He fidgeted, smiled nervously. Asked her name. "Your real one. Not that fake crap so people can't track you down."

  She studied him, his thick black hair, his anxious green eyes, his tall, muscular physique. She never told her clients her real name. She used any manner of labels: Chelsea, Victoria, Lucy, Gina, whatever. Drove Amanda batty, but the money Elena brought in afforded her a few eccentricities.

  Elena considered rewarding Darren for having three first names like she did. She could tell him her real name. Say what she had wanted to tell Frances but never would. Elena Marie Elise.

  To Darren Joseph Kendall, she said: "My name is Solan Patricia May." Close enough. Still three first names. She would give him that; he was one of the most beautiful creatures she had laid eyes on. He had a rough, tousled demeanor and hands that looked nice and strong. She was not attracted to him, not sexually, but she was an observer of beauty, of people.

  He was nowhere near as exquisite as last night's Frances, however. Impossible.

  Darren blinked and took a tiny step forward. "Solan Patricia May? That's beautiful."

  Elena had always adored her name. Not liked it or loved it. Adored it. There was a difference. When she was a child, she would crown herself Elena one day, Marie another day, Elise another. Sometimes all three in the same day. She would tell the women at the bank who fawned over her brilliant red hair that her name was Elise. At the movies that evening, she would say her name was Marie--or Elena. She did not let her three official names limit her. She spun off a whole string of names. Mary was a favorite, but she also frequently used Elaine, or Eleanor (when she was feeling old-fashioned and virtuous but didn’t want to go with Mary), or Eli (when she was in one of her tomboy moods), or Esile (Elise backward--not a real name, but who cared?).

  Elena beckoned Darren closer. "I'm not going to ask your name. But feel free to invent--"

  "Darren Kendall. Call me Darren."

  "What can I do for you?"

  His nervousness returned. "Er--I've never done this before."

  "Why are you now?"

  He swallowed. "Some of the boys at the firm…"

  "Mmm."

  "You know. You see, I'm engaged. But, oh, I don't know. She adds to my stress. Whining about me never being home, never doing things for her. I'm working my fucking ass off for her, for us, and she doesn't appreciate it!"

  Elena clucked her tongue. "Terrible. She doesn't appreciate you."

  Darren Kendall pulled at his tie. "Yeah," he said. "So, anyway." He sat on the other bed, and she shifted to face him.

  "I'm here to make you feel better."

  "Some of the guys said they're happy with--"

  "Don't worry about them. We're here for you."

  "The chick told me your rules."

  Elena smiled pleasantly. Part of Amanda's job was explaining the rules. Some of the girls were fine with kissing on the mouth. French kissing. Intercourse, vaginal and/or anal. Some were fine with bondage, and so on. Elena's rules were fairly basic: no kissing on the mouth, no penetration in her, vaginal or anal, no drugs, no drinking urine, no scat play, and no a few other kinks.

  Amazing how much business she got despite these rules.

  Darren handed over a wad of cash. "Here you go."

  She hoped he remembered to tip. Amanda was good about explaining that to clients. They were not required to tip but were encouraged to, especially if they received exceptional service. No set percentage, but twenty percent was good.

  "My fiancee, she'd kill me if she knew. No. She wouldn't kill me. She'd go to pieces. She'd cry and want to know what she was doing wrong."

  "What can I do for you?"

  "I like to do it in front of porn movies sometimes, but Jan doesn't like it. She'll do it anyway. For me."

  Jan. Elena was not sure she liked this name. It sounded plain and rough. But at the same time, not.

  JanJanJan

  She decided she liked it.

  She was still getting used to the taste of the name Frances Dourne. A mysterious name. A mysterious woman. Old-fashioned but strong. Enduring.

  Frances Marie Dourne.

  They had the same middle name.

  Darren prattled on about his Jan, and Elena listened--tried to, anyway, among the uhs, ahs and ums. Darren wrapped up his Jan tirade, and Elena smiled sweetly. "I have plenty of porn if you'd like that."

  "No. Nah. No thanks. Um, how'd you become, um..." He squirmed.

