Page 157 of Heartbreak & Cupcakes
“We can talk about this later.” My dad started to walk away but I grabbed his forearm and stopped him.
“Dad?! Where did you meet Mrs. G?”
“At a club I worked at.”
My eyes narrowed. “A club? Were you a bartender? A bouncer?”
His jaw ticked and his nostril flared. I could see that this truly wasn’t a conversation he wanted to have, but that just made me even more determined to have it. What could he possibly be trying to hide? Unless…
“Dad?” I whispered and turned our bodies so that our backs were facing the party goers. “Was Mrs. G a stripper?”
Nowadays there was a lot less of a stigma attached to stripping, but I would guess over forty years ago that wasn’t the case.
“No,” he quickly shot back. “I was.”
My head fell back as a belly laugh bubbled up from inside of me. But when I straightened up again and saw the expression on my dad’s face, I sobered right up.
“Wait…are you serious?”
He sighed. “I worked as a Chippendales dancer.”
My jaw dropped and I was shocked it didn’t hit the floor. I’m not sure if there was anything more shocking that someone could have told me about my father.
“You were…wait…with the bow tie and the…” I gestured to my waist and made the signal for string.
He didn’t respond which meant the answer was yes.
“And Mrs. G worked at the club…”
“No, she worked at the Playboy club. As a bunny…er a waitress. The girls liked to come over after their shifts and watch the shows.”
I stared at the man who had raised me. The man who had taught me how to tie my shoes. How to ride my bike. The man who had insisted that I learn to drive a stick before he’d allow me to get my driver’s license because he said “you don’t really know how to drive if you don’t know how to drive stick.” The man who had given me and enforced a ten o’clock curfew until I left for college. The man who had rushed me to the hospital when my appendix burst. The man who had put calamine lotion on my chicken pox.
I knew my dad better than I knew anyone, but there was so much to the man standing before me I didn’t know. Sure, I knew that all the moms and teachers at my school always had crushes on him and I knew that whenever he took me to the doctor’s office the nurses would blush. But I didn’t know that he was a Chippendales freakin’ dancer.
He must have made a killing.
“I’m sorry I never told you. It’s not something I like to talk about.”
“Why not? That’s…amazing. I bet you killed it.”
He shook his head and sighed. “Sadie, this is not the time or place to talk about this. Now go, enjoy your party. Alex worked hard to put this together.”
I knew that tone. This conversation was over. For now. But it wasdefinitelygoing to be revisited.
He walked away, leaving me stunned and speechless. I watched as he walked up to Mrs. G and the two began talking.
“Hello, soon to be Mrs. Smolder,” Charli slid her arm through mine as she stepped beside me. She must have noticed me staring because her eyes followed the direction of my gaze and she asked, “Um, what is going on there?”
“They know each other.”
“Really? How?” she sounded surprised, but not nearly as shocked as she was about to be.
I turned toward her and whispered in her ear, “My dad was a Chippendales dancer and Mrs. G was a bunny at the Playboy Club.”
I leaned back to see her face. Her jaw was dropped down, but she quickly recovered. “Actually…that totally tracks. Your dad is like the OG Zaddy.”
“Please don’t call him that.” I hated that term as much as I hated DILF, which Charli called my father every chance she got.
