Positive (4 page)

He looked at the
clock, too, and sighed. "Actually, I do." He fidgeted on the exam
table and leaned forward, swallowing hard and tugging at the small
hairs on his neck. "I haven't told my roommate. She's not my
partner
, but..." He bit
down on his lip. "I think I need to tell her," he
whispered.

Pam nodded, and her usually warm brown eyes
hardened. She opened a cabinet and pulled out a stack of pamphlets,
then handed one to him. "There's a support group that meets at the
community center once a week. I think it would help if you checked
it out." She smiled, but her eyes remained cold. When she continued
to smile at him, he slowly stood, then left the exam
room.

* * * * *

Victor pulled a small white box out of his
pocket. He flipped it open, looked at the big diamond on the white
gold band, closed it, and slipped the box back into his pocket.
Then, he unlocked the front door.

The house sat in quiet shadows. He turned on a
lamp in the living room, glanced into the dark kitchen, then took
the stairs two at a time to the bedroom. The door stood about an
inch open, but the room looked dark. He pushed the door open.
"Ingrid?" he called. He flipped on the hall light. Her small form
lay curled under the blankets. The room stank of sweat and unwashed
hair.

In the light from the hall, he noticed a bottle
of prescription pills on the bathroom counter. He picked it up,
read his own name, and the name of the sleeping pills he'd started
taking when he'd been too stressed at work to fall asleep. He
hadn't needed them in months, but never threw out the rest. His
heart thudding in his chest, he counted them. A few were missing.
He put them back in the cabinet, then sat down on the closed
toilet. The ring suddenly felt heavy in his pocket.

* * * * *

Josalee's phone rang just as she got into her
apartment. She rifled through her purse for it, then pressed it to
her ear. "Hello?"

"May I speak to Josalee Sato?" a woman
asked.

"Speaking," Josalee said. She kicked off her
flats and padded into the kitchen.

"I have your blood work results here," the
woman said, as though she were telling Josalee that someone had
died.

She sank into a chair at the kitchen table.
"Okay?" she heard herself say. Her blood roared in her ears,
drowning out her voice.

"Your white blood cell counts are awfully low,
so Dr. Skinner wants you to come in tomorrow morning so we can run
another set of blood tests," the woman said.

"Is this... bad?" Josalee asked. She stood,
poured water from the tap into a glass, and took a slow
sip.

"There are a number of reasons for low white
blood cell counts. We just want to narrow down some possibilities,
so come on in tomorrow morning, okay?" the woman said.

Josalee's vision grayed. "Okay," she said in a
small voice, and hung up. "What's wrong with my baby?" she asked
the empty kitchen.

Chapter 8

The bouncer held out a thick hand. "Seven," he
shouted, glaring.

Victor handed the bouncer a ten. The man folded
it, slipped it into a pocket, then handed Victor three worn, sweaty
ones. "Thanks," Victor said, scowling as he moved inside. He shoved
the nasty ones into his front pocket.

Girls wearing fishnet and bikinis strutted up
and down a stage, cloaked only by the dark. The silver disco light
overhead occasionally bared thighs and breasts as it flashed on
them. One girl spun on the pole so fast that Victor thought she
might fall. She whirled to the bottom, slowed, and tilted her head
back, slowly twirling around.

He turned and walked to the bar, avoiding the
shot girls prowling the floor. He put a hand down on the counter
and waited for the bartender. She stood at the other end of the
bar, laughing with two men wearing white tees and Yankees hats. A
corset pressed her breasts up to almost her neck, and her jeans
hugged her legs as though they were tattooed on. The scent of
sweat, alcohol, and too-sweet perfume hung in the air. The scent of
cigarettes whooshed in as the door to a patio closed behind another
man. Victor fished out his wallet and let the lights glint off the
plastic of his credit card. The bartender smiled at the guys in the
Yankees caps, then sauntered down to Victor.

