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eyes.
     
    “Afternoon,” I called after her, grinning. The only time you couldn’t find Shimmy dancing was right when she woke up. She was definitely not an early bird.
     
    I jogged back downstairs and knocked on the office door. It was located right by the kitchen.
     
    “Come on in!” came the muffled reply.
     
    “It’s me, Cocoa,” I said, pushing the door open. “Just ten dollars, please, Mama.”
     
    “I remember,” she said, smiling and still in her curlers and terrycloth robe. “I’ve got it right out here for you.”
     
    She held out the bill and I took it, stuffing it into my little purse. Mama made a notation in the open ledger in front of her. I knew it was where she kept all of our accounts of the money we made and took out. It was Mama who’d drilled into my head to not leave anything of value in the rooms. She made all of the girls keep their earnings with her, effectively operating as the bank of the nightclub. She said it was so she could keep our money safe and that we could withdraw any amount of our earnings whenever we needed to.
     
    I’d never personally had a problem with the system, but two of my former roommates did. Neither of them trusted Mama to handle their money properly.
     
    I wasn’t sure that Jazz had left the nightclub with even a penny to her name.
     
    “I’ll see you later,” I said, stepping out and closing the door.
     
    I left the nightclub via the back — an exit that led out to the alleyway. It was a silly idea to come strutting out of a closed nightclub on a busy sidewalk, meaning the front door entrance. Mama encouraged us to do things outside of the nightclub, like shopping or recreation, whatever we wanted to spend our money on. But she pushed us to be discreet.
     
    Everything Mama did, she did to protect the nightclub. It was much more than a business to her.
     
    It was home to all of us.
     
    The back door shut heavily behind me, the click letting me know that the lock had automatically engaged. I had a key to get back inside, but not all of the girls did. Most of them had to push the bell to get let in.
     
    I held my breath as I walked by the dumpster. The warm day made its odors waft into the air even stronger than usual. Then, I emerged into the sunlight. People bustled down the sidewalks, even in this part of town. There was always something special about being a part of the crowd. When I didn’t have makeup on and wasn’t trying to impress anybody, I liked the anonymity. I was just a regular girl out here.
     
    “Hey, hot stuff! You a Yankees fan? What base do you think I could get to with you?”
     
    Well, not all the time. There were some things I couldn’t hide, like my long legs and tight ass. Nothing could camouflage those.
     
    A group of construction workers cackled as I walked by, holding my head high and giving the appearance that I hadn’t heard them. I had to remember to bring my headphones next time. Even if they weren’t plugged in to anything but my pocket, they gave me an added level of security.
     
    It sometimes felt foreign to be outside of the nightclub. Mama made sure we had everything we needed. There were two telephone lines so that we could call out, so few of us bothered with cell phones — or their accompanying bills. The readily available food discouraged us from eating out very often, and we were all close to one another. I suspected at times that Mama liked it better with everyone staying at the nightclub. She’d recently asked me if I thought it would work better if we had a courier deliver things to us from the corner store.
     
    I liked to get outside as often as possible, even if it didn’t happen every day. I liked to see the world outside, remind myself that there was more than the nightclub. That place was everything to me, as it was for so many other girls, but the outside world had a lot to offer, too.
     
    Finally, I reached the corner store. We all called it that even though it wasn’t located on