Cultured, page 12
“There’s a building over behind the office building,” Robin said. “Maybe fifty yards beyond. All us girls live there.”
“It’s in a wooded area,” Lorie added. “Very peaceful and quiet. And Robin’s right, the rooms are wonderful.”
“Much better than my apartment in college,” Robin said.
“Where’d you go?” I asked.
“Southern Miss over in Hattiesburg.”
“Did you two know each other before you came here?” Nicole asked.
Lorie shook her head. “No. I’m from Birmingham and went to UAB. Well, for two years. Then I got this job and put school on hold.”
“Do you plan to go back?” Nicole asked.
“Absolutely. But this was too good to pass up. I mean, good money, a great place to work, and all the wonderful people you meet. I can get back to school later and have some money in the bank to pay for it.”
I saw Rhea approaching. When she reached us she said, “I’m so glad you could make it.”
“How could we not?” Nicole said. “This place is amazing. Thanks so much for inviting us.”
“The pleasure is ours.” Rhea glanced at her watch. “I’d join you but unfortunately I have a meeting right now. We’ll sit down and chat later. You’re in good hands so relax and enjoy your lunch.”
“She’s so nice,” Robin said as she watched Rhea head toward the front door. “She looks out for us. Actually, everyone.”
“Oh, I almost forgot,” Nicole said. “We were in Fairhope the other day and visited Mullins Bakery. Allison told us to tell you girls hello.”
“We love her,” Lorie said.
Robin gave an enthusiastic nod. “What we really love are the pastries she makes.” She glanced at Lorie. “Seems like we’re there all the time.”
“At least once a week,” Lorie said. “How did our names come up?”
“We told her we were looking into TLM. She said a lot of folks from the farm come over to Fairhope and stopped by her place. She remembered you girls.”
“What’d she say about TLM?” Robin asked.
“She loves having the farm nearby. She said everyone seemed nice and it was good for business.”
“I bet that’s true. There’s not much around here, just farms and more farms, so everyone goes over to Fairhope for fun. Good restaurants and bars, and Page and Palette, my favorite bookstore ever.”
“She said you guys were always with a couple of the other girls, but she hasn’t seen them in a while,” I said.
“I think she said their names were Stephanie and April,” Nicole added. “Are they still at TLM?”
Lorie shook her head. “April is but Stephanie got lucky.”
“Oh?” I asked.
Robin picked it up. “Stephanie met this big-time lawyer, got married, and moved down to the coast.”
“Destin,” Lorie said.
“And April?” Nicole asked. “Did she meet a guy, too?”
“Maybe,” Lorie said. “You never know with that girl. She’s down in the Tampa/St. Pete area right now.”
“There was a big party down there,” Robin said. “When was that?”
“A couple of weeks ago,” Lorie said. “No, three weeks.”
“Lorie and I were down for the party,” Robin said. “Only for the weekend. We came back here to work, but April stayed for some trip or something.” She gave a slight shake of her head. “I forget what she said.”
“Party cruising,” Lorie said. “On Andrew’s yacht.”
“That’s right,” Robin said. “Now I remember. I think she also had some recruiting trip lined up. I don’t remember where.”
“I think I heard something about Las Vegas and L.A.,” Lorie said. “But I might be wrong.” She shrugged. “Regardless, she’s been gone a while.”
Three weeks, I thought. Exactly how long it’s been since she talked to her mother.
“I miss her,” Robin said. “She’s so much fun.”
“She’ll have tales to tell when she gets back,” Lorie said.
“Totally,” Robin agreed.
“Who’s Andrew?” I asked.
“Andrew Heche,” Robin said. “He’s a friend of Jonathon’s and has a great party house. Massive and on the water. With a pool as big as a lake.”
“And a yacht that defies description,” Lorie added. “Huge and over the top.”
Robin nodded her agreement. “If you guys join TLM, you’ll see. We have parties down there all the time.”