"What can I get you, hon?" she yelled over the
booming bass and rap. She leaned on the counter and he noticed she
wore a thin gold cross around her neck.

He snorted. "Captain and Coke," he said,
holding the credit card out to her. "No ice."

"Can I see your driver's license?" she asked,
one hand on her hip. She smiled and pouted at the same time, and
her pink lips stuck together.

He shook his head, but held his license out to
her. "Okay?" he asked.

She nodded. "Just wanted to see how much older
than me you are." She winked and he felt nauseous. She poured his
drink, slid it over to him, then tapped the screen underneath the
bar counter. "You wanna open a tab?"

He nodded and handed her his card, then picked
up his drink and sipped. He nodded to himself, then headed over to
the stage.

A shot girl with blond hair and fake breasts
wobbled up to him on stilettos. "Shot?" She smiled. He waved her
away. She frowned, then walked past him on Bambi legs. He sat down
at the stage and dug the ones out of his pocket, then set them on
the stage.

A girl with curly dark hair slithered over to
him on her hands and knees. She smiled and her green eyes fixed on
his. "Hey," she said in a voice distilled in whiskey and
cigarettes. She sat on her knees in front of him, fully clothed
compared to the other girls, then glanced down at the money. "I
don't dance for three dollars." She turned.

"Wait." He pulled his wallet out of his pocket
and peered inside. "All's I got are twenties," he said.

She shrugged and examined the first button on
her shirt. "Oh well," she said.

He scowled. "Women. They either ignore you or
want your money." He half-slammed the twenty on the stage; she
pinned it with the palm of her hand before his fingers fully
slipped away, sliding it and the ones out of his reach.

She shook her curls out, then brought her
fingers back to the button on her shirt. As she unbuttoned it, she
rose to her feet and swayed to the synthetic drums. She locked her
eyes on his, smiled, and dropped her shirt to the stage, exposing a
bikini top. He noticed that her breasts were normal sized and
weren't pushed up all the way to her chin. He took another sip of
his drink and watched as she dipped her hips, her skirt flapping.
As he ducked his head to get a peek, she spun on her stilettos and
closed her legs, wagging her finger at him. He rolled his eyes and
sat back in his chair. "Come on," he said.

She rose an eyebrow at him and lowered herself
to the floor, bringing her cleavage to his eye level. He nodded.
"That's better." The music changed to heavy rock. Still smiling,
her eyes shining, she shook her hips and curls, her body loosening
with each drum beat. She rolled onto her back and slid toward him
until he sat looking directly up her skirt. She shook her legs in
the air and when he leaned forward, laughed and rolled
away.

"This is bullshit," he called to her as she
stood and strutted toward the pole. She turned and looked at him,
touching her lower lip with one finger and raising an eyebrow at
him, eyes wide. "You're a cocktease."

She laughed again, got down on her hands and
knees, and crawled toward him until she was nose to nose with him.
"And?" she laughed.

"I gave you a twenty." He leaned in to kiss
her, but she moved her head to the side.

"Would you like a lap dance?" she whispered in
his ear.

"I want my money's worth," he
growled.

She slid away from him. "When I come back on
stage," she said, picking up her shirt and the small pile of money,
"make sure you have your money ready." The song ended. She stood
and walked off the stage.

* * * * *

He unlocked the front door and stumbled into
the house around three in the morning. Even he could smell the rum
on himself. He took the stairs slowly, and when he got to the
bedroom, pushed open the door and went straight to the bed. He
crawled toward the lump that he thought was Ingrid. "Hey," he said.
"Wake up, babe." He pulled back the comforter and found only her
body pillow.

Chapter 9

Ingrid skimmed through the description of a
paraprofessional job listing. "Temporary," she muttered. "What else
is new?" Her phone rang and she snatched it off the table. Her
shoulders sagged as she read the name on the display. "Hey Jo," she
sighed.

"Hey," Josalee said. "You okay?"

