When I first met Katie in seventh grade, she’d just moved to town. She was very overweight and painfully shy, and she relentlessly got picked on by class bitch Stacey McCarran and her group. I wish I could say I was brave enough to jump in and tell Stacey to leave her the hell alone. I wasn’t. But one day I waited until the bus pulled away from our stop, then grabbed Katie and brought her home with me. I spent the next month teaching her some basic karate moves. Thankfully, she never ended up needing to use any of them, but during that time we got to know each other, and I realized she was one of the coolest people I knew. When she finally got up the nerve to tell Stacey McCarran to go to hell, I decided I needed to be brave enough to be her friend.

That’s when I realized that helping people is a two-way street. You gain as much as you give. I took self-defense at the Y and started teaching my friends at school some of the stuff I’d learned. By high school it sort of grew into a club. So when this opportunity to help at the shelter came up, even though it was Mom’s suggestion, I jumped all over it. That was four years ago. I’ve met a lot of really scared women during that time, but I’ve never seen anything like this.

I want to walk into the counseling room and give Sabrina a hug. I want to tell her to keep fighting and she’ll be okay, even though I can’t imagine how that could ever happen. But more than that, I want to kill whoever did this to her. “When she’s done, tell her to call me if she needs anything—or if she just wants to, I don’t know, hang out or talk or whatever.”

“Will do,” Janice says, then smiles up at me. “Good work today.”

“Thanks,” I say. “See you next week.”

But as I go back to the multipurpose room to collect Izzy, I can’t help wishing there was something I could do to unbreak girls like Sabrina.

Izzy and I walk out of the shelter a few minutes later, sweaty and hungry. We stop at a diner near the BART station.

“That was pretty intense,” she says once we’re seated.

I nod. “A lot of those women have been through hell.”

“That girl . . . will she be okay?”

“I hope so.”

The waitress comes and takes our orders. I don’t let her escape until I have a steaming mug of coffee in my hand.

When she’s gone, Izzy looks at me. “So, what’s been going on with you?” she asks. “I know we don’t know each other that great, but the last week you’ve been . . .”

“Off,” I finish for her.

It’s true. Since that night with Harrison eleven days ago, I haven’t been feeling it like I was. I try to tell myself it’s not because of him, but I know in my gut it is. My tips this week have taken a hit, and Nora moved me off center stage. I’m sure she’d cut back my shifts, and maybe even fire me, if she had anyone else to cover. But it’s all made me realize maybe this job isn’t a long-term solution. Problem is, I don’t have another one, and even with my crappy tips, I don’t know where I’d find one that pays this well.

“So, feel free to tell me to shut up, but if there’s something you want to talk about . . .” She trails off with a lift of her perfect black eyebrows.

I sip my coffee. “There was this guy at the club. He was there my first two nights.”

“The guy that shook you up in the VIP room?” she asks.

Felt me up, is more like it. I look up at her and nod as I feel my cheeks warm at the memory.

“How bad did you break Ben’s rules?”

“I let him touch me.” I wince a little as I say it, but she doesn’t even react.

“That’s all?” she says.

I take a long swallow, feeling my face pull into a cringe. “I wanted more.”

“You wanted more? Or he did?”

“I did. But I’m pretty sure the feeling was mutual,” I add, remembering the feel of him grinding himself against me.

She props her chin in her hand. “Are you seeing him again? Because you know, what happens outside of the club on your own time isn’t any of Ben or Nora’s business.”

Something jumps in my chest. I hadn’t thought of that. But it doesn’t matter. “He’s gone. He went back to L.A.”

She tips her head at me. “So, if he’s gone, what’s the problem?”

I plant my elbow on the table and rub my forehead. “I can’t stop thinking about him. I’ve spent a grand total of ninety minutes with him, but I can’t get him out of my head. And I’ll never see him again, so it’s just . . . so fucking stupid,” I finish, tugging on my hair.

She sighs. “Well, if it makes it any easier, most of the guys that come into Benny’s aren’t all that hot, so you’re probably safe from here on out.”

“Yeah, I guess.” I blow out a sigh and let go of my hair, twisting it into a knot at the back of my neck. “You’re off tonight?”

She nods.

“Jonathan’s got a gig at Astray. I was planning on hanging out there with his girlfriend. You in?”

Her eyes widen, white saucers in the middle of her black-coffee face. “J has a girlfriend?”