“Is that part of your job here?” Nicole asked. “Parties on estates and yachts?”
Robin gave another nod. This one more enthusiastic. “That’s one of the best parts of this job. That and the trips.”
“Those are always fun and you meet some very impressive guys,” Lorie said. “Hopefully we can get as lucky as some of the other girls who’ve worked her.” Lorie gave a soft laugh. “I mean I can think of worse things than hooking up with a gazillionaire and flying around the world.”
So it might seem, I thought. Unless things aren’t that way at all. Sure, Stephanie DeLuca hit the jackpot, but did April Wilkerson? Was she cruising around on some endless party or did she also find her one true love and ride off into the sunset? If so, why didn’t she tell her mother? How long does it take to call or send a text? Or was she in a situation where such communication wasn’t possible? Imprisoned on a boat or in a basement or trafficked to the other side of the world.
Listen to me. I’m starting to think like Ray and Pancake, and Nicole. April is fine. She’s having fun and simply tweaking her mother as payback for not giving her the money April thought she was entitled to. Nothing more than a mother-daughter spat.
Yeah, that makes the most sense.
CHAPTER 22
NICOLE AND ROBIN followed a pine needle–covered trail into the woods behind the TLM office building. As they entered the shade, the temperature dropped a good ten degrees and the aroma of the pines thickened. Jake had stayed behind “to relax and rest” but in truth to chat with some of the staff. One of Jake’s gifts was schmoozing and the hope was that someone would part with some useful information. Lorie begged off the walk saying she needed to help with the setup for the party and to greet the members who would begin flowing in soon. So, off Robin and Nicole went.
“That’s where we live,” Robin said.
She indicated a wooden structure that matched the lodge’s construction in style and substance. Its two stories consisted of six units up and six down, each with a spacious patio or deck. Two young women sat on one of the decks. Robin waved to them as she and Nicole strolled deeper into the woods.
“This is my favorite part of the farm,” Robin said. “I love the trees, and the shade.”
“It’s wonderful,” Nicole said.
“I walk here almost every day. There’re several paths that wind all over the property. Gives a lot of variety.”
Nicole saw one trail veering off to the right and fifty yards later another that angled left. They continued forward until the trees thinned and an open field of flowers and various tall grasses appeared. They stepped into the bright sunlight, and Nicole saw that a trail cut a serpentine path through the waist-high grass.
“Isn’t this beautiful?” Robin asked. Not waiting for an answer she said, “Every time I walk here I feel like Julie Andrews. Like I should dance and break into ‘The Hills Are Alive with the Sound Of Music.’”
“Go ahead,” Nicole said.
Robin laughed and began to spin and sing the song. The first stanza anyway. She wobbled to a stop. “Whew. That makes me dizzy.”
“You have a good voice. Did you ever sing?”
“In the shower. And some karaoke.” She laughed. “If I’m drunk enough.”
They crossed the field, walked another hundred yards through more trees, and finally reached the pond Nicole had seen the other day when Rhea showed her and Jake around.
Robin picked up a pebble and skimmed it across the water. Three bounces. Pretty good. Nicole followed suit.
“I can see why you like it here,” Nicole said. “But I bet it was hard to leave college.”
Robin tossed another stone. “It was. I had some really great friends there so it wasn’t easy.”
“Do you keep in touch with them?”
Robin stared at the water for a beat, a pebble in her hand. “Yeah. Not as much as I should though.”
“What made you decide to leave college and come here?”
“This.” Robin waved a hand. “And the opportunity to learn about myself, finances, which I had no clue about, and to make some connections.”
“Like a boyfriend?” Nicole asked.
“That would be great. One that’s young and charming and rich.” She laughed. “It could happen.”
“It sounds like it has. For your friend Stephanie, and maybe April.”
“And a few others I know of.”
“Any luck so far?” Nicole asked. She got four bounces off her next pebble. “Anyone on the line, so to speak?”
