different outfits, and hang them on a rack that reaches from one wall to the other. And then the mirrors with their perfect lighting and salon chairs,” she says dreamily, making me smile. “It was amazing.”