Cattle Call

Maggie surveyed the dining room of the Ristorante Bella Rosa from her position near the cash register. Blots of marinara sauce stained the front of her uniform. Her feet ached. Her brain, a warm pudding at that point in the day, sloshed with boredom as she noted the slowing rush of lunch customers.

Then Vivian stepped confidently through the entrance in a smart suit and shiny pumps. They made eye contact and Maggie nodded her toward a table in her section, embarrassed that her well-heeled friend, beautiful beyond belief, would now see where she spent her days in endless toil.

“How do you know where I work?” asked Maggie, handing Vivian a menu.

“I’m as clever as you think I am,” said Vivian, already drawing the eyes of every male customer.

“The food is good here,” said Maggie, her palms sweating a little.

“I’ll just have the house salad.”

“Try the veal. You’re slender enough.”

“I’d like to keep it that way,” said Vivian as she closed the menu. “Will your boss let you sit with me while I eat?”

“She gets in a high-wheeled huff if she catches me jawing with the customers.”

“Fair enough. What time do you get off today?”

“I help prep for dinner but I’m off Friday nights. I’m usually done by six.”

“I guess that’s why you’re always at the club on Friday,” said Vivian. “Anyway, that’s perfect. I know you live upstairs. I’ll stop by here to pick you up at seven o’clock. Only we’re not going to the club. What size are you?”

“I don’t know.”

“What size is your uniform?”

Maggie looked down at the white-trimmed yellow costume she seemed to live in.

“I don’t know. It’s a little big on me.”

“A grown woman should know what fits her,” said Vivian.

“I don’t have money to buy clothes,” said Maggie.

“When I pick you up, I want you bathed and shaved and your hair clean. You’ll make a hundred dollars tonight.” Vivian smiled as Maggie’s jaw dropped. “Put my order in. And bring me black coffee. I’ve got a lot to do this afternoon.”

#

Maggie waited at the curb, her cropped red hair damp, brushed, and tucked behind her ears. She’d bathed, as ordered, scraping at her lower legs and armpits with an old safety razor, wondering who would care if she kept up with such tiresome maintenance. She wore a clean blouse and skirt, and her green cardigan, which she noticed, with a scowl, now had a large hole in one of the sleeves. She felt unadorned but presentable, and began to tingle at the idea of a hundred dollars, well over a month’s wages, and what she might have to do to get her hands on it. She’d done a lot of things in her short life. Experience meant knowledge to her, and knowledge meant survival. She wished she owned a little perfume, in case tonight’s adventure involved men, but she reckoned she still smelled fresh enough from her bath for any chap who cared to hold her close.

Vivian pulled up at the curb in a shiny, two-door Studebaker Commander. Maggie hopped in with a nod of admiration. It was natural that her stylish friend would own such a pretty automobile, she thought, gripping the door handle as Vivian roared away from the curb with a shake of her head.

“Do you not own any makeup?” Vivian asked with a surprising amount of irritation.

“No,” said Maggie, a little hurt. “I’m the rosy, English schoolgirl type. Besides, that glop is expensive.”

“Whatever. I’ll slap some lipstick on you when the time comes.” She roared around a corner, causing Maggie’s head to bump the window. “So, here’s the plan. I’ve rented a hotel room. We’ll go there first and get you into the dress I’ve picked out for you. Then we meet two men for dinner. It was supposed to be a single man, but I was informed this morning that he’s bringing someone else. That makes it a two-girl job. No one else from the agency is available this evening. I thought of you because I know you have a daring spirit and you’re always short of cash. I’ll make sure you won’t have to fuck anybody if you don’t want to. Just try to look cute while I do all the dirty work. I’ll get you a hundred dollars for your trouble."

“I didn’t figure you for a whore,” said Maggie, surprised that Vivian’s money didn’t come from a modeling career or a fancy clothing shop with her name above the door.

“Whore, huh?” Vivian rolled her eyes as she sped around a police cruiser and made a rollicking turn well after the light turned red. “And this coming from a girl who cadges drinks from men in jazz clubs every Friday and Saturday night.”

