So much for my modeling career, Billy-girl thought as she looked through the photos Jason had taken of her. Well, she just wasn’t photogenic. She looked much better in person. Why did her hair have that bluish cast in the photos? Her hair, which was definitely red, reached the small of her back. It is a mess. Ugh, I look like my mother. Her mother had called the week before just to talk. Her mother said she missed her. Yeah, right.
In two of the photos Billy was a blur. OK, so she was overweight; she wasn’t that fat. She looked big in every picture. Well, she was pregnant. She had told her roommate William. She had to tell someone. She felt bloated and a little sick, but then, when didn’t she?
She would have to get an abortion. She couldn’t keep it, not now. She was pretty sure the father was Daryl. Sam or Daryl. Talk about opposites. Like the family Camry, Sam was reliable but boring. Daryl was more like a sports coupe, a Ferrari-likely to break down at any time, or worse, get stolen when Billy wasn’t looking. Sam had been after Billy to marry him for over a year. At first, she wouldn’t even look at the ring in the little black box Sam held out to her.
“May as well take the ring anyway,” Sam had said. “I bought it for you.”
Now, Billy-girl held her hand up to the light. It was an emerald. She looked down at her stomach. Definitely sticking out. She wasn’t going to eat for the next week. That would be a bitch because she had so much to do. Fall was the busy season. Her waitressing job at the Sheraton was full time although with calling in sick, going late and leaving early, she hadn’t really been working that much. Then she had the window display once a week at Ann Taylor. Plus, dealing, which paid for her coke.
She didn’t even need that much money since Sam paid the rent for both of them. And he stole champagne, just for Billy, from the liquor store where he worked. The liquor store was in the Italian section-if he were caught, he’d end up wearing cement shoes. And he didn’t even drink champagne!
There were too many people living in the damn apartment. That was the problem. William, Sam and her-all of them in a one bedroom. William slept in the living room. They had to do it! Apartments were so expensive in Boston. Billy looked at the poster of The Cure on the wall above the futon. She sometimes slept with Daryl, the lead singer, whenever he came to Boston. Sam knew about Daryl. He blamed it on Billy’s getting so messed up that she didn’t know what she was doing. Something she was happy to let Sam believe.
She realized that she had fallen into some kind of trance. It was four o’clock. She was late again for the restaurant. And she was meeting William and Sam after work that night. She didn’t feel like changing out of the jeans and black body stocking she had on. She ran to the closet, picked up a shopping bag from the floor and threw in a sweater, skirt, and scarf. She grabbed some jewelry from her bureau and tossed it in the bag, then she ran to the closet near the front door and pulled her raincoat off a hanger which clattered to the floor.
She glanced at the apartment while she put her coat on. William’s clothes were all over-on the couch, a chair, the floor. William was the only one she had told she was pregnant. There was popcorn on the floor along with empty bottles of beer, champagne, and a half-empty fifth of Russian vodka. God, she would have to pick the joint up soon. Why did William always come back with his friends anyway? They were the ones who made the mess.
The Sheraton was a five minute walk from her apartment. She hurried past the Christian Science Center which reminded her of the Taj Mahal with its rectangular pool of water and at the end of the pool, stone buildings with cut glass windows. She went in the employees’ entrance of the Sheraton and had to squeeze past a Latino family-eight or nine kids crowding the mother. Billy recognized them; they were there to pick up Edwin, the dishwasher. Billy hated going in the employees’ entrance because it was dirty and seamy. But walking around to the front took another few minutes and there was always the chance that she would be stopped by Security and told to go in the employees’ entrance anyway. Those morons in Security. Two of them had stopped her once on her way out after her shift. They asked her to open up her bag. She told them to get a warrant and they stood there like rabbits while she pushed through them and out the door. She just happened to have half a dozen crystal white wine glasses in her bag. Not to mention a number of controlled substances. But now they knew who she was and they’d be sure to hassle her so she avoided them.
She cut through the downstairs kitchen to the employees’ locker room where she opened her locker and climbed into the penguin drag. She pulled her hair back into a bun and pinned it.
For her first party, she had to wait on these corporate nerds with their Buster Brown suits and their choirboy haircuts. They kept talking when she went to the table-like she wasn’t even there. The boss was telling the others what a swell job they had done. “Why don’t you just lean over and kiss them?” is what Billy wanted to say.
The menu was upscale American Cuisine so naturally one of the dorks had to say: “I’ll have a cheeseburger.”
The choirboys laughed on cue.
Billy-girl stood there stone-faced. She had heard this joke like five hundred times.
“I guess you’ve heard that one before,” one of the nerds said. He squinted at the name on the copper bar attached to her uniform. “Billy? What kind of a name is that for a girl?”
Billy ignored his question and told them what fabulous specials the restaurant was offering that evening: “Steamed Coho Salmon, Tornedos with Bordelaise, Venison in phyllo dough with port wine sauce.” Then, just like she knew they would, they all ordered steak-medium, sauce on the side.
Billy keyed the order into the computer. She ordered a vodka, neat, for herself from the bar. What she did was to key in the drink to their check, but then remove the check before the drink was printed on it. That way they’d pay for her drink yet it wouldn’t show on their check other than in the total. The bartender gave her whatever she wanted anyway, because she was his source for coke, but she had to be careful about asking for too many free drinks.
By the time the shift was over she had downed a few vodkas and she felt kind of woozy. She went in the locker room, lay down on one of the benches and fell asleep. One of the other waitresses woke her up about half an hour later.
“Ralphie wants to see you,” she said.
“Damn,” Billy thought as she got to her feet. She looked at her watch. “I’ll never get outta here.” She was meeting her roommates at Spit after work. Now she had to go and talk with her manager. She really didn’t have time. She opened her locker and got her clothes on: a black velvet skirt with sequins and a black sequined sweater from Antique Boutique, plus a purple scarf and a cut glass necklace that sort of matched hanging glass earrings. She could only find one of the earrings. One was enough. She threw on the red, polyurethane raincoat she had bought at Body-Body.
She found Ralph in the kitchen bobbing on his feet, one hand in his gray suit jacket pocket, and the other, sticking out in front of him. He was joking with the chef about golf-their favorite subject. “It was heading right for the pin,” he said, laughing and shaking his big head.
“What is it, Ralph?” Billy asked.
Ralph stopped smiling. In that New Jersey accent Billy hated he said, “Billy, where you been? I been looking for you at least twenty minutes.”
“Ralph, I mean, I’m not feeling well, OK? You have something to tell me?”
“Late again today, Billy. I thought we had a talk.”
Billy looked down at her black boots. They were really in bad shape. Worn so smooth at the toes they were white.
“You already had two warnings,” Ralph said. He was actually smiling. He had been trying to get rid of Billy for a long time. One more warning and the union wouldn’t even be able to protect her.
“You know something Ralph,” Billy said, “You really make me puke. I quit. OK? Happy?” She turned and walked out. Now she had done it. But it was worth it for the stupid surprised look on Ralph’s face-he was actually speechless for once.
When Billy-girl got to Spit, Sam and William didn’t seem to be around. Maybe she was early. She couldn’t really remember whether they said twelve or one. She ordered a double Stolichnaya on the rocks.
Someone put his hands over Billy’s eyes from behind. “Guess who?”
“Daryl!” Billy said, “I didn’t expect you.” Daryl was what she needed. She looked at his hair cascading down his face, covering his eyes. He was too cute for words.
He handed her a pill. “Hurry up,” he said. I did some about an hour ago.”
Billy looked at the pill in her hand. She had to stop doing this stuff. She thought about palming it and pretending she was high. No way. She popped the XTC in her mouth and washed it down with vodka.
Daryl pulled her off the barstool. “Let’s dance,” he said.
