The Everything Girl Read online

  Copyright © 2018 by L. Maleki

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

  Cover design by Erin Seaward-Hiatt

  Print ISBN: 978-1-5107-3126-4

  Ebook ISBN: 978-1-5107-3127-1

  Printed in the United States of America

  If two wrongs don’t make a right,

  try three.

  —Laurence J. Peter

  Prologue

  “How much do you charge?” I asked.

  The woman smiled, her teeth snow-white. Expensive highlights and lowlights in her long hair glistened against a slinky black jumpsuit. Her shoulders were bared and New York pale. “It depends—”

  A horn from Park Avenue’s never-ending traffic drowned out the last of her words. The woman, maybe ten years older than me, paused, unwilling to raise her voice. Instead, she drew me across the threshold, the ornate doors ringing shut behind us.

  I tried unsuccessfully to hide my trembling. With a tilted eyebrow and posh accent, the woman said, “I’m Madame Elena. Do you know where you are?”

  Staring at a handful of men in suits moving between the negligee-clad women lounging on velvet couches in the dim lobby of a private theater in Midtown, I had a damn good idea. The muffled burlesque music from behind a set of double doors did not entirely mask the groans coming from the writhing shadows in the dark corners. According to Frank, the floors above housed suites furnished by Armani Casa. Suites you could rent by the hour. Decadent, gilded apartments meant for boinking strangers.

  I should be back at Galli’s with my friends, laughing and drinking cheap wine, or, since my friends currently hate me, in my tiny apartment eating Spicy Doritos I bought from the Bodega guy who doubles as my therapist. I should be watching a marathon of Friends and trying to tune out the endless horns and sirens and shouting and the voice in my head asking why in the hell am I still here.

  “Um, there’s these clients … my boss …” My neck hurt from locking my head into one position to avoid accidentally looking around. I, in no way, wanted to cross glances with a rich dude rubbing his crotch.

  I want to die.

  “Ah, yes. Of course. There’s always a boss.” Madame Elena’s sleek stilettos tapped across the marble floor to the leather bar that apparently doubled as a reception desk. Over her shoulder, she asked, “Are you a secretary?”

  My voice climbed as I said, “I am an executive assistant to the CEO. I have a degree in finance!” I ended on a high c.

  She ignored my lame, operatic attempt at justifying my existence. “Did he give you a passcode?”

  “Jump Street 1987.” Back to a whispering tenor, I felt stupid saying it aloud. Then again, I felt stupid being there, gawky and unkempt amongst the languishing herd of exotic women.

  “Ah, so he’s a big gun, then. When does he require our services? How many women does he want? Did he give you any names in particular?”

  The heat prickled across my cheeks and over my scalp. Instead of answering, I fumbled out a bundle of one hundred dollar bills—$10,000 in total—from my tote bag and handed it over. I was unwilling to repeat Frank’s instructions aloud, but his words were seared into my brain: “Jordy prefers Asians. Chris will be happy if she has a vagina. Me, I prefer a Bubbles over a Jasmine. And when I say ‘Bubbles,’ I mean a natural blonde with big tits.”

  I couldn’t say that, not to this woman. I sucked in a lungful of air and tried not to cry. “Frank wants three women. May I … look over … who’s available right now?”

  She gracefully gestured to the room. “If you don’t see anything you like here, I have a catalog.”

  I shut my eyes. She said see anything. Not anyone. Are they okay with that? But I didn’t keep my eyes closed to reality for long. Surveying the room, I saw my expression reflected over and over in the faces of the women around me, calm and pleasant masks with a banked fire sparking deep in the eyes. Were they angry? Afraid? Feeling trapped, powerless? Or was I projecting myself onto them? Maybe they were completely empowered and just really tired after a long shift of putting up with sweaty men.

  Pointing to a blonde, a redhead, and an Asian woman, as if I were choosing dim sum from a cart, I felt my soul try to leave my body. “I will take those three, please.” I spasmed, hearing the words. If my mom were alive, if she knew I was renting women at the command of my male boss … well.

  I made a strange gurgling sound. And this is how I came to know that a top-shelf escort was well worth the money: Madame Elena took one look at my splotching skin and stroked my hair as my face crumpled. She made soothing, maternal noises, leading me away from the humping masses. She knew how to handle distraught girls.

  After wiping streaks of mascara off my cheeks, the beautiful lady of the house gently placed her fingertips under my chin and tilted up my face. “You look so young; everyone must think you’re a teenager.” Then, untangling long dark strands of hair from my gold hoop earring, she said, “You know, with those big brown eyes, that dusky skin, you should consider working for me. I always like to have the Middle Eastern look on tap.”

  A bray of laughter shot out of me. A symphony of shifting satin and silk filled the room as women swiveled around in search of the jackass. I spied the heavy, closed doors and boiled with an urgent need to escape to the other side.

  A gob of spit dropped onto my shirt before I could mash my lips back together.

  The women watched as I wiped the saliva away, leaving a smear of wet across my chest. Just trying to make sure I don’t leave with any dignity intact.