“Not now. There was a guy, maybe six months ago. He lived in Nashville. He took me up there a couple times and once to New York. Another time to Miami. All very amazing. A world I didn’t know really existed outside of movies. The best hotels, the best restaurants.”
“But?” Nicole said
“His business took him to London for a year and I guess he wasn’t ready for that commitment.”
“You would have gone?”
“Absolutely. He was a great guy.” She picked up another rock and examined it, turning it over and over in her hand. “Maybe he’ll come back.”
“You still stay in touch with him?”
Robin stared at the water. “Some. I hear from him about once a month. Nothing very promising though. Just hello and how are you.”
Nicole tossed another rock. Only two bounces this time. “How did you end up here? I mean, how did you meet Jonathon and Rhea?”
“They found me. While I was at Southern Miss, Rhea came to Hattiesburg and offered me a job. Just like that.”
“You didn’t know her before?”
Robin shook her head. “I’d never heard of her or TLM or anything.”
“How did she pick you then?”
Robin looked away. She worked a rock with her fingers, obviously buying time, searching for the right answer.
Interesting. It reminded Nicole of Stephanie’s hesitations when asked similar questions.
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know or you don’t want to talk about it?” Nicole asked.
Robin stared at her. She started to speak, stopped, started again. “It’s embarrassing.”
“How so?”
“You’d think badly of me,” Robin said.
“So it’s about sex,” Nicole said.
“How’d you …”
“Relax,” Nicole said. “I grew up in Hollywood. A place that’s built on sex. Virtually every business deal has a little sex involved.”
Robin tossed the rock she held toward the middle of the pond, making no attempt to skim it. It hit with a soft plop and she watched the expanding circles bloom from the spot where it entered. She sighed. “I had a boyfriend.” She glanced at Nicole. “An older one. He helped pay for my school, and some other things.”
“A sugar-daddy.”
“You know about those?” Robin asked.
“I do.”
“He was a bank VP, married with two kids. Fifty years old, but handsome and kind.”
“Like most sugar-baby, sugar-daddy arrangements.”
Another sigh. “That’s awful, isn’t it?”
“No, it’s not. It’s actually very common.”
“Still.”
“Still nothing. Like I said, I spent my childhood and young adult life in Hollywood. The casting couch, the kept women, and men for that matter, the whole exchange between power and sex is on full display in Tinseltown. It was so common that it was expected. Part of life in the industry.”
“I suppose that’s true,” Robin said.
“It is. So, I assume Rhea knew about your arrangement and that’s why she reached out to you and made the offer.”
Robin nodded. “That’s what she said.”
“How did she know that?”
Robin gave that some thought. “You know, I’m not sure.”
“Were you on one of those sugar baby sites online? Is that how you found your bank VP?”
“It was. At first, I was simply curious. Some girl I didn’t really know was talking about it in a bar we college kids hung out in. She said she had done it and in fact had two guys she saw regularly and made a lot of money. I was surprised that she talked about it so openly, but she seemed fine with it and she looked like any other college girl. I explored several of those sites and ultimately put up my own profile and that’s how I met him.”
“That’s probably how Rhea found you.”
Robin looked toward her feet but said nothing.
“What about Lorie?” Nicole asked. “Did she play the same game?”
Robin looked up. “I’d rather not say.”
“Which means she did.”
Robin nodded.
“Was she on the same sugar baby site as you?”
“A different one.”
Interesting. Were Jonathon and Rhea mining these sites for girls who were more than just pretty faces? Girls who weren’t shy about hopping in bed for cash and benefits. Not those on the various prostitution sites. From what Nicole had seen so far, those wouldn’t meet TLM standards. But if you needed to offer such benefits to your members, what better way than finding girls who were in school or employed, going about a seemingly normal life, but who had a history of using sex for benefits? In this case it would benefit both the girl and TLM. If that was true, it was a clever marketing approach. Diabolical and unseemly, but clever nonetheless.
