Third Girl from the Left by Martha Southgate Read Free Book Online

interview. That seemed the safest thing to do.
    â€œHmm.” His hand traced small circles around the shoulder of the right-hand blonde. “That’s good.” He paused. “Take your clothes off, would you?”
    â€œSir?”
    He smiled, and repeated his words as calmly as though she had misheard a request to hand him a glass of water. Angela’s stomach slid down to her toes, which curled involuntarily. Was she going to have to get in the tub with three naked white people? How could Sheila not have told her about this? OK. OK. So take the skirt and top off. That’s Hollywood. Tears stung her eyes sharply. She swallowed twice. Hard. Reached around to undo the zipper of the skirt, pulled the shirt off, wiggle, twist, out. She reached around to take off her bra and stepped forward, but Hef held up his hand magisterially. She dropped her arms and stood in her clean white bra and panties, her arms loose at her sides. The blondes didn’t look at her.
    â€œYou have a nice rack,” Hef finally said.
    Angela sucked her breath in quickly and straightened up. She’d come so far. She didn’t fold. “Glad you think so, sir.”
    He laughed and slid his arm around the blonde on his left. “Turn around, would you?” Angela did what he asked, turning slowly. “Nice ass, too. You’ll do well at the club. Lot of my customers want a little hot chocolate. Good to bring you girls in.”
    â€œThank you, sir.”
    â€œSee Mr. Jensen on your way out. He’ll get you all signed up and outfitted. You’ll have orientation next week, I think. And listen to your Bunny Mother. She won’t steer you wrong.” He stretched one leg out in front of him. “Welcome to our little family, Angela. I think you’ll enjoy working with us.”
    â€œI’m sure I will, sir.” But she wasn’t sure he heard her. He was sloppily kissing the blonde on the right, whose hands moved rapidly beneath the bubbles. Angela didn’t look too closely at what she was doing. They didn’t watch her put on her clothes. When she got into the car, which she had borrowed from Sheila, she sat for a long time, the heels of her hands pressed into her eyes. But when she started driving, she felt OK. She’d done what she had to do.
    When she got home and reported that she’d had to take her clothes off for the interview, Sheila pulled an “oops, I forgot” face and said, “Dag. Sorry. I should have told you about that. Sometimes he asks to see some of the girls before he hires them. I had to do it.” She looked at Angela intently. “You did it, though, right?”
    â€œYeah. Sure. I woulda liked to known what to expect, though.”
    Sheila laughed and punched her in the arm like an affectionate big sister. “Girl, you don’t
ever
know what to expect in this town. I thought you knew that already.”
    Â 
    When Angela first left Tulsa, she didn’t call her parents for a week. They were frantic. The first time they spoke after she left home, her mother cried wordlessly into the phone for five whole minutes. Her father asked all the questions: “Angie, Angie, we were so worried. What on earth were you doing, leaving us like that with just a note? Where are you?”
    She told them that she was in Los Angeles (which caused a sudden change from sobbing to shrieking) but that she had found a job and a nice place to live (an outright lie). She told them no, they shouldn’t come visit her but that she’d call as often as her busy schedule would permit. She told them that she was all right. They said they would pray for her. She thanked them. Then she hung up the pay phone in the filthy, savagely battered phone booth and watched a roach scurry up the grayish green wall. The hall smelled of urine. She sighed and blinked back tears. It was difficult to believe that Sidney Poitier or Jane Fonda or any of them had ever lived this