the trick is to do tricks without any shame.

Want an escort, a call girl, an old-fashioned hooker?

Open your laptop, your browser, and book her.

I spotted a man of about my age. I couldn’t see his face, just the back of his head and his clothing from his collar to his mid-back. Men in their sixties and seventies who come to an event like this should look like Bernie Sanders. Or volunteers who’ve canvassed for Bernie. He didn’t. I thought it could be Owen.

While I’m voguing and posing and dancing on poles,

has your great career sucked away all your soul?

Are you better than me because I’m paid to play?

Who here has a talent that they won’t sell for pay?

In your days at the office are you a knight brave and bold?

Always guided by conscience, or do you do what you’re told?

Here’s my story for what it’s worth.

I offer it to you in rhyme and verse.

When you think about yours, is it better, is it worse?

She got some applause, but it was clear that she wouldn’t win. What did I care? I know little about poetry. I wasn’t her mother. As she left the stage, the man I’d noted got up from his seat. As he went up the aisle I saw his profile. It was Owen.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

“I’M SINGIN’…

…and dancin’ in the rain.”

OWEN HELD AN OVERSIZE BLACK umbrella over his head. Huge and round, like it had been made from the wings of a giant bat, its metal struts like skinny bones. I hate umbrellas. When Allison came out, he walked up to her. He held the thing so that they were both beneath it. He spoke. She nodded and smiled. Knowing who was who and what was what, I took it to be a professional conversation on her part, probably something different on his.

If they went somewhere in a car, I needed to be in a vehicle, right then, right there, to follow. If I went to get my own car, they’d be long gone before I got back. Cabs were going to be rare, but I saw one. I dashed through the rain, cut off a couple who thought it would be theirs, wrenched the door open and hopped in.

The driver said, “Where to?”

I said, “Hold on,” as I twisted around to keep watching. Owen asked something. Allison agreed. I told the cabbie, “Those two. We’re going to follow them.”

“Oh shit. One of those,” he said in a thick Arabic accent.

“Yeah, well. It’ll pay well.”

“It better. Fuck Uber. And the cost of medallions.”

A car service town car pulled up. Owen opened the door. Allison passed beneath his umbrella and got in.

The rain kept coming.