Blue Angel Read Free

twin.
    “I don’t really care,” Bette said, looking up from her iPhone, fixing Poppy with her unnerving cat-eyed glare. “I’m not working here to make a hundred and fifty dollars a night for the rest of my life. Do you know who that was at that table?”
    “The girl you pulled on stage? No—is she an actress?”
    “Not her! The guy in the stupid suspenders.”
    Poppy was the one who felt stupid. Was he an actor? She’d barely even noticed him. She decided it was best to say nothing. She knew Bette was going to tell her, regardless.
    “It was Billy Barton,” Bette said. When Poppy still showed no sign of recognition, Bette sighed in exasperation. “The owner of
Gruff
magazine. You know
Gruff
, right? They have that annual ‘Hot’ issue. I think it was Megan Fox on the cover last year.”
    “Oh, yeah—sure. I read it all the time,” Poppy lied.
    “Well, the publisher was here—tonight! That’s a big deal, Poppy. If the magazine writes about the club, we could get some industry people in here. Not just these horny NYU kids.”
    “Cool. So . . . do you want to get a drink?”
    Bette turned abruptly in her seat, looking at Poppy closely. She eyed her up and down, her gaze lingering at her chest. Poppy, wearing a pink satin robe over her pasties and G-string, felt more naked than she had on stage in front of fifty strangers. She forced herself to stand still.
    Bette stood so they were almost face-to-face. She reached out and slipped her hand under the robe, cupping Poppy’s breast. Poppy couldn’t even breathe. After months of being ignored, then barely getting conversation out of Bette . . . this! Poppy had never been so invisible to another human being.
    But not anymore.
    “Take these off,” Bette said, her thumb brushing over the red sequined flowers hiding Poppy’s nipples. Bette sat back in her seat, content to be the audience, while Poppy slowly removed her pasties. In the background, Poppy could hear the chords of “Fever” by Peggy Lee; it was Cookies ’n’ Cream’s number—the final act. Usually, Bette closed the show. But she and Cookie had made some crazy bet, and Cookie won. They wouldn’t even tell Poppy what the bet had been about. She felt like such an outsider, and wondered when that would change. How long would she have to be at the Blue Angel before she understood the place? Before Agnes spoke to her? Before the customers shouted her name? A year? Two?
    But none of that mattered right now. All that mattered was that her robe was on the floor, her pasties were in her hand, and Bette was staring at her bare breasts.
    Poppy decided to be proactive. That was her new mantra, proactive. She’d heard it on
Oprah,
or read it in
Cosmo.
Or someplace important like that. Don’t wait for things to come to you.
    She stepped forward, her eyes locked with Bette’s. It was disturbing to admit it, but she was, for once in her life, faced with someone hotter than herself.
    “I’m not really in the mood to drink tonight,” said Bette.
    She turned back to her iPhone.

2

    “N ever a dull moment with you guys,” Billy Barton said, hailing a cab on the Bowery. It was midnight, and it seemed the entire city was out and about. The taxis were scarce, but Mallory wouldn’t have minded walking a few blocks. She was still high on adrenaline.
    “Getting less dull by the minute,” Alec said. She couldn’t tell from his tone if he was happy about the evening’s turn of events, or annoyed with her. He’d barely said a word since that woman had pulled her on stage, but with Billy Barton monopolizing the conversation, it was hard to read too much into his silence.
    “True that,” Billy said. Ugh, he annoyed the hell out of her. She hated his foppish clothes and the way he talked down to waiters. She hated that he signed Alec’s paycheck, and that he knew so much more about New York City than she ever would. Billy Barton was one of those native New Yorkers who believed he was a breed apart from the