“Yeah . . . though he seems to have trouble remembering it sometimes.”

“Damn, that boy is tasty.” A slow smile breaks over her face. “You two seem pretty tight. You ever done the deed?”

I smirk at her. “That’s pretty personal, don’t you think? Especially considering you just said you barely know me.”

“I’ve seen you naked, girlfriend. That makes us . . . something.”

I blow out a laugh and lean back in my seat. “How long have you danced at Benny’s?”

She lifts a shoulder in an almost shrug. “About two months. I just moved up here from L.A.”

“Where do you live?”

“I moved in with Stephanie and Jen from the club last month. It’s just a crappy three-bedroom in San Bruno, but it’s on the BART.”

I take a long swig of coffee and flag down the waitress for a refill. “What do you pay for rent?” I ask as she tops me off.

“Five hundred.”

“Five hundred?” I say, slapping my hand on the table and sloshing my coffee. The three old men sitting at the table across from us stop eating and scowl at me. I lower my voice. “Kevin’s charging me nine hundred a month to sleep on his sofa.”

She bursts out laughing. “And you paid it?”

I shrug. “I didn’t really have a choice unless I wanted to sleep in the park.”

She gets herself together as the waitress shows up with our food. The waitress plunks Izzy’s vegetarian scramble down in front of me and gives Izzy my blueberry pancakes. “Anything else you want?” she asks without looking at either of us.

Izzy switches our plates and smiles up at her. “World peace, affordable health care, and a thong that doesn’t chafe when I dance.”

The waitress spares Izzy an annoyed glance, then spins and walks away without another word.

I reach for the syrup. “If I could find an apartment for less than nine hundred a month, I could sock some serious cash away.” And look for a real job.

Izzy pulls her plate closer and pokes at her eggs with a fork. “I think Brittany was saying her roommate was moving out. You could ask.”

I just look at her.

She laughs again. “She’s not that bad.”

“For hell spawn, you mean? Because I swear every time she looks at me it’s like she’s trying to suck out my soul.”

She rolls her eyes. “The demon thing is a costume, Sam.”

“Then you move in with her,” I say, throwing a hand at her, “and I’ll take your room with Stephanie and Jen.”

She grins at me. “Nice try, but there ain’t no way I’m letting that demon bitch suck my soul.”

I roll my eyes. “So, you coming to Astray with us or what?”

She gives me a wily smile. “Yeah. I’m coming.”


“ALL I’M SAYING,” Ginger says, waving the bartender down from her stool, “is that dancing like you guys do objectifies women.”

The opener—some local band that seems to have only one rhythm, so all their songs just blend together into a monotonous drone—is tearing down after their set. The lead singer is a hot Asian chick, and I’m betting Jonathan’s nailed her already.

“It also pays the tuition,” Izzy says from my other side.

I give her a look as Ginger orders another cosmo. Who knew Jonathan’s girlfriend would turn out to be a raging feminist? And I can’t miss the irony here—that the biggest womanizer I know is dating Gloria Steinem. She hasn’t let up since we got here a half hour ago. Though she’s trying to be careful to not full-out diss Izzy and me, that’s tough to do when she seems to believe our current job is solely responsible for the oppression of women.

“You go to school?” I ask Izzy.

She nods. “Got accepted into biochemical engineering at UC Berkeley.”

“Wow. Is that why you moved up here?”

She swirls the thin red straw through her mojito. “Yeah. I’ve always wanted to go, but I couldn’t afford all four years there, so I started at JC and worked full-time to sock enough money away that I could apply as a junior transfer.”

“I’m impressed. Berkeley’s super hard to get into.”

She shrugs like it’s no big thing. “I guess.”

There’s no way I’m telling her I just flunked out of Santa Cruz. And it makes me think maybe Mom was right. Izzy had a goal and busted her ass to make it happen. I’ve never had to work for anything. Mom and Greg took care of everything, and I’ve always just expected they would. Maybe I have taken everything for granted.

“See!” Ginger bites the cherry from her drink off the stem. “That’s what I’m talking about. Here’s a girl with a serious brain,” she says, pointing the cherry stem at Izzy, “and she’s selling her body to a bunch of horny men who have no respect for her as a person to fuel their fantasies of superiority over women as a whole. They slip cash into your g-string to establish their ownership—to demonstrate that you’re an object to be bought and—”