Queen of Miami

by M?ta Smith

  But the pregnancy is officially confirmed by my ob-gyn.

  “How far along am I?” I ask.

  “Well, according to the date of your last menstrual period, you should be about eight weeks. But your blood tests make me think closer to six weeks. I want to do an ultrasound, just to see if things are progressing normally. When I do, I’ll have a better idea.”

  “No,” I tell her. I don’t want to see the fetus. If I did, there’s no way I could even consider abortion.

  She asks me if I’ve given any thought to prenatal care.

  “No,” I tell her. “I haven’t given much thought to this at all.”

  “Are you having thoughts of termination?”

  “I’m not sure,” I say.

  “I really think it is in the best interest of you and your unborn child to have further tests if you want to carry this baby to term. You could run the risk of having a miscarriage if your hormone levels aren’t where they should be,” she warns me.

  I don’t say a thing. Would a miscarriage be God’s way of giving me an out? I wouldn’t have to choose between life and death for an unborn child that way.

  “I know that being faced with an unplanned pregnancy can be difficult,” the doctor says, as if she were psychic. “A miscarriage may seem like an easy way out, but it can be more traumatic than having to make a choice. If you experience any cramping or breakthrough bleeding, please call, okay?” she asks.

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” I tell her. “Do you perform . . . terminations?” I ask her.

  “No, I don’t. But if needed I can make a referral,” she says. “Just try not to wait too long if that’s the route you want to go. Four weeks at the very most. Things get tricky after twelve weeks. And remember to call if you have cramps or bleeding.”

  I tell her I need some time to think it over and that I’ll get back in touch with her. Four weeks . . . I’ve got four weeks to determine the fate of my unborn child and possibly the rest of my life. Can I really go through with having Mikhail’s baby? Could we really live happily ever after? And if I don’t and he finds out that I had an abortion, will he make good on his threat to kill me? As fucked up as it is, I hope for a miscarriage. I wouldn’t have to decide. I wouldn’t have to feel guilty. I could just chalk things up to being God’s will.

  I can’t help but think about Kaos at a time like this. I was supposed to have his babies. If this had happened with him there would have been no questions as to what to do. In my fantasies, we would have been overjoyed, and we would have grown old together watching over our children and grand-children, and then died in our sleep together. Instead, I’m left alone to decide what is going to happen to the rest of my life. I wonder how God could be so cruel, how he could just leave me hanging like this. But my being pregnant isn’t God’s fault. It’s mine.

  I put off doing anything for the time being. I still have a little time left, so instead I concentrate my efforts on getting the ball rolling to make Babylon a world-class hot spot. Most of the hard stuff, like marketing plans and publicity and financial projections, is going to be handled by the staff that Mikhail has hired, so I go to work on something fun, something to get my mind off my troubles even if it will only be temporary.

  I begin by doing a total overhaul of the club’s sound system. It’s okay, but it needs some updating if it’s going to compete with the up-and-coming spots on the beach. I make some calls to a few of my favorite audio equipment dealers and order everything that I think will make the club state of the art: new speakers, lights, lasers, smoke machines, foam and bubble machines, high definition video screens, I’m talking the works. And it feels amazing to shop carte blanche; Mikhail has made it clear to spare no expense to make my vision for Babylon a reality.

  The club has been left the way it was under the old ownership and although it’s functional, the played out décor and lack of a theme will never do. Not if I’m going to be the face of this place. It had been okay in the past and despite its bland interior, Babylon had been the spot in its heyday. It was fabulous as a result of the glamorous and famous patrons that frequented it. Celebrities from far and wide, representing every facet of the entertainment industry, made the old Babylon nightclub a priority stop when they were in town. There had been a ridiculously strict door policy that was legendary; Babylon had the reputation of being the most difficult club to gain entrance to on the entire beach, and we all know that when you make it impossible to get into a club, everyone wants to go there. Its location—right in the heart of the beach—further boosted its popularity, but visually there is nothing stellar about the venue. I have my work cut out for me.

