“Were you pleased,” Bill asked, “with how I handled everything?”
“Yes, thank you,” Bess said. “It was tasteful. I appreciate the chance to tell the real story. There were too many rumors flying around. Rumors that implicated people I care about—people who were innocent. It was important to us to set the record straight.”
“Us?” Bill’s eyebrows flew up toward his hairline.
“I mean to those of us who were involved. Neighbors and such.”
He smirked but didn’t press for clarification. “Glad we could do our part. I don’t know how far-reaching the podcast will be, but hopefully it will help.”
“Three million downloads is a good start,” she said.
“You did your research,” he said, preening a bit at her mention of his record.
“Why else did you think I agreed to do this?” She smiled to soften her words.
He smiled back, unfazed. He shifted on his feet, glanced toward the door, and lowered his voice. “I couldn’t help but notice while we were recording that you weren’t wearing a ring, and I wondered . . . if maybe . . . you’d be interested in grabbing lunch with me.” He made a point of looking at his watch, as if his offer were an afterthought. “I mean, it’s lunchtime.”
Bess smiled sweetly. She was slowly getting used to being asked out. It didn’t happen all the time, but it happened enough. “I’ve actually got someone picking me up. I have to be somewhere.”
He looked crestfallen but recovered quickly, resting his hand on her bad shoulder. It still hurt from time to time, but nothing a little ibuprofen wouldn’t take care of.
“Well, the offer’s open. You know how to get in touch with me if you ever change your mind.”
Bess nodded. “I certainly do.” In her head she could hear Nicole’s voice saying, As if. She’d starred as Cher in a production of Clueless for her senior play, and, for better or worse, the phrase had become part of the whole family’s lexicon. “Well,” she said, “I better go. My ride is waiting.”
She made her exit before he could ask her anything else, hurrying out of the studio and down the sidewalk to the parking lot. She made a visor out of her hand and scanned the lot for the car, an older-model blue Ford Explorer. She spotted it and hurried over, tugging the door open and jumping inside with a relieved sigh.
“You survived,” Norah said.
“I survived,” Bess replied, and smiled at her best friend.
“No surprises? He didn’t spring anything on you that you didn’t expect?”
“Nope,” she said. “It went exactly as we discussed in the preproduction meeting.”
Norah backed the car out of the parking spot but kept talking as she drove. “Was he a complete blowhard? He seems like he’s impressed with himself.”
“Just another guy with a superhero complex, thinking he’s saving the world in his own special way.”
“A captain of industry,” Norah said.
“Leaping tall buildings in a single bound.” Bess gave her customary response.
“Looking for a Pepper to his Iron Man,” Norah said.
“Looking for a Lois to his Superman,” Bess replied, and they smiled at each other at the stoplight.
Norah launched into one of her diatribes on the male species again, but Bess tuned her out. She was only repeating the things they’d said on that night long ago, when it had all begun, the night Norah had confessed to Bess how she’d found a “growth opportunity,” as she’d called it, one that could make them both financially secure. “You could leave Steve,” she’d said. It had been one of those nights where the wine was flowing liberally. They’d both been drunk.
“Leave Steve,” Bess had repeated. And the rhyme had seemed hilarious. Though her life with Steve had been far from funny. At the time, leaving him had seemed impossible. She had no way of supporting herself. Her daughters were still young. How would she work and care for them, too? She admired Norah, but she didn’t think she could be like her.
Norah laid out the plan that night, an idea that had taken shape thanks to two of her marketing clients—one launching an online dating service and one opening a spa. The dating service owner told her she was getting more requests for escorts than dates—“company for the evening,” the men called it. The spa owner said that a male customer had insinuated she could make a lot more money by “branching out” into other services besides the massages she offered in the back rooms. Norah connected the two conversations in her mind, hatching a plan that ultimately the two business owners had gone along with. They could make real money, Norah said. And all they would be doing is what they’d been doing in one form or another for years for free: making a man feel important and good about himself.
“You want me to sleep with men I don’t know for money?” Bess had felt her happy buzz replaced with the sobering reality of what Norah seemed to be seriously considering.
“No,” Norah quickly reassured her. “We won’t have to do that. Though, trust me, there are women who will. I’ve already got some lines in the water. It would surprise you who.”
“Who?” Bess couldn’t resist.
Norah waved away the details. “We’ll get into that later. But it’s women you’d never suspect. That’s the beauty of it.” Norah had raised her eyebrows. “No one else will, either.”
Was this foolhardy, or too good to be true? Either way, it wasn’t for her. She hoped this would just be a get-rich-quick scheme for Norah,
