One Year of Ugly

by Caroline Mackenzie

  What a surprise. Ugly and the Attorney General, best buds.

  ‘Needless to say, you must all be at your very best tomorrow despite the very short notice. I expect everyone to come in an hour early to ensure that the club is spick-and-span.’ Gordy turned to my father. ‘That applies to you as well, Hector.’

  My father nodded grimly. The bags under his eyes hung grey and curdled.

  ‘Waitresses,’ continued Gordy, addressing Zulema and the twins. ‘I want top-class make-up, and Yasmin, I’d like you to have them both spray-tanned and with their hair properly styled.’

  ‘I’m not a hairstylist,’ said Mamá. ‘You think I’m some kind of one-stop shop? The services I offer are specialties. You need—’

  ‘All right, all right!’ Gordy waved his hands to shut her up. ‘Girls, you need to go get professional blow-dries then. None of this half-done nonsense.’

  Zulema, Ava and Alejandra all had their hair pulled back into neat ponytails. Clearly that wasn’t going to cut it for the Most Honourable Attorney General. The three of them stared at Gordy blankly. I think they were sleeping with their eyes open.

  Gordy carried on, nitpicking at each and every person until he was finally satisfied an hour later.

  ‘Please remember everything I’ve told you tonight, and most importantly, let’s show Mr Ugly and the AG that even at a moment’s notice, we deliver top-class service! The best of the best! Off you go now, get your rest. Tomorrow – or should I say, tonight – is going to be a busy one.’

  Just as we were all sleepily peeling ourselves off the chairs and couches, Gordy called me and Branson over. ‘I need to see you both upstairs. We have to go over the books, make sure the commission payments and dance records all match up in case Ugly plans on reviewing everything while he’s here. He’s a meticulous man, as you know.’

  Branson shook his head. ‘Gordy, I’m so tired I can’t see straight. We’ll do it when we’re back this evening. We’ll be coming in early anyway.’

  The vein running along the centre of Gordy’s forehead was suddenly turgid and thick, pulsing grossly, distorting his clean-cut handsomeness. ‘It must be done right fucking now! There’s no time later! Don’t you realize that in less than …’ He looked at his watch. ‘In less than twelve hours we need to be back here, dressed and ready for the Attorney fucking General! NOW LET’S HUSTLE!’

  It took two hours to finish reviewing all of the club records. After crawling back home in rush-hour traffic, I finally fell into bed with the mid-morning sun burning through my curtains.

  Less than nine hours later, we were all right back at The Pink Pie, preparing for a birthday soirée we wouldn’t soon forget.

  FROM THE PINK PIE TO THE GINGERBREAD HOUSE

  Just as Gordy had ordered, we’d all come to work an hour early. Sancho was the last to arrive, as usual, at eight minutes past six. I knew this precise detail because we’d been ordered to go straight through to the main floor for a staff meeting before taking up our posts. The only person not required to attend was Mamá, who was administering spray tans and applying make-up and doing whatever else was needed to get the strippers ready for the Attorney General’s viewing pleasure. She had her hands even more full than usual – Breanna had ushered in an extra two-dozen strippers fresh from South American soil, all specially flown in for the AG. They were career strippers like our girls, no doe-eyed newbies, but it still meant Mamá the House Ma’am was operating on all cylinders.

  While the rest of us waited those eight minutes for Sancho to roll in, I took in the festive décor. I had to hand it to Gordy – things did look very birthday-of-an-Attorney-General-appropriate. The framed nude photographs on the walls had been festooned with gold balloons and streamers; every cocktail table was draped in sheer gold cloth sprinkled with glitter, and a banner saying ‘Happy Birthday!’ was stretched across the top of the beaded doorway between the main floor and the bar area.

  When Sancho walked in, Gordy threw his hands into the air with much melodrama. ‘It’s eight minutes after six, Sancho! I said an hour early. That means six o’clock, not eight minutes past, not ten past, not half past – it means six!’

  Sancho ran his tongue over his front teeth, sucking them hard. ‘Guess my watch is slow.’

  ‘Just sit down!’ Gordy pointed a stiff finger at an empty chair.

  With everyone now present, Gordy went over the protocol for the night. It’s worth noting, for the sake of my own personal amusement, that he was dressed in a gold silk shirt underneath an obscenely tight ivory suit that perfectly matched his teeth, which he’d obviously whitened even more for the occasion because they were near fluorescent. Maybe that suit was cutting off circulation to his more delicate parts, but while he spoke, Gordy wouldn’t stop fidgeting with his crotch. Everything he said came out blustering and flustered. His nerves were out of control. Strutting back and forth in his stupid get-up, he stressed the importance of sterling customer service, an accommodating attitude (what sort of behaviour were we expected to accommodate?), and on and on. When he was finished going over all the dos and don’ts of the night, he turned to me.

  ‘Go up to my office. Your formal uniforms are up there – yours and the waitresses’. Take them to the dressing room and all of you hurry up and get changed.’

  ‘Formal uniforms?’ asked Zulema.

  ‘Yes! Formal uniforms! Formal fucking uniforms! What’s the problem?’

  About these formal uniforms. First, recall the description of the waitress uniforms: open waistcoats save for one tiny button, fishnet tights, sequinned panties. And my uniform: a bra, an open blazer, a mini skirt the width of a strip of duct tape. Now picture all of that in gold, and of course, gold sequins. Whatever image you’ve come up with of that flesh-baring, glittering fiasco of a costume, that was our ‘formal’ uniform. To clarify: my entire blazer was gold sequins. My mini skirt was gold lamé. (Just imagine what liquefied metal would look like if it were spray-painted directly onto a woman’s ass.) For Zulema and the twins, the gold versions of their uniforms weren’t much different than the originals. My skirt and blazer definitely felt tighter. I could hardly walk, just wiggle. So once I was dressed, I wiggled down the stairs from the dressing room, wiggled to my desk, and wiggled up onto my tall stool to wait for the Attorney General’s arrival, which I anticipated would be tantamount to the second coming of Christ as far as Gordy was concerned.

  By ten, the club was still dead, gold balloons bobbing forlornly in the cold currents of the air-conditioning vents. With every passing hour that the Attorney General wasn’t there, Gordy looked like he was getting closer to an aneurysm. He was up and down the stairs, back and forth between every room, chewing his nails, smoothing his beard, tugging at his thick gangsta-rapper-style chain, adjusting his poor suffocated ballsack in that mercilessly tight suit. