4. Help Wanted

Help Wanted

Nicole

“ L et me understand this bullshit,” Tima says, wrapping her smiling lips around a thin cigarette and inhaling deeply. She blows the smoke out before continuing. “You went home with the hot guy from the disco, met his roommate, and you let them go down on you? Both of them?”

I tap my hands on the table. “It was a job interview.” I hear how ridiculous it sounds when I say it, but it’s the only thing I can say to rationalize what happened.

“Honey, that’s not like any job interview I’ve ever heard of.” She stubs her cigarette out in our little brown ashtray she likely stole from the local bowling alley. “If there’s a job interview like that, it usually involves the woman being the one on her knees. What was it like?” she asks, sniffing .

My eyebrows move to my hairline. “You’ve never had that done to you before? Here I thought I was behind in never having that done for me.”

Tima sputters a laugh. “I’ve had it done. Just not by two guys. Not sure how you roped that horse on your first rodeo.”

I ignore her question and continue toweling off my wet hair, thinking. I’ve gone over last night in my head a million times. Who was I last night? I’ve never done anything like that. I’ve never gone home with a man, kissed a man like that, and let a man – let alone two of them- see any part of my body that’s usually covered by underwear. To say nothing of me letting them put their mouths on me. I certainly never dreamed that was a thing. My mother never told me about any of this. Does she know about it? My friends back home never told me. Then again, most of my friends back home are virgins like me or are married. The married ones act like their underwear is nailed on. Birds of a feather flock together.

I’ve toyed with not going to the dance studio. I mean, do they really expect me to show up? Was it all just a ploy to get me into bed? Will they still want me now that I didn’t deliver the full package and actually get in their bed?

It seems likely I was a night of fun. Fun for me, anyway. My face flushes with embarrassment at the idea I left them hanging. After I came, Felix kissed my leg one time before backing away. Dex kissed his way down my neck to my collarbone, probably wanting more to happen. But I thanked them like an idiot and walked out on wobbly legs. I had no idea what to do for them or even what to say. In fact, I think I did a funny salute before I shut the door. I can’t remember, and the entire night is a blur.

The shrill ring of the telephone interrupts my thoughts, and Tima walks to the wall to pick up the phone. “Hi,” she says casually, sure it’s for her. It’s probably Miriam. I never get phone calls.

Her brow furrows and she looks at me. Confused, she holds the phone out. “There’s a guy asking for you.”

I point to my chest and look behind me like there are other people in the kitchen with us. “Me?”

Tima covers the phone. “Did you give that guy your phone number?”

“No!” I whisper yell. “I pulled my pants and my halter top up and walked out of there like a dumbass.” The image of Felix still wiping his mouth as I slid my feet into Tima’s heels and grabbed my purse flashes through my memory.

“I think he found you.”

“Damn telephone book. I knew I should have used my first initial instead of my full name.”

“You gave him your full name? Your real one?” Tima asks. She clucks her tongue. “I have so much to teach you. Never give the full name. Fake is best.”

She takes her hand off the receiver and puts the phone to her ear again. “Um, let me see if she’s in. I can’t locate her. Who is this, and what is this regarding?” she asks, her secretarial skills kicking in .

She’s silent for a few moments, and I hear a low, rumbling voice through the phone all the way from the other side of the room. His voice is authoritative, even from several feet away.

“I see,” Tima says. “Hold on.” She covers the receiver again. “It’s a gentleman named Dex, and he was wondering when you could come in and have him show you your desk and where everything is.”

“He still wants me to work for him?”

Tima smiles and shimmies her shoulders. The bracelets on her wrist clink together. “I’d work for him if I’m going to get that kind of treatment.”

I’m out of my chair and standing in front of Tima before I can think twice about it. She holds the phone out to me, and I hesitate. Can I work for a man who’s seen me with my legs spread wide open? Tasted me?

“Rent is due next week,” Tima says, her eyes boring into mine. She smiles a close-lipped grin as she hands me the phone.

I guess I can make an exception now that the financial consequences of not having a job are looking me in the face. Literally.

I take a deep breath and smile. Even though he can’t see it, my mother told me to smile when I’m on the phone because a man can hear my smile.

I don’t think Mom would survive in 1978. She’s much better suited for 1950.

“Hello?” I ask, my voice husky. I clear my throat in the dead air. “Hello?” I ask again in case he didn’t hear me .

“Hi, Nicole. Felix and I were wondering when you could come in. We need to teach you…” His voice trails off, and he sniffs on the other end. “We need to teach you your job.”

