$73.81.

That was the number staring back at me from the screen. Less than seventy-five bucks to my name, no job, and rent was due next week.

Shit. I decided to log out of my bank account and log back in, just to make sure there wasn’t some hiccup in the system.

No dice. $73.81.

I had a job, up until two weeks earlier. A pretty good one. Then my boss copped a feel in the break room, I told him off, and he fired me on the spot. I spent the next two weeks applying to every job opening I could find, but nobody called me back. Not even one interview. Even the coffee shop around the corner wouldn’t hire me; I was “overqualified.”

New York is glamorous and exciting until you’re unemployed, broke, and desperate. Then it seems like the worst city in the world.

This wasn’t how I imagined my life turning out.

I closed my laptop and considered my options. My credit cards were maxed out, and all of my friends were just as broke as I was. I hadn’t spoken to my mother in six years, since I graduated from high school and left the West Coast for good. I hadn’t spoken to my father in longer than that. There were no eccentric great-aunts who would die and leave me an unexpected fortune. I was basically at the end of the line.

Either you’re born lucky or you aren’t. I wasn’t, and my life had been a long series of sad mistakes and unfortunate coincidences, culminating in that moment at my laptop, when I realized I was a week away from losing everything I’d worked so hard to earn.

Well. Desperate times call for desperate measures. I needed some greasy bodega food. So what if I couldn’t afford it? I couldn’t afford anything, and I still had to eat. One could only survive on ramen for so long.

I put on my coat and walked to the bodega on the corner. November had arrived crisp and cold, and my ears felt numb by the time I arrived. The bell to the door jingled as I went inside.

The guy at the sandwich counter spotted me and waved. “Miss Regan! The usual?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Thanks.” Maybe I should have been embarrassed that the bodega guy knew my order by heart, but I wasn’t. There can be no shame when it comes to sandwiches.

While he made my sandwich, I looked at the fliers posted along the side of the counter. One of them caught my eye: “Cocktail Waitress Wanted, Experience Necessary.” There was no address, just a phone number. I ripped off one of the hanging tabs. I didn’t know anything about either cocktails or waitressing, but I would lie if I had to. Honesty was a lot less important to me than being able to pay my rent.

I paid for my sandwich and went back to my apartment. It was a crummy one-room sixth-floor walk-up in a terrible part of Brooklyn, but it was mine. I didn’t have to share it with anyone. If I had to move, or get a roommate, that would mean admitting defeat. I hadn’t let life defeat me yet, and I refused to roll over belly-up without a good fight.

It was 3:00—not too late to call about the waitressing job. I dialed the number.

Someone picked up on the first ring. “Silver Cross Men’s Club,” said a pleasant female voice.

Men’s club? Wasn’t that a euphemism for a strip club? Not that I was really in a position to be picky. “I’m calling about the cocktail waitress job opening,” I said.

“We’re holding auditions on Tuesday morning,” the woman said. “Come at 11. I’ll give you the address.”

I wrote it down. It sounded like the place was in the Meatpacking District, which seemed a little strange for a strip club. “Do I need to bring anything? A resume, or—”

“No, just come dressed appropriately,” she said. “Silver Cross is an upscale establishment. I’m sure I don’t need to explain.”

“No,” I agreed, even though I didn’t have a clue what she meant. What was appropriate attire for a cocktail waitress? I had some vague idea that it involved black miniskirts and high heels.

“Excellent,” she said. “We’ll see you in two days.” She hung up the phone.

I went to my computer and looked up the address she’d given me. It definitely was in the Meatpacking District, close to the waterfront. Then I ran a search for “cocktail waitress outfit.”

There were pages and pages of images of girls all dolled up and looking like a million bucks, wearing short skirts, low-cut blouses, and sky-high platform heels. I didn’t have any of that stuff. I barely even knew how to apply eyeliner.

Panic gripped me. I needed this job. I texted my best friend, Sadie: can u loan me cocktail waitress clothes?

She texted back a few minutes later. girl u need help, b over in 30 min

Thank God. I scrambled to clean up a little: toss my vibrator in the nightstand, wash a few dishes, scrape the moldy Chinese food into the garbage. Not that Sadie would judge me, but I didn’t want her to see the squalor I’d been living in recently. She would worry.

