"Mary!" a familiar voice bellowed from behind her. She turned to see Clive waving at her.
"Hey." She smiled to mask her disappointment at having been stood up by her potential customers.
"Belinda told me you were going out for your first stage dance, so I came and watched."
"What did you think?"
"Nice work, but I have just a couple suggestions. You might want to slow it down a bit. You seemed to be trying just a little too hard. Also, try to dance closer to the front of the stage. That makes it easier for the guys to approach you with their money."
"OK. I'll work on trying to do those things."
"Great," Clive nodded and smiled. "Say, I'm about to go to lunch. Would you and Jewell like to join me? My treat."
"Well, I know I'm hungry, but I can't speak for Jewell. I'll go ask her."
Clive nodded again. "I'll meet you in the entryway."
Mary found Jewell backstage, and she agreed to go to lunch with them. The two girls changed into their street clothes and met Clive in the entryway, where Sheba was filing her nails and snapping gum behind the counter as usual.
"Hey, baby," Clive said as Jewell approached. He casually wrapped his right arm around her and placed his hand on her left buttock.
"Hey, baby, yourself," Jewell responded as she leaned in to kiss him.
"I knew it!" Mary thought. "I just knew there was something wrong and skeevy about that guy. So that's what kind of a manager he is. Well no way will I ever let him put a hand on me…"
Out of the corner of his eye, Clive noticed the suspicious look on Mary's face. He pulled away from Jewell and said, "Mary, I think I forgot to mention something to you earlier. Jewell is my wife." He held up his wedding band and flashed a proud smile.
"A married stripper? Her husband lets her dance naked?" Unable to contain her surprise, Mary felt her eyes widen and her jaw drop. "But…but where's your wedding ring?" she stammered at Jewell.
"Oh, honey, please," Jewell laughed. "Do you think I'd make nearly as much in tips if guys knew I was married? Remember what I said. It's all about selling the fantasy. The customers in here don't want to think about me going home to another man, so I lose the ring whenever I dress to go on stage."
"Such a savvy little vixen, isn't she?" Clive beamed at his wife and played with her earlobe. "You see why I love her?" Not even waiting to gauge Mary's response, he abruptly turned to the receptionist and said, "Sheba, we're going to lunch. I'll be back in forty-five minutes or so."
Sheba waved her nail file in acknowledgement without bothering to look up.
***
As she plopped into the toasty but comfortable leather backseat of Clive's black BMW, Mary felt somewhat relieved. At least now her fears about Jewell being attracted to her had been proven unfounded. She still wasn't so sure about Clive, though. If he had fallen for one of his dancers, then what would keep him from falling for any other one who came along?
Such questions raced through her mind as Clive sped down the boulevard. "So, um, how did you guys meet and decide to get married and all that?" she eventually asked.
"Long story short, I met her at FMU. I was studying for my MBA and she was an underclassman in one of my classes. After I got certified, I accepted the job managing the Foxxy Laydee. We married shortly after. Then when I told her how much money the dancers made, she decided to take a job there too."
"I'm still working on my degree, though," Jewell added. "I'd really like to become a personal financial advisor after I graduate. After all, this dancing thing won't last forever."
Mary was surprised by every new revelation. "She started dancing after they got married? She's in college, studying to be a financial advisor? I never would have guessed it."
"What about you, Mary? What's your story?" Clive asked.
Mary wondered how much she should actually tell them. What would they think of her if they knew about her religious upbringing? How would they judge her dropping out of college to become a firefighter? What would they think if they found out she had been fired from her most recent job due to incompetence?
"Um, not much to tell, really. I just moved to Fort Lauderdale a week or so ago for work. But then the job didn't work out. So now I'm dancing." A nice, guarded answer.
"What kind of job was it?" Jewell asked.
"Flight attendant." No need to share any more.
"Where did you move here from, Mary?" Clive asked.
"Glenoak, California. That's where my family lives, and where I grew up." Just enough information, just the bare minimum.
"I wish they all could be California girls…" Clive sang cheesily.
"Shut up! You know I'm a Florida girl, born and raised." Jewell slapped his arm gently to scold him without disturbing his driving. Then she turned back to Mary and said, "I've lived here my whole life. Love it here! It's so close to the beach, and it's got all the Latin influence everywhere. And the weather's just gorgeous. I wouldn't want to live anywhere else."