“My job?” I ask like I’m an idiot - like I don’t remember our entire employment conversation.

“The one I promised you,” he says with a laugh. The laugh is low and kind. So kind. Wait. Are they actually nice men who live up to their end of the bargain? Do nice men perform what they did last night?

I need a job. Money is not optional in modern Chicago. I have rent. I have my half of the utilities. Hell, prices are through the roof, and I need my bus pass and groceries. Sure, I can live on tuna casserole, but what kind of life is that?

“Um, when should I come in?”

“Are you available now? I’m at the studio. We could talk before the next class. I have to teach a waltz class for middle-aged married couples who are trying to spice up their marriage at four.”

I look at Tima, who is waving her hands and smiling. She obviously wants me to go and check it out.

Maybe this can be a good thing. It’ll be money in my pocket, and it doesn’t have to be forever. Just because we did what we did doesn’t mean I can’t act professionally. It’s time to grow up. Women have slept with their bosses for years. Probably since the war. Hell, probably since the Iron Age or something. If he can be professional and provide me with a paycheck, I can show up and do my job for him .

I quickly write down the address Dex gives me over the phone and slide it into the back pocket of my jeans as I hang up the phone. He probably thinks I’m weird for not talking other than asking him for the address and telling him goodbye, but I can’t dwell on that now.

I look down and lament my simple bell-bottom jeans and sweater belted at the waist. “Do I look OK for a job interview?” I ask Tima.

“Honey,” she clucks and slides another cigarette out of the pack. I can already tell by the sound of her voice she’s going to tell me I need extra help. “I don’t think this is an interview. You already passed that last night. Go dry your hair and put some eyeshadow on, for fuck’s sake. You got two hot bosses.”

***

I take the bus downtown in record time and approach the non-descript building two blocks away from a stop. I expect a billboard with Dex’s name on it or maybe a sign with a disco ball on it. Something colorful and fitting Dex’s personality.

What I find is a simple sign with Dex’s name and suite number on it and a blank, gray door with an unpolished handle.

I knock on the door, unsure if I can just walk in, and the door swings open before the third knock. Dex smiles at me with a confused smile, and I suddenly forget how to talk. I may feel awkward, but Dex Holden is gorgeous as hell .

“Um, I wasn’t sure I could just walk in or if you were with clients,” I say, jerking my finger over my shoulder. “Is this a good time?”

He chuckles and waves me in. “You don’t have to knock. I suppose I should put something on the door that says to walk in. Besides, I invited you. Remember?”

I stare around the space, blinking. Inside, the building is a different world. There’s a lobby with a bright yellow desk I assume will be mine. In the corner, there’s a coffee percolator that’s bubbling, probably in anticipation of Dex’s waltz class, along with paper coffee mugs with cutout handles. A few avocado green chairs line the orange wallpapered wall, and a door off to the side has a picture of a dancing woman and man on it, obviously a single-stall bathroom anyone can use. Behind my work area are three doors. One looks like Dex’s office with a desk in it. One has a mimeograph machine on a table, so it must be a supply room. The last door is closed. Across the room are large, pine double doors that probably lead to the dance area.

Dex claps his hands. “Let’s show you around the place. We can start with the studio.”

He places his hand on my lower back, and my legs tremble at his touch. He’s touched me more personally than a simple hand on my back, but something about him touching me the day after licking my most intimate parts makes it feel even more scandalous.

“This is the dance area,” he says proudly, swinging the double doors open .

If the lobby area was different from the outside of the building, the inside of the studio practically makes me swoon. It looks like an entirely different world. Walking through the double doors into the studio is like Dorothy walking from black and white into color in The Wizard of Oz .

A large disco ball hangs from the vaulted ceiling. It spins, sadly not flashing any colorful light around since the overhead lights are on and drowning out any ambiance it would show. The dance floor is slightly raised with polished wood flooring. Mirrors surround the space, and a small music booth with an 8-track player and record player is across the room on a sturdy table.

I tentatively walk up the two steps to the dance floor and look around, mesmerized. I was at the club the other night with Dex, but he has his own club in a small dance studio. Shockingly, the two places could be twins.

“It’s beautiful. This is all yours?” I ask.

Dex leans against the railing that surrounds the dance floor. “It’s the only thing I ever wanted to do. I left school at sixteen when my mom kicked me out of the house.”

“Why’d she kick you out?” I ask. I immediately bite my tongue. I shouldn’t have asked such a personal question. It’s not my business.

