Madam - Jenny Angell

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did you want to come by, sir?” Can’t start by asking for a name – it spooked them. He would say tonight.

      “Tonight? Now?”

      “That’s fine. I just need to get a little information, sir.” Pretty voice now, nonthreatening. “I need your name and phone number, and I’ll call you right back.”

      “Why?”

      “It’s for everyone’s protection, sir. Then I can give you directions.”

      He relaxed. There was something about that promise that always did it. “Okay. Ed Lawrence. 5551324.”

      “I’ll call you right back, Ed.”

      After that, it was easy. Directions. Sometimes they’d want to keep me on the phone, run down what they called the “menu,” but I learned how to handle that gracefully as well. “I’m sure that one of the young ladies will suit you, sir.” They always did; the guy just wanted the thrill of prolonging the phone call. His goal was for it to last; mine was to close the deal and move on. Usually I won.

      One night Laura had a late arrival. I was asleep downstairs, and she thought – well, I don’t honestly know what she was thinking. Maybe none of the girls were around. Maybe she figured that he was easy and I wouldn’t mind. Whatever was going through her little brain, she sent him down to me.

      Big mistake.

      First of all, I had never planned on a career in prostitution from anything other than an administrative point of view. Second of all, I was asleep. Third of all, the guy liked to give oral sex, which is why I think she sent him downstairs to me: the scenario would be, he’d go down, I’d never even have to completely wake up, he’d go back upstairs, pay, and leave. What neither Laura nor her client had counted on was the yeast infection I was treating at the time. Her little client went down, all right – and I woke up to this face looming above me, literally foaming at the mouth.

      I don’t know which one of us was more freaked out.

      And so my career as a call girl ended as soon as it had – albeit involuntarily – begun. But I learned a lot that year I spent doing the phones and working the desk for Laura. I learned about the specifics of running a business like hers, about what worked and what didn’t. I learned about clients and employees and the world’s perception of what we did. I learned a lot about power – about my power.

      And most importantly, I learned that I could do it better than her.

      So I took my almost-working car and my revived bank account, rented an apartment in Boston’s trendy Bay Village, and opened up my own business. That was nineteen years ago. I’ve been doing it ever since.

      * * * * * *

      I chose the name Peach from a short story.

      It’s as good a source as any for finding a name, I suppose. But it also is weird, in a Twilight Zone kind of way, because the person who wrote that story later came to work for me for a couple of years. What are the chances of that happening? They must be a million to one.

      What I didn’t want, above all, was to use my own name. I didn’t want the guys asking for Abby, or knowing anything about Abby. From the very beginning, I wanted an element of deniability to it all. I wanted to both be and not be this new persona.

      So I became Peach.

      I knew I had to keep my working life and my personal life very, very separate. To my friends and family, I would be Abby. To my girls and my clients, I’d be Peach. And that’s worked pretty well for me.

      Which is not to say that I latched onto it right away. If I can sit here and talk calmly about having a family, having a business, juggling them the way any working mother does, you need to know that it didn’t come to me naturally.

      In fact, for a whole lot of years, I was much more Peach than I was Abby. Sometimes I think I got a little lost in being Peach … so that’s part of what this story is about. Getting lost.

      And getting found.

       LOSSES

      The door opened slowly, too slowly. The faces were grave.

      I was pressed up against the wall in the corridor, scarcely daring to breathe. There was a very expensive vase on the table next to me, from some Chinese dynasty that’s remembered in the Western world only for its porcelain. I had been told to never touch the vase.

      The voices inside the room had gone on for far too long, a steady murmur, the murmur of death.

      Now the door was opening, and they were all coming out. My mother, her face red and blotchy from crying. Dr. Copeland. Two of my father’s business associates.

      Dr. Copeland saw me first and, ignoring the other people – which was very unlike a grown-up – came over and squatted in the hallway next to me. “Abby,” he said, gently, “how long have you been here?”

      I stifled a sob. “Forever,” I said. I felt that if I said anything more than that, I’d start crying, and it had been made clear to me that I was not to cry.

      He didn’t go away, as I expected him to. He put a hand on my shoulder, instead. “You’re going to need to be a brave girl, Abby.”

      “Yes, sir, I know.”

      He frowned, as though that was the wrong answer. “But you can be brave and feel sad at the same time,” he said.

      I glanced at my mother. She was standing with the light from the window behind her, and all I could see was her thin elegant outline. Her arms were crossed.

      I didn’t have to see her face; I already knew what the expression was.

      I looked back into the doctor’s kindly eyes with a quick indrawn breath and a little bit of panic. “I’ll be brave,” I assured him. Maybe if I said what he wanted me to say, he’d go away and not say things that made me want to cry.

      He didn’t go away.

      Instead, he scrunched down and sat on the floor next to me. I clearly heard my mother’s disapproving intake of breath, and stiffened, but she didn’t say anything. “Abby,” said Dr. Copeland, “you know that your daddy is very sick.”

      No one had ever called him Daddy before, except me. My mother always prefaced references to him with “Your father.” I nodded.

      He nodded, too, as though we had just shared a very deep secret. “Abby, I’m afraid that he’s going to die.”

      My heart thudded, and I thought suddenly that I might throw up. I shouldn’t, I knew that I shouldn’t, but I wondered how I could keep it from happening. What can you do? Swallow it all back? I didn’t say anything and swallowed hard, and the feeling receded. Dr. Copeland squeezed my shoulders. “We’re all going to miss your daddy,” he said, “but do you know what, Abby? I think that you’re going to miss him most of all.”

      I didn’t know how to respond, so I didn’t say anything.

      The doctor gave me one last firm pat on the back and stood up, with some difficulty. One of my father’s business associates gave him a hand. My mother never moved.

      Their voices faded away down the hallway and the big sweeping staircase that led downstairs. I stayed where I was, looking longingly at the closed door.

      “Abby!” my mother called, her voice sharp. “Come downstairs now!”

      I suppose that I went. I was good that way. Obedient.

      I never saw my daddy again.

       LEAVING MOTHER SUPERIOR

      When

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