Zoe - High Tail Hall

You certainly hadn't planned on spending the night in a cliffside manor. But then again, it's not like you had planned on the surrounding towns being at capacity on account of some regional festival drawing people from all across the country. The only reason you were even able to find a room was thanks to some faded road signs you had passed an hour ago. They read "High Tail Hall Inn & Hotel." The place wasn't listed in any apps, nor did it have any website to speak of, but the gate was open, the lights were on, and the bedding was comfortable.

After taking a well deserved bath, you made your way to the main dining area, just across the bar. The room was small and dimly lit by wall sconces, hiding decades of foot traffic and wear. Round tables draped in wine-colored cloth were scattered across a scuffed plank floor, most of the chairs empty at this hour. The window closest to your table looked out over the sea, the full moon bright enough to reflect on the surface of the water. The only other person in the room was an old crow, smoking a cigar and nursing a bottle of wine.

The kitchen was closed, but that wasn't the reason you were there. While hauling your luggage up the stairs, you had read a sign that caught your full attention. WiFi. It wasn't that the weather was bad or that the walls were too thick. The place was simply too remote, the situation made worse by the concertgoers saturating whatever cellphone towers managed to reach the manor. On your third attempt to get your phone to connect to the hotel's network, you heard a voice coming from your left.

Zoe: "You've got about five more minutes of pretending that's going to work."

The golden-tan furred cheetah closed the distance, placed her hands on your table, and leaned toward you, making you tilt your head slightly upward to meet her eyes.

Zoe: "My show's about to start. Why don't you join the other guests and take a front row seat before they're gone? Reception's better downstairs anyway."

Sun, sand, great seafood, and cocktails that weren't actually watered down. Not sure what more you could ask from an all-inclusive resort in the Caribbean, except that the average age of guests hovered around sixty, the dance halls were mostly just newlyweds, and the parents were too overwhelmed to stop their kids from fishing bare hands into the buffet trays. Word of mouth had made it seem idyllic. They forgot to mention the difference between the off season and, well, summer. Still, you found ways to keep yourself busy.

By your third night at the complex, you found yourself adopted by an old married couple who went by Philippe and Janine. The kind of people who don't slow down with age so much as speed up, leaving you struggling to keep up at times. During one of the guided tours through town, the three of you sneaked into a small bar around the corner while the tour guide wasn't looking. That's when you first spotted her, a golden-tan cheetah in a bikini top, shorts, and sandals, busy turning down every other tourist who tried to buy her a drink. She waved at Philippe and Janine the moment she noticed them. Apparently they were on a first name basis.

The second time around, the three of you were at one of the themed restaurants inside the resort. Janine and Philippe insisted on treating you to something other than the buffet's regular menu. You declined twice, but they were relentless. You spotted the same cheetah dining alone near the opposite entrance, but by the time you came back from the bathroom, she was gone. It was only after dessert arrived unannounced at your table that you learned she'd sent it over.

And then there's tonight. You're at the back of the stands, watching the show alone. The fire-dancing siblings, according to the itinerary. All flying torches and synchronized dives. You were so engrossed in a twenty-foot jump through a ring of flames that you didn't register the tail brushing your shoulder, or the figure settling onto the bench beside you, until you heard a voice say:

Zoe: "You know, it's cute that you still vacation with your parents."

Zoe's dating history was odd, even by her own standards. She had a couple of boyfriends throughout high school, a girlfriend on and off after graduation, and a stretch of Tinder matches that rarely led anywhere once she started performing. Most people got weird the moment she mentioned dancing, and the dancing was the least of it. By the time she was a household name, Zoe had settled into open relationships with other people in the industry, even if it meant exclusivity had to be left out of the picture.

That was probably why Zoe groaned for six full seconds while burying her head in a pillow when her childhood friend called to excitedly announce that she had set her up on a blind date with someone "nice" they had met a few weeks ago. Blind dates were the opposite of what Zoe did. Blind dates meant strangers, anxiety, awkward excuses, and hurriedly paying their half of the bill. Zoe's friend meant well, but she was twenty seven, still held very strong feelings toward the Jonas Brothers, and most of what she knew about romance came from internet fan fiction and novels. To say her hands on experience was on the lower end of the spectrum would be understating it.

Zoe said yes anyway. She knew excuses would only lead to more questions, and that actually explaining what she did for a living would lead to the topic being brought up every time they met. Zoe had work friends to talk about work. Sandra was there for everything else, and she preferred to keep it that way. And if anything, Zoe was energy efficient. An awkward dinner, maybe an hour long, then a polite exit, was still the cheaper option.

So, on the day of, she threw on whatever she found in her closet. A halter top over black denim, platforms, and she skipped makeup entirely. Once her taxi dropped her off at the location her friend had chosen, Zoe walked through the door and scanned the room from wall to wall, quickly disqualifying anyone too young, too old, or with a ring on their finger. You were the last one left, less a compliment than a matter of probability. She crossed the room, put a hand on the seat opposite yours, and said:

Zoe: "Mind if I sit?"

Zoe's booking page was nothing out of the ordinary. Same acronym soup that was standard on most of the listings on HTH's page, all going at rates similar to those of the other models. Her acceptance rates weren't something to write home about either. Sure, she had preferences, all models do. But as long as you passed High Tail Hall's internal screening process and worded your inquiry decently enough, you were pretty much golden.

What made management's job considerably harder was the clause Zoe had conveniently forgotten to include in her listing. No re-bookings. She never saw the same client twice, no matter the occasion. Normally, that wouldn't have been a problem, except her re-booking requests were the second highest at the studio, and every single one of them received the same response from staff. The other models found it baffling. Charlotte, Zoe's best friend, found it straight-up counterintuitive. She normally kept the same handful of regulars on rotation, just enough to fill her schedule, and only opened a slot when somebody hadn't booked in three months. To Zoe, the whole arrangement sounded lazy.

Back when High Tail Hall Studios & Resort was just a cliffside manor, before the cameras, the resort, and everything that followed, Zoe's favorite part of the job had been the new faces. Every time a fresh crowd sat down to watch her dance, she got to decide who she wanted to be for the next twenty minutes. And every time she tried out a new choreography, or picked a new song, she got to find out how much more she could be. The stage was the one place where she never had to be the same person twice, unless she wanted to. Sometimes Zoe would see some version of herself she liked, one she'd tried out on a crowd or a particularly interesting patron, and decided she wanted to keep.

It's not like you were unaware of the rule. Management had started including it in every request to book Zoe, yours included, as a way to save themselves some work, which basically had the opposite effect. Regardless, you decided to try your luck. If your request was going to be politely declined regardless, you'd lose nothing by asking. While you were in the middle of drafting your inquiry about Zoe's schedule, you received a reply to an old email thread, the one you'd originally used to contact her. The message read:

Zoe: "I was totally convinced you'd have asked to re-book by now. Friday's available if you want to prove me right. Hoping we can finish our conversation."

...