By the time the door buzzed, I had managed to get things more or less in order. My building wasn’t classy enough to have an actual intercom, so I ran down the six flights of stairs to let Sadie in.

She was standing in the vestibule, holding a huge duffel bag full of who knew what. I opened the door and she came inside along with a blast of cold air. “God, it’s freezing out there,” she said.

“It’s the worst,” I said. “Thanks for coming. I’m freaking out.”

I told her about the job interview as we climbed the stairs to my apartment. “So I guess I have to dress up, but I don’t really know what to wear,” I said. “But I have to get this job, Sadie.”

“I know, baby girl,” she said, pushing open the door to my apartment. She dropped her bag on the bed and turned to look at me, hands on her hips. “Cocktail waitressing, huh? Let’s do some research. If this place is in the Meatpacking District, I’m not sure the hoochie look is going to fly.”

I sat on the sofa and gratefully let Sadie take over. She always knew exactly what to do in any situation, whereas I usually felt helpless and confused. It was probably why we were such good friends: she was the leader, and I happily followed along behind.

She hunched over my laptop and clicked around for a few minutes. “Okay,” she said. “This is a classy joint. You really didn’t even look it up? This is, like, where the Wall Street guys go to cut loose. You need to look sophisticated as fuck.”

“How do I do that?” I asked. I usually wore jeans and a t-shirt when I wasn’t at work, and when I was at work I could get away with black pants and a cardigan. “Sophisticated” was as far out of my reach as Mars.

“I’ve got you taken care of, doll-face,” Sadie said. She abandoned my computer and went over to the bed, and started pulling clothes out of the duffel. “If this doesn’t get you the job, I’ll eat my phone.”

“I can’t wear your clothes,” I said. Sadie liked to insist that we were the same size and could share clothing, but she was definitely smaller than me.

She rolled her eyes at me. “This stuff will fit you, okay? It should be a little tight. You don’t want to look unattainable.” She shoved an indeterminate mass of fabric into my arms. “Try this on. Do you have any heels?”

“Like, one pair,” I said. “I think they’re buried in the back of the closet.”

“I’ll dig them out,” Sadie said, and got down on her knees to rummage around in my apartment’s single, over-stuffed closet.

I stripped down to my underwear and tried on the clothes she’d given me: a fitted black pencil skirt and a silky white blouse. The skirt hit right below my knees, and it was pretty snug, but I was able to zip it up. The blouse fit loosely. I tucked it in to the skirt and wiggled to make it lie flat.

“Found your shoes,” Sadie said behind me. I turned around and took them from her. They were your standard black pumps, nothing exciting—nothing like the dangerous-looking platform stilettos I’d seen on the internet.

Whatever. It wasn’t like I had any other options. “You’re sure this is cocktail-y enough?” I asked.

Sadie pursed her lips. “Well, not yet. But it will be. Let me do you hair and makeup.”

She steered me into the bathroom and had me sit down on the closed lid of the toilet. I waited while she rummaged around in her makeup bag. She pulled out eyeliner, mascara, lipstick, something I vaguely identified as an eyelash curler—all the things that most women learned how to use in middle school, and that I had never quite figured out. Lip gloss was pretty much the limit of what I could handle.

“Are you really going to use all of that on me?” I asked, a little concerned.

“Yeah, probably,” Sadie said. “Pay close attention, you’re going to have to do this on yourself on Friday.”

“Can’t you come over and do it for me?” I whined.

Sadie grinned. “I’ll be at work, baby girl. It’s just going to be you and the internet. Maybe if you spent less time reading those boring books...”

“I’m trying to educate myself,” I said, annoyed, and Sadie laughed at me.

The thing about Sadie was that she always made things look so easy. She explained what she was doing as she went, but I could only follow about half of what she was saying. Hold down my eyelashes so the liquid liner didn’t make them all clumpy, sure. Contour with taupe shadow along the underside of my cheekbones... what? I decided I would stick with the basics when I had to do it myself. Maybe, over time, I could work my way up to what Sadie was doing.

In took her about ten minutes to finish my makeup. Then she said, “Face the other way so I can do your hair.”