“Is that expected from you here?” Nicole asked. “Do Jonathon and Rhea encourage you to entertain the members and clients?”
“Not really.”
“That’s a qualified no.” When Robin didn’t reply, Nicole continued. “If Rhea found you both through online sugar baby sites, then she wants you to do the same here. Doesn’t that make sense?”
“I feel uncomfortable talking about it.”
“There’s no need to,” Nicole said. “You’re not doing anything thousands of others haven’t done. It’s part of life.” Nicole laid a hand on her arm. “Besides, this is between you and me. I’m just curious.”
“If you mean is that in our employment contract, then no.”
“I wouldn’t expect it would be, but is it an implied duty?”
“They don’t discourage it and don’t frown on it. So, yeah, it’s okay if we hook up with the members.”
“Like your London guy?”
“When he first hit on me I wasn’t sure about it. I mean, I liked him and given any other circumstance I would’ve jumped at the chance. Working here actually gave me some reservations. The whole thing about not mixing work and pleasure because sometimes those things blow up. I’ve seen it. Hell, I’ve done it.”
“Oh?”
“A summer job I had right before I started college. I had just turned eighteen and got a sales position in a clothing store. The manager was a guy twice my age, and married. We had a thing for a couple of months, but then he got possessive and finally his wife caught on. I don’t think she knew for sure but she definitely suspected. She kept showing up at odd times. It became very uncomfortable, so I quit and found another job.” She shrugged. “Lesson learned.”
“Until you got to college,” Nicole said. “And here.”
“I saw that most of the other girls were doing it, hooking up with members, and they seemed happy. Lorie said it was all cool and casual and not to worry so much and just have fun. And enjoy the benefits. So, when that guy asked me to go to Miami with him, I said yes and the rest is history you might say.” She tossed another rock. “Mostly I’m okay with it but at times I do feel uncomfortable.”
Nicole could see that. Why wouldn’t she feel uncomfortable with her decision? Of course, she would never tell Robin that.
“Don’t,” Nicole said. “It’s all very natural. If you met this guy in a bar, Mr. London, and hooked up with him, would you be fine with that?”
“Sure.”
“So the fact that you met him here changes that in some way? Is that what you’re saying?”
“I don’t know. It just feels different.”
“Because you feel they expect you to, right?”
Robin stared at her. “You do understand.”
“I do. Look, you’re young, smart, and beautiful, so why shouldn’t you have fun and explore options and see the world? You have time to be an adult later.”
That definitely brightened Robin’s mood. The desired effect.
“I like you,” Robin said. “You’re so cool.”
“As are you.”
CHAPTER 23
WHILE NICOLE AND Robin went for a walk, and Lorie was off tending to her duties, I further explored the lodge in hopes of meeting some of the members who were now trickling in for the evening’s festivities. In fact, as I walked through the lobby, Rhea intercepted me and introduced me to a middle-aged guy named Will Buckley. He owned several car dealerships in Atlanta. He had dark hair, graying at the temples, and wore jeans and green polo, his handshake firm.
“Will’s been a member for some time,” Rhea said. “What? Three years?”
“That’s right,” Will said. He waved a hand. “Long before you guys built this palace.” He looked at me. “What about you?”
“I’m not a member yet,” I said. “I’m exploring the opportunity.”
“It’s a good deal.” He glanced at Rhea. “She and Jonathon’ve made me a bunch of money. Plus, I get to hang out here whenever I want.”
“Jake’s an ex-baseball player,” Rhea said.
Will’s eyes lit up. “Jake Longly. I knew it sounded familiar. You were a pitcher.”
“That’s right.”
“Well, we need to sit and talk baseball. I love the game. I’m a big Braves fan.”
“I’d like that,” I said.
He glanced at his watch and said, “I need to get settled in my room and make a handful of calls, but after that I’ll find you and we can have a drink.”
