Free The Pull of Gravity by Brett Battles

played it cool, and returned to the room without him knowing.
    The next day, when he went to leave for his afternoon “with the boys,” she had a fit. She said she knew he was cheating on her. She said she didn’t want him to go. He told her she was crazy, that this was his vacation and he was going out. Before he reached the door, she told him she would kill herself if he left. Apparently he laughed, and walked out the door without saying anything. The truth is, any veteran of Fields would have done the same thing. Several girls threatened to kill themselves on a regular basis. It was drama designed to let them sink their nails a little deeper into their targets. They thought if they could get a strong enough hold, they might be able to shake a little more cash loose, or, better yet, bewitch the men to the point they’d marry them and take them away.
    So the guy left Rosella alone in his room while he went out for a little stress relief. From this point, I could only guess at what happened next. As I saw it, there were really only two possibilities. One: Rosella was truly crushed to the point she didn’t want to live anymore and decided to end it all, then and there. But given the fact she’d been in the business for only a few months, I couldn’t believe she could have sunk so low so fast.
    Option two seemed more likely. She knew from the previous days that her boyfriend returned around two p.m. each day. She planned it so that when he came back she wouldn’t be dead yet, but close. The signs of her faux suicide attempt would be on the nightstand, giving him little chance to misunderstand what was happening. He’d then call a doctor and save her life. This was her way of showing him how much she loved him, and how she would rather be dead if she couldn’t have him.
    What she didn’t count on was that after their fight that afternoon, he decided to enjoy his new friend for an extra hour, and didn’t return until almost three p.m., a good half hour after Rosella took her last breath.

CHAPTER SEVEN

    Sometimes you would meet a guy who came to Angeles, and wonder what the hell he was doing there. These were the guys who seemed to have everything going for them: a good job, decent looks, an amiable personality. The kind of guy you’d think didn’t have any problem getting girls back home, a guy who was desired. That’s why the majority of the guys came to Fields—to be wanted. It wasn’t the sex. Well, not completely anyway. Because in Angeles, even the ugliest and oldest members of the Fat Guys Association, and the most socially awkward of the Dweebs ’r ’ Us Club could feel desired. Girls—young, sexy, beautiful girls—looked at these guys as if they had never met a more handsome, charming man.
    Sure it was a game, and ninety-nine-point-seven percent of the time, it wasn’t true. Everyone knew it—the girls, the guys. But what you knew logically didn’t always translate emotionally. So when one of the girls gave you those big eyes, you felt it. Maybe not in the knees, but in the gut and sometimes even in the heart. And part of you, for a little while anyway, believed. That was the illusion of Angeles. That was the fantasy world you entered when you stepped onto Fields Avenue. That’s why you came.
    Without the illusion, no one would ever have come within fifty miles of Angeles. Instead of being hypnotized by the parties and the girls and the perpetual buzz and flashing neon, they’d see the dirt and the beggars and gray, ugly buildings and brown, run-down shacks. They’d notice that some of the girls were just going through the motions and others tackled their “job” like trained professionals. They’d realize that, given the choice, most of the girls would have never come to Angeles, but because of the money, there was nowhere else the girls wanted to be. The men would see the tricks the girls used to get by, the ploys they’d learned to get more money out of their customers, the shabu-shabu