Paris put the vodka back in the cupboard, took my hand, and dragged me back to the kitchen. She opened the oven, slipped on a flowery mitt that I never would have pictured in her apartment, and took out a tray of huge chocolate cookies, perfectly browned.
“Ta-da!” she said.
I mimed clapping.
Paris expertly slid the cookies onto a plate and then led the way back into the living room. She indicated for me to sit down again.
Right. The moment I’d been putting off. The awkwardness.
“Eat,” said Paris. She pushed the plate at me. They looked good—soft in the middle, the chocolate still molten.
I swallowed. “Um. Sorry … I should have said before … I’m allergic,” I said. “Peanuts. I’m really sorry. They look amazing.”
“No peanuts in these.”
I gave a half smile, embarrassed. I hated this, I always had. “It’s more complicated than that. What about the flour?”
“What about it?”
“Is it made in a facility that handles nuts? The chocolate?”
Her eyes widened. “Really? It’s that serious?”
“Yep.” I held up the bag I always carried with me, the one my mother had embroidered my name onto, and showed her the two EpiPens inside, the bronchodilating inhaler. “The smallest trace, and I could die.”
She went to the kitchen and came back with a bag of chocolate chips. I turned it over, showed her the label: MAY CONTAIN NUTS.
“Sorry,” I said.
She shrugged. “Don’t be. Next time I’ll get the right stuff. Can’t have you dying on me.”
I smiled.
She started carrying the plate of cookies back to the kitchen.
“You’re not having one?” I asked.
“Carbs? Are you kidding me?”
I frowned. “But you baked them.”
“Yeah. I like the distraction. It’s therapeutic.”
“Oh. Okay.”
Paris was wearing a long bodycon dress with vivid neon flowers all over it. Her hair was piled up, secured with chopsticks. She looked much better than she had at the hospital. She threw herself down on the chair opposite me, splayed herself—she had a way of sitting down like a cat; her limbs didn’t seem to have the same bones as most people.
“Your condo is beautiful,” I said.
“Thanks.”
“Is it … um … do you …”
“Do I pay for it with the ill-gotten gains from taking my clothes off on a webcam?”
THE VOICE: ******* slut whore.
“Uh, yeah.”
“Partly. But my dad pays too. Sends a check in the mail. His signature on those checks is pretty much the only communication I ever have from him.”
“You’re not close?”
She smiled. “You could say that.”
“Does he live in Oakwood?”
She shook her head. “New York. Mom too. But, I mean, in separate apartments. They can’t stand each other. I went to high school there, but as soon as I could I got out.”
“Headed to the glamorous Jersey Shore,” I said.
“Yeah,” said Paris, grinning. “But with the checks from my dad, and my work too, I got this sweet pad. So I’m happy.”
“Do your parents know about … you know. The cam stuff?”
“No, thank God. They don’t check up on me, which is good, because they have some serious problems with my lifestyle choices as it is. We are, what would you say? We are somewhat estranged.”
“Sorry.”
“Sorry what?”
“That you’re, I don’t know, estranged.”
She waved this away. “Only one of my many issues.”
“How does it work?” I asked. “The modeling. I mean … do you have, like, an agency?”
Paris laughed. “Cass! It’s the twenty-first century. I have Instagram for promotion, and then I have a website. People subscribe, and they can watch me when I decide to stream a video. Or book me for an event or whatever.”
“People? You mean men?”
“Well, yeah. I guess.”
I remembered her card. “And the bachelor parties?”
“Stripping, basically,” she said. “Private parties. Way more lucrative than the clubs. Five hundred bucks a pop. Julie hates it.”
“Because …”
“Because she thinks it’s not safe. But these are birthday parties, you know? College graduations, bachelor parties.”
“But … what about … safety? Don’t you get scared?”
“I have a no-touching policy,” said Paris. “That puts off the worst creeps, I figure. And Julie drives me if I go to a party. Plus, there’s kind of a network, you know? Someone gets a bit rough, one of the other girls will e-mail about it. Post it on one of the forums—his e-mail address, that kind of thing. We watch out for one another.”
“Wow.” I seemed to keep saying that.
She looked at her watch. It was a men’s Rolex—I recognized it because it was like the one my dad got from the Navy stores, but much newer. A black-bezeled Submariner. A diving watch.
“You dive?” I asked.