  Unlike with Frances, she would not say the words. Not for him. Hooker. Call girl. Whore. Prostitute.

  He could be wired. Or the room could be. The service used this room a lot. She let him flail. At least he had not verbalized that he was handing over money. Amanda would have explained that, too.

  "Do you consider yourself, you know--? Although you service only well-off people?"

  She said nothing.

  "How much do you make in a year?"

  "I'm not telling you." $250,000, give or take a few. But I gotta comp my own insurance.

  Would the figure dismay Darren? It dismayed Elena sometimes. She was horrified at how quickly she became addicted to the prostitute money, to the spending sprees that she pretended replaced the hole in her soul. She had spoiled--or tried to spoil--herself and her mother with designer clothes, antique furniture, nice everything. Not that her mother took advantage of it. Brenda still clipped coupons. Still scrimped and saved.

  "How'd you get started?" Darren asked. Another pull at his tie. He glanced at his watch. All her clients had watches. And cellphones, Blackberries, iPhones.

  Darren again: "How about--" He shook his head, a light red staining his cheeks.

  "I won't judge you."

  "Bet you've had some pretty kinky requests. Done some wild things."

  Elena smiled and ran her tongue over her lips.

  "I've never had it in the ass," Darren admitted.

  "I have a nice array of dildos."

  Darren loosened his tie completely. "Maybe next time. How about a little BJ for now? I don't like how Jan does it."

  Elena handed Darren a fun, fruity condom. He mentioned a next time. That meant he liked her and would tip well.

  *****

  The list of YouTube videos was overwhelming. So many kinds of card shuffles. Pharaoh shuffle, riffle, bone 1, drunken, one-handed, the overhand, the pivot, and and and and and…

  Elena chose a video labeled "Wash Shuffle." The guy laid his cards on the table and spread them around like he was washing the table. Then he collected the cards and stacked them.

  Uh, no.

  Talk about inelegant.

  Elena wanted the regular old way--but better. She would be prepared if Frances chose cards again tonight.

  Okay, so wash shuffle's out.

  Elena found what she wanted three videos later. What she called "the regular old way" actually had a name--the leaf shuffle.

  Prostitution had its educational side.

  Elena practiced, copying the man on the video. After a few minutes, she felt the difference. She whipped through the cards, her thumb becoming an asset instead of a hindrance. With grace, she reversed and split the deck. She would be ready.

  *****

  Elena had not meant to fall asleep on the couch. That was her mother's job. However, one minute she was reading Frances's memoir Gay Is a Choice, and in the next moment, she heard Isaiah's footfalls. He was home from school. He was thirteen years old, perfectly chronological. His curly mop of red hair had not been tamed, and his eyes were the same blue as Kevin's. A sprinkling of freckles dusted his nose.

  He greeted her with a mumbly: "Himom." Typical teenage speak. He dumped his backpack onto the floor with a clatter.

  "How was school?"

  "Fine." His voice was beginning to crackle.

  Isaiah was small for his age. Kevin had been small, too. She noticed some broadening in Isaiah's shoulders, though. More definition in his cheekbones. Before long, he would be a man.

  "Good. That's good," she said. The words--You want to live with your father? Do you realize he's going to break your heart?--threatened to burst out of her. "I made cookies." She indicated the plateful of chocolate chip cookies on the counter.

  He shrugged. "Gonna do homework. See ya."

  "Let's do something. Just the two of us."

  "Where's Grandma?"

  "At the doctor. So, how about a movie? Or a--"

  Mumble. Mumble.

  "What?"

  A shifting of his feet. Scratching of his nose. "Igotlotsofhomework."

  "Maybe a movie tomorrow?"

  Isaiah reached for Frances's memoir. His eyebrows shot up. "What are you reading that for?"

  "Why not?"

  "Uh, Mom. Frances Dourne?"

  "I'm working with her, Isaiah."

  More disbelief. An incredulous "Why?"

  "I'm helping her plan a party."

  "Should've said no."

  "Maybe I should have."

  "You could still, can't you?"

  "I suppose I could."

  "Does Aunt Felicianna know?" Felicianna was so close to Elena and Isaiah that he called her his aunt.

