Jump The Line (Toein' The Line Book 1) Read online

  Jump the Line

  by Mary McFarland

  ©2015 Mary McFarland

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the express written consent of the author.

  Cover design©2015 by Regina Wamba

  Published by Mary McFarland

  This is a work of fiction. The situations and scenes described, other than those of historical events, are all imaginary. With the exceptions of well-known historical figures and events, none of the events or the characters portrayed is based on real people, but was created from the author’s imagination or is used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

  Chapter 1

  “Don’t leave gaps in your job history.”

  “Hullo,”I told my advisor at the campus career center. “Mine’s not a job you put on your resume.”

  It’s sad to hide from the world, I know, but working at Omar’s exotic dance club pays my tuition and helps me care for my brother, Robin. Anyway, I’ve got worse secrets, things I’ve hidden from the world—and from myself—forever. Take my mom, Berta Colby.

  “Git a boyfriend,”she used to nag. “A girl needs a man.”

  Gita boyfriend? Whenever I’d bring one home, she’d scared him off. She’s not just a Goshen Colby: Mom’s nuts, so even if I ever do find Mr. Right I can’t take him home to meet her. If she doesn’t like him, she’ll put a hit out on him. She especially hates cops. “Sleep with anyone—I don’t care,”she warns,“but don’t ever bring home no damn LEO.”

  My usual response? “Sleep with a law enforcement officer, Mom? Yeah, sure. Like I’d ever.”

  Pain’s clawing my bad ankle, so I curl into the metal dance pole and try to steal a few seconds’ rest. Mistake. Heaving basketball-sized guts up from the tables, a couple of truckers start leaving. “Oh, hell yeah,”I yell at their retreating gorilla backs. “G’wan‘n git!”

  Do I blame them for storming out? Not really. They’ve got their reasons for being here, same as I do. They want me shaking my ladies, sliding up and down the dance pole, the“banana,”customers call it. They’re not paying to watch me hang here like a dazed opossum, nursing my crippled ankle and my grudge against the world.

  “Alaina!”

  Oh, hell. Here comes Omar Jain, my boss.

  “I must apologize, Alaina, but get off the pole!”

  I like O.J., but he starts every sentence with,“I must apologize but—”

  Plus, he’s weird. His Punjabi“clients”are polymer chemists, stock brokers. So how’d O.J. end up running a topless bar? I close my eyes against the pain ripping my ankle and forget about my underachieving boss and his clients. Like I said, I’ve got my own secrets.

  One of them is making sure my mom never finds out I work here. “What a dump,”Berta Colby, would say. If she and I were speaking, I’d agree. “Uh, yeah, Berta, Omar’s is a dump. The booze is watery and killers dump dancers’ bodies in the alley out back, but I like working here. Taking care of myself and Robin”—I’d rub it in that my brother lives with me instead of her—“keeps me from your sleazy friends’ clutches, and from yours.” In her cancerous rasp, she’d argue back,“Cool damn beans,‘Lainey. You think because you work in this fine establishment you’re too damn good to call yourself a Colby?” Then she’d attack with some underhanded remark meant to cut me deeper. “Crip, this is no place for you, not with your two left feet.”

  Mom’s not mean, just angry. “The world cut me a raw deal,”she whined last time I slammed her sleaze ball lifestyle. She’s always reminding me I’m handicapped. It’s one reason I’ve not spoken to her in four years, since I left for college. The other is I don’t want her calling me“Crip”in front of my friends. I don’t see myself as a victim of my disability the way she does. Plus working here keeps me dancing, which is like saying—it keeps me breathing.

  I love to dance, but I was born with a club foot. Surgery left me scarred, and my left ankle buckles if I’m not careful. So my disabled tag is my other big secret. If anyone knew, it would crush my dream of making a tryout video for the Rockettes’ jump-the-line competition.

  “Off the pole!”O.J. yells, waving his bleachy bar rag. He worries constantly the dancers are screwing off on his dime.

  “I’m taking a freakin’ break—”I start to yell, but then stop. “Forget it.” Unhooking from the banana, I sling my body into a tight rumba, not easy considering Tammy Wynette’s belting Stand by Your Manfrom gravelly speakers lodged up near the ceiling. The song makes me want to wallow in self pity. This isn’t my life, I think, staring at the spray-painted flat black ceiling shot with Christmas sparkle. This isn’t me: the truckers, the sappy country music. Anyway, who believes you can stand by your man, when he’s walking all over you?