Daryl had an old tuxedo with tails on and a pair of fifties pointed, black shoes. His shirt was white with ruffles and a bow. He had small, boyish features, pale skin, and long black hair that was always tangled and hung down over his eyes. They were dancing to a new song by Dua Lipa. Daryl told Billy there was a party in a suite at the Copley.
Couple of drinks later and William and Sam still hadn’t shown so Billy decided to go to the party with Daryl. He said they’d leave as soon as he got back from the Men’s Room. Billy knew she could leave a message with the bartender, Gigi. “You are so hot,” Billy yelled at him as she leaned across the bar to give him the message for William. After she told him, she grabbed him by the back of the head, pulled him to her and kissed him. But when she did, she lost her balance and fell across the bar. He fell back into the mirror himself, and Billy slid off the bar and onto the floor. Her scarf caught on a couple of drinks on the bar and they tumbled down beside her. She grabbed the legs of a barstool and pulled herself up. Now she’d be all sticky with drinks. She looked at the bartender-he had his hands covering his eyes and he was laughing.
At the Copley, the suite is packed with people Billy doesn’t know. The floor is marble-great for dancing in stockings. There is a pile of shoes under the couch. Daryl is clowning around. He never dances seriously. He grabs Billy by the hand and pulls her along behind him into the bedroom. He swings the door shut while he backs Billy against the wall and works her black skirt up. Billy is already feeling the weakness in her legs. She leans back on the wall for support. Daryl pushes her panties down to her knees and Billy draws one leg up so they slide down on the other ankle. She reaches out and pulls a Queen Anne chair over, lifts her leg up and puts her foot on the seat. Daryl enters her and a tremor runs from the top of her head down to her hips. He comes almost right away. This is what she loves about Daryl-he’ll just do anything any time. They hear voices at the door and they hurry to pull themselves back together.
Billy is laughing but all of a sudden she feels weak. She has to lie down so she goes over to the bed and climbs on a pile of coats and falls asleep. Every once in a while she feels someone pulling one of the coats out from under her, but it doesn’t wake her completely. She dreams she is in the band, playing keyboards, singing back-up. She sings off-key and Daryl shoots her dirty looks. Then she is kissing Sam good-bye in the morning as he goes off to work with his briefcase. She sees she is standing in the foyer of her old house. She turns and there is her mother sitting at the kitchen table feeding the baby. It must be a boy because it is wearing blue.
She opens her eyes. Sam and William are standing above her.
William looks like a giant. He is snapping Polaroids. Sam is standing there with his rimless glasses and his neatly-parted, short brown hair. He is smiling.
“Billy,” Sam says, “you’re awake.
Billy does not feel well at all. What she needs-a hit of coke. Sam hands her a glass of champagne. Billy sits up. “Ugh, my head feels like it’s gonna crack.”
“Maybe you should cut back on the drinking,” William says.
She falls back to the bed and picks up the photos William has taken. She fans them in one hand. “I look like something out of Freddy’s Nightmares,” she says.
“So,” Sam says, “what’s new?”
“I quit the restaurant,” Billy says.
Sam and William look at each other.
Billy looks at Sam. He is still smiling.
“What are you smiling at?” she asks.
“William told me you’re pregnant,” Sam says.
Billy put her hand on her stomach. Images from her dreams floated in the corners of her vision. She felt a twitch or a twinge down there. What a strange feeling. Someone growing-she thought about what a hard time she’d had with her mother-the shouting matches, the time her mother had beaten her and she’d run away and slept out on the beach. She didn’t want an abortion. It was already growing in her. Could she marry Sam? That would make her mother happy. She could get her job back at the restaurant back if she went and begged on her hands and knees to Ralph. She glanced at the photos-she would never be a model that was certain. Deal coke for a living? No. No. No. She had to knock off the drugs.
Billy looked up at Sam and sighed. She reached for his hand and he pulled her off the bed to her feet. She had a hard time getting her balance.
[Image Credit : Photo by Resource Database on Unsplash]
by 
Ed Meek
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