“Wonderful.” She looked at the two men, who moved to my side as if to carry me out of the room. One pulled out my chair while the other took my arm. “I’ll be in touch early next week. Campaign season is starting and one of my girls just got engaged. Another –” She stopped and wiped a speck of lipstick from one corner of her mouth. “Another took a leave of absence. So I’m in need of someone right away.”
Leave of absence?
I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the details. Grace didn’t look like she was about to tell me. And I sure as hell wasn’t going to ask, now that she’d straightened out the whole question of salary.
“I’m available to start any time.” Charlie would kill me, but twenty thousand dollars a month? Instead of the two thousand I was pulling in now? That was a no-brainer.
“Oh, and Victoria?”
I turned at the door.
“I do assign each of my girls a bodyguard. This isn’t a particularly dangerous job, but there have been a few…” She stopped again. Touched the corner of her mouth again. “There have been one or two incidents in the past where a dispeller has been threatened by people who’d rather not have her around. It’s almost always a scare tactic, nothing more. But I’ve found that bodyguards alleviate those situations. You can tell people he’s a boyfriend, or a cousin, or a friend, or whatever you like. But it’s not an option.”
“Wait, what?”Threats? A bodyguard?Maybe the payout of this job wasn’t worth it after all.
But Grace didn’t give me a chance to back out. She smiled and waved her fingers in dismissal, leaving me to wonder what my future held all the way down to the ground floor. “I’ll be in touch.”
2
“A mistress dispeller?That doesn’t sound like a real job.” Charlie wiped down the bar at Tunes and ‘Tudes. At four in the afternoon the place was quiet, but we both knew it wouldn’t stay that way for long. I double-knotted my apron and checked the peanuts and pretzels lined up in bowls on the bar.
“I didn’t think so either, but this woman Grace emailed me a ton of articles to read and personal accounts and the cell numbers of two girls who work for her, so…”
“So you’re really thinking about it?”
I took a long, slow breath as I surveyed the glass racks and the bottles of liquor lined up neatly on the shelves around us. “Yeah. I’m really thinking about it.”
Charlie tossed the rag into a bucket of suds. He’d tended bar for years, working his way up to night manager of one of the swankiest bars in the neighborhood. He’d taken me under his wing the day I saw theHelp Wantedsign in the window and walked inside without a lick of experience. Finding him, and befriending him, had been one of my best lucky breaks since moving to D.C.
“Cheeseburger or bacon burger today?” he asked.
All employees got one free meal per shift, a definite perk of working at Tunes & ‘Tudes considering the emptiness of my refrigerator at home. “Both. Not two burgers. Just one with both the good stuff.”
“Would you like a side of cholesterol with that?”
“If by cholesterol you mean a large order of fries, then yes. You have to ask? It’s like you don’t know me at all.”
“Or maybe that it’s I know you really, really well and I’m worried about your general health and well-being.”
I made a face and flipped him the bird, and he laughed. My cell phone buzzed, and I pulled it out to see a calendar link from Grace. When I opened the link I found a list of meetings scheduled for the upcoming week.Whoa.She wasn’t kidding about the training. My stomach went fluttery, and I wondered again if I was making a mistake.
Charlie punched our dinner orders into the computer. “So you gonna tell me why you applied for another job? I know the pay isn’t through the roof here, but still. Are you quitting on me?”
I scrunched up my shoulders. “No. I mean, I don’t know yet. If I can keep a few shifts then I definitely will. But…” I had to tell him. I had to tell someone. “I dropped out of law school.”
“What?When?”
“A couple of weeks ago.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Tears rose to my eyes. “I was embarrassed.”
“Why?”
“Dropping out isn’t exactly something you advertise. Or celebrate.”
He made a buzzing noise with his lips. “Who the hell cares? You decided it wasn’t for you, yes?”