"It is nice here," Mary acknowledged. "Hmm. If she's lived here her whole life, that must mean her family lives here too. I wonder how she hides the fact that she's dancing at the Foxxy Laydee from them. I'm going to have a hard enough time doing it myself, and my family lives clear across the country."
Clive pulled into a parking space in front of a small, green-roofed Japanese restaurant. "Here we are. Do you like sushi, Mary?"
Mary thought for a minute. "I don't know. I've never had it before, but…I guess I'll try anything once."
***
Mary could tell from the way Clive and Jewell grinningly observed her that her attempts to eat sushi were providing quite a spectacle. After accidentally dropping her first piece into the wasabi on three separate occasions, she gave up on trying to use chopsticks to eat her tuna, or "maguro" as it was called. She asked a waiter for a fork instead. Then, when she finally got the piece of fish into her mouth, she found it quite difficult to chew and swallow. It was fairly tasty, but its rubbery texture was unlike that of any food she had ever eaten before. Then the heat from the excess wasabi registered on her tongue, and Clive and Jewell laughed at her watering eyes.
"Wow. It's…interesting," she managed after finally swallowing her first bite. "Tastes unusual."
"It takes some getting used to," Clive reassured her. "I can't believe you're from California and you've never eaten sushi before, though. I thought everyone out there ate sushi."
"Well, my family has never been into the 'California lifestyle'. They're not exactly what I would call trendsetters, or trend-followers for that matter. They kind of march to their own beat. And besides, with as many kids as we had in the family, we usually had to agree on meals that everyone would eat, and sushi would not have been on that list." Mary smiled as she imagined Ruthie trying not to spit out a piece of wasabi-covered maguro.
"You come from a big family?" Jewell asked.
"What?" Mary snapped out of her reverie and remembered that she didn't really want to talk about her home life. Not here, not now. But it was probably too late. She had already said more than she needed to, and she couldn't think of a good way to get around Jewell's question.
"Depends on your concept of big, I guess." Would that work?
"How many brothers and sisters?"
Nope. Too late to get out of it. Mary sighed and answered, "One older brother, three younger brothers, two younger sisters."
Not surprisingly, Jewell's eyes bugged out. Mary was used to this kind of reaction when she told people about her family size. "Wow, I'm so jealous. I was an only child, and so was Clive."
"Yeah, well, there were times when I would have killed to be an only child."
"But I bet there were more times when you were glad you weren't," Jewell said with a hint of regret.
Mary smiled wistfully as she thought about Matt and all the times he had looked out for her, Lucy and all the times they had shared together in their old room, Simon, Ruthie, and the twins and all the mischievous, youthful trouble they used to get themselves into. "You're right."
Trying to distract herself from all the introspection, Mary returned to her maguro. As she gently dipped the fish into her wasabi, she remembered the question she had been dying to ask Jewell – whether or not her parents knew about her job. "So, do your parents still live here in Fort Lauderdale?"
"My father passed away a couple years ago, but my mother still works here as a high-school art teacher."
"Gosh, I'm sorry to hear about your father." After a respectful pause, Mary continued, "So…does your mother know what you do for a living?"
"Oh yeah. We tell each other everything. She had her reservations at first, but now she doesn't mind what I'm doing at all. Of course, it helps a lot that she knows how trustworthy my boss is." Jewell winked across the table at Clive.
Clive smiled back at Jewell and then turned to Mary. "I'm guessing, with your family thousands of miles away and all, that you haven't told them about your job yet."
"No, I haven't, and I don't think I ever will."
Clive shrugged. "You're an adult. That's up to you."
Mary nodded, but a strange sense came over her. "You're an adult," Clive had just said. Had anyone ever said that to her before? Perhaps. She couldn't really remember. But even if so, had anyone really treated her like one until now? Not Wilson, not her siblings, certainly not her parents. Even Ben and Captain Jack had treated her like she was incapable of making her own decisions.
Was she really capable, though? After all, it had been Robbie who had talked her into breaking up with Captain Jack, even though she knew now that it had been the right thing to do.
But no one had talked her into the dancing job. That had been all her idea. A crazy, spontaneous one, but her own idea nonetheless. And a very adult one at that.
"Mary? Mary, what's the matter? You're not touching your maguro. You don't like it, do you?" Clive sounded disappointed.
"Oh, no, it's pretty good, actually. I was just spacing out for a minute." She took another bite, savoring the exotic flavor of the fish, as well as the spicy kick of the wasabi. The taste was new to her, but indeed, it was pretty good.