The Assignment 4 by Abby Weeks

wanted to be honest with her. She was glad that she finally could be.
    She looked at Chloe. Chloe seemed lost in her own thoughts. She was staring into her coffee cup, thinking deeply. “Fuck it,” she said quietly.
    “What did you say?” Lacey said.
    “I said fuck it, Lacey. I’ll do it.”
    “You’ll do what?”
    “I’ll help you speak to Lally’s daughter.”

VIII
    C HLOE AND LACEY SAT NEXT to each other on the back seat of the cab. They were outside a fabulous apartment building on Central Park West. There was a carpet leading from the door to the edge of the sidewalk so that you could walk from your car to the building without messing up your shoes. Two attendants stood by the door in black suits and helped people in and out of the building.
    “That’s where she lives?” Chloe said.
    “According to my research.”
    “Which apartment?”
    “I have no idea.”
    They had paid the cab driver a hundred dollars to sit with them and stake out the building. It was far too cold for them to wait on the street, and they had no idea how long it would be until Claire Lally made an appearance.
    “What if she’s not in there?” Chloe said.
    “She’s got to come home at some time, doesn’t she?”
    Chloe smiled. “I just hope she’s not in the Hamptons or something.”
    Lacey exhaled. She was nervous. She had to find Claire. She leaned against the window, watching the door of the building every time someone entered or left. They’d already been sitting there for thirty minutes. She knew they couldn’t stay there too much longer. Sooner or later a traffic cop would come along force them to move.
    Lacey was lost in her thoughts when Chloe put a hand on hers.
    “I’m sorry,” Chloe said.
    “What for?”
    “For earlier. I shouldn’t have been so angry at you. I shouldn’t have said things would be different. We’re real friends and that’s stronger than the secrets we sometimes have to keep.”
    “Oh, Chloe. Thank you so much for saying that. I was so worried I’d lost you. I’d die if you weren’t able to my friend any more. I’d understand, but I would be devastated.”
    “You’re not going to lose me,” Chloe said, smiling kindly. “I thought I might not be able to relate to you when you said you weren’t really a call girl, but the truth is, neither of us is only a call girl. Both of us have other goals and other dreams in life. Prostitution is something we’re both doing right now, it’s something each of us needs to do for our own reasons, but our friendship is more than just being in the same place at the same time.”
    “It is,” Lacey said. “It really is, Chloe. I almost feel like we could be sisters.”
    “I haven’t told many people this,” Chloe said. “In fact, I haven’t told anyone, but I do have other dreams, other aspirations that I hope to achieve in my life that go farther than sucking rich old men’s cocks.”
    Lacey laughed. She looked forward at the cab driver. She could tell he was listening intently to every word.
    “I know you do,” Lacey said. “And some day I hope I can help you reach for those dreams.”
    Chloe nodded. “But for now, this is what’s real. Mayfair, The Club, the men at the mansion, that’s what’s real.”
    “For both of us,” Lacey said.
    “Yes, for both of us.”
    *
    I T WAS ANOTHER THIRTY MINUTES before a tall, slim blonde came out of the apartment building dressed impeccably in a designer coat and scarf and carrying a small dog in her purse.
    “That’s her,” Lacey said, shaking Chloe’s arm.
    “Oh my god,” Chloe said. “She looks different from what I imagined.”
    “I pictured her differently too,” Lacey said.
    “I thought she’d look like her father, for some reason”
    “I don’t know what I was expecting, but then I looked her up and I saw all these photos of her. She’s actually really beautiful. Not at all the kind of girl you would expect to marry an old man.”
    “And she’s already rich,” Chloe