  Oh, yeah, I’ve been burned at love. Twice. Not sayin’ it won’t happen again, but at least I’m on to the aliens—men—so I say to anyone who wants to hurt me: bring it on.

  Pushing Tammy’s whine from my head, I follow the music playing in my brain. Stand by Your Manmorphs into something imaginary, more familiar, jazzier. Continuing to ignore O.J., I let go and feel the sensual beat of Lizz Hollis’ Bon Chiki Bon. Shutting my eyes, I keep the rhythm of my rumba, despite Tammy’s yowling and my screaming foot.

  “Hey, Alaina,”a familiar voice bawls. Oh God. It’s Tater McCloskey, my stalker. He comes in every night, knows my shift by heart, and always leaves a crappy ten dollar tip.

  The other guys pick up Tater’s cry, hooting and stomping the floor with their work boots. Telling myself,“Oh, well, Alaina, ten dollars is ten dollars,”I rumba across the rickety platform sporting its sad orange shag carpet. Soon Omar’s walls shake with truckers’ roars and boot stomping. I groan. Tammy’s right. Sometimes it’s hard to be a woman. Then, dancing to the stage’s edge—because ten bucks is ten bucks—I get busy earning my paycheck. Shaking my prim ladies, I rattle my hips like a hula dancer on‘roids and step into a smoking hot samba.

  Tater goes wild. “Woo-ha!”

  I ditch Liz Hollis and imagine the beat of Luis Miguel’s Mas Que Nada. It teases my brain, the imaginary music’s triple-time rhythm picking me up. Me, I’m sayin’—me. It picks me up, my soul, not just my body. I shoot Tater another smile, more malice than promise: Tate, you’re paying to watch, so my body belongs to your piggy gaze. But make no mistake: I own Alaina Colby’s soul.

  “Woo-ha!” He’s out of his chair again. “I’ve got a thang for you,”my bloated, horny-toad stalker tells me every chance he gets.

  When Tater starts lumbering toward the stage, I catch bouncer Tony Rotterman’s gaze and mouth the word,“Help.”

  Rotty’s dark eyes narrow to Ninja slits when his gaze lands on Tater, and he sends me a reassuring smile. One more step and Rotty’ll bust Tate’s noggin. If he didn’t do his job, there’d be no keeping guys like Tater from pawing us to death. O.J. sells drinks for fifty bucks. It’s illegal, yet some regulars want extra for their fifty, like lap dances. I’ve made it plain to Tater McCloskey—no extras. I dance. That’s all. Rotty backs me up.

  I shoot him a nod. No. Don’t kill Tater.

  Because I’ve let Tater live, this time, I expect a tip, my ten, or maybe even a twenty if I’m really good.

  “Hey, Tater.” I wave, smile. If he had a brain he’d know my ladies are snubbing him. If he had half a brain he wouldn’t come here, but then—

  He mashes a paw to his lips, blows me a kiss. With heart-shaped lips embedded in a beefy face, he’s a poster bo
y for repressed violence and God knows what other deviance. My bestie, Angie Miller, thinks he’s a serial killer. I think Tate’s just a redneck with a stiffie.

  “I luvvvv you, Alaina.”

  Hmmm. Could Ang be right? Tate does kinda resemble Dennis Rader, the BTK killer, but I could care. I’ve got a thang—as Tate would say—for what’s in his wallet. Greed turns my eyeballs into lasers probing his pocket for the wad of tens he hides from his wife—if he’s got one. My mission in life is getting him to bump that ten up to a twenty.

  I hit the banana, slide suggestively up and down, and then step back into my samba, which sends Tater over the edge. Spotting Rotty unwinding like an anaconda from his stool by the front door, Tate grabs a table below stage but then slyly squeezes his butt back down onto a chair. Tossing Rotty wicked-hateful glances, he gives up pouting long enough to chat with the triangle of off-limits turf south of my navel, tucked—just barely—into my black silk G-string.

  “Oh, baby, the things I could do—”

  I step back a few inches. “I’m tellin’ ya, he’s a serial killer,”Ang warns me all the time. The fear he might stalk me outside Omar’s used to creep me out, but I’m used to Tate. Anyway, he’s not allowed to get this close, not within“touching, tasting, or licking distance,”as Ang ineloquently puts it.

