Leanna’s phone rings like someone’s trying to collect debt: clockwork, no voicemails, repeat. Inez has avoided talking about Planned Parenthood every time I call her, and Leanna’s avoiding something too. She rejects another call but stares down at her phone like maybe she should’ve answered. I wonder if the truth spell is about to take effect, but she says, “Let’s go inside before we get bad seats.”
Dev’s team is facing Mount Pleasant High School, and the game is being held there. It’s about three times bigger than our school, with a full-sized court and wooden bleachers. Leanna takes the seats closest to the court, like she usually does. Being here with her reminds me of how many games she comes to, which is most of them, and it makes me regret saying she’s hardly around, when what I should’ve said is she’s hardly around for me.
Dev plays it cool when he sees us, gives us a half-interested wave, but I know he’s excited we’re both here. He stops before taking his seat on the bench to talk to the girl who’s always at his locker. She’s wearing a leather skirt, which barely covers her butt cheeks, and a white shirt. “I swear that girl got no bra on,” Leanna says. “Devin needs to stop playing before I walk over there and embarrass him.”
After Dev’s team wins the game, they all go out to celebrate. Leanna is supposed to take me home, but her phone won’t stop ringing. She takes a sharp left, pulls into a dark parking lot on Chalkstone Avenue behind a brick building. A flashing sign at the top of it reads FOXY LADY. “What are we doing here?”
It takes her a good minute, but she says, “This is where I work. Natalie, I’m a stripper.”
I laugh. It’s involuntary. Leanna’s face turns red. Her mouth does the same twitchy thing Jasmine’s did when we argued after the truth spell. I brace myself, but I’m not steady enough when Leanna says, “Come see for yourself.”
My head spins. A rush of sickness comes over me. I follow her slowly, like she’s leading me into some kind of trap. She’s talking to a bouncer at the entrance when I get there. He looks me over once before he lets us inside. Strobe lights streak the darkened room with color, and the music seems to move with them. I try not to get distracted, and rush to keep up with Leanna. The men pay me no mind, too busy throwing money and hollering, getting lap dances and shoving their faces in between uncovered breasts. Leanna leads us to a back room, full of outfits and women in front of mirrors, doing their makeup and fixing one another’s wigs.
“You wanted to know why I’m not around. Well, I’m here fifty hours a week to make sure we’re all good. You wanted to know why Harriet hates me, and now you do.”
A redhead getting ready spots us in the mirror and gasps so loud it puts my response on pause. “Lexy,” she says to my sister, in a thick southern accent I’m sure is fake. “I thought I’d have to send Bubba out looking for you.”
Lexy?
Leanna sucks her teeth. “Bridge, I told you I couldn’t work tonight.” She has the same edge in her voice that I always hear.
“You dying or something?” The redhead twirls in her seat, and I’m taken aback by her lashes. They’re so long it seems to take an extra second for her to lift her lids after she blinks. Under these bright lights, her makeup looks meticulous, and she stands in the tallest heels I’ve ever seen. They’re clear at the bottoms with shiny silver straps, and she has no problem walking over to us in them. “I really needed my lucky pin,” she says, “and figured if you came by you’d join me on the stage tonight. You know they like it when we go on together.”
“Not tonight, Bridge.”
“C’mon, Peaches can get you ready in a snap.”
I wonder which one is Peaches while Leanna opens her purse and hands over a small golden arrow, which the woman pins to her panties. “Not that it’s any of your business,” Leanna says, “but I had a family thing. Still do. Please don’t leave your stuff in my car.”
“It dropped,” Bridge says, smiling. “You’re more sensitive than usual.” She gapes at me like she’s just noticing I’m here. “Oh, is this…?” She gasps again but this time with a squeal at the end. “Is this your little sister?”
Leanna doesn’t glance my way but tells me to go wait in a chair in the far right corner of the room so she can speak to Bridge privately. The women getting ready smile at me when they see me staring. One pulls a stack of money from her panties and starts counting it right in front of me. A bald guy with a pointy chin pokes his head through the door and says, “Roses, Tina’s getting tired out there. You ready yet or what?”
“Be out in a bit,” the one called Roses says, slabbing a thick layer of oil on her brown legs while another woman rubs it in.
They’re all beautiful. My cheeks are burning by the time I force my eyes in front of me and focus on myself in a vanity mirror. My round mouth and uncolored lips, my breasts so small I still wear a sports bra, the length of my lashes. “So long,” Leanna used to say, “you’ll probably never need falsies.”
I look back at her, but she’s busy helping Bridge adjust her outfit. I open the top drawer of the vanity, and the inside is immaculate. Lipsticks are organized by color. Dozens of eyelash kits sit stacked against one another so neat it hurts to look at. Lace panties are folded up in triangles and placed inside a small white basket. This is definitely Leanna’s drawer.
Leanna is Lexy, and Lexy is a stripper.
On the ride home, Leanna’s quietly gripping the steering wheel, while my brain tries to dissect clues to what she’s been doing all along. There’s not enough time to rewire the memories on the drive home, but I try anyway.
When I was younger, Leanna took me and Dev in for a while when she realized we had been home alone for two days with no food. I remember creeping through her closet. She had the shiniest dresses and leather pants I had ever seen. Tons and tons of high heels and wigs and makeup. While she was using the bathroom, I put one of her wigs on and danced in the mirror. She came in the room and she didn’t yell; she put a wig on her head too. She did my makeup, let me wear her heels, showed me how to walk in them. “Just this once,” she said.
Now, Leanna stares straight ahead. She’ll take me grocery shopping tomorrow, but tonight she doesn’t want to look at me. I can’t tell if she’s crying, but I think she is. I wonder if she’s ashamed, or if she’s crying because the spell forced her truth out. I leave the car, wanting to feel sorry, but how long would she have kept this from me if I hadn’t? And why did she keep it in the first place?
My house is dark, but I’m too tired to be scared of spirits or wonder why Mili’s trapping-spell jars haven’t trapped them. I crawl into bed with day-old breath and an unwashed face, and my brain tries to rewire again, each memory of Leanna becoming layered and more complex than it was before. Each one making more sense. But the memory I see before I drift off is Leanna crying after confessing her secret because of what I did.