“I’m too young to order drinks for myself,” said Maggie. “Why not let men pay for them?”

“They’ll pay for anything, sister,” said Vivian. “If they get what they want.”

#

In the hotel room Vivian hurried Maggie out of her skirt and blouse, handing her a set of lacy black underthings.

“I asked you to shave,” said Vivian, disappointed again. “Men like it if you clean up the edges.”

“Oh, that,” said Maggie. “No one is going to see it.”

“If that’s the way you want it.”

“Will I still get the money?”

“I said you would. Trust me, they’ll pay.” Vivian helped Maggie slip a shiny green cocktail dress over her head. She zipped her up in the back, then opened her purse. “God damn it. I didn’t think of your feet.” She scowled down at Maggie’s scuffed saddle shoes, then cocked her head to the side. “With the right man, that innocent-but-curious appeal of yours could add some energy to the evening.”

She dropped the unused lipstick tube back in her bag.

#

After parking on a shadowy side street, Vivian led Maggie to the brass-and-oak entrance of a discreet hotel and restaurant in North Beach. Maggie’s stomach began to swirl as they entered the low-light warmth of the lobby. She wanted to impress Vivian with her boldness, her confidence, but was stepping into a world that was very different from her cheap, ordinary life.

Vivian scanned the elegantly furnished dining room while Maggie tried to ignore the glances at her dirty shoes.

“Mr. Powers,” said Vivian to the headwaiter.

“Follow me, madam.”

Maggie felt eyes from every direction as they crossed the dining room, but she knew the darts were aimed directly at Vivian, who moved like a proud bird in her violet dress, her dimpled chin thrust forward, her brown hair piled onto her head, a mink stole swaddling her shoulders.

As they approached a table in the corner, tucked behind a screen, a trim man with graying hair stood with a wide smile. A scared-looking younger version, with slick brown hair and bad skin, rose beside him, not smiling at all. Both men scrambled to pull chairs for their hired guests.

When they were seated, the older man introduced himself as Michael Powers.

“This is my son, David.”

“I’m Beth,” said Vivian and when Maggie didn’t say anything, continued for her. “This is my baby sister, Louise. She’s visiting from the countryside, and I thought it might be a lark to have her along for the evening. I never know what to do with her.”

“Little sister, you say,” said Mr. Powers. “My goodness, David. I guess we get a floor show with dinner.” He slapped his son on the back. “Does the story line interest you?”

David took a long swallow from his water glass.

A waiter appeared and after folding Vivian’s stole across his arm, he took their drink orders while holding Maggie’s cardigan away from his body with thumb and forefinger. Maggie asked for a whiskey sour. The boy next to her asked for the same.

“Are you two kids old enough to drink hard liquor?” asked the waiter with a smirk. Maggie watched the boy’s father slip a five-dollar bill into the waiter’s pocket. The man moved off, undoubtedly pleased with his hoary con-job.

“How old are you?” whispered David, leaning in to Maggie. She noted the pleasure on his father’s face.

“I’m twenty,” she whispered in return, leaning her head close to his.

“I’m starting college in the fall,” he said. “This ridiculous evening is my father’s idea. He thinks I don’t like girls.”

“We’re not so great,” said Maggie.

“I think you’re pretty,” said David as he opened his menu.

Heat rose in Maggie’s cheeks. No man or boy had recently appraised her looks. She was utterly plain compared to Vivian. She knew that. The men at the jazz club showed interest in her only because they’d spent money on her drinks and wanted to wallow in her after the show—to fuck, as Vivian was so fond of saying. Maggie was always more interested in the jazz music on stage and the Lucky Lager in front of her, and would move on to another pliable man if the one she was with started bubbling with ideas. She had stumbled to bachelor apartments with nice men a few times, but it was always a result of her being very drunk, and she never remembered the things she’d done with them or hated herself for it. She wasn’t an inexperienced or prudish girl, but she was unused to genuine interest or affection.

“Thank you for the compliment,” she said, feeling foolish in her role.

“You’re not really her sister, are you?” asked David.

“I see we’re not fooling anyone.”

