“Good.” He sat forward. “I’ve noticed you working with the girls. And after today’s rehearsal, I gotta tell you…” He paused for effect. “…I’m wondering why you never gave me an opportunity to give you a management position. Because I gotta say, Birdie…I need you.”
“Wha…?” She turned to look at me before facing Sasha. “What is this?”
Sasha grinned then. “This is you getting a promotion. A well-deserved promotion, if you want it.”
Her eyes bugged out. “Are you playin’, baby? Because that ain’t funny. I got two babies to feed and I need the money. So if…”
Sasha slid over a piece of paper. Birdie picked it up with shaking hands and she whispered, “What’s this?”
Sasha smiled softly. “That’s your base wage. Underneath that is the bonus you’ll be getting for last week’s overtime.”
Birdie stuttered, “But…but…but…” Then rasped, “But that’s double what I’m getting now.”
He narrowed his eyes at her. “You saying you’re not worth that? Because I can adjust it to—”
She cut him off with a firm, “Don’t you dare! You hush now.”
And Sasha laughed. “Does this mean you’ll accept my offer?”
She raised a brow. “Slow down, sugar. You haven’t even told me what it is I’m gonna be doing. How about you start with that?”
I stepped forward, moving to stand by Sasha’s desk. I smiled down at my friend and told her, “Sasha was hoping you’d be the stage manager. Which puts you in charge of the girls, ordering new costumes, helping to choreograph their dance routines, setting up nightly rosters…that sort of stuff.”
Sasha nodded in agreement. “It also means you’ll have to work longer hours. Not too many, but at least another five hours a week.”
Birdie thought about it for a long moment then smiled up at Sasha. “I’ll make it work.” She held up the paper that Sasha had scribbled down her management wages on and waved it around. “For this, I’ll make it work, baby. You got yourself a stage manager.”
She squeaked excitedly as she stood and hugged the both of us, leaving Sasha and me for a moment alone. I smiled after her, clapping my hands together at the feeling you got from seeing someone you cared about succeed in a way they never thought possible.
I took a seat in the chair that Birdie had vacated and sighed lightly, “That was awesome.”
Sasha’s eyes narrowed at me.
My eyes widened. “What?”
He searched my face before muttering, “Who the fuck are you, Mina Harris?”
I rolled my eyes at him and his goddamn dramatics. “You know who I am, Sasha.” I mumbled, “I’m just a girl.”
He shook his head. “No. You’re not.”
I wasn’t sure what he meant by that, but he said it softly, and there was less acid in that statement than I had ever heard from Sasha. My brows bunched. “Hey. Are you okay?”
He ran a hand down his face. “No. Not really.” I wasn’t prepared for that admission, nor when he, suddenly looking weary, confessed, “If this doesn’t work, we’re going to have to shut down. We’re losing too much money.”
I knew this. It hadn’t been said, but we all knew it. It was one of the reasons the girls were working as hard as they were, and when Sasha surprised us all with an all-new interior, our excitement for opening night doubled.