Kittenfish: An Enemies-to-Lovers Romantic Comedy Read online

  “Show us your willies!” Blaire yells before anyone even takes the stage, and I wonder if we’re going to get thrown out.

  Unfortunately, we don’t.

  The lights go out and a single spotlight illuminates the stage. Loud, pulsing music blares with fresh enthusiasm and a handsome fireman carrying a gigantic hose steps into the spotlight.

  To my left, three young women who look like they’re celebrating a twenty-first birthday shriek so loudly I have to hold my ears.

  The fireman swivels his hips and rocks a counter-clockwise turn around the stage. A cacophony of sound erupts around me. He pulls the hose between his legs and the blonde next to me screams that he’s making all her dreams come true. A wave of pity washes over me, and I lean over. “You could do better,” I tell her, forcing my sincerity into my eyes since I’m not sure my voice carries over the music. She stares back at me with a horrified expression, and I realize I’ve slipped into my past self—the judgmental, straight-A student who only read about passion until she was made to feel guilty about it.

  The fireman dances on—not half as well as Channing Tatum, but he does hold a certain appeal. Kya and Blaire pull me to my feet, and I forget my past self and scream along with the rest of them because, well, staring at half-naked men is fun.

  Four more male strippers step onstage and dance behind the fireman. One is a policeman, one is a construction worker, and the other two I’m not sure about since they’re wearing jeans and tight T-shirts. Are they supposed to be plumbers? Cable installers? Hot dads? I imagine one of them giving me a good deal on a really great wireless plan, and suddenly I’m drooling for this updated version of the Village People.

  The five of them strip down to G-strings, and the crowd goes berserk. Money is flung at them, danced up to them, and personally tucked into their little suits which seem tailored to accommodate the bills.

  Blaire encourages me to get out my cash and I do, though I’m too embarrassed to try tucking it into anyone’s underwear. It’s just as well. There are women who want the attention I don’t. The blonde next to us and the construction worker are tangled up tighter than Christmas lights.

  Just when my newfound enthusiasm begins to wane and I’m thinking I’ll put away my money and see if I can find a quiet corner somewhere to get a glass of wine and read a book on my phone, one of the strippers—one whose costume I couldn’t define—comes right up to me and wiggles his G-string-clad junk in my face.

  “Oh, okay,” I say and hold a stack of dollars out to him while covering my eyes. Kya and Blaire laugh, and I turn my head so the bouncing junk doesn’t poke me in the nose.

  “Marissa?” A deep, male voice says my name with surprise.

  I glance up past the black-clad gyrating package. “Alec!” I yell.

  He bends down to me, smiling. “Marissa Ryan! Oh my God. I can’t believe it’s you!”

  My stripper hops down off the stage. For a minute I worry he’s going to get in trouble with the other strippers for breaking up the show—do they have a union? But I see they’ve already dispersed into the crowd for lap dances and twenty-dollar-bill seductions.

  “How are you?” I yell to Alec over the music.

  Blaire rolls her eyes, and she and Kya give me matching you’re-being-a-drag looks. I guess you’re not supposed to treat the strippers like people.

  “Marissa! It’s so good to see you!” He gives me a big, slightly greasy naked-chest hug and then keeps an arm slung over my shoulder. I guess he’s gotten used to interacting with people while wearing so little. “You know, this is the absolute best English tutor in the whole world right here,” he tells Kya and Blaire. They nod. It’s something like what they expected. “Seriously. You saved my ass.”

  “I’d like to be doing something with your ass right now,” Blaire mutters under her breath.

  Ignoring them both, I turn to Alec. “I’m really glad I was able to help. But, um, how do I ask this delicately? Uh—”

  “Why am I a stripper if I got a bachelor’s degree?”

  “Well, yes.”

  “I’m working my way through med school right now.”

  “You are? Wow, Alec, that’s fantastic!” I’m surprised when a twinge of jealousy pinches me. I could’ve gone to medical or dental school as planned and not entered the real-job world when Kya and Tarek did. I like my job at the paper, I remind myself.

  He nods, his smile wide. “It’s just so great to see you! I’ve wanted to thank you for the longest time. And here you are.”