#

Maggie swallowed three whiskey sours before dinner and two glasses of red wine with her pork chop. She refused dessert, patting her stomach, and almost fell asleep in her chair a few times while listening to David prattle on about his high school classes. She’d never been to high school, and was afraid to overshadow his childish honesty with her own bleak story: her childhood in Hong Kong, the years in a Japanese prison camp before liberation brought her to San Francisco. Besides, she was being paid $100 to make him like her, and she knew men liked women who listened to men talk about themselves.

“I like music too,” said David, after Maggie told him she was an excellent piano player. “It’s something to do with the mathematics inherent in the structure.”

“I won the Far East Chopin Piano Competition in Shanghai when I was thirteen,” she said. It was a fact everyone had to know, though no one ever cared.

Suddenly Vivian rose from her chair. She had been in deep conversation with Mr. Powers all evening.

“David,” said Mr. Powers. “Would you see Beth upstairs?”

“No.”

“David. We invited these women to dinner for a reason.”

Placing his napkin on the table, David rose without looking at Vivian or Maggie. Vivian followed the boy out of the dining room, trying to match his brisk pace. Tipping her chair backward, glancing over her shoulder, Maggie watched them ascend the stairs together as Mr. Powers shifted to David’s spot. He stopped a passing waiter to order two shots of Irish whiskey.

“This shouldn’t take long.” He chuckled to himself. “If your gorgeous partner can’t make a man of David, there’s no hope.”

“Why are you doing this to him?” asked Maggie. “It’s humiliating.”

“I want him to be wise to women before he heads off to college. And I doubt it’s as humiliating as some of the things you’ve done. Have you ever let a man piss into your mouth?”

“I can’t guess what that’s in aid of,” said Maggie with a frown.

“I suppose it’s about domination, my sweet girl.” He moved closer. “So, tell me. What’s the most humiliating thing you’ve done for money?”

Maggie turned to Mr. Powers.

“I never feel humiliated in my work. Why should I? You’re the ones paying through the nose for something every animal does by nature for free. You men disgust me with your ridiculous needs. Thank goodness it’s usually over in a few pathetic minutes.” Their shots arrived and Maggie threw hers down her throat. She should have been an actress, she thought, the way she’d taken to her part.

“I like your saucy style, miss. I like it a lot.” Maggie felt his eyes on her, the heat of the straight whiskey burning in her throat and chest. She could feel his thigh against hers as he leaned in, his breath tickling her ear. “I have another room upstairs. I’ll get the check, leave a note for my son, and then I’ll take you up there and disgust you for a few minutes.” He placed a hundred-dollar bill on the table, then pushed it toward her. She picked it up and was about to set it on fire over the white candle at the center of their table when Vivian snatched it from her fingers.

“Put the money away,” she said, her hand on the back of Maggie’s chair. “This isn’t a fucking livestock market.”

Mr. Powers looked up at her.

“What happened? Was it over that quickly?”

“Your son doesn’t want me,” said Vivian. “He wants Louise.” She looked at Maggie. “Room 206. He’s waiting.”

#

Maggie drifted over plush runners in a hallway lit by wall sconces every twenty feet. The whiskey had pushed her into what she recognized in herself as drunkenness. She tapped lightly on the door of room 206, letting herself inside when David didn’t answer. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, still fully clothed, a silhouette with the bedside lamplight behind him.

“Hi, David,” said Maggie. “Vivian said you asked for me.”

“I don’t like her,” he said. “She’s unreal.”

“You can say that again. Most men would kill their mother to spend an hour with a creature like Vivian, but perfection is frightening to touch, isn’t it?”

“I thought her name was Beth.”

“Oh, right,” said Maggie, rubbing her face. “We don’t use our real names, of course. It’s an act, what we do. Like a bad stage play.”

“What’s your real name?”

“Margaret.”

“It suits you.”

“I don’t like it,” she said as she looked around the room, wondering what she was supposed to do.

“Those shoes are an odd match for the rest of your outfit,” said David, childishly honest again.

“Yeah. It’s me being less unreal than Vivian.”

