“Everyone’s gonna think I’m a prostitute,” I say.
She giggles and hands them to me. “Isn’t that the point?”
I don’t know what’s worse in the eyes of society, being an actual prostitute, or doing what Janka and I do.
I put on the tights and shorts and a pair of high heel black leather boots. I curl my dirty blonde hair into tight ringlets and then tuck it on top of my head in an elegant upsweep, picking it with a rhinestone comb. Janka helps me perfect my smokey eye look, and I glob on enough mascara that I can barely keep my eyelids open.
I grab my fancy bottle of perfume out of the drawer in my vanity, spritzing a little under my armpits and on my neck. I only use this stuff on times we go out on jobs. Something about it makes me feel a little classier, a little more confident.
I’ve been milking this bottle out for the last twelve years and the scent of sandalwood, vanilla, and expensive musk always makes me feel beautiful. I cringe as Janka grabs the bottle and starts spraying herself down with it like cheap body spray.
“That’s seven hundred fifty zloty an ounce!” I whine.
“And how the hell did you end up with it?” she asks. “Did you lift it from somebody’s hotel room? Did you steal this on a job?”
“No, a man … a boy gave it to me… a long time ago. It was very expensive back then. Trust me, he told me all about it. I’m sure it’s worth even more now.”
“He sounds about as creepy as your ex husband. Real men don’t rub how much stuff costs in your face.”
Serafin wasn’t creepy, he was just… a lot. More than I could handle in my younger days. He showered me in expensive gifts, not because he was trying to show off his wealth, but because he was trying to show me how much I was worth in his eyes, trying to make me feel I was worth that much. At least, that’s what I told myself.
“Is it somebody I know?”
Janka might be my best friend now, but she has no idea where I came from.
My life before Serafin’s incident was something I never spoke of to anyone.
Back before art school when I was basically a peasant, working my ass off at the bakery, barely passing high school, and just trying to support my alcoholic father, my chronically ill mother, and my six siblings.
His parents paid us off to keep our mouths shut about that night. They gave my parents enough money to retire quietly in the country side. They put me through art school. I had to promise I would never go near their son again, which was painful because deep down, I truly loved him, but he was just a boy. Just a crush. Just a temporary teenage fixation. My family was supposed to be forever.
Then I divorced a police officer and they washed their hands of me faster than I could snap my fingers.
Maybe the smell of the perfume is making me sentimental but I reach for a tissue from my vanity and try to dab my mascara before it starts running down my face.
“Was he hot? Or was he just rich and trying to compensate?” She flops down on my bed and kicks her bright red high heels off over the edge, resting her chin in her hand like she’s waiting for story time to start. Janka lives for juicy love stories. She eat sleeps and breathes drama and gossip.
“We were just kids, Janka. I don’t know if he was hot. Back then I thought he was, but maybe that’s because he was the only person who ever paid attention to me.”
“I bet he was so hot. And he had good taste in perfume. What the hell? Why did you break up with him? Was he secretly gay? Did he cheat on you? Did you cheat on him?”
“He had a dark side,” I say.
She raises her perfectly penciled on eyebrows and I just shake my head.
Her phone begins to vibrate her way across my bed with a loud angry siren sound blaring from it. “We better get going,” she says.
I fix my mascara and spray my head down with another blast of hairspray. I go to my closet and pull out a long blue wool peacoat and button it all the way up. It comes almost down to my ankles. There’s no way I’m traipsing the streets of Krakow looking like a slutty disco ball.
She fixes her tight black mini dress in the mirror. It barely covers her ass cheeks, and when she bends over to turn off my curling iron, I can see her bright pink lace panties. I know she doesn’t plan on showing them to our client, but Janka never leaves the house without sexy lingerie on. She says you never know what might happen. Whether she’s going to the grocery store or the gym that woman is always ready for a wild time.
I wish I had an ounce of her adventurousness. I’m sure there’s not one person on the planet that would be impressed with my blue cotton boy shorts.
I dump everything out of my big messenger bag, making room for whatever I can pilfer from the buffet and the mini bar in the hotel room, and I grab a little wad of cash from the coffee can I keep tucked in the back of my closet for emergencies. I know dumping it into a slot machine is probably not the most responsible thing to do, but hopefully this job will pay out nicely, and if it doesn’t, hopefully I’ll hit the jackpot.
We both do a shot of vodka straight from the bottle.
It’s the only way I can live with the reality that is my right now. I’m broke. I divorced a powerful man who took everything I had to my name away from me, including my reputation and career.
I’m a thirty year old woman living with a roommate doing con jobs to make a living.
I’m a big old loser living day to day, hand to mouth, and I’m fully aware of it. I’m also a drunk. It’s the only way I can slap this shitty fake smile on my face and roll out of bed.
I know it’s going to get better. I just need to save up enough to get a place of my own. As soon as I can get out of this toxic environment, maybe I can will myself to be a little less toxic myself.
It doesn’t even burn anymore, it just makes me warm enough inside that I’m ready to go. I push open the door to our apartment and look down the grim gray hallway that reeks like old cigarette smoke and feral cats while Janka locks the door behind us. She grabs me by the hand and I don’t love the way she’s teetering as she steps. She’s the one with all the details of the job. I need her in control and laser focused.
“You gonna be alright?” I ask.
She takes off running towards the steps without missing a beat. Maybe I’m just being paranoid. She flips her long black hair over her shoulder and smiles her knockout smile, and I nearly trip over my feet trying to catch up with her in my clunky boots.
“I’m gonna be a lot better when we get back here with a fistful of cash!”
Fistful of cash is a good start. I’m gonna need a lot more than that to get back on my feet, though. Fistful of cash, slot machine jackpot, divine intervention… I don’t know what, but as we slide into the back seat of the black town car waiting out front for us, I can’t help but feel like tonight might be the night where I finally get lucky.
3
Serafin:
“He’s a fucking disaster.” Jakub Pawlak paces back and forth, dabbing at his forehead with a bright yellow silk handkerchief. “Nobody can get him under control. It’s only a matter of time before he fucks up beyond belief and ruins it all.”
“I don’t know what to tell you, man,” I say, trying to feign interest as I watch his client, Fillip, the lead singer of the most popular rock band Onyks, wander through the casino taking drinks out of people’s hands and chugging them down. Everybody seems pretty amused by his antics. “It’s not my job to rehabilitate them, Jakub. I just clean up the messes they make. Nothing I’m seeing here suggests he’s doing anything but living like a guy who has more money than God and less brains than a rock.”