  Chapter 1

  Six Months Earlier …

  If I closed my eyes, I could picture Darien in front of me, cupping his balls. After I kicked them. Really hard. But when I opened my eyes, the fantasy faded. The white picket fence and surrounding suburbia were still there, and, as far as I knew, so were his man parts.

  And I could still feel: The splinters from the porch swing poking at the back of my bare legs. The damp of the Pacific in the breeze. The cell phone in my hand, laden with weighty text messages.

  Really, Darien? Her?

  What are you talking about?

  I saw you. She’s one of my clients. Douchebag.

  Listen, she’s Jewish. You know that’s important to me. It’s time to move on, Paris.

  You dick. You didn’t say it was over, you said we were on a break. So, now, you break up in a text. How Millennial of you.

  My dad stepped onto the porch. “Paris? What are you doing out here?”

  I shrugged, pushing off the floorboards to keep the bench swinging. If I told my father about Darien breaking up with me in a text, his irritated-old-man side would kick in, lecturing me about technology and the downfall of humanity, and then how Darien was a simpleton and a snob. And then his patriarchal side would show up.

  No, that wasn’t fair. My father had never been oppressive. Never.

>   Ehsan Tehrani had left Iran and his brothers and sisters because he didn’t want me to grow up under the same regime that forced my mother, a strong-willed woman, to cover up. After twenty-five hundred years of continuous Persian monarchy and freedom, my young mother and father were surprised when a new Khomeini and his sexually frustrated guerilla leaders barged into power. And, unfortunately, they were extremists with a special hatred for females, who’d been turning up their noses at them since elementary school. So, Persian women abruptly went from being part of everyday life, laughing and talking in the streets, dressed in miniskirts and pantsuits, to second-class citizens pushed into hiding by crazy men who filled their pockets with stones and made themselves little morality police badges.

  My mother had eyeballed the long coat and hijab headdress she was supposed to put on over her favorite blue sailor dress and gold hoop earrings, looked at her husband and me—an infant at the time—and made my father promise they would get out as soon as they could.

  Before I reached the age I would have to cover my hair, my father brought us to the land of the free. I didn’t remember my mother, not really, since she died of cancer when I was only three, but our house in California was covered with photos of a smiling woman who always had a hand on my head or my father’s shoulder. Because of my mother and father, I’d spent my teen years daydreaming about dancing in a music video or wearing a sexy cocktail dress to my own showing at an art gallery, instead of learning to sew from under the heat of a black drape.

  My father wasn’t caught up in being the stereotypical, stern-faced masculine type. Nor was he particularly religious—when I was in high school and wanted to see the inside of a mosque, my dad had to search for the address in a phone book.

  I grew up an all-American girl, Iranian traditions folded comfortably into an all-American home run by a single dad who fawned over my report card and was proud of his lawn, grilled hot dogs, and made baklava for my friends before we tromped down to the beach and spied on the lifeguards. He believed wholeheartedly in working toward the American dream with Persian rugs underfoot. The only real throw-down argument we’d ever had was when Dad told me he wouldn’t pay for my college if I majored in art.

  “How many famous photographers are out there?” he’d said. “I can name two. How many poor, hungry artists? The list begins with last year’s art majors.”

  Though I conceded to his good sense and majored in finance, it rankled.

  Still, when my internship at Deutsche Bank turned into a long-term position working with mortgage-backed securities, I stayed. What else was I going to do? I was good at it. I was making money, learning fast, and successfully pretending to be a real adult. I was bored out of my mind and the color drained out of my life, but I was well respected and felt like a functioning part of society. And, occasionally, I met eligible businessmen. That’s how I met Darien.

  Stupid Darien. I should have known the day he marched up to my desk in the back of the bank that he was not like my dad. I should have known the dark, handsome man would take advantage of my … of me.

  “Ms. Tehrani?” His darkly fringed eyes had moved across the nameplate on my desk, then to my face, where they’d stayed. “No one else here seems to know what they’re talking about. Do you?”

  Not the most romantic of beginnings, but over drinks that night, he’d complimented my mother’s earrings and asked me questions about my dreams. We discovered we had a number of friends in common. Darien, who was only two years older than me, ran his own import company, and that was pretty damn attractive—especially when the bulk of men I’d dated played World of Warcraft or Halo like it was a job. And he’d treated me as an equal, discussing problems with his business and eliciting my advice. We’d have long, thoughtful discussions on how to grow his business, or about the world of finance in general, and go on expensive wine tours. It felt like an adult relationship.

  It didn’t hurt that the confident, sleek man was Persian—my dad was thrilled. That is, until Darien wanted me to convert to Judaism. My dad rolled his eyes and shook his shiny bald head in exasperation whenever he saw me studying the Hebrew Bible.

  “You cannot acquire a new belief system simply because someone tells you to, Paris. Believe me, I know.”

  Oddly, once I’d capitulated, Darien became increasingly condescending, when he wasn’t being distant. Darien said he was starting to wonder if he needed a “real” Jewish woman in his life. Conversion wasn’t enough.