  Mikhail arranges for me to meet with some of the world’s most renowned architects and interior designers. It feels like every waking minute of my life that isn’t spent in the throes of morning sickness is spent approving blueprints, furniture, paint samples, and fabric swatches. It’s hard to hide my puking from Mikhail, but somehow I manage. What’s harder than hiding the pregnancy is making time to practice spinning, but once the new sound equipment arrives things get a bit easier. I practice in between meetings and crank the sound system up so loud that it drowns out the construction noises.

  The old Babylon had been your average-looking South Beach megaclub, in that it used to be a theater and still resembled one. But I want the new Babylon to be an experience, not just a club, so the first thing I do is break up the space. The former club had only one room with two levels. The space is huge. But after partying at the luxe and opulent clubs of the Mediterranean, I want to take this club to another level.

  I envision multiple rooms all tying in to a central theme, a Moroccan oasis. The architect and I decide to divide the club into seven different sections, three downstairs and four upstairs. The bi-level main room will remain, but downstairs we will add a hookah lounge resplendent with teak opium beds imported from Morocco. I also have the idea to add a smoke-free, oxygenated room complete with a waterfall and indoor koi ponds and aquariums for those who want to escape the smoke and smells of the hookah lounge and club. And then there’s the dining room. I don’t want to have a full-on restaurant, but a space where one can sip aperitifs, nibble on appetizers and tapas, and later relax with digestifs.

  I want to reserve the upstairs for the exclusive clientele, with two VIP-only rooms, as well as a cordoned-off VIP section of the upper level of the main room. But the pièce de résistance is going to be a concept that I call “The Lair.” It’s a members-only skybox section. You will have to buy a membership key, much like the Playboy club did back in the day, and it will be unseen and virtually unknown to the normal club-goers. But those select few with a membership key will have an eagle’s eye view of all the action. The Lair, situated at the very top of the club, next to the security offices, will have two-way glass so that patrons can see out but others can’t see inside, and will only be accessible by being escorted by a member of security who uses a key-operated private elevator.

  I want Babylon to come alive with brilliant, vibrant color. Most clubs look like crap when the lights come on, but I want to make sure that Babylon looks just as spectacular in the light of day as it does in the heat of the night. The ugly steel entry door will be replaced with a special-ordered, hand-painted zouak door that looks like the opening to a fortress in Arabian Nights. The entryway to the club will be completely redone in colorful, intricate mosaic tile. I’m even having the decorators design a huge tile B (for Babylon and of course Bobbi) above the mosaic tile fountain that greets guests in the foyer.

  The old Babylon had maroon velvet drapes everywhere, even the carpet was maroon. And since maroon is just about my least favorite color aside from gray, it all has to go. The drapes will be replaced with brilliant, rich silks, sari fabric, and tapestries. The old carpet will also be ripped up and replaced with industrial-strength, stain and burn resistant Berber-style carpeting, which costs a fortune, but is well worth it because the end result will be awesome. Ornate antique-style chandeli
ers will hang from the ceilings, some hand-beaded and some crafted of fez brass with translucent Iraqi glass cutouts.

  Mikhail and I spend little to no time together, but I’m cool with that, because I don’t really want to face him right now. After becoming so wrapped up in getting the club together, I’ve realized what I have to do concerning the pregnancy. I have to terminate it. There is no way that I can be a mom and a club owner, because, as fucked up as it sounds, Babylon is my baby. It’s selfish but it’s the way I feel, and I have to take ownership of it no matter how ugly it is.

  I call the doctor, get a referral to a specialty ob-gyn, and make an appointment. I’m a wreck the morning I’m scheduled to have the abortion. I front like I’m about to go for a run on the beach before an early morning personal training session so that Mikhail won’t be suspicious. But me waking up early is suspicious enough. Mikhail questions me, but I tell him that I’m trying to turn over a new leaf and make some changes now that I’m a businesswoman. I tell him I want to be in peak physical and mental shape. What a load of horseshit. I make a big show of putting on sweats and doing some stretches. Then I wrap a towel around my neck, grab a water bottle, and hop into my Range. Once I’m off Indian Creek Island, I drive to one of the multi-level indoor lots on South Beach and park the truck. I walk to a coffee shop and grab a triple espresso and a couple of magazines.

