Every night Daddy stopped by, and every night I invited him in, and every night he said no. I could tell he wanted me, there was that familiar hunger in his eyes, but something was holding him back.
“Come in,” I said one night, after a long day of guests.
“I can’t,” he said.
“You can,” I said, “you just won’t.”
“No,” he said. “I won’t.”
I sat on the floor, on my side of the door. “Please,” I said. “Sit.” He sat on my welcome mat. “There,” I said. “Is this allowed?”
“This is allowed,” he said.
“Do you want me?” I said. Honesty, and all.
“I do,” said Daddy. “Very much.”
“Then why?”
“Things get complicated,” said Daddy. “I’m your boss,” he said.
“But I like you,” I said.
“I like you too,” he said.
“Can we be friends?” I said. “Is that allowed?”
“That is allowed,” he said. “Friends.”
“Friends!” I said. “Like Rachel and Joey!”
“They hooked up,” said Daddy.
“But they shouldn’t have,” we both said, at exactly the same time. He laughed.
“Tell me something about yourself,” I said.
“Like what?”
I shrugged. “Anything. Friends tell friends things about themselves.”
“You want to know why I got into the brothel business?” he said. “My mother worked the streets when I was a kid. She worked the Strip in Vegas. Whenever she went to work, I’d take a steak out of the freezer to thaw for when she got home. We never ate them, the steaks, they weren’t for eating. See, meat reduces swelling. When she got home, I’d be waiting with a cold steak to press to her wounds. I got into brothels to keep women like my mom safe.” He looked at me. “Is that something enough for you?”
I showed Daddy the journal, which was in my back pocket, where it lived. “This is my ma’s,” I said. “Was. She’s dead,” I said. My throat ached. I would not cry. Daddy leaned across the doorway to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear. “She had sex for money,” I said. “A different guy every night. I didn’t know she was getting paid for it until I found this journal when I was packing up her things. It’s her records. The names, dates, amounts, they go back to my birthday.”
I was crying.
“Lady,” Daddy said, “Look at you.” He held my hand and looked me in the eye so hard it was like he wanted me to combust. He said, “Who your father is, is irrelevant. How you came about doesn’t matter. The fact that you don’t know, I mean, we don’t know how the pyramids came about, how the stars came about, how our world came about. The fact that you don’t know makes you a space of infinite possibility. You’re perfect,” is what he said.
* * *
Whenever Ma told me we’d be rich one day, I’d be famous one day, we’d live in Hollywood and wear Chanel and stroll among the stars, I believed her. Believing’s easy. Tinker Bell thought she needed to be believed in to stay alive, but what she really needed was for people to tell her they believed in her. Whether they really believed in her or not, we’ll never know. So I told Ma I knew she’d make us rich and I told her I knew she’d get us out of our tumbledown life and I told her that I, too, wanted to be famous, a star. What I really believed? That’s my business. What you believe to be real is one of the only things you get to keep as your own.
* * *
Daddy took my hand and pressed a kiss to my knuckles. One hand, then the next. “I’m going to make you into something, Lady,” he said. And when he said, “I’m going to make you the next big thing,” he sounded just like Ma, and I chose to believe him.