“May I look at your feet?”

“I suppose so,” said Maggie, a bit skeptical. She sat down on the bed and began to untie her left shoe.

“Let me do it,” said David, kneeling on the floor in front of her.

Maggie leaned back with her arms extended, lifting a foot for the suddenly delighted boy. He untied each shoe, removing it gently, then rolled down the short, white socks until her pink toes were revealed. She was thankful that her feet were clean, and he smiled at them as he stroked the ankle, the heel, and then the toes with their clipped nails.

“Your feet are beautiful,” said David, lifting one to his nose, then kissing it.

“Thanks,” said Maggie, not sure what to do at this point. She wondered if David’s dingus had gotten stiff.

“Your toes are like little pink shrimp,” he said, pulling one into his mouth with a soft tongue.

“Do you have any interest in seeing anything else while we’re up here?” she asked.

“None,” said David, running his hands up and down her hairless calves.

“Suits me,” said Maggie as she lay back on the bed, closing her eyes, giving in to a crushing pleasure while he began to massage her feet.

#

Maggie returned to the dining room, where she found Vivian and Mr. Powers at opposite sides of the table, smoking quietly, waiting.

Maggie stopped to whisper into the man’s ear.

“I was proved wrong this evening. Your son humiliated me.”

“How?” asked Mr. Powers, jazzed with excitement. “What did he do to you?”

“He made me melt with pleasure. That’s never happened before with a client, and it’s humiliating for a professional to lose control like that. You should be proud of the boy. And you should stop dominating him.”

Mr. Powers grinned.

“My David drove a dirty whore out of her senses,” said Mr. Powers, grinning from ear to ear. “Like father, like son.”

“We’re leaving,” said Vivian, standing and crushing out her cigarette.

“Did you hear me?” asked Maggie as she was hauled by the arm away from the man’s smug face. “I’m telling you to let David find his own way.”

#

Vivian’s Studebaker rolled to a stop in front of the dark restaurant where Maggie worked. After killing the engine, Vivian held out a neatly folded hundred-dollar bill.

“I had a good time, Beth,” said Maggie. “You don’t have to pay me for it.”

“Don’t be dumb,” said Vivian. “You went with the boy.”

“We didn’t go very far.”

“The father paid,” said Vivian, tapping at Maggie’s arm with the money. “I know you’re itching to take it. Buy yourself a new sweater.”

“I know how to darn the hole in my cardigan,” said Maggie, leaning against Vivian’s shoulder, inhaling her perfect scent. She could stay there in the pretty car with the pretty woman and be someone else for the rest of her life, but she had to be at work in the morning on her tingling feet. She plucked the bill from Vivian’s fingers. It was a lot of money to an honest waitress.

“Good girl,” said Vivian. “We earned every penny tonight, having to sit at the same table with that horrible man and watch him torture his son like that.” She yawned. “The food was good, at least. And I didn’t have to fuck anybody for a change.”

Maggie got out of the car and stood on the sidewalk, still a little woozy. She pulled the cardigan closed and turned to Vivian.

“Don’t ask me to do this again,” she said. “It’s too sad.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. I like working with you. I could teach you a lot.”

“No, thanks. May I keep the dress?”

“Sure. Doesn’t fit me.”

“Maybe I’ll wear it to the club.”

“You won’t ever have to buy a drink in that thing,” said Vivian as she turned over the engine.

“My kind of action,” said Maggie.

BIO: Russell Thayer’s work has appeared in Brushfire, Tough, Roi Fainéant Press, Guilty Crime Magazine, Mystery Tribune, Close to the Bone, Bristol Noir, Apocalypse Confidential, Cowboy Jamboree Press, Hawaii Pacific Review, Shotgun Honey, A Thin Slice of Anxiety, Rock and a Hard Place Press, Revolution John, Punk Noir, Expat Press, Pulp Modern, The Yard Crime Blog, and Outcast Press. He received his BA in English from the University of Washington, worked for decades at large printing companies, and currently lives in Missoula, Montana. You can find him lurking on “X” @RussellThayer10.