“Play your cards right and Gloria will give you some shifts at the ski chalet. You can wear a white turtleneck and Bogner ski pants with the tail on the back. I worked there yesterday and a Catholic school group came in. Would you believe the nuns skied in their habits? You should have seen them. And in summer you can work the golf hut. Last year that’s where I was during a pro-am tournament. It was heaven! I was allowed to wear ballet slippers and a golf sweater, and I could take off my tail and sit at the table with the millionaires from Chicago. They play high-stakes poker games in the back rooms—you’d think it was Monopoly money. I made over eight hundred dollars in tips in a single day. That’s how I made my down payment on my car. If you put in the work now, there’s a good chance you’ll get a few sit-down shifts there this summer.”

A sit-down shift appealed immensely to Sherri. She was beginning to feel the first stirrings of ambition and planned to buy herself a car, too, as soon as she’d saved enough—assuming she could lease or sell the building on the square. She wanted a maroon Monte Carlo with a power sunroof, and had torn the ad for it out of the pages of her Playboy magazine and taped it on the wall next to her bed. But before she could make big money, she needed to be promoted, and promotions were based on seniority. She couldn’t wait to advance out of the Sidewalk Café. The real fun was in the Cabaret and the Club. Next to the Bunnies with those jobs, she felt like she was sitting at the kids’ table.

Carmen saw Sherri and Tina talking and sauntered over to join them; she could never resist a conversation.

“Gotta go!” Tina said.

Everyone liked Carmen, but she was always getting into trouble and dragging other Bunnies along with her, like the kid in school who’d talk to you when she thought the teacher wasn’t paying attention. Tina disappeared, her tail sitting high on her ass, and Carmen and Sherri looked out onto the floor of the Sidewalk Café. The resort was busy with middle-aged teachers from all over Wisconsin who were attending a special-education conference.

“I should get back to work, too,” Sherri said.

“Did you hear that Maryellen gave her two weeks’ notice?”

Sherri stalled. She had to hear more.

“She said it was just too hard.” Carmen pretended to wipe her eyes with her fist like a crying baby. “She was as homesick as a seven-year-old at summer camp.”

“I had my money on Rhonda being the first to go,” said Sherri.

“Rhonda? That girl is tough. And strong for someone so tiny. Have you seen her carry her tray? She looks like she could twirl a school bus on her little finger.”