  “Hey, Tatey, lookin’ good,”I say, shaking my ladies to pull his gaze up from my crotch to my face. If he comes any closer, Rotty’s gonna kick his ass, and I don’t want the boys fighting, not tonight. All I want is to do my job and then go home and make my video for the Rockettes’ jump-the-line competition. Will I become a Rockette? Not with my crippled ankle, but I want to make my tryout video just to be able to say,“I tried.” I’ll never become a Rockette, but being invited to try out is one of my childhood dreams.

  The moment, full of the potential to incite Rotty to violence, passes. Tater, back to his abnormal self, wipes drool with the sleeve of his lumberjack shirt and yells,“Show me what you’ve got, girlie!”

  I relax. Working for that elusive twenty, yet anticipating my ten Tate’ll stuff deep in my G-string before I slap his hand away, I shoot him another cheesy smile. Then ignoring his leer, I find my dancer’s sweet spot, the mental space where the beat of the imaginary music playing inside my skull, marries my body’s own passionate rhythm.

  “Atta girl,‘Laina!”Tater bawls. “Shake it! Woo-hoo! Light my fire!”

  Shaking my hips, I do a mental disappearing act, leaving behind Tate and the hooting truckers. A magic genie, rescuer of co-ed exotic dancers, sweeps me into the rhythm of Mas Que Nada and sambas me to Radio City Music Hall.

  I’m one of them, a Rockette. We’re dancing. The crowd’s clapping for us—for me. Me, I’m sayin’—me, the“Goshen gimp”they called me in grade school. I laughed and shot back spit wads and Crayola bullets. But truth? I cried inside, hid my pain. I’m good at it, masterful, in fact.

  I’m kicking toward those beautiful lights, those beacons of hope to my impossible dream. I’m kickin’ so high, I feel God, peeking Wizard of Oz-like from his control box and kissing my toes. Indulging my joy, I spin, kick, and shake my ladies, hiding desperate thoughts from myself. Acceptance, Alaina, that’s what you need. This is just a job. Everything will be alright.

  But will it? Will everything be alright? I gaze at Tater, my stalker, uncertain if he’s a plain ol’ redneck, or a guy who’s obsessed with me and wants to kill me. At any rate, he’s got awful taste in music, reason enough to keep an eye on him.

  Omar’s is the only bar on earth where harem girls dance topless to country music. I’d like to tell Tater that Tammy Wynette’s really Virginia Pugh from Tremont, Mississippi, but the name Pugh would turn him on. And Omar? He wouldn’t get it at all. It’s that Punjabi thing. He says country music is the devil’s voice, a point on which we agree. He plays it anyway. The truckers will leave if he doesn’t. They can’t get enough.

  “Wooooooooo-haaaa!”Tate yells, going plumb crazy. I improvise, mixing a little ballet with my samba, tormenting Tater, urging him on. Why not? I need the practice. I want my freakin’ twenty. Spinning on my supporting left foot, I perform the epic fouettéen tournant. Closing my eyes, I spin. And spin. And spin, and then—

  —pain shoots up my ankle, startling me back from my fantasy world.

  O.J.’s nearing the stage, so I keep dancing. Gritting my teeth and sucking up the pain, I bury it in my anger, and challenge God. Dude, why’d you make me Berta Colby’s crip?

  It’s the same question I’ve always asked. Why, God? Why?

  No crips allowed in Radio City Music Hall, Alaina Colby. Get over yourself, girl.

  It’s His standard answer, and it pisses me off. Does God think he’s like the wizard in the Wizard of Oz, manipulating everything from behind the scenes but never showing himself to me? If he ever steps from behind that curtain, I’ll be more civil toward him. Until then . . . I’m one-hundred percent Goshen Colby heathen, Crip with attitude.

  “But if you love him, you’ll forgive him,”Tammy’s yowling from the speakers. Like hell I’d forgive him. I hate cheatin’ men. I’d kick his butt, I’d—

  The ceiling speakers go dead. Their screech cuts Tammy off mid-yowl. Omar’s goes eerily silent. I watch O.J. zigzagging toward me. Squeezing between tables, he leaps on stage looking frantic and waving his bar rag and gasping for breath.

  “O.J., what’s wrong?” I fake surprise, like I’ve not been day dreaming as usual about my routine for my jump-the-line video.

  “Haven’t you heard me calling?”

