Lunch seemed too far away, but she invited me to go to a club to go dancing, "if you want to go out that way."

"Um, sure, but I've only got seven bucks with me."

"I'm not asking you for your money," she said, in her wonderful Tennesse voice.

"No no, I just wasn't sure if I had enough to get into the club."

But the club didn't have a cover charge. I can't remember its name. It was a big modern place with a dance floor, and a large-screen tv for the music videos. I hung up her and Aline's coats, while they shuffled ID's to get in. Aline was only twenty, but when they told the doorman they worked at Visions he let them in. Phoenix is twenty-one. About five foot three.

We sat, talked, drank a drink. She was resting for a bit, but, even after an eight hour shift, she still felt like dancing. I told that I'd seen The Flamingo Kid the other night; that the father in it had said to the son: "There's two things in life. To find out what you enjoy doing, and what you're good at. If they're the same thing, then the gods are smiling on you."

"Well," she said, "I guess the gods are smiling on me."

We never danced. She said she liked "progressive music" which she defined for me as The Cure, The Smiths...maybe Blondie. She knew of Big Audio Dynamite, but hadn't known they recently put out an album called Megatop Phoenix.

She got the name from a highschool friend, who she reminded of a firebird with her hair. Phoenix had ended up in Madison after winning the Miss Nude Arizona contest; she met an agent who brought her to Wisconsin. Madison is a very comfortable place to live, with a huge student population, two lakes, and an isthmus between the working class east side and the suburban west.

At bar time, I left her my number if she wanted lunch, and drove west down East Washington past Visions, between the lakes, and back home.

Phoenix never called.