I spun around on the toilet seat and faced the wall, straddling the toilet backwards. Sadie worked her hands into my hair. I closed my eyes, enjoying the sensation. I’d always liked having my hair played with.

“There,” she said, after a few minutes. “Go look at yourself in the mirror.”

I went back out into the main room of the apartment and shoved my feet into the high heels. Then I wobbled unsteadily toward the full-length mirror on the inside of the closet door. I stood in front of it and examined my reflection.

I looked... like a grown-up. Like a sophisticated, confident woman. The waistband of the skirt hit right at my waistline, and the contrast of the fitted skirt and the more voluminous blouse made me look about ten pounds thinner than I actually was. Sadie had wrapped my hair into a sleek chignon, and my makeup was elegant and understated, sexy without being over-the-top.

I looked, frankly, like someone I didn’t even recognize.

“Wow,” I said.

Sadie came up behind me and looked me up and down. “I’d hire you,” she said.

“Are you sure this is right?” I asked. “Shouldn’t I wear something... skimpier? What if they think I’m not sexy enough?”

“You’re just going to have to trust me on this one,” Sadie said. “The internet never lies. This place is very mysterious, very exclusive, and very classy. You need to look like you’re worth about a million dollars.”

I gazed at my reflection. A million dollars seemed pretty far off the mark. Maybe a thousand.

Two days later, I woke up early to give myself plenty of time to get ready. I showered and dressed in the outfit Sadie had loaned me, making sure to wear my sexiest, laciest bra underneath the slightly-sheer blouse. I did my hair and put on the makeup I thought I could handle: kohl eyeliner, red lipstick, mascara. I screwed up the eyeliner a few times and had to start over from scratch, but eventually I got it looking more or less even on both sides. Good enough.

The lipstick was strange and sticky on my mouth. I felt like a little girl playing dress-up. I just had to make sure that nobody could see through my facade.

I took the subway to 8th Avenue and walked from there. Navigating the subway in my high heels wasn’t exactly easy, but I figured I should get as much practice as I could. If the interview went well, I would be spending every night tottering around in heels.

The club was in a building so nondescript that I pulled out the piece of paper I’d written the address on, just to double-check. There was a small bronze plaque beside the door that read, “The Silver Cross Club,” and listed the address. That was it. It was the kind of place I normally would have walked by without a second glance.

I tried the door. It was open, and I went inside, into a dimly lit lobby. It was very small, barely larger than my apartment, and contained nothing but a wood podium with a man standing behind it.

“Welcome to the Silver Cross Club,” he said. “Are you here for the audition?”

“Um, yes,” I said, and then inwardly cursed myself for saying “um.” Not sophisticated. The man said nothing, though, merely nodded and pressed a button on the wall.

Seconds later, a door opened, and a tall white woman dressed all in black appeared. She had long red hair arranged in a French twist, not a single hair out of place. “Right this way, if you please,” she said to me, and I meekly followed after as she led me into the club.

It looked rich. That was my first impression: it looked like the sort of place you went if you had serious, no-kidding-around money. No one thing screamed luxury, but the overall atmosphere was one of undeniable opulence. The walls were painted a dark gray color and lined in places with velvet drapes so dark a blue that they looked almost black, but gave off a subtle sheen of light. A bar of dark, gleaming wood lined one wall, and round tables filled the rest of the room, clustered around a central stage. Along the three walls not occupied by the bar, brass doors led into—I assumed—other, more private rooms.

The woman let me gawk in peace as she led me toward the bar. A number of other girls were assembled there, and from their attire, I immediately pegged them as the competition. Most of them were wearing what I would have worn if Sadie hadn’t interfered: short, tight skirts, and glittery tops revealing acres of bare skin. One was wearing a snug maxi dress, but none wore anything like my outfit.

I felt enormously self-conscious as I joined the waiting girls. What if I’d worn the wrong thing and made a fool out of myself? I trusted Sadie implicitly, though, which was the only thing that kept me from bolting right back out the door. I hated doing the wrong thing in new situations. I would just have to hope that Sadie hadn’t been wrong.

