We’re both lost in thought as we drive toward the strip club, and I keep checking Zelda’s phone, expecting a new message or clue to pop up at any second. I wonder how she’s keeping track of me—if she’s watching me somehow or if she just knows me too well. Is she trying to escape her debt? Is it just some elaborate ploy to keep me sucked into her chaotic life? And why did she come to France?
Wyatt drives exactly at the speed limit, stoically silent. I imagine that he has questions, too, but he’ll keep them under wraps until he’s swollen and sore with anger. He’ll be all calm silence and quiet support until something snaps, and then he’ll be blind fury and raging emotion. That’s a dangerous trait to have around us Antipovas; we like to wind people up and then release them, like some bored Greek deity with a flair for chaos. And Wyatt is a soft touch. Once, feeling mischievous, I asked Zelda to pretend to be me on the phone—we could never play switcheroo with Wyatt in the flesh; he knew us both too well—and he realized what we were up to after a few minutes of suppressed giggles. He hung up, and I assumed that was the end of it. But the next time I saw him, he was livid. He asked me, “How could you? Why would you make me reveal things to your sister that were meant only for you?” His cheeks were pink and he hollered at me, pacing and upset. Taken aback and suddenly feeling very guilty, I watched him with wide eyes, saying very little. It didn’t occur to me how very much he cared. He finally said, “I say things to you I would never say to another person.” I melted and let him lift me into his arms.
Some ten miles later, we pull into the parking lot at Kuma’s, and my heart starts thumping. I’ve never been to a strip club, and I feel strangely nervous. I examine this anxiety. I’m not afraid of the female body, no matter how buck-nekkid or bedazzled. I don’t think I’m afraid of seediness, or of male desire. Which suggests I’m afraid of what Zelda has left waiting in there. I glance at Wyatt as I slide down from the truck, and he looks deeply uncomfortable.
“You can wait in the truck, you know,” I offer gallantly. I’m tough, independent. I can do this alone.
“And let you go in by yourself to confront this guy? You have to be kidding, Ava.” He shakes his head as though I’m deranged, and I am relieved in spite of myself. I take a deep breath and stride across the parking lot. There are only a handful of cars here tonight, and I look around to see if I recognize any. It’s mostly nondescript pickups. With a deep breath, I open the door.
It’s dim inside, and very gritty. There’s an elevated stage, with a pole in the middle, and a scatter of seats upon which half a dozen men are slumped, blankly ogling the fake-tanned limbs of a bland-looking dancer. I reflect, not for the first time, that film and television have robbed us of shock, of seeing things for the first time. Kuma’s looks like the cheap strip club it is.
The bouncer by the door immediately asks us for seven dollars each, and I hand over a twenty. I’m appalled by how cheap the cover is. The bouncer doesn’t even look twice at me, and I suspect I’m not the first woman to have shown up here. Fuck knows why any woman would come here, though. Any man either, for that matter. It can’t be for the eroticism.
I can’t help suspecting that the other men in the room feel the same ambivalence, though maybe not for the same ludicrous reasons. I marvel again at male sexuality—these men must be somehow getting off on this. Do they go into the parking lot to jack off? Or the bathroom? Do they fuck each other there? Or is it all oneiric, psychic wankery? And then I wonder about the woman dancing. Is she getting off too? Or is this just a marginally better paid job than waitressing, where you exchange physical and emotional labor for pocket change rather than dollar bills tucked into your G-string? I shudder with a wave of both guilt and relief that I will probably never know.
Wyatt is staring at the walls, seemingly trying to take in the decor. The walls are mostly empty, though, and the interior decorator seems to have gone for minimal ambience. We are both trying not to look at the clientele; something instinctive tells me that they would not appreciate our gaze, while theirs is so fully fixed. I glance around and am surprised that there is no bar.
“There’s no booze,” I whisper to Wyatt, even though the Lady Gaga song is playing so loudly that I wouldn’t be overheard even if I shouted.
He nods. “Illegal in New York State. She’ll probably, uh, take off that…”
I smile as he blushes again.
“Her thong?”
“Uh, yeah. They can’t serve alcohol if it’s full nudity.”
“Oh.” This is disappointing. “So they just go and drink in the parking lot?”
Wyatt shrugs. “I don’t know. I’ve never been here, Ava.”
“I’m shocked.” I glance around, trying subtly to spot the guy who was in the photo with Holly Whitaker. With his tatted beefcake arms, I should be able to pick him out reasonably well, but he’s not here.
“What now?” Wyatt looks at me helplessly. I settle down onto a stool, and Wyatt lurks protectively by my shoulder. I’m not quite sure what I was expecting. Wyatt’s hand rests on my leg.
Another song comes on, and a new dancer appears on the stage. I immediately recognize Holly Whitaker; her crimpy hair and overplucked eyebrows are hard to mistake. Why is Zelda’s closest friend a stripper?
“Wyatt,” I say uneasily, “you don’t think Zelda was…” I trail off.
His eyebrows lurch toward the ceiling. “Jeez. You think she was…dancing?” He sounds physically pained. I don’t blame him. I’m suddenly nauseous, the falafel roiling in my pickled stomach.
“I don’t know. With the debt…She’s always been sort of reckless….”
“It is the sort of thing that would appeal to her,” Wyatt acknowledges.
“It makes for a good story. She gets into stupid amounts of debt, tries to pay it off by dancing at a strip club for a while, privileged girl learns the ropes of seedy underworld…the sort of extreme narrative she would like.” I’m convincing myself. Fuck, Zelda. It could explain what she’d been living off. All that cash. I fish around in my fringed bag for more money and sidle up toward the stage, waiting for the song to end. Holly is upside down on the pole, her inverted face appearing surreal and almost grotesque. Blue eye shadow. A tough look to rock. She rights herself, and I can hear her thighs squeaking along the pole even through the Katy Perry cacophony. I’m uncannily reminded of playgrounds, of sliding down poles wearing skirts, the slight burn of dry skin against warm metal. A sensation maybe only little girls and pole dancers know. The image of the playground in this place seems both deeply disturbing and fundamentally appropriate, especially since Holly is (well, was) wearing a schoolgirl outfit.
As the song ends, I lean forward with my twenty and try to catch Holly’s eye. She sees me immediately, and her stage smile collapses.