Outside her apartment building, Mary dropped a couple coins into the slot to open up the newspaper box. It couldn't hurt to look through the want-ads while she was awaiting her callback from the Foxxy Laydee.
Upon entering her apartment, she sat down on the floor in her unfurnished dining alcove to pore over the newspaper's offerings. Housecleaning jobs, a nanny job, temp agencies; those were all possibilities. Perhaps, as a pre-emptive strike, she should call one of the numbers listed in those advertisements. That way, when and if the Foxxy Laydee called back, she could answer, "I'm sorry. I've taken a position elsewhere, and will be unable to dance at your club." It wouldn't be breaking the pledge she had made to herself. After all, she had only promised to apply for and get a job at the first place she approached. The promise hadn't said anything about taking a different job before receiving an offer from that first place.
Ah, sweet loophole, an excuse not to strip in public. Seriously, what would Mom and Dad have to say about her doing that? Oh, they could never find out that she had applied for a job at a strip club. It would be too much for them to handle.
On the other hand, what was there to be ashamed of? She had a nice body, athletic, toned, and curvy in the right places; and the thought of showing it off for the first time in her life held some appeal, deep down. Of course, she would never admit that to anyone. But inside, she knew it was true.
She also knew how men had looked at her, ever since she had developed feminine curves. It was impossible not to notice, because it happened so frequently: their gawking eyes, gaping mouths, stammering self-introductions. How, then, could she be unaware of her appeal to the opposite sex? And so, why not use that appeal for profit? It wasn't prostitution…technically, anyway.
After tiring of looking at the classifieds, Mary turned on her television set. Anything to distract herself from this little ethical dilemma she was experiencing. She flipped through all the channels, but nothing good was on. "Stupid basic cable," she muttered as she turned the television set off. She remembered that at the moment, she really couldn't even afford the most basic of cable packages. Nor could she technically afford the phone service upon which she was awaiting her callback.
From her experiences living on her own in Buffalo, she knew that most bill collectors allowed a two-month grace period. But this time around, in her new life in Fort Lauderdale, she didn't want to use the entire grace period every time she paid a bill. And she didn't want to go around recklessly spending money she didn't have, the way she had in Glenoak. This time, she wanted to do things the right way, and to avoid using credit as much as possible.
But to live like that, she needed money that she didn't have. Gosh, what was taking the Foxxy Laydee so long to call back? Had it really been five hours since she turned in the job application? Five whole hours?! What was taking them so long?!
***
On top of being impatient, around 5:30 Mary also started getting hungry. She had skipped lunch, and she didn't have any groceries in the house.
"I could call Reginald," she considered. "He was definitely the cutest security guard at the airport. Maybe he would take me out to dinner."
As she walked toward the phone, Mary caught a glimpse of her reflection in her hallway mirror. She turned to study it more closely. The hair, long, brown again, cascading down toward twenty-two year old cream-colored cleavage. Pretty. Really pretty. How could Reginald say no?
But after a moment she frowned and scolded herself, "What am I doing? I can't make up my mind, can I? First I decide to be independent. Then I decide to call a man to try to get a free dinner out of it? That's pathetic.
"But then again, it won't be much different when I'm feeding myself from tips that guys have stuffed in my garter, will it?"
After sighing heavily and deciding against calling Reginald, Mary gathered up the small amount of money she had collected from cashing her final airline paycheck and headed for the grocery store. She hesitated to leave, but then thought, "If the Foxxy Laydee calls while I'm gone, the answering machine will get it."
***
Upon returning from her lonely, boring trip to the store, Mary felt unusually tired. "Man, it's a pain in the butt carrying all these groceries up two flights of stairs," she thought as she trudged upward. "I wish this place had an elevator like the apartment in Buffalo."
Eventually she reached her door. As she tried to work her keys out of her pocket, she accidentally dropped an orange and a can of stew on the floor. After a few moments of unsuccessfully struggling to extract her keys without dropping more groceries, a thought occurred to her. "I bet a dancer at the Foxxy Laydee could make this look sexy."
Mary devilishly glanced up and down the apartment building hallway and, seeing no one, started practicing her seductive maneuvers. She reached down and picked up the orange she had dropped, rubbing it around her neck and then setting it directly in her cleavage. Then she began swaying her hips back and forth, trying to slide her fingers into her pocket to reach the keys each time her hip rocked to the outside.
"What in hell's bells are you doing, young lady?" cracked a raspy voice from behind her.
Mary was so startled that she dropped all the groceries she had been holding, except for the orange in her cleavage. She turned around to see an elderly woman looking at her scornfully. An aged man, probably her husband, stood next to her, his jaw agape. The woman slammed the door across the hall from Mary, leading Mary to conclude that these two people must be her neighbors.
"I…I was just trying to get my keys out of my pocket. I…I had a handful of groceries," Mary stammered lamely, her face turning crimson with embarrassment as she plucked the orange from her chest.
"Well I thought you were a prostitute! You looked like one of those…no-good streetwalkers," the lady shouted scornfully, and loud enough for the whole third floor to hear.
"She looked just fine to me, Doris," the grinning old man chirped.
"Oh, shut up, Harold!" the woman shouted, angrily slapping the man on his upper arm. "Come on now, we've already missed the early bird at Denny's, you slowpoke." She grabbed Harold's upper arm and dragged him toward the staircase. Harold gazed back at Mary and smiled the whole way to the stairs.
"Oh my God, that old lady actually thought I was a hooker. And her husband keeps ogling me like a cut of meat! What am I doing?"
Shortly after they were out of view, however, Mary felt her embarrassment begin to fade away. As she unlocked her door and picked up her groceries, a confident smile began to spread slowly across her face.
"Yup. The old man was digging my hot moves. I'm going to make a fortune as a dancer!"
***
After entering her apartment, Mary anxiously noticed that the message light was flashing on her answering machine.
"I can't take the suspense anymore. Please be the Foxxy Laydee! Please be the Foxxy Laydee! Please be the Foxxy Laydee!" she whispered as she reached down and pushed the "Play" button…
"Hello. This is a prerecorded message from your Congressman, Michael Cortez. As you know, Election Day is coming up soon, and…BEEP!" the machine sounded loudly as Mary slammed her finger down on the "Delete" button. Really, she had only been in Fort Lauderdale for three days and already she was getting political phone spam? Sick.
Even more sickening, though, was the fact that she still hadn't received her callback. However, as she began to put her groceries away, the phone started ringing.
"Hello?" Mary answered expectantly.
"Hello, may I speak to Mary Camden please?"
"This is she."
"Mary, this is Clive Randolph, the manager of the Foxxy Laydee. I'm pleased to announce that we would like to offer you a position here as a dancer."
She paused to gather herself. Momentarily, somewhere between laughter and unease, Mary found the words to accept the offer.