If Dex is peeved, he doesn’t show it. He shrugs. “I had a girlfriend at the time. Mom spent a lot of time worried about having her in my bedroom. She should have been worried about the guy next door. Boy, was she surprised when she came home from the grocery store and came to my room to have me help her carry the groceries in.” He looks in the mirror behind me and stares at his image. “I can still see the look on her face and hear the words she said to me.” His eyes flick back to me. “Just so we’re all clear here, having sex with men and women was unheard of and unacceptable in small-town Ohio in 1960.”

I really shouldn’ t have asked his personal business. “I’m sorry,” I say. “Not about you liking both men and women. I’m sorry about your mom. What did you do after you left?” I ask, hoping it’s a happier part of the story.

“I lived on the streets of Cleveland for a couple of years, parking cars at upscale events and sleeping in the parking garages at night if it wasn’t freezing. Over time, I became a club kid with some of the other runaways. This was the early sixties, so music and rebellion were just becoming a thing in the cities. Lots of kids were leaving households where they didn’t fit – either through their own volition or their parents kicked them out,” he says. “Anyway, I did that for several years – odd jobs during the day and dancing at the clubs at night. I’d find shared housing with ten other people and rotate sleep schedules.” He looks down and shakes his head. “Looking back on it, it was wild. It was also crazy how we existed in the world without the so-called normal people ever knowing we were there and didn’t have homes to call our own or even food.”

I do the math in my head. I know Dex is older, but we never went through basic information last night. It seems silly for me to ask his age after he did what he did to me. I mentally run through the years and decide I was right about Dex being around thirty-five.

He sighs and looks at himself in the mirror again. “I came to Chicago on a weekend bus trip with some of the other kids. I couldn’t even tell you their names, but I hope they’re all OK. We clubbed the whole weekend, and I loved Chicago so much that I stayed.

“I’d dance at the clubs and be so good at it that some of the owners would pay me to get on the go-go boxes and do some of the moves. Someone else gave me a chance as a teacher a few years ago. He saw me dance at one of the clubs. I had new moves since disco was just becoming hot in Chicago. He hired me as a teacher at his studio.” Dex rubs his hand down his face, smoothing his mustache. “Most of his clients were older, so I learned to teach the waltz, the foxtrot, and all that bullshit from him. He died a couple years later, and I started my own joint.” He looks up at me and smiles. “Would you believe that after all this time, my waltz classes are where my money is? The old people still flock here. You should see Felix teach the tango.”

I look around the space, nodding. It’s a beautiful studio, and I’m being offered a job. Maybe Dex’s background is why he’s taking pity on me. He knows a broke, unemployed, and desperate person when he sees them.

Dex pushes off the wooden railing. “Let me show you your desk and the storage room.”

I step down from the dance floor and let him put his hand on my back again as he leads me back to the lobby .

“Thank you for letting me come here and giving me a chance,” I say in a soft voice. He dips his head to hear me because my voice is so low.

“Of course.” He stops suddenly and turns to me, chewing on the inside of his cheek. “Did you think we wouldn’t hire you after last night?”

I nod and look around the room to avoid meeting his eyes. I still can’t come to terms with how far I let it go with perfect strangers last night. It’s so out of character for me, and I’ve never had to think about consequences like that.

“I thought you’d be angry.”

He sputters a laugh and puts his hands on his hips. My gaze follows his hands, and I find myself staring at the waistband of his faded blue jeans. “Why would you possibly think we’d be angry with you?”

“I, uh, left you guys without returning the favor.”

“Who says we needed the favor returned?” Dex asks, tilting his head to the side with the sexiest smile I’ve ever seen.

Crap. I’ve never thought of men as sexy before. How much has changed in just a few days? How much more could they teach me?

“I don’t know much about sex and stuff, in case that wasn’t obvious.”

His face softens. Damn, he’s been nothing but kind to me, and I’m ruining this. I watch as he walks to the percolator and picks up a paper cup off the stack. “Cream or sugar?”

“Neither. ”

His body stays in place, but his head turns to look at me. A lock of hair flops over his forehead. “Dangerous choice. You are full of surprises.”

He pours the coffee, and I take the cup from Dex, only to immediately slosh it on my pants as Felix comes through the door so fast that the handle hits the wall. He’s holding two paper bags of cleaning supplies, and even Dex startles at the way Felix enters the room.

Felix and I stare at each other for a few moments, and his dark eyes tell me he never expected to see me again.