Ingrid exhaled into the phone. "No offense, but
I was really hoping you were someone calling for an
interview."

She practically heard Josalee frown. "An
interview? Why? What happened?"

Ingrid scrolled through the rest of the
education job listings and, finding nothing, went back to the main
page with all of the job categories. "I got laid off. The position
was only temporary, and I knew that going in, but they told me they
might keep me. I wasn't even there long enough to be able to
collect unemployment, Jo. They screwed me!"

"Why only temporary? Aren't aides important?"
Josalee asked.

"We are, but let's face it: if the school
doesn't have to pay for health insurance and 401(k), they save
money." She tapped her fingernails on the table as she looked
through the categories.

"Well, I'll keep my eyes open," Josalee
offered.

"What's ETC?" Ingrid asked, frowning at the
last category. "Listen to these, Jo. Paid MRI study. Help couples
struggling with infertility... Dude." She giggled.

"Speaking of," Josalee said. "Ingrid, I need to
tell you something."

"Oh wow," Ingrid
said, "there's even an ad for
strippers
. I mean, they're calling
them 'dancers,' but
that's
not obvious or anything."
She shrugged and clicked on it, just to see.

Josalee laughed. "Listen,
Ingrid..."

Ingrid's eyes
flew across the screen. "Jo, I'm sorry. I've gotta go. I just found
something kind of promising. I'll call you tomorrow." She hung up
and turned back to the ad. She didn't really
want
to work at a strip club, but
the thought of making $300 in one night and catching up on her half
of the rent in less than a week was too tempting. She could do it
for a little while, keep her eyes open for a permanent
paraprofessional position, or even go back to school for nursing
like her mother kept suggesting. No one needed to know where she
worked in the meantime.

* * * * *

She applied a final layer of lip gloss, glanced
at her hair in the mirror on the driver's side visor, and opened
her car door. She winced as little jolts of pain flew up her calves
with each step, her heels clicking on the asphalt. She couldn't
remember the last time she'd worn heels; she'd quickly learned to
love flats while working as an aide.

A bouncer the size of a linebacker stopped her
at the door. "Five for ladies," he said.

"Oh," she said, digging into her purse. "I'm
just here about the bartending job."

He glanced at her heels and smirked. "Right."
He moved aside. "Go on. Owner's at the bar."

She squeezed by
him and pressed her lips together as the heavy bass in the music
assaulted her ears. She paused and watched, hypnotized, as two
topless girls swung around the pole, so close to each other that
they looked like they were having sex. Ingrid quickly looked away,
blushing. She glanced at the door. The bouncer stood with his arms
crossed, watching her. She rolled her eyes.
I don't have anything to be embarrassed
about
, she reminded herself, and marched
past the stage toward the bar. Plastic sea shells covered the walls
and changed color every thirty seconds or so. For some reason, they
reminded her of
The Little
Mermaid
. She wondered whether the girls
on stage felt like mermaids, or if they felt
humiliated.

"What can I get ya, hon?" a short man with
yellow, saggy skin and bulging eyes shouted to her over the music.
He almost looked like a turtle, with his round head and the way his
shoulders hunched around his neck.

She held out a hand to him. "I'm Ingrid. I'm
here about the bartending job?"

He grinned. His teeth were nearly brown,
crooked. "Come on back," he said, motioning to the swinging door at
the side of the bar counter. She glanced toward the end of the bar.
A bartender with large breasts and skinny legs slid a beer across
the counter to a tall man wearing a too-small jacket. A group of
loud and scrawny, acne-bitten men strode up to the bar at the same
time as a group wearing University of New Haven sweatshirts
squeezed into a hole at the counter. She crossed her fingers,
hoping the owner would have her stay and start making drinks. A
group of men came inside from a small porch, the scent of
cigarettes barely masking the sharp scent of vodka rising off them
the way steam rises off a swamp. She followed the turtle man behind
the bar and into a dimly lit office area.