  I go to the doctor’s office by cab. A bright pink Range Rover isn’t exactly inconspicuous and I don’t want to take any chances of someone seeing my car parked outside a “specialist” ob-gyn office. Even though the doctor is located in Kendall, a pretty decent drive from South Beach, I’m taking extra care to cover my tracks. I hear Mikhail’s voice echoing in my head. If I find out that you’ve killed my baby, I will kill you. I shake it off. There’s no way Mikhail will find out, no way he’ll be able to prove anything. Medical records are confidential and guarded well. And I damn sure won’t tell anyone.

  There is no wait at the abortion doctor’s office. I’m led into an office for pre-termination counseling. A nurse asks me a bunch of questions.

  “How many sexual partners have you had in the past year?”

  “Too damn many,” I grumble under my breath.

  “Pardon me?”

  “Two,” I say, clearing my throat. “I said two.”

  Nurse Ratched peers at me over her spectacles and purses her lips.

  “Have you ever been diagnosed with an STD?”

  “No,” I say.

  “Is anyone forcing you to have the procedure or threatening you in any way connected to this procedure?” she asks.

  I open my mouth to answer but nothing comes out. Get it together, girl! I admonish myself. If you lose it now, they won’t do the abortion and then you’ll be screwed.

  “No,” I croak.

  “Are you sure?” she asks.

  “Sure I’m sure,” I say, and force myself to smile. She takes off her glasses and leans forward.

  “I’m just scared,” I tell her. “Honest.”

  She reaches into a drawer, rummages around, and pulls out a card. She hands it to me and says, “Just in case you ever need it.” She makes some notations on my chart as I look at the card and wince. It’s to a domestic abuse hotline. Great! Who knows what she’s writing down?

  “I won’t need it,” I tell her handing the card back. “I’m the dominant. He’s the submissive. It’s all consensual.”

  The nurse looks flustered and puts her glasses back on. She doesn’t look me in the eye once when she draws blood, takes my vitals, and gives me a robe to change into before bustling out of the room. The robe is pink and soft, not faded blue or puke green and scratchy, like most gowns in doctors’ offices. It feels like a baby blanket, I think, and then start to cry. I brush away the tears angrily with the back of my hand. It’s for the best, I convince myself. Yeah, but best for who?

  I’m given a valium to calm my nerves, and am ushered to a room with soothing, soft yellow walls with smooth jazz pumping softly out of a stereo system. Finally I am taken to another room, I’m given an IV, and before I know it, everything goes dark.

  He comes to me while I’m sleeping, Kaos does. I won’t say that I dreamed of him, because I swear that I can feel him. It’s more vivid than a dream.

  “I’m sorry,” I tell him.

  “Baby Girl, I could never be mad at you. I love you. Always have, always will.”

  “You don’t hate me?” I ask him.

  “Never. I’m proud of you.”

  “Yeah, but look at me. I’m a mess.”

  “You’re not a mess. You’re beautiful. Everything will be fine. Don’t worry; I’ve got your back.”

  Then he starts to disappear. I reach for him, but he fades before I can touch him. I feel someone roughly shaking me.

  “Baby Girl?” I think I hear a voice say. I can’t tell if the voice belongs to a male or a female. It sounds warped and distorted.

  “Kaos?” I ask, stretching my arms out and reaching around, grasping the air.

  The voice gets clearer. “Roberta,” it says. The shaking gets rougher until I’m jolted from my bleary-eyed state. I sit up and look around.

  “He was right here,” I say.

  “We need you to wake up, Roberta,” Nurse Ratched says, calling me by my given name. I’m given some cookies and juice to get my blood sugar up, and she comes around a few times to check my bleeding. I have cramps, but they don’t even begin to compare to the way I feel mentally, which is like shit. My mind is as muddled as if it had been put through a blender. I have no idea how women can do this multiple times, because one thought keeps ricocheting through my brain like a sniper’s bullet. You’re a murderer.