“Thank you for coming today,” the tall woman said. “I’m happy that you’ve all taken an interest in working for us here at the Silver Cross. I’m sure you all understand that discretion is at the heart of our business, so please be aware that if you do choose to accept employment with us, you’ll be asked to sign a non-disclosure agreement. If you’re uncomfortable with that for any reason, you may leave now, no harm done.”

There was some murmuring, but none of the girls moved to leave.

“Excellent,” the woman said. “My name is Germaine. I’m the manager. Please stop me at any point if you have questions.”

She gave us a tour of the club. I had been right about the brass doors; there was a private room behind each one, with plush furniture and fireplaces. She took us behind the bar and showed us the general layout. “You have, of course, all worked as cocktail waitresses before,” she said. “I expect you’ll be familiar with most drinks and capable of making the basics.”

I tried not to look scared. I hoped she wouldn’t ask us to demonstrate. If I got this job, I’d have to read about bar-tending techniques. I knew how to make a rum and Coke, and that was about it. Pour some rum, add Coke. Easy.

Thankfully, she didn’t pursue the subject of drink-making. Instead, she had us sit down at a few of the round tables, and said, “Now we’ll do some role-playing. I’ll ask some of you to be irate customers, and others to be the waitresses attending to their every need. Why don’t we start with the two of you?” She pointed at two girls sitting at another table. “You’ll be the customers. And you can be the waitress,” she said, pointing at a third girl, who got up unsteadily and plastered a wide grin on her face.

“Take their orders, please,” Germaine said.

“Hi, welcome to the Silver Cross Club!” the girl said. “I’m Mandy, and I’ll be serving you tonight! What can I get you to drink?”

My eyebrows flickered up before I could stop them. I didn’t know a thing about waitressing, but I was pretty sure that delivery screamed “mom’s country kitchen” rather than “sophisticated New York men’s club.”

Germaine must have agreed, because she cut the girl off before the “customers” could respond. “Thank you,” she said. “Let’s have someone else, now. How about you?”

She went through each girl in turn, and all of them, as far as I was concerned, did something wrong: too chummy, too distant, too snobby, too bored. Finally, I was the only one left. I didn’t know what stroke of luck had led to me getting to go last, but now that I’d seen everyone else doing it wrong, I had an idea of how to do it right.

When Germaine pointed at me, I stood up and went over to the two girls who were currently serving as the “customers.” I stood behind their chairs at a discreet distance and waited. I didn’t say anything; I didn’t do anything to interrupt the important conversation that I imagined two powerful, wealthy men would be having. I simply waited for them to acknowledge me.

“Thank you,” Germaine said, and my heart sank. I’d done it wrong after all.

That was the end of the audition. Germaine gave us forms to fill out with our contact information, and said they would be in touch. It didn’t sound promising. I wrote down my name and telephone number, and tried to psych myself up for further job hunting. I didn’t need this stupid waitressing job at this stupid, snooty club. I would find something better. I would find a kick-ass job and make a million dollars and never have to worry about anything ever again.

Alternately, get evicted and go back to San Bernardino in disgrace.

I spent so much time thinking about my impending financial ruin that I was the last one in the club. The other girls had already put on their coats and gone back out into the cold. When I realized I was straggling so badly, I hurriedly filled out the rest of the form, and stood up to leave.

Germaine, who had been doing something behind the bar, approached me and said, “A word with you, please.”

I frowned. “Is there something wrong?”

“Hardly,” Germaine said. “I’d like to offer you the job.”

My heart, which had been hanging somewhere around the bottom of my spine, leaped back into its proper position. “Really?” I asked. “You want to hire me?” I realized that I sounded like an over-excited teenager. I tried again. “I mean—I’m happy to hear that.”

Germaine smiled. “Yes. Come into my office, please. We can discuss things in more detail.”

She led me toward the back of the club, and through a dark-paneled door I hadn’t noticed earlier. The room on the other side was warmly lit and cozy, with a large desk and several comfortable-looking armchairs positioned around it. Germaine sat behind the desk and motioned for me to take one of the armchairs.

I sat down, purse on my lap. “I have my resume,” I said, “and three letters of reference—”

“I won’t be needing any of that,” Germaine said. “We hire based on personality, and yours, I think, is an excellent fit. You haven’t done any cocktail waitressing before, I take it?”