Sweep Me Off My Feet

“This will go perfectly with the white trainers you got him last week,” Angela said as she looked at Candy. “I would show these to him, but he is too busy trying to get his truck to the construction site,” she added as she looked at Brandon.

“The other two bags are for you,” Candy said excitedly as she looked at Angela, obviously waiting to see what her expression was going to be like. “Go on. I am dying of anticipation here.”

Angela looked in one of the bags and sighed silently.

“You didn’t,” she said in a whisper as she pulled out a shoe box. “Really, Candy…this is too much.”

She pulled out the box of Brian Atwood heels and opened it. She could not help but sigh silently when she saw the beautiful shoes inside: black high heeled sandals with tassels that draped the arch of the foot. It was the kind of shoe that you expected to see gracing a celebrity’s foot at a red carpet gala. She also knew that they were not cheap. They had to be at least fifteen hundred or thereabout.

“So?” Candy asked, smiling.

Angela looked at her and shook her head. She was used to having gifts from Candy almost every time she came to visit, but this was just too much. Besides, she worked in a retail store. The most glamorous thing she ever saw was when a local production company came in to shoot an ad campaign. The shoes would be wasted sitting at the back of her closet.

“Candy, these shoes are going to go to waste…I mean, what am I going to do? Wear them to the store?” she asked.

“Well, they complement your other gift quite perfectly.” Candy gestured at the other bag and Angela picked it up reluctantly after she put the other bag and shoe box down. She slowly pulled out a navy blue dress and once again, she gasped. She knew exactly which dress that was. She had seen it before on display on one of the stores in town once while walking with Candy. “Now, you in that dress and those shoes…tell me that wouldn’t be the most perfect picture.”

Angela shrugged.

“Candy, you spoil us a bit too much.”

“Well, you are my family. You and Brandon. If I don’t spoil you, then who am I going to spoil?” Candy asked.

Angela held the dress tightly, almost like she was hugging it.

“I don’t know what to say, Candy.”

“You don’t need to say anything. I already told you, you are my family. Besides, I love living this life. Shopping every time I want to, getting anything and everything I want.” She smiled at Angela. “Getting my sister and her handsome little boy stuff.”

“Well, this means a lot to me. You taking care of us like this. I could not ask for more.”

Candy smiled as she opened the pizza box.

“Well,” she started as she took a bite of her slice. “It is either that or endless trips to Ibiza and we both know that a holiday is not really a holiday unless you have your friends with you.”

Angela raised an eyebrow over the other as she put the bags down and slowly made her way to the small kitchen island.

“Wait, did you just get two slices of the pineapple and ham?” Angela asked, and Candy nodded. “But I thought most pizza houses don’t do this anymore. I have a hard time asking them to give me two equal halves in one.”

Candy shrugged.

“Please, there is nothing a smile and a few extra bills in the tip jar wouldn’t do.”

Angela smiled as she took a seat next to her at the island.

“So, how is everything? I haven’t seen you for a few days.”

Candy nodded.

“Yeah, I know. This week has been a little more brutal than usual. Amber and Celeste just stopped showing up which is a little more than a coincidence since they were both last seen the night some rapper booked out the club for a private party.” Candy exhaled loudly. “I am not saying that I hate doing it, working, I mean, the money is great, but Amber and Celeste have got some nerve.”

“Yeah, I remember they did the same thing when the club hosted that guy who was rumored to be one of Drake’s producers?” Angela asked, and Candy almost choked on the bite in her mouth.

“Please don’t remind me.” She shook her head. “Two weeks of gallivanting around the country with some guy who was using their money…I mean, how stupid could they possibly be?”

“I would be caught dead in a trench before I handed over any of my hard earned money to anyone,” Candy said matter of factly. “Do they even know what it feels like wrapping yourself…” She stopped mid-sentence and looked over her shoulder to make sure Brandon was not listening to them, and he wasn’t. He was busy playing on the floor. “Do they even know how hard it is to wrap yourself around a pole for hours on end?”

Angela took a bite of her slice as she felt a shiver down her spine.

“Don’t remind me. There are days I had a backache that wouldn’t go away for days, sometimes weeks on end,” she said in between bites.

“So, does that mean that you don’t ever want to come back to the club?” Candy asked.

Angela looked at her and sighed. She did not know how to answer that question. She never knew how to answer anyone who brought up her going back to the club. Of course, being a stripper was never her first career choice, but it was the choice she was forced to make by the universe. By the issues that somehow turned to be circumstances that shaped the direction her life took. She bit her lip briefly before she took another bite of her slice, hoping that her silence was an answer good enough for Candy.

“Angie?’ Candy pressed as she looked at Angela who was trying hard to avoid her gaze.

“You know my answer to that, Candy.”

“What? That you will not come back on some misguided notion that you will bump into him?” Candy asked. By the tone of her voice, Angela could tell that she was a little agitated. “There are other clubs around, you know.”

Angela nodded.

“I know, but as far as I am concerned, staying away is much better than tempting fate.”

Candy shrugged.

“Tempting fate? What the hell are you talking about?”

“Well, it goes without saying that I am not exactly looking forward to being in the same place that took my innocence,” Angela explained. “I mean, not actual innocence but…you know what I mean.”

“I do know what you mean, but it is not forever. It is just until you get enough to set yourself up. You and Bran. That has always been the plan, right?” Candy asked, and Angela took a long deep breath.

She was right. That was what they had talked about for a long time. For her to dance for a few years to get enough for a small place out of the city. Angela had long been obsessed with living off the grid and with the new building technologies; she knew she did not need hundreds of thousands to get a decent home. Her plan was to get a lot of land, preferably on a lake property, and get two prefabricated shipping containers as her home. It was the perfect plan. Brandon would get to grow up experiencing the great outdoors and she could slowly expand her home to suit her preference. It was the perfect plan. But all these had changed once she met her ex and while her plans might only have been distracted for a little bit, she permanently changed her mind about her little utopia on the lake once she got Brandon. For now, she could only think about the wellbeing of her son and every so often, she dreamed of her perfect home with her son.