  "No. The thing is, Frances is a very nice woman. In person."

  Isaiah hauled his backpack up. "Have fun reading. See ya." He trundled down the hall as if the weight of the world was on his shoulders.

  With a start, she woke up. For a half-second, her life was bliss, and her biggest problem was that she was the mother of a typical teenager. Then the truth: that she was the mother of a drowned ten-year-old, hit her. She frantically grasped for the vanishing tendrils of memory, of what thirteen-year-old Isaiah looked like.

  Gone.

  She grabbed her cellphone and stabbed in Kevin's number.

  "Elena." He seemed pleased to hear from her. The lying, thieving bastard.

  "Bring the urn back."

  "We need to spread his ashes."

  "Bring the urn back!"

  Chapter 6

  Elena read the second chapter of Gay Is a Choice as the car took her to the Howard Johnson. She had re-read the memoir after finding out Frances would be a client of hers, but Chapter Two needed further reading. Further analyzing.

  The parents chapter. The camp chapter. Elena read the chapter then began it again.

  My father is a pastor, Frances started. And my mother is a pastor's wife. Dad is nearing eighty but he still preaches at Thrasher Independent Baptist, the same church in St. Albans, West Virginia, where he started as a man of twenty-three. (He'd be past eighty now, Elena added mentally.) Nicholas and I were, and are, children of a pastor. We grew up surrounded by God. An angry, vengeful God. God wanted us to eat our vegetables and be in bed by eight o' clock. God didn't want us listening to the radio or watching TV. God, in the guise of our father, whipped us if we broke any of these rules.

  So, of course, when my parents caught me kissing my best friend and saying I loved her, God was furious. Off I went to Camp Meadow Woods.

  Frances devoted five paragraphs to her camp experience. Five measly paragraphs. Nor did she discuss the experience in interviews other than to say camp had been peaceful, tranquil, therapeutic. In a nutshell, her camp experience was this: Hated it at first. Gradually realized the point. Left camp closer to God and looking forward to a relationship with a man.

  Elena speculated that things had gone on. Things. Brainwashing, maybe. Belittling. Beatings. Forced sex with male counselors and male campers.

  Mom, Dad and Nicholas picked me up on my eighteenth birthday. We hadn't seen each other in the year I was away. My breasts were a woman's now, not the rosebuds from twelve months ago. I had curves.

  Mom and Dad said nothing. Their gazes, their expressions, were suspicious. I was an alien, this daughter of theirs who had shot up five inches and sprouted breasts.

  They looked the same. So did Nicholas. I wondered if he was still at UCLA. How he was doing. What he thought of me, of what I had done, of what our parents had done.

  He spoke first. "Welcome back, sis," he said, and took me in his arms. Mom hugged me later that night.

  Dad didn't hug me for two weeks.

  "Ma'am? We're here," the driver said.

  The appointment was for ten p.m. Elena was an hour early, like the night before. Prep time was critical. Tonight she wore a black silk shirt and a black skirt. Dark angel. No businesswoman. She brushed her hair, pulled it in a ponytail, let it fall out, tried a bun. Could not decide which way to go.

  She booted up her laptop and searched YouTube for clips of Frances from TV.

  Coming out live.

  Jesus H. Christ. No pun intended.

  In the video clips, Frances wore a business suit. Hair up in a bun. No glasses. She spoke passionately. About morals, about values. About loving the sinner, hating the sin. "Gays do not deserve our scorn," she said at one point. "They deserve our compassion. Only with our compassion can they make the right choice."

  About nine-fifty, Elena took a long look at herself in the mirror. She would wear her hair down. She looked good. Sexy as hell. She would land a big tip tonight. More than a thousand. That was why she was prepping so thoroughly for Frances. The memoir, the YouTube videos. Because of the money. Because of the cause, too. Helping Frances come out.

  And the fact that they shared a name.

  Elena ignored the voice whispering that she was doing this because Frances was attractive. Very. And well-meaning. Seeking redemption. On the same path, kind of, that Elena was. The voice murmured that perhaps Elena was interested in Frances as a person, interested in understanding why Frances did the things she did.

