"Farewell, Nora! Thanks for everything!" Rick ran to the front of the stage and waved in full left-to-right arcs with his whole arm, as if Nora were a yacht pulling away from the shore.
To be fair to him, Nora returned our goodbyes just as dramatically. Blowing kisses with full extensions of her long arms as she descended the stage stairs behind her grandson.
They departed like celestial bodies—a glowing star and a cool moon—holding all our attention before they disappeared through the theater doors.
Another hush fell over the room in the wake of their absence.
Then Pru broke it with a "Goddamn, that man is fine."
Murmurs of agreement immediately filled the air.
"I mean, I totally understand why people call him Triple Ice," Leah observed. "But did anyone else get hot just looking at him?"
"Girl!" Rick agreed, fanning his reddened face. "It was not just the champagne!"
"And he's a billionaire, too?" Dara slapped a hand to the wide swath of carefully tanned skin under her jeweled bikini and convulsed her shoulders like she might swoon. "Is he dating anyone?"
For some reason, everyone looked at me for the answer to her question.
"What? I don't know!"
Dara glared at me, like she’d caught me in the act of trying to gaslight her. "Aren't you always bragging about how your mom and Nora were best friends or whatever?"
"Hergrandmother, Glo Johnson," Pru corrected. "The first Black Benton Girl. Put some respect on her name!"
"Sorry, I miscalculated because Sunny's so much older than me," Dara shot back with a sweet tone.
I couldn't help but feel a little impressed. Dara might not have earned her solo yet, but she deserved the crown for the Queen of Backhanded Insults.
"You really don't have any intel on Cole Benton?" she asked me before Pru could say something patently untrue, like I wasn't old. As Nora had so colorfully pointed out, thirty-two was considered old as Methuselah in showgirl years.
Which was why I'd been so excited to tell Nora my good news about quitting the show to pursue my new dream.
"I really don't," I assured Dara and the rest of the showgirls, who were listening to our conversation with avid expressions. "He was still in business school when I first joined the line, and there was never any reason for our paths the cross. Ourgrandmaswere best friends, not us."
I crossed my arms over my jeweled bikini. "That was the first time I've ever laid eyes on him up close, and there's no way I'll ever see him again," I assured them with total confidence, knowing that I'd be quitting the show soon.
Except, I'd been wrong.
About my quitting the show soon.
About texting Nora to set up a lunch date.
And about my chances of seeing Cole "Triple Ice" Benton a second time.
Less than two months after I told everyone I wouldn't be interacting with him ever again, I was called to the top floor of Benton Worldwide to meet, not with Nora, but with her Ice King grandson.
"Sit," he commanded after staring me down like a hawk.
I pushed past my confusion to take a very awkward seat in the sole guest chair in front of his desk.
In stark contrast to the gold-flecked warm marble of the rest of headquarters, the two non-window walls of Cole's office were painted a glossy ebony that put me in mind of black ice. His desk matched the walls, sleek and black. But the sole guest chair in front of it was ivory white. One of those feats of modern design, it was basically three angled sheets of thin metal that somehow supported my body weight without so much as a creak of protest.
Several questions darted through my mind as I raised my eyes to meet his.
Why did taking a seat in his office feel like placing myself on one of the white squares of a chessboard? And why couldn't I shake the suspicion that the Ice King, who came to stand behind his desk, had purposefully designed it that way?
Most of all, why was I here?