  I smile, my heart swelling with pride. Alec has found his path to happiness, even if it’s paved with singles.

  “That’s great, Einstein,” Blaire tells him as she takes my arm and physically pulls my attention away from Alec. “But this is Marissa’s bachelorette party, and it’s time to move on over to the party room.”

  His eyes light up. “You’re the bachelorette?”

  I nod.

  “Ha! Well, that’s great! I’m working your party.”

  “The hell you are!” Blaire shoulders forward with clenched fists. Alec steps back.

  Kya shakes her head vigorously. “No, no, no, no.”

  “There’s a party?” I ask, glancing between the three of them.

  “Oops, sorry.” Alec covers his mouth with a hand. “I didn’t know it was a surprise.”

  Blaire and Kya exchange tight-jawed looks and whisper furiously at each other, but when Alec leads us toward the mystery party, they follow. We stop short of a closed door in a dark hallway. Kya looks at me excitedly and Blaire gestures for me to go inside. Even Alec looks like he’s holding his breath.

  With so much expectation focused on me, the urge to run away starts turning my feet from the door.

  Kya catches my shift in direction first. “Uh, Marissa. It’s that way.” She points where only the top half of my body is facing.

  “I know.” I swallow and put my hand on the knob. Sometimes the only way to get over something is to barrel straight through.

  Chapter Three

  I open the door to the dark room, the lights go up, and what must be well over a hundred people yell, “Surprise!”

  Confetti and streamers fall on me, and I laugh, catching some in my hands. I didn’t know I had this many friends. As I start to focus on faces in the crowd, I see women from different periods in my life starting with elementary school and seeing me through high school, college, and beyond. I can’t believe Kya and Blaire put this together. And at a strip club. The idea of some of these people coming to a strip club at all—and specifically, for me—causes a puddle of queasiness to pool in my belly. Studying the faces in the room, I wonder how Blaire and Kya managed to get some of them here at all.

  I rub my forehead. What am I saying? Blaire must have lied, of course.

  My theory is confirmed when my Southern Baptist ninth-grade-friend ConstanceDylan (one word) hugs me and says, “What an interesting place to celebrate your impending forever union.” Her eyes go soft with pity, and she pats my hand. “But I understand.”

  Strip clubs aren’t my thing, but it’s not such a stretch to believe an engaged woman would have her bachelorette party at one. I smile back at her and shrug.

  She keeps her sad smile and squeezes my hand. “You do you, Marissa.”

  I blink at her. “Thanks, it’s great to see you, ConstanceDylan. And thanks so much for coming.” I move on to greet my other uncomfortable guests.

  “Mrs. Hobbes!” I stop short in front of my retired gray-haired sixth-grade teacher who’s in her seventies.

  “Oh, Marissa, I’m so happy for you, my dear.” She takes my hands in both of hers.

  “Thank you so much, Mrs. Hobbes. You always were my favorite teacher.” I glance at the room with its flashing neon lights and pulsing music—at a lower volume than in the main room, but still, I wouldn’t have pictured this as how Mrs. Hobbes would spend her Saturday night. Is there a back entrance or something that somehow bypassed the mostly naked men? Did Mrs. Hobbes walk
into a quilting store and a back panel opened up and delivered her here? Or did she have a wild streak she’d managed to hide from the administrators and students of Washington Middle School?

  A tear gathers at the corner of her eyes, and she squeezes my hands. “I’m just so glad you’re getting the chance to get married.”

  “Um, thank you.” All my middle school insecurity creeps back over me and puts its feet up, making itself at home. Did Mrs. Hobbes think I was so ugly and nerdy and unlovable that I would never marry?

  She pulls a handkerchief from her purse and sniffles into it. My podiatrist approaches on the left and pats my arm as she tells me I’m very brave.

  I catch sight of Blaire skulking in front of the buffet table, watching me, and make a beeline for her. I step a little too close. I want her attention and I don’t want any of my now-sobbing friends and teachers to overhear. “Blaire? How did you get everybody to come tonight?”

  She shrugs. “They wanted to come.”

  I raise my eyebrows at her. “Why?”

