I began to go to Frankies with Rhonda a lot.
The place became a home away from Lisa’s. Time spent there discovering myself and who I was. I found myself in allowing myself to have some kind of pleasure, to dress as I wanted and to even feel attractive. Frankies provided me with time to see my life as I wanted it to be. It gave me space to think, to lose myself to the music of the dance floor Rhonda sometimes dancing nearby, or if I was lucky another man. It felt freeing to be away from Lisa. I tried not to think about that after what she had given me.
“Jamieson, that’s complete bullshit and you know it.” Rhonda said. We were outside of Frankies having a cigarette. The air was crisp with the scent of fall, and I knew that the leaves would start falling soon.
“It’s not,”
“It so is. You think that’s what you have been planting all this time? You have been wishing for a home, and you still feel guilty about hurting Lisa. You can’t do both. You need to think of yourself. You don’t do that enough.”
I shrugged. “I’ve always been told that thinking only of yourself is selfish.”
“Yeah, and who told you that?” She butted out her cigarette. “You’re fucking ex-boyfriends? Your family? I don’t see them here, do you?” She motioned around us. “Putting yourself first isn’t selfish, it’s self care.” At that moment, she looked at me and I could see the light shine brightly in her eyes. “I have an idea, come with me.”
“I’m not my cigarette yet.” I was being stubborn and I knew it. I took one last drag from the butt end and let the smoke out and dropped it to the pavement. I stepped on it with my high heeled boots. I was wearing a poet’s blouse in a light pink colour and a lose flowing broom skirt. It had once been black, but it had faded to a lovely shade of heather grey. I wore my black Doc Martin’s and thigh length black and white socks.
“Are you fucking done? We have places to go, come on.”
She took hold of my hand and headed downstairs towards the dance floor. I let her drag me with her and thought she was going to take us to the floor, but she took me to the darkness of the shadows towards a door that I hadn’t noticed before. It was under an exit sign, and I thought she was taking us to the back alley, but when she opened the door, I could see a hallway of black walls and a stone floor. It was lit by soft white light, and I had a moment of worry fill me.
Rhonda must have felt my hesitation and squeezed my hand. “It’s okay, we’re almost there.”
I nodded even though she couldn’t see me. I wondered where this would lead me and what seeds I was planting by going in this direction. Did I want whatever I would find at the end of this hallway? My boots clacked on the stone, and I pretended that it was music, joining with the beat that I could hear from the dance floor and I let the beat push me forward to whatever awaited me.
Stopping in front of a door that I hadn’t noticed before, she knocked on it and opened the door before anyone could answer. “Hey Mike, what’s up?”
An older man with a strong jaw and brilliant grey eyes stood from behind a desk. He held out his arms to Rhonda and wrapped her in a big hug. “What’s shaking hot stuff?”
“Not a heck of a lot for me, but I have a solution for you.”
“And what solution is that?” He sounded interested. Mike was not humouring her. Clearly, they had a good relationship and had known each other for a long time. He looked at her as if she were not four feet nothing, but a woman who had proven her worth to him.
“You need an everyday boy, and I’ve found one for you.”
His eyebrows raised and his eyes looked even brighter. “Him?” he motioned at me.
“Yeah, him. This is Jamieson.”
“You trust him?” He asked her.
“With my life.”
Then he looked at me. He gave me an up and down look so that he could take me all in. I had the feeling that I was being assessed, not judged. I held his gaze for as long as he stared at me and then he nodded as if he had made up his mind.
“Jamieson, my name is Mike. Me and my partner run this place. We need a guy to be the doorboy for the dancers. Maybe some nights, we need help cleaning the bar, especially the champagne rooms. Washing floors and the like. That sound okay to you? We’ll pay you under the table, twenty-five bucks to do the door for a few hours plus tips. Probably the same for cleaning. Does that sound okay?”
I had never thought about getting any kind of job. I knew that I wanted to do something more than sitting around reading and eating bread with peanut butter. Magic and Pagan gatherings didn’t take up a lot of my time. I spent all my time with Lisa, and this job would give me something to do and somewhere to go that wasn’t her place.
“Of course,” I said. “Yes, it does. I’d like that.”
“We only have one rule that you have to follow. Ready for it?”
“Sure,”
“Have fun. Life is too short. Okay?”
I nodded and I shook the hand he held out. “Okay.”
“Good, I’m glad. Can you start this Thursday? Dancers are Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays.”
That was in a couple of days. “That sounds awesome!” I told him.
“I like that enthusiasm. You’ll fit in fine here.”
As we were leaving the bar, Rhonda took my hand. “There you go, honey. You’re all set. Now we just have to find you a new place to live. Don’t worry, though. I have ideas.”
We walked onward and I let go of her hand briefly so that I could light a cigarette. I took her hand again with my free one. “Why would you do that for me?” My words came out in puffs of smoke, and I was reminded momentarily of the caterpillar from Alice in Wonderland. I tried to see if the words I wanted to say would come out in smoke. I watched as the smoke from my mouth fell to the ground to grace the pavement
She gave me an incredulous look. “Really? Don’t you get it? I’m trying to plan for your future. You’re not going to be on welfare forever you know, not like her. She may have decided that this is it for her, but I know that you’re capable of so much more.” We stopped walking so that she could light her own cigarette. “I have dreams and I want more than this. Don’t you? I want you to realize that it’s not wrong to dream. And you already know how I feel about how she treats you.”
She was angry and though I was used to her temper, I had never seen Rhonda like this. Tears appeared in her eyes, but they remained unshed. Her walls were down and she stood bare in front of me. This was the part of her that was planted beneath that tough bitch exterior, and I was honoured that she was showing herself to me like this.
She blinked a few times and took a few deep breaths so that her mascara would be saved. “I mean, you’re one of the best people I’ve ever met and you’re so fucking nice. It pisses me off to see how she treats you, like you are forever the protégé, never the master, but you’re ten times the person she is, and you can’t see it.”
Butting out her cigarette, she took my shoulders in her hands. “I’m trying to do something for your future, Jamieson. You deserve so much more out of life than being someone else’s fucking lapdog. You’re capable of greatness and you can’t see it yet, but I can.”
“And working in a bar will lead me there?” I gave her a soft smile. I couldn’t describe what it was like to have someone believe in me this much.
She took my hand again and we were walking again. “It will get you out of her house and into the world again. You can’t hide forever. Sometimes, you have to step out of the nest and fly, honey.”
I looked down at my arms and wondered if I was capable of growing wings. I wondered what colour they would be. The wind picked up and I could hear the sound of music and the noises of traffic. The wind made the leaves around me rustle and I added the whisper of leaves to the music that I heard around me. I could hear my breath as I let smoke leave my lips and the beat of my heartbeat and the click of my footsteps and I wondered what was possible.
Spirit of the Wolf 