  “No,”I lie. Jumping back and hoping he won’t threaten to fire me—and mean it this time—I clutch the banana and step into a shimmy so achingly spectacular it would make a Vegas stripper sob with jealousy.

  “Stop,”he yells. “Stop!”

  “Um, O.J., you want me to . . . stop dancing? That’s a new request.”

  “Someone’s here to see you.”

  “Really? Who?”

  Holding my shimmy, I gaze around. Other than my trucker fans like Tate, the only person who knows I work here is Robin and my friend, Stoke Farrel. There’s also my bestie, Angie, but she didn’t show up tonight, so I’m working her midnight to closing shift. I frown. Where’s Ang? She was supposed to come over to my place after she got off tonight and help me make my jump-the-line video. She’s not answered my texts. All my calls go to her voice mail.

  Torn between stopping my shimmy, as O.J. has ordered, or making sure I get my ten dollar tip from Tate, I keep dancing. “Hey-y-y-y, baby, light my fire.” Tate’s bawl floods the silence. Seeing Tater staggering toward me, Rotty unfolds ripped arms and starts heading our way. Two guys next to Tater’s table scrape chairs back and shoot up. “Fight!”someone yells.

  Tate’s BTK killer smile turns petulant when he sees Rotty approaching. He’s got a dark side, I hear, but I can’t worry about that, not right now. What if my visitor is Berta Colby? What if she’s finally found out I work here?

  “Who’s here to see me?”I demand, glaring at O.J.

  “Dang, baby girl,”Tater interrupts. “Why’d you think I brought this? Now, c’mon, shake them there purty thangs a little harder for old Tater.”

  Seeing the ten he’s waving makes me see red. Why can’t he for once fork over more than a damn tenner? “Shut up, Tate!”I yell, but worrying he’ll withdraw the ten, I tone it down. “Just . . . shut up, okay?”

  O.J. thwacks me with his bar rag. “Don’t insult clients. Go see who is here.”

  Furious, I stop my shimmy and stand glaring at him. “O.J., you just freakin’ hitme.”

  “I must apologize, but—”

  “Stop saying that. I hate it.”

  I want to walk, but if I quit who’ll he get to replace me? Dumb question. Who else would stick around when Ang fails to show? I squint through the flashing blue strobe lights and cigarette smoke—smoking’s outlawed in Newport bars, but who at Omar’s obeys the law?—and shoot a gaze out across the carpet of sleazy riff-
raff.

  “Hurry up,‘Laina!”O.J. says, raising his bar rag.

  “Don’t you darehit me again,”I hiss.

  “It’s a cop,”he hisses back, and then glances nervously toward the group at a table in the far corner. These men are O.J.’s clients, and they’re all turbaned up and shadowy looking but wearing expensive dark suits and starched shirts whiter than their gleaming teeth. O.J. introduced their leader to me and Ang as Rakesh Gupta. “A lawyer,”he’d emphasized. “Important.” To which Ang had whispered towel-heads, probably ISIS or Al Qaeda,and then snickered,“Yeah, sure, O.J., and I’m Taylor Swift.”

  “Imagine! A cop—here—in Omar Jain’s establishment!” Omar whines, as if he thinks I’ve personally set out to ruin his reputation with the Afghanistan deputation. I watch Rakesh slap a C-note on the table, he and his mysterious entourage rising and gliding like phantoms out the front door. I yell,“What, you guys can’t take a little bar brawl? Don’t want the heat comin’ down on your clean-shaved necks!”

  Worried, I turn back to O.J.

  “A cop?”I rasp. How can this be? I don’t do lap dances, or anything illegal, so there’s only one reason a cop would come looking for me.

  Robin’s in trouble—again.

  I shoot O.J. a mean glare. “Why didn’t you say?”

  “I must apologize—”

  “Stop with that!”

  Chapter 2

  Over by the DJ’s folding table, I spot them. Not just one but two LEOs, a male and a female. Detectives. Starched shirts, creased pants, comfortable shoes made for chasing prey, like me and my brother, Robin. “Think they’re the meanest sumbitches in the valley,”Berta would say of these two, mocking their aggressive body language. It’s open and begging any of Omar’s more questionable badasses:“Give us a try.”

  One heartbeat later, my heart sambas into my mouth. I feel like the ceiling’s falling in on me—he’s that awesome—and all I can do is stand here and gape, my breath caught in my throat. “Whoa,”I whisper. “Freakin’ whoa. I think I’m in love.”