Maria Headley - The Year of Yes - The Story of a Girl, a Few Hundred Dates, and Fate

The only other stripping I’d seen had been with Zak, at a downtown cabaret that had been wildly, briefly hip. There’d been a woman dressed in a couple of plastic holly leaves and a tutu, shaking her thing to an Ani DiFranco song. Another woman had dripped hot candle wax all over herself while chanting Hail Marys. A woman dressed all in white feathers had brought out a guitar and sung a country-western ballad entitled “Did I Shave My Vagina for This?” Most bizarrely, there’d been a woman who’d billed herself as the Last Burlesque Show. (“Oh no,” Zak had whispered. “Oh no, oh no, oh God no.”) She was in her eighties, and fully dressed, at first, in a Dale Evans cowgirl suit. The Last Burlesque Show did scary things with a baton. By the time she’d gotten down to her tasseled pasties and spun them in opposite directions, Zak and I were both paralyzed, I with wonder, he with horror. The next act had been a belligerent woman who’d held a flashlight beneath her chin, campfire-ghost story-style, angrily reciting Sylvia Plath’s “Daddy.” When she’d finished, she’d trolled the audience for tips, and, discovering Zak, shone her flashlight on him, and demanded his wallet, yelling that she’d noticed he was cheap. We’d fled into the night, Zak fumbling for his asthma inhaler as we hit the street, me suspecting that it had been the last time he’d trust me to take him anywhere.

My glass stuck to my table. My ass stuck to my chair. I didn’t want to stand up and walk out because I was hoping that I’d become invisible. I was completely embarrassed. If this was not just a miscommunication, if this was intentional, it was because the Boxer had assumed me to be wilder than I really was. I regretted that red dress. He probably thought that I was this kind of girl. What kind of girl was this, though? I had no idea. I was on my third, desperate glass of wine, and I’d graduated to drinking it with a straw to avoid touching my mouth to the glass.

I was the only woman in the room who wasn’t a stripper. Not that the strippers were really stripping. They were dangling from poles, looking bored. They all had boob jobs. Breasts the size of cannonballs. My imagination launched to images of enormous false bosoms being shot at enemies. Civil War-era costumes. Screaming men. I squinched my eyes shut and tried not to think about exploding tits.

BEHIND ME, THERE WAS SOME ACTIVITY, and it didn’t take long to figure out that it was a table full of kids, daring each other to approach me. School uniforms, like beacons shining out of the dark. Faces scarred by inept shaving. No one in their right mind would think these prep-school boys were done with puberty. I could hear them poking each other, trying to get up their courage. I was wearing a white wrap-around sweater and jeans, and I couldn’t imagine they really thought I was a stripper. The strippers looked to have been allotted three inches of cloth each. That, and as much silicone as their hearts desired.

A skinny, freckled kid plunked himself down at my table. He blinked at me for a moment, then suddenly grabbed my glass of wine and slugged a sip. He looked triumphant. He weighed ninety pounds, at most. I grabbed it back, imagining my arrest for providing alcohol to a minor.

“Who are you?” I said.

“Peter.”

“Peter what?”

“VanHeu…” He reconsidered. “You wish.”

“Peter YouWish,” I said, “you’re too young to be here.”

“My friends want to know if you’re…” He dissolved into stammering giggles.

I gave him the best evil eye I could muster. Not so hot, considering my lower lip was starting to tremble.

“They want to know if you’re wearing a bra.”

“None of your business.” A lacy bra that had cost too much money. I’d bought it that afternoon, and put it on in the dressing room, full of optimism for the evening.

“Like, would you, like, give my friend Matt a lap dance?” he blurted, shoving a wad of ones at me. I shoved them back, but not before I noticed that there was a platinum card tucked into the cash.

“No. Never. Absolutely not.” I decided then that the yes policy definitely did not include the underage. I hadn’t realized that I’d needed to make a rule about ninth graders.

“The girls won’t. They say they’ll get arrested. We’re only allowed to sit quietly and drink soda.”

“I don’t even know how you got in here.”

“Bribed the bouncer. Duh.”

I could see one of the kids doing homework at the table. Maybe this was what you did after school, if you were a kid in New York City.

They were all clustered around my table now, sweating and shuffling their feet. Being surrounded by adolescent boys is like being surrounded by a flock of seriously awkward hummingbirds, and discovering, belatedly, that you are the feeder.

“What’d she say?” they clamored.

“She’ll do it,” said Peter YouWish.

“She won’t,” I said. “Move it.”

“I have my allowance,” offered another kid.

“Me too,” said another.

I wondered blurrily if there was a niche market in stripping for schoolboys. You’d travel from private school to private school, disguised as a substitute teacher. Four-inch-long plaid skirts and knee socks would hold no appeal for these kids. They saw them all the time. A Sexy Substitute, though, could make a killing.

Finally, the Boxer arrived, holding a beer. The kids scattered like marbles. He looked at them, bemused, and then leaned across the table.

“Need a drink?” The kids had managed to siphon my entire glass. The Boxer, for some reason, acted like this was perfectly normal. My pride hurt. If this was a test, if he thought I couldn’t deal with this, he was wrong. I was brave. And maybe he was going to apologize. And maybe he was going to morph suddenly into someone he wasn’t. In a foolish little corner of my mind, I still had hope. The alternative was too depressing.

“Wine,” I said. I was already half-drunk. I might as well keep going.

A stripper in a neon pink G-string had started to twirl, sensing the arrival of someone who might actually tip her. Over the God mic, a voice informed us that this girl was a stockbroker during the day and a stripper at night. Cannonballs. Or bowling balls. My brain dragged me to a bowling alley, where a guy in an embroidered shirt and rented shoes was hooking his fingers into the stripper’s breast, and tossing it, girl and all, down the lane. Strike! I cringed.

“Are you okay?”

“Fine. Terrific!” I nodded like a convert. “Great stripper!” Great was a misnomer. She had rigor mortits, and looked maybe seventeen. I felt like my wine might have poisoned me.

“MIND IF I GO GET A LAP DANCE? There’s this Russian girl here, Masha…”

The Boxer thumped me on the back, like I was a buddy.

My mind flipped forcibly to Chekhov. Moscow! Moscow! I yanked it back.

“Not at all,” I said, much too loudly.

Why would I mind? We were on a date. Sure, go and get some unknown Masha to squirm in your lap, and I’ll just sit here and fight off the fourteen-year-olds. Great! Exactly how I wanted to spend my evening! Unless, it suddenly occurred to me, we weren’t on a date? Maybe he really did want to be buddies. Maybe he wasn’t attracted to me at all! I could feel myself turning red. Oh God. I’d completely misinterpreted everything. He didn’t like me. Obviously. Anyone who liked me would not leave me sitting at a wobbly little table in a room full of pubescents on the prowl.

I watched the Boxer put his arm around the tattooed shoulder of a girl I’d noticed before, a skinny girl, with long black hair and iridescent blue eyes. She smiled, fake adoration appearing on her face. I could see the Boxer grinning. I could see him believing her.