  "The money," Elena muttered. "That's why I am doing this. Money." She banished the voice to a far-off dungeon, but another voice escaped.

  One woman at Isaiah's funeral--a well-meaning woman, of course--had told Elena she ought to think of his death as a gift. You're young. You can have plenty more children. Or, you can live your life the way you always wanted to. The stigma of being a teenage mother--people thought the child was a forever burden.

  Frances entered on time, and Elena offered a big, warm smile. Money. Like the night before, Frances did not look like herself. Or maybe she looked exactly like herself.

  "Hello Frances," Elena said, again slightly drawing out her words. Embracing the name Frances with her tongue.

  Frances replied with a guarded smile and surveyed the room. Elena half-expected her to inspect it again.

  "You smell good," Elena said. Frances was fresh. Fruity. Clean.

  "What do your clients usually smell like?"

  Elena laughed. "Like sweaty businessmen and lawyers."

  Frances handed over an envelope. Elena did not bother to count the money this time. Showing trust in clients was important.

  Frances sat at the table. "Rummy again?" She proffered the deck of cards.

  "Sure."

  About ten-fifteen, a phone rang. Beep beep blip blip. Pac-Man. Not Elena's personal or work phone; she kept her phones off when she was with a client.

  Frances glanced at the phone's screen and barked a "Hello?" A moment into the conversation, she said: "Two? Really?" Something like hope flickered across her face. She furrowed her brows and listened for a few minutes. She said occasionally: "I see. Yes. Okay." She ended with a: "Yes, I know you will. Thank you." She hung up.

  Elena waited for Frances to explain the call, but Frances only gazed across her cards. She added a jack to the three jacks Elena laid down earlier. Her hands were steady.

  "Everything okay?" Elena asked.

  "Sure."

  "Really?"

  "Same old. That was the Marissa phone."

  Elena perked up. "There's news?" The nation had seemingly divided in two loud halves when Marissa was kidnapped, with one group shouting for Daniel Dourne’s blood. They claimed he had no right taking the child from her mother. The other half said he had no other choice, that Frances's inflexible, anti-gay ways and her battles to keep Marissa from her father, made the kidnapping all but inevitable.

  Shouters aside, Elena bet most people felt the way she did. She understood why Daniel took the child, but perhaps the court system would have given him his due. Frances was the so-called injured party, yes, and had power, and the favor of a judge, but Daniel was the girl's father. The courts would eventually have given him…what? Visitation? Sporadic time with his daughter?

  Maybe Elena would have done the same. Maybe she would have kidnapped her child.

  "I have two cellphones," Frances said. "One for both work and personal use. One for Marissa stuff. Only my private investigator and the FBI agent in charge of her case know the number. Guess how many times the Marisssa phone rings in a month. Lately."

  "Five?"

  "That's about right. None of these leads amount to anything. This one won't, either. Two alleged sightings of Daniel in Mexico City, earlier today."

  "You don't know that this one won't amount to anything."

  Frances's eyes clouded over. "Marissa is dead. Daniel is dead. They've been dead a long time. Don't ask me how I know. I just do."

  "You appeal to him in your coming-out speech."

  "That's for just in case."

  "You told me yesterday that you have a child out there. A live child."

  "I hope I do," Frances whispered.

  Chapter 7

  Frances continued to play rummy with the prostitute and tried to put the Marissa call behind her. She was able to focus enough to win the round by ten points. Or maybe the prostitute let her win. Last night, the prostitute had been an awkward, clumsy shuffler. Tonight, she was smoother, graceful. Much improved.

  "Have you been practicing shuffling?" Frances asked.

  A little, embarrassed smile. "Maybe."

  Frances could not help but feel flattered. And foolish for feeling flattered. What else was the prostitute supposed to do? Her job was to draw her clients in, impress them. Flatter them. But maybe, just maybe…

  At midnight, Frances brought out her time line. Part of her could not believe she was doing this. Actually doing this, after all these years. She supposed she should feel proud. She did not. The time line called for her to come out to her family Christmas Day, about two months off. Suddenly, too long off. Way too long off.