  Then, last week, came the worst blow: “You’re just too accommodating, Paris. You’ll do anything to please anyone. Maybe we should take a break.”

  I’d spent the last few days crying the ugly cry, off and on, waiting for him to contact me, to break the break. My father said nothing, only handed me a cup of tea occasionally. Nor did he say anything as I planted myself on the couch, eating tubs of ice cream and trying to figure out what being on a “break” meant.

  Darien was right. Accommodation was my greatest flaw. While it often opened doors, it sometimes threw me to the floor, a doormat to be stepped on. As evidenced by me joining a religion with which I had no emotional ties, me putting up with tepid orgasms, and me continuing to live at home, helping with the family business, way past the time I should have been buying my own dining set.

  And so, here I was, on my father’s porch, dealing with a breakup like a middle schooler, hiding my texts from my dad.

  “Can I sit with you, Parisa, my little fairy?”

  I snorted at the endearment, as he knew I would. “Dad, how many times do we have to talk about that?”

  He settled next to me on the porch swing, barely disrupting the sway. He’d bought this house because of the swing and the iconic white fence—he claimed because he thought it was so hilariously Americana. But he painted that fence every six months. He kept it clean and sturdy. Looking at it glowing in the sun now, I knew for him it was really a symbol of security and pride. It was a symbol that the Tehrani family belonged in this neighborhood, with a white picket fence just like the rest.

  And suddenly, I knew I was about to break Dad’s heart and leave him alone, inside this bubble he’d created for us.

  I switched off my phone and put it to the side. There was nothing left here for me. Darien had never been worth sticking around for, anyway. We’d only ever had one common interest, business, and that interest was not my passion. He’d just been a handsome excuse for avoiding the unknown in the bigger world.

  The only real reason I had for not leaving was Dad, who was shorthanded at his accounting office. I was accommodating him, too, but he wasn’t taking advantage of me like Darien. He was family, and he needed me to help with clients. These days, however, business was slow, with fewer and fewer people bringing their money to Tehrani Tax Services, probably afraid my sweet father had a terrorist cell hidden under his desk.

  He didn’t need me like he used to.

  “Did you hear, Paris? A local shop caught a man stealing yesterday.” Before I could react, Dad grinned. There was a big pause. “He was balanced on the shoulders of two vampires. He was charged with shoplifting on two counts.”

  I groaned. “Dad, no. Just no.” Somehow, his stupid jokes were even more ridiculous when delivered in his stilted, proper English.

  “What? Other people are making apocalypse jokes like there is no tomorrow.”

  “Seriously, Dad, you’re killing me.”

  “Then tell me what is going on, khoshgeleh.” He called me pretty in Farsi and folded his hands in his lap, waiting.

  I said it quickly, not giving myself a chance to change my mind. “I need to move out … to move away. I want to build my own life.”

  Without any hesitation, he clapped his hands once in delight. “It is about time. Go to Wall Street. Make a splash.”

  “Dad?” I couldn’t have been more shocked if my dad had showed up at my favorite bar on karaoke night and busted out some Jay Z.

  “I will be fine. It is time you went out on your own.”

>   “I thought … I thought I was doing what you wanted.”

  “I am not an idiot. I am not going to saddle you with my responsibilities. I am not willing to give up just yet, but neither am I going to tie you to a shrinking business. I will miss you, my little flower. But you have been staying because you feel safe, not because of me.”

  “You know that’s not true—”

  He put his hand on my shoulder. “Do not get me wrong. I know you are loyal and helpful, and I have been grateful for your help. I have made it an easy decision for you to stay. Now, I am making it an easy decision for you to go.”

  It was way past time I left our house, went through the gate on our white picket fence, and became a self-sufficient, independent adult. Something inside me leapt and zinged around, joyous, free … but something else tugged that joy back down, something akin to guilt and loss and What the hell do I do now?

  Chapter 2

  The next day, sitting at my desk in the bank, I spotted my client—Darien’s “real” Jewish darling—sashaying past the security guard in her tennis whites. She cooed and rubbed noses with the miniature Chihuahua she carried, so I very maturely darted into the break room before she saw me.

  Helena, another securities broker, was at the lunch table, eating my yogurt from the refrigerator. She was a sorority sister from University of California, Irvine. Gesturing to me with the container, unashamed, she said, “Figured you wouldn’t mind. You had a couple in there.”

  “Whatever.” I sighed and dropped into a chair. “Take the rest. I’m outta here.”

  “Seriously?”

  “I wish. If I could find another job in another state, I’d be on a plane tomorrow. I want California and Darien in my rearview.”

  “Ah. I see.” She slurped up a spoonful of Dannon strawberry thoughtfully. “Have you talked to Gina?”

  I stared at her blankly, distracted by the white blob on her chin.

  “You know, Gina Romano? She was Sigma Kappa.” She pointed at me with a plastic spoon. “She’s a headhunter on the east coast now.”