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“I feel like I’m losing a daughter,” she says making my eyes misty.
“It’s not goodbye I’ll come see you,” I promise, it’s completely true, I will never be able to forget what she did for me, how she helped me find a strength I never knew I possessed.
“Get out of here,” Sam says pushing me slightly towards the door, “the rest of us still have work to do.”
“Bye everyone,” I shout, and their chorus of goodbyes and good lucks stay with me all the way to New York.
There things take a turn for the better because I got the job. YAY!But just mere weeks later, far,farworse.
Chapter 2
“What do you mean there’s not a job?” I asked my new boss two months after I first stepped through the doors after taking it. I had signed a lease for an apartment, using some of my savings from the club for the security deposit, and despite the raise in my salary, the place was extremely expensive, as was everything else here.
“There have been some unexpected cutbacks at corporate level which has affected our staffing. Your position was eliminated along with several others, vacant and not,” he tells me, and my newly singular world begins to fall apart. “I am sorry about this Amelia; your work has been outstanding, but I can’t keep you on.”
“Thank you,” I say, although I don’t feel like thanking anyone, least of all the person who just told me I was out of a job.
“If there’s anything I can do to help, references or recommendations, please let me know,” is how he ends the news.
I suddenly feel like going outside and screaming until my voice is raw. Instead, I simply nod and shoot him a ‘you’re an ass even if it’s not totally your fault but I’m still blaming you though you don’t know it’ smile, gathered my things, noticing several others doing the same, and walk out. My first stop is home todrop off my pictures and plant that’s nearly half-dead. Isodo not have a green thumb, but it was a gift from the ladies at work, and then run down to the coffee shop for a tea.
While I’m there I pick up a newspaper to search for something else. I can’t afford to break my lease and there’s no job for me back in Missouri, a co-worker had been promoted almost before I’d even handed in my notice, so I have to make a go of it here. A few ads look promising, but I quickly found out that looking promising and actually being promising are two completely and utterly different things.
I have enough saved to cover rent for about six months, but I’d really prefer not to use it and Sam’s words keep playing over in my head about Vivian’s club and Maura. The thought crosses my mind that maybe that’s really what I’m supposed to be doing. After all, everything happens for a reason, right? So while I didn’t come all the way out here to become a cocktail waitress maybe it’s what I’m destined to do?
Then again, what the hell am I thinking? Enough of this self-pity crap, I don’t believe in destiny, I hardly believe in luck, so there’s no way,no way, that I’m going to be happy serving a bunch of sleazy overpaid men for the rest of my life, especially not here. But it might be okay for me to stop by and check it out, just in case I can’t find anything in the next month or so I told myself.
Well that month slipped by and then another, two months, hundreds of applications sent out, nearly fifteen interviews later and I’m still unemployed. My savings starting to dwindle, and I tell myself it’ll only be until I can find something permanent as I head into Vivian’s.
The place reminds me bit of Sam’s place in the main area. There’s a “Caged Bird’s Member’s Only” door to the left of us, and I don’t think it’s just for private dances. Even with that though, somehow the place feels safe.
I immediately sense the wondering glances being thrown my way by patrons as well as the staff but five years at Sam’s place left me with thick skin and many ways to ignore people. There’s a fairly good-looking guy behind the bar and so that’s where I head.
“Don’t take offense,” he says giving me a once over and then a curious glance mixed with something akin to sympathy, “but this isn’t the place for you.”
Now, how is someonenotsupposed to take offense when the first words out of a stranger’s mouth are, ‘Don’t take offense?’ I mean really what am I supposed to say to that? ‘Thanks for realizing I don’t look like a stripper?’ or how about the ever so common ‘You don’t know the first thing about me?’
But I hold my tongue and simply ask, “Is Maura here?”
“She’s busy at the moment,” the bartender answers, a lie that’s so cliché I actually find myself amused.
“Why don’t you tell her it’s Amelia—Ame, from Sam’s place and see what she says,” I suggest, not making it sound like a question but a demand.
The look that suddenly crosses his face more than makes up for the fact that he was arrogantly, albeit politely, telling me I wouldn’t fit in here, but then a woman appears next to him. She reminds me of Sam, oh not in looks, she’s square and heavy while Sam’s tall and thin, but the determination in her eyes matches Sam to a T.
“You’re Sam’s Ame?” she asks raising an eyebrow in question.
“The one and only,” I joke.
“She told me you were headed out this way, but I didn’t believe I’d ever see you,” Maura says.
“I didn’t plan on it, but long story short, my job was cut thanks to the economy and a large five finger discount by one of the financial officers at the corporate office,” I admit.
“And you’re finding it hard to get another job with so many others also looking for work,” Maura acknowledges. “Why don’t we head to my office and talk?”
“Sounds good,” I say resigned at least for the moment that this is what I have to do.
Maura’s office is a lot like the woman, square with heavy wood furniture draped in dark fabrics as to not contrast to the flooring and walls, which are also muted in color. She motions to a chair for me to sit in and I do, waiting for the barrage of questions she’s bound to throw my way. Her first one throws me a bit though, “Are you looking for another title in your name?”