  She sighs as if she’s never had a friend who was as much trouble as I am. I could tell her the feeling is mutual.

  “I may have told them if they wanted to see you, they’d need to hurry because you were running out of time.”

  I stare at her, coming up blank. “Running out of time for what?”

  She lifts her fingernails and scrutinizes them with far too much interest. “Just that life is short.” She lowers her voice so I can barely hear her over the music and conversation. “And yours might be shorter than most.”

  I put my hand on her arm as my gut drops in horror. “Did you tell people I’m dying?”

  She reels back and musters a pained expression. “No! Of course not.” I take a relieved breath, but unfortunately she goes on. “But you know how you’re going to be so much less fun once you become Mrs. Liam Hudson? I just told them time was running out to see you and talk to you while you’re still, you know, enough of yourself to care. And they may have taken that more literally than I intended.”

  “Oh my gosh. You told people I’m dying.” I put a hand to my head where the ache is gathering force. “I’m going to kill you.”

  She folds her arms and sticks her chin out. “What? If people made mistaken inferences about your quality of life and its duration from what I said, that’s their problem.”

  “No! It’s mine.” My heart squeezes with shame, and I want to hide under a table just thinking of all of the awkward conversations I’ll need to have in order to fix this. “All these people. My teachers. Sunday school people. Blaire.” I shake my head, unable to articulate further.

  She waves a hand and deliberately misunderstands me. “Yes, yes, it’s just wonderful seeing all these faces from your past.”

  “Why? Why invite people who wouldn’t want to come?”

  Her bottom lip folds over with a pout. “You don’t have that many friends. I had to dig up all of them to fill the room.”

  “Oh, Blaire.” I don’t even know where to start the lecture she needs. Before I can begin, she huffs impatiently.

  “You can thank me later. What are we going to do about the stripper?”

  I stare at her. “What do you mean?”

  “We hired Alec to dance for us.” She gestures around the room. Alec is over to the right talking to Mrs. Hobbes, who’s ogling him in appreciation. I shudder.

  “But you’re not going to have him dance for us now, are you? That’s way too awkward.” I chew on my thumbnail.

  “That’s my point. You went and made friends with him and now it’s much harder to use him as a sexual object.”

  “Alec and I were already friends, and maybe it’s not a bad thing if he loses his sexual object-ness.”

  She glares at me and taps her foot. “Oh, it is. It’s a very bad thing.”

  “Sorry, Blaire. I don’t know what you want me to do about it.”

  “You won’t let Alec perform?”

  I shake my head. “I really don’t want him to. It’s a bit icky, you know? Besides, you and Kya have thrown such a…nice…party with all of these people that I’m having a really great time just doing this.” I can spare my guests the embarrassment of a private stripper, and I need some time to reassure all of them I’m not dying. I pat Blaire’s arm. Her heart was in the right place, sort of. She seems to soften a bit. “Thanks for this, Blaire. Really.”

  She sighs. “Oh, all right. I’ll let Alec off the hook.”

  “Thank you.”

  She grunts at me and stalks off. I know she’s unhappy with the turn of tonight’s events, but I’m not. I can’t think of anything more embarrassing than watching a stripper perform while in my present company.

  The room goes dark and the music stops. Kya’s voice booms over the microphone. “Ladies and ladies! Would you all please put your hands together for the fantastic Magic Matt!”

  Lights come up on a small stage I hadn’t noticed before in the back, really just a raised platform with track lights directed at it. The song “Welcome to the Jungle” blares over the speakers. Onstage, already performing, is someone whose presence commands attention.

  Magic Matt is perhaps the most unattractive stripper I’ve ever seen. Granted, my experience is limited. Limited mainly to tonight and the occasional TV show or movie. But Magic Matt is seriously lacking some magic.

  Packed into a tiny leopard-print G-string, his doughy white flesh overflows his costume in rounded waves. He rolls his hips, and the resulting undulations ripple from one side of him to the other. He puts his hands behind his head and thrusts his pelvis forward. Mrs. Hobbes gasps and clutches the wall. I don’t know if it’s because he’s not very fit, or because he might bear a resemblance to the ordinary men in our lives, but Magic Matt’s act is uncomfortable to watch. He is neither Chip nor Dale. I want to grab an overcoat and storm the stage and tell him, “Hey, sweetie, you don’t have to do this. The money’s not worth it.” And really, how much money could he be making? He can’t be in high demand. Especially when compared to Alec, who—though I shouldn’t have noticed since he’s my friend—really has it going on.

