An Angel in the Ground (Completed)

Part One

‘There’s not enough rain in Oklahoma

To wash the sins out of that house

There’s not enough wind in Oklahoma

To rip the nails out of the past’

-Blown Away, Carrie Underwood

Lara Valdez had the choice but she chose this job. She had the chance to stop but she continued, she never told anyone her reason of doing so because she strongly believed that nobody truly cared. She started working as a pole dancer at the ripe age of eighteen; she fended for herself and for what left in her family--- Lizzie, her seventeen-year-old sister and Louise, her fourteen-year-old baby sister--- after her mother decided to flew and hide from them as her father died in an illness. At the age of 22, she was a breadwinner and a support system. What a pathetic and tiresome life she had, but she persisted and never stopped crawling onto that hard asphalt she called life. Because despite of that stupid and dirty woman she was, she actually had a dream, to give her sisters the life she wished she had.

Like the other days she lived, it was again the time for her to pack her things and get ready for another performance at Smudgy Var. “Louise, when Lizzie comes home, tell her to call me. Okay?” She said while she applied a blood red lipstick on her plump lips, her eyes that were already colored with smoky gray eye shadow. She glanced again on her wristwatch that her sisters gave her as a gift and frowned, it was already quarter to eight but Lizzie wasn’t home yet. She worried for them more than a mother would, because she loved them more than her mother had loved them, if she ever did.

“Alright. Take care!” Louise kissed her rosy cheek and smiled at her with the sweetest smile she really loved. Few more years until her girls would graduate and until then she has to make herself stronger. She bid her goodbye after she told her yet again her usual daily reminders.

Lara Valdez never smiled for anyone aside from her sisters that’s why she was quite a mystery for the patrons of the bar she was working at. She never showed interest and excitement, she was an ice lily. Most of all, Lara never felt the term they called ‘love’ for the opposite sex. She never believed it either. It never presented itself to her until that one night when she met Calvin Walker. Of course, at that time she didn’t know it was love, or maybe she just stopped herself from believing it was love.

One way to escape pain was ignorance and she held it for as long as she could.

“Lara, are you up for a private performance tonight? Table Five requested for you.” Kola said, she was a plump woman at her forties, she arranged appointments for them but she wasn’t the employer--- that would be Mrs. Bolkins.

She was tired tonight and wasn’t up for anything but then Kola said Table Five, she had her eyes on that particular table even before she started her pole dance. She was oddly drawn on those gray eyes that was as if doing a general search on her soul. He watched her dance with those piercing eyes and she felt aberrantly giddy. She didn’t know why and she didn’t intend to know until Kola approached her to tell her that one of them wanted her private performance. However, what if it wasn’t that gray-eyed man who wanted the performance?

“I think I’d pass…” She sighed and Kola shook her head with a gleam in her eyes that she understood very well--- they were paying on a higher rate. And she needed money. “I changed my mind; I’ll go there after I change my clothes.” If you could even call it clothes, it barely hid anything!