Alone or Someone Else

Even after i was showing, I kept working at the lingerie shop, the trashy one in Westwood. All my coworkers were UCLA students a half decade my junior. They were nice to me. Carly told me not to worry, they'd never fire me while that Nasty Gal lawsuit was still news. Lana confided that her mom had raised her kids alone by going back to stripping: "And we turned out just fine!" Between Lana and Carly, I always had someone to hold my hair while I puked. "It'll be hard sometimes but totally doable," Lana would say, rubbing my back.

The lingerie shop had been my day job while I pursued my movie star dreams. Now it was just my job. I didn't feel that sad about it, more just blasé, probably from the pregnancy hormones. The store sold elaborate bondage bras and harness tops, but shied away from anything nipple- or crotchless. It was not to be confused with a sex shop, a distinction that confounded many men. Though we vacuumed every day, the shop always had a slightly sour, musty smell, which, combined with the fluorescent lighting, did lend the place an unseemly air. The smell also made me constantly nauseous. I kept Citrus Magic spray in my purse and an empty yogurt tub under the register, as an emergency barf bucket. When the place wasn't busy I went out to the sidewalk and watched the traffic, breathing in car exhaust. It calmed my nerves. If people walked by I smiled, like I'd been assigned to stand out there to lure in customers. They looked at my smile and then at my stomach, and shuffled on quickly, as if in apology.

I did have one regular customer, Val, who always sought me out specifically.

"Man-dy," she singsonged. "I need something special this time, show my man who's boss."

For some reason, she saw me as a sort of world-wise, down-to-earth shrink. I doled out advice on the fly. I told her the key to power was never getting completely naked, always keeping something on. Usually heels.

"My man doesn't like heels, though. He's short, like Kevin Hart."

Her boyfriend had moved to Las Vegas to be with a cocktail waitress he'd met on the Internet. He still called Val; they hadn't officially broken up. Val said he was coming back as soon as he got the money together for a U-Haul.

Another customer, Layla, liked to lecture me. Layla was a dark, wiry lawyer who'd Botoxed her way out of middle age. "Mandy, dear," she'd say. "You've got to demand more for yourself." She'd go over the pros and cons of marrying for the sake of the kid, crunching the numbers on hypothetical alimony and child support. My biggest bargaining chip was visitation rights, she said. Her sermons didn't bother me so much; she always bought a bunch of stuff, and we worked on commission. But when she poked for details about the father, I turned bristly.

"If you keep pestering me, I'm giving it up for adoption!" I hissed through the dressing room door.

She undid the lock and stuck out her head and part of her torso. "I'm just trying to help you see the bigger picture here, for your financial future," she said.

For the most part, people treated me kindly. Carly brought in a tall stool for me to sit on. Lana let me pick out new outfit combinations for the window mannequins. Happy young women shopping for their honeymoons approached with hopeful expressions, then demurred when they saw I wasn't wearing a ring.

"My fingers swelled up," I told them. "It got too tight."

Or when I was in a bad mood: "Relationships change when you least expect it." Then I'd smile and pat my stomach mysteriously.

Something about that sorry shop nonetheless made women open their wallets. My theory was that the smell made the customers feel old, and sallow, and desperate, and they wanted to buy...