  That’s when it dawns on me. We turned down Alec, so we got Leftover Stripper.

  Poor Magic Matt.

  “Marissa?”

  Kya is calling my name over the speakers. I hunch my shoulders and back away as if I could disappear in the crowd.

  “Marissa! Hey, everybody, let’s get the party girl up here.”

  My many friends in the room applaud, and a few reach out and propel me forward, laughing, until Blaire is by my side practically forcing me to get up onstage.

  “Really, I’m okay!” I say, still trying to escape.

  Blaire laughs. “This is what you get, hon, when you turn down the hottie!” Silly me for thinking I’d just get no stripper. “Now get on up there and give us a show.”

  She pushes me up onto the little stage, and suddenly I’m in Magic Matt’s tractor beam. His eyes lock with mine, and he pulls his brown feather boa around himself and then tosses it out so it lassoes me.

  The crowd oohs and aahs. I have no doubt it’s Blaire trying to fan up some excitement for this little debacle.

  Magic Matt shimmies his shoulders back and forth in front of me, his belly shaking with the rhythm. My face on fire, I turn to get away, but he follows me, staying in my line of sight. He rubs up against me suggestively, and the partygoers hoot and holler for more. I guess no one wants to see a sad, chubby guy dancing onstage alone, but if he’s succeeding in embarrassing me it makes for good entertainment. In my peripheral vision, I can almost see how red my face is getting. But if it’s making the crowd happy, I’m game. I smile and wave my arm in the air like I’m holding my own lasso, and my friends laugh and clap for me. Sad Magic Matt’s eyes light up, and he canters around me like he’s riding a horse.

  He pulls himself up short in front of me and shimmies back and forth again—this must be his signature move—and he wiggles down the length of my
body until he’s squatting on the floor. Then he falls over.

  Mrs. Hobbes screams, and I bend down to him.

  “A little help?” he cries, clutching his back.

  Someone cuts the music. I hold my arms out to him and try to help him stand, but Magic Matt screeches in pain.

  “My back!”

  I look around, wondering what to do, and Kya jumps up onstage with me.

  “It’s better if I can lie flat!” Magic Matt bellows.

  Kya kneels on the other side of him, and I support his head enough to keep it from banging against the floor as he stretches out. My party crowd thins. Blaire comes back with an employee, maybe a manager, who calls for an ambulance.

  The employee—a muscle-bound man whose tight black T-shirt struggles to contain the sculpted ridges straining to break free of the fabric and who would have been far better suited to Magic Matt’s job than Magic Matt is—shakes his head. “I thought you said you were better, Angus.”

  “I thought his name was Matt,” I whisper to Kya.

  “Matt’s his show business name,” the manager tells me.

  Because this guy is someone who really needs a show business name.

  “I was better!” Matt-Angus yells.

  “Obviously.” The manager talks to someone through his headset then turns to Blaire. “I’m sorry, but we don’t have any other dancers. And the paramedics are going to have to come through here any minute. You all can go out on the main floor, but your private party is over for tonight.”

  Blaire nods. I’m proud of her for not arguing. And for not trying to dig up a replacement stripper for our replacement stripper. But maybe she’s only pretending to be understanding because she’s making eyes at the manager, and I’m wondering if she’s going to use him to make the new guy at work, Troy from Sports, jealous—she’s been trying to get his attention lately. Or if attractive Mr. Manager is already becoming her own personal main stage show.

  The paramedics arrive, and Kya and I watch Matt-Angus get loaded onto a gurney while Blaire flirts with the manager. All of the other guests have fled the party, and I wonder whether they’ve disappeared into the crowd in the main room to enjoy the show or if they’ve given up and gone home. I feel certain Mrs. Hobbes is out there whooping it up. She’s surprisingly hard-core.