Chapter 9 - Nadia

It was so late by the time I reached my subway stop in Queens that only service industry workers were still on the train. A parade of maids, waiters, and line cooks leaving the city that never sleeps for the lower rent apartments of the outer boroughs.
My commute wasn’t done yet, though. Living near a subway station wasn’t a luxury I could afford, so I had to walk another five blocks to my apartment building. It wasn’t the best neighborhood. It’s not like I had much of a choice. Tonight was better than most; there was only one shady-looking guy across the street halfway home, who stopped digging through trash to stare at me as I walked along the opposite sidewalk.
Thankfully all he did was watch, but I still kept a tight grip on the pepper spray in my bag all the way home.
Home wasn’t the right word. A home was a place you felt like you belonged, the safe haven where you retreated at the end of a long day. My apartment was more of a dwelling. The place where I spent six and a half hours sleeping each night, and as little other time as possible. It was a cramped two-bedroom split among four of us, two in each bedroom. My roommates, who I’d met on Craigslist six months ago, were all asleep. The kitchen was still a mess even though it was Carla’s week to clean it; dishes were piled in the sink and a rank, pungent smell wafted from the overflowing trash can.
I hated coming back here. But again, it’s not like I had much of a choice.
I went to the bathroom, brushed my teeth, and then slipped into the room I shared with Carla. She was a maid who worked three jobs, and I’d only spoken four or five complete sentences to her since I moved in. Such was the life of two people who were always at work, and whose schedules only ever crossed when we were sleeping.
But Carla wasn’t alone tonight. She was on her bed to the right, but a lump of human occupied my bed on the other side of the room. Biting down my anger, I shook the lump.
“Get out.”
The person—a man in his 20s—groaned. “Huh?”
“This is my bed. You’re in my bed. Get the fuck out of my bed.”
Carla rolled over on her bed and feigned apology. “Nadia! It is you! I thought you were out tonight.”
Out tonight. Meaning hooking up with a guy. Putting aside the annoying subtext of her accusation, I was pissed that she thought my absence meant anyone was allowed to sleep in my bed.
“I’m here tonight,” I said, too exhausted to give her a piece of my mind. “I want to go to sleep.”
Carla and the man—her nephew, maybe?—argued in a Slavic language for a few seconds and then he angrily tossed aside my sheets. He stomped into the living room and slammed my bedroom door.
Ignoring the dude-smell on my sheets, I turned my pillow over to the fresh side and tried to relax.
“If you pay rent on time,” Carla said quietly, “maybe this does not happen. Yes?”
“Fuck off,” I whispered, too quiet for her to hear. I was two weeks late on this month’s rent, but that was pretty low on my list of priorities right now. After a few seconds I heard her roll back over and go to sleep.
Despite my exhaustion, I was now pissed off and unable to go to sleep. Soon my thoughts drifted back to my night, replaying everything that had happened and cringing at what I had said, and fantasizing about what I should have said. A hundred comebacks to their stupid offer came to me. Really witty stuff. Everyone was Shakespeare with the benefit of hindsight.
Once I’d depleted all my cleverness, I was left thinking about Braden.
About the scene we’d had together, and the lust that was so real in his eyes.
About the pseudo-date at the bar, both of us hitting it off better than any other date I’d ever been on.
And about stealing away to a secluded part of the subway and making love like the world was ending. The way his lips were warm and loving and present, as if kissing me were the only thing in the world a man should focus on. The way he felt inside of me, thick and full.
I tossed and turned while I slept, and wished it was Braden in my bed instead of Carla’s nephew.
My alarm went off 15 minutes later. At least, it felt like I’d only been in bed 15 minutes. When I was in high school, there were days I pretended to be sick so I wouldn’t have to get out of bed. Mom would make me chicken noodle soup with saltine crackers, and I’d waste the day away underneath the covers while watching The Price is Right and other daytime TV.
Adulthood didn’t afford me that option. I worked two jobs, and neither of them gave me sick time. Staying in bed meant not getting paid, or worse—getting fired.
I pulled myself from the comfort of my pillow and went through my morning routine.
I had just enough time left over to make breakfast. Earlier in the week I’d bought English muffins, eggs, and cheese so I could save money on breakfast on the way to work. A good idea in theory, but the kitchen was just as messy this morning as it was when I’d come home last night. The frying pan was nowhere to be seen under the pile of dishes in the sink, and there weren’t any plates. I considered digging around for them—and causing a racket in the process to make a point to my slovenly roommates—but the sad reality was I didn’t have the time to clean a pan and cook myself breakfast.
Already pissed off, I left my apartment and bought a coffee and breakfast sandwich on the way to the subway.
That was the problem with my situation. It was easy to look at someone who spent $9.99 on breakfast every morning and lecture them about how they could save $100 per week just by buying groceries and meal-prepping for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. But that ignored the bigger problem with being poor: you weren’t just poor on money. You were poor on time.
My dancing role in The Proposition paid $150 per week. I had to work two other jobs just to afford my cramped Queens apartment. Throw in two hours of commuting into the city each day and all that was left was about seven hours for sleep. Anything else I wanted to do, whether it was watching a movie or doing laundry or cooking my own meals, cut into that sleep time. I worked seven days a week, which meant I didn’t even have any days to play catch up.
That was the reality of a second-rate dancer trying to follow her dream of becoming a Broadway actress. I needed my apartment in Queens for that. I needed two jobs just to barely afford the apartment and food. It was a cycle that was difficult to break out of, and I felt like I was barely hanging on. If I ever got sick or broke a bone, I was fucked.