  CHAPTER TEN

  October 2006

  AFTER A COLOSSAL $7 MILLION OF MIKHAIL’S MONEY AND plenty of my blood, sweat, and tears, the club’s renovations are ready ahead of schedule and now the time has come for me to meet with the staff, discuss my vision, and get to the meat of running a world-class nightclub. Mikhail has called a meeting to introduce me to the other members of the team that will run Babylon. I welcome the distraction to take my mind away from the abortion.

  The initial meeting is full of surprises. First of all, any questions as to who the blonde is in the picture I found in Mikhail’s office are answered. She is the managing director of the MD Entertainment Corporation. Her name is Rebeca Escobar and she’s from Medellín, Colombia. Rebeca, I’m told, is the numbers lady; she’s supposedly a whiz at making sure that the profits outweigh the losses. She’s attractive in a bland sort of way, looks to be in her mid-thirties, and has worked with Mikhail and Dimitri at several of their other clubs over the past ten years. I immediately don’t like or trust Rebeca. She makes it obvious that she knows Mikhail and Dimitri well and is familiar with the way they do business, and she doesn’t try to hide her attempts at making me feel like an outsider. Whenever I suggest something, Rebeca is quick to shoot my ideas down because “we don’t do things this way.”

  The publicity director is Sascha Palmeri, the lady who organized the press conference, and she is overseeing all the marketing and public relations efforts. Sascha and I see eye to eye. She’s flashy and doesn’t believe in doing things in a small fashion. Plus she’s got a good attitude, nice and easygoing. I like her and I’m looking forward to exchanging outrageous ideas with her to make sure that the club is hot.

  The food and beverage director is a middle-aged homosexual man named Joey J. He’s a laugh a minute and I think that having him around is going to be a blast. He’s got impeccable taste and a ton of experience working in the hospitality industry. He’s going to make sure that nothing but the highest quality food and drink will be served.

  But I think the biggest staffing surprise of all is the security director, who is none other than Q, the snotty bouncer that was at Mansion the same night I met Mikhail. Seeing him throws me for a loop. He was present both the night I met Mikhail, as well as the night I saw Mikhail and Misty at Nikki
Beach Club, but I had no idea that he and Mikhail knew each other. I never saw them talk to each other or even acknowledge each other’s presence. I’ve never heard Mikhail speak of him, and he hasn’t been a player on the South Beach scene. So how did he go from a bouncer to head of security at my club? I think of the folder I saw when snooping in Mikhail’s office on the ship. The label said Q. Could they be one and the same? It makes sense. Q is in charge of security; I’m sure he’s into surveillance and other detective shit. I wonder what else he knows about me.

  Q, whose government name is Quentin Robinson, isn’t any nicer than he was the night I first met him, keeping his responses to my questions to him very minimal and gruff. Oh yeah, there’s something suspicious about this dude. He acts like he doesn’t even want to look at me. I can tell that unless he changes his attitude we’re going to have problems.

  We gather around a large conference table and nosh on a delicious meal provided by Joey J. while Mikhail and Dimitri facilitate the meeting. We discuss the hiring process and other staffing issues like insurance and benefits; we go over our list of preferred vendors, and hash out revenue projections. Frankly it all bores me to death so I’m quite happy that Mikhail has brought the others on board to handle things. I thought I’d be more interested in how much money we’re going to pull in, but I just can’t force myself to get excited about a bland PowerPoint presentation filled with spreadsheets and graphs and charts. Shit, just show me the money.

  After hours of ennui, the meeting finally ends. I shake everyone’s hand and say something complimentary just to get everyone as motivated and pumped as I am. Joey J. and Sascha seem genuinely happy to be working with me, and that’s a good thing, because Rebeca is not, and she has the nerve to not even try to hide it.

  “I’m really looking forward to working with you, Rebeca,” I lie while pumping her hand up and down. Her grip is weak, as if she feels I’m beneath her handshake.