Lana was a tall black girl with long legs growing from her mini skirt. "You're all a bunch a bitches," she yelled, plopping down next to me on the bench. She folded her arms like a kid who'd just lost her turn at something, and she crossed her legs tight, bouncing her foot to the beat of her anger.

Right away I knew she wasn't a girl. Not because of the way she looked or anything but because she acted too much like one, too much drama in her hips and hands. But even though she was mad, her face stayed pretty, her cheekbones long and bony like an Egyptian princess. "When Tony gets back, it's gonna get better," she said to her chest, lighting a cigarette. I wasn't sure if she was talking to me but I was bored with my book so I eared my page and slid the book under my thigh. "He's gonna get me out of this dump and away from you fuckin'hoes". Tears clouded her eyes as she screamed this, her neck craned at a girl and two guys sitting at a table by the dance floor. This girl at the table had platinum blond hair and a white Marilyn Monroe dress, and she flicked her hand at Lana as if to dismiss her. The Bee Gees sang over the speakers, the disco ball smeared confetti on the walls, and Lana fireballed her purse in the general direction of the Marilyn Monroe girl, except it didn't get very far. Just sorta dropped in front of us, on the carpet. Some of her make-up rolled out. The girls on the bench held back their giggles but I could hear them whispering in Spanish.

But Lana wasn't finished. She grabbed the plastic ashtray off a table and flung that too with her lit cigarette and all, but all it did was send a shower of ashes and crinkled butts on top of her purse. The Marilyn girl laughed out loud. You couldn't really hear her with the music and all but she laughed with her hands and her shoulders, like she was making up for the fact that we couldn't hear her. Then she went back to entertaining her two customers. One of them was wearing a white disco suit even though it was 1983.

People at the other tables looked over at us, at Lana and me, wondering what was going on. Even Bic the bartender glanced up from his newspaper and shook his head, but pretty soon everyone went back to their business. The glittery lights slid over their dark faces and the excitement was over as though it never happened. And Lana got down on her hands and knees to gather her things. I bent down to help her.

"Where's your boyfriend now" I asked, picking up a stray lipstick.

"Who the fuck are you?" She snatched the lipstick from me. Her tears were gone now and she looked at me as if my head was on backwards. I laughed a little, something I did whenever I got nervous.

"I'm number eight," I said, pointing to the sign around my chest, but Lana went on clumping her things into both fists. She jammed her purse under an armpit and got up. She was a monument, taller than anyone else in the club, maybe even Bic. She walked away with her arms flailing and her ass-high skirt rocking side to side. She meant business. I picked up some butts and the ashtray, and anyway, I left it at that.

Inside Club Orchid, all the girls were chickens. I sat back down on the red vinyl bench with a lineup of black, brown, and white ladies who went back to holding up their compact mirrors, painting their lips, teasing and spraying their bangs until they stood up like trees against wind. They popped their chewing gum and jerked their heads side to side, pointing at the Marilyn girl, and yakking and nudging their tails for more ass-space on the bench. I wanted to ask one of them if they knew what was wrong between Lana and Marilyn but it was my first night working there so I decided to keep my trap shut. I fixed the sign around my neck and went back to my book. Chapter four, page thirty-eight, you gotta stay out of people's heads, I told myself.

The club was all right, I guess. It wasn't a real bar or anything, nothing like the ones I've seen on TV anyway, but they tried to make it look like one, with a big bartender and really loud music. They played the Bee Gees a lot. Just in the hour I'd been sitting there, Stayin' Alive came on three times. Maybe the tape player was stuck, I don't know, but it seemed to me that the whole place was kinda stuck. There were mirrored walls everywhere, a huge disco ball, and a real seventies looking dance floor that lit up, except most of the bulbs were out. The place didn't feel right. Everything was smaller than it should've been, the way dollhouse furniture is always too small for the dolls. I kind of saw it as a place to pretend. A place where for ten bucks an hour men were for sure gonna meet girls who liked them. More, if they wanted the girls to love them.

But the club was all right for what it was and I was just glad to come in from the rain. After a whole day of walking around downtown looking for work at grocery stores, gas stations, and donut shops, it was nice to hear someone say you're hired, just by looking at you. Like I was a model or something. Miss T. didn't give me any forms to fill out, didn't ask how old I was or where I went to school. She did ask if I was over eighteen, and I felt bad about lying, but I really needed the money. And to be honest, she didn't seem to care all that much about my answer. Rajeev the night manager at Bombay Palace Hotel had asked me the same question before renting me a room, and I'd lied to him, too. But I didn't feel guilty about fibbing to him because he charged too much money.