I ate my over-priced breakfast sandwich on the subway and tried not to think about it. I failed. Even shifting my thoughts to the wonderful night with Braden failed to improve my mood.
Frederick’s, the department store in Brooklyn where I worked, opened at 8:00, but my shift started at 7:00 so I could restock shoes that people had tried on and then discarded. We worked on commission, which meant they could pay us $5.50 base before our commissions. Altogether it ended up around $15 per hour for me. I wasn’t a good saleswoman.
The doors opened, and the line of waiting Brooklyn housewives waddled into the store.
It could be worse. That’s what I told myself while I was cramming too-small shoes on women with big feet—that it could always be worse. My imagination failed to think of a worse scenario, but I’m sure there was one.
“Girl?” shouted one woman with a 1980s perm. “Excuse me! Girl!” She waved a pair of Gucci Black slippers at me.
The only good thing about the job was that it didn’t require much thought. I could zone out, and hum some of the music from The Proposition to myself. Granted, the music wasn’t very good, but I liked to have it memorized to the point that I could recite it in my sleep. It made the dancing easier, more natural.
Soon I was thinking about Braden again, and by extension, Braden’s offer. Not just his offer—their offer. The four of them. It was intriguing, but it was crazy. The kind of thing that wasn’t practical in any reasonable way.
Wasn’t it?
I thought about the last couple of normal dates I’d been on. It wasn’t often, given my schedule. Neither date had gone well. And it was so much work. First dates had their own set of rules and boundaries, as did second dates. Then on the third date you got down to business. In both cases, we hadn’t made it to the magical date number three because both guys turned out to be huge douches. Time and money, my two most precious resources, down the drain with nothing to show for it.
That’s why I preferred hooking up with someone from the bar. I didn’t want anything serious. I didn’t have time for anything beyond one-night stands. Some flirting at the bar while I worked (efficient multitasking!) and then straight to their place for some action. Hot, meaningless sex with someone I never had to see again until they came back to the bar and made it weird.
What if I could have that, but with several guys? In different specialized areas?
Say what you would about Braden and his friends’ offer, but all the cards were on the table. No weird expectations. Ryan just wanted a fuck-buddy. Dorian wanted a friend. Andy was looking for a potentially serious relationship with an emotional connection.
It was like one boyfriend broken down to his three constituent parts. It was a shame I didn’t have more time, or it just might have been doable.
And Braden…
Our sex confused me. Was it just to prove he wasn’t gay? Did he want to have sex with me outside of that root goal? The lust had seemed real. More than just a guy going through the motions. But why would someone like him even want to be with me? He was the flawless male lead of the show, handsome and muscular and smooth in every way. A New York ten. I was barely a six on my best nights.
Why couldn’t I stop thinking about the way his lips felt against mine?
I was so busy daydreaming that I only brought one pair of shoes back to the woman with the perm and too much eyeshadow. She stared at the single box I placed on the ground and made a choking noise.
“Excuse me, girl,” she said. “I asked you to bring me a size five and a half, and a size six.”
“Right, sorry,” I said. “I’ll go grab those for you.”
She tossed her head and looked around for someone to share in her misery. “The last thing I need is a ditsy shoe girl wasting my time.”
I’d been assisting her for almost an hour without a sale, so if anything she was wasting my time. But I couldn’t say that.
“Go on!” she snapped. “Why are you still standing there?”
I turned away and mumbled, “Chill the fuck out,” under my breath, too quiet for anyone to hear.
Or so I thought.
“Excuse me?” the woman demanded. When I turned around she was on her feet. “What did you say to me, girl?”
I froze, panicked. “I didn’t say anything.”
“Yes you did. You shouted an expletive at me. I heard you!”
“I’m sorry ma’am,” I replied, thinking fast. “What I said was that it’s chilly out.”
My manager appeared next to me like a ghost emerging from another plane of existence. “Is there a problem here?”
The look of pleasure on the customer’s face made me sick to my stomach. “Yes. Your girl just insulted me to my face! She cursed at me!”
My manager turned to me. He was usually a good guy. I didn’t dislike him. He had an even tougher job than me: keeping difficult customers as happy as possible.
“Nadia,” he said in a measured tone, “please apologize to Mrs. Williams.”
Ouch. He knew her name. That meant she was a regular.
“Yes,” she said, crossing her arms and sticking her chin in the air. “Apologize to me.”
My manager gave me a look. Disarm the bomb and we can all survive.
“I am very sorry, Mrs. Williams.”
She pursed her lips and looked me up and down. She knew she was judge, jury, and executioner right now. “Very well. Be a good girl and fetch the proper size for these shoes.” She turned to my manager. “And please send another shoe girl to assist me from this point on. I do not want this one receiving the commission.”
The commission on the shoes would have been more than I made in an entire day. It was the last straw.
“Fucking bitch.”
The words slipped out of my mouth before I could stop them. Mrs. Williams and my manager both stared at me, jaws dropping in slow-motion.
Well, shit. Too late now.
Now that I’d dropped the atom bomb, I might as well get my money’s worth.
I grabbed the pair of expensive heels and squinted at the label. “I’ll go see if we have this pair for men. Because the only way those fat-ass feet are fitting in a size six are if they’re a men’s six.”
Rage crossed Mrs. Williams’s face. For a brief moment my manager looked impressed, or even jealous, by my outburst. He struggled not to laugh.
Before they could both go off on me, I tossed the shoes over my shoulder and stormed out of the job I couldn’t afford to lose.