Close Encounters

I had my first close call last night with running in to someone I know, and worse, someone that knows my dad well. There were a ton of girls on last night and I didn’t even get on stage until around 10 PM because the rotation was so long. And even then, I was on the little stage (we have three in the club) for my first set. Granted I had given a few dances, but the night was still very young and it was just beginning to pick up.

So I’m on the stage, doing my thing when three older businessmen walk in. Now, the club is not trashy by ANY means, but you could definitely tell these guys were very wealthy - in a subtle sort of way. They sat about one table back from my stage and were clearly celebrating some sort of business deal, cheers-ing with their first round of drinks. It wasn’t until almost the end of the last song that I got a good look at the one that had his back towards me, and I absolutely froze. It was a close friend and business buddy of my dad’s, who I’ve met several times but thankfully I don’t think just a glimpse at me with all that makeup, and in that setting of all places, would have enabled him to recognize me. I would have run off the stage if it wouldn’t have only drawn more attention to me, but I calmly waited for the next girl to get up there and ducked into the locker room. I explained the situation to the house mom who radioed the DJ to take me off rotation, and then relayed my request to the manager to leave and do a make-up shift during a weeknight next week. The only other option was to sit down in the locker room until they left, and who knows how long that would be? So the manager let me go. I changed out of my tiny gold dress and heels and into the yoga pants and Uggs I wore in, tipped out basically everything I had made, and as the bouncer walked me to my car I kissed the 600+ dollars I would have made that night goodbye. Oh well.

I thought I was being careful by picking a club so far outside the city, but it worries me that I’ve only been there three weeks and this has already happened. I guess I haven’t seriously considered what I would do if people (as in, my family) found out I was doing this; I think part of me is prepared to just hold my head high if it happens, and explain to them that the financial independence is not something I am willing to give up. My mom and dad watched me make the difficult decision to take the semester off to work, and because of the economic crash there wasn’t a thing they could do about it. My dad all but forced me to go to the school of his choosing - granted, it’s a wonderful school and I was grateful, under the pretense that if he was paying for it he had the right to pick. Had I known I would be financially accountable I would have chosen something much more affordable. Fast forward to three years later and his business is all but bankrupt and here I am at an outrageously expensive school, in an even more outrageously expensive city, with no means to pay for it.

So I guess it wouldn’t be the absolute end of the world if they found out, although it maybe feel like it temporarily. Only three people know right now: my boyfriend, and two of my best friends. As for everyone else, including our two other roommates, I tell them that my night job is working promotions. If I said I was bartending at another restaurant they would want to stop in. But even with promotions they always ask what bars or functions I had been working, and I’ve never been a good liar. I’m starting to think that keeping this a secret may be harder than I’d imagined.