At the Bunny Council meetings, there was occasionally talk about forming a union, but it sounded so serious, and nobody lasted long enough to make it happen. Besides, what other job would pay anything close to what she was making? She was picking up as many shifts as she could. She worked doubles and triples and pocketed more money than she knew what to do with. She stashed it away in a new hiding spot in the back of her underwear drawer in hopes of buying a car. She never said anything to Val about the missing money. She tried to convince herself that she’d miscounted, although Sherri didn’t miscount.

Gloria never praised Sherri, but Sherri knew that she was pleased with her, because she invited her to work many of the coveted off-site events, from a Brian Piccolo golf tournament with O. J. Simpson to car shows to charity fundraisers. Her dorm room filled up with the perks the sponsors gave the Bunnies, including Estée Lauder makeup sets and giant bottles of Ralph Lauren perfume.

On the rare occasions when she wasn’t working, or when she was between shifts, Danny often invited her and his other favorite Bunnies to sit by the pool in their pink Catalina Playboy bikinis. He could only pick twenty girls a day, and an invitation was a real honor. Without one, the Bunnies had to sunbathe outside the dorm, just inside the barbed wire fence, while the golfers beyond the partition gawked at them.

She had her own clique now, and each woman had her role: Ginger was the organizer; Carmen was the life of the party, always inappropriate and gossipy; Boo was like the audience member of a live television show, providing the laugh track, happy to be included. If her friends were the kerosene, Sherri was the match. She was always up for another shot, always the first person to climb up onto the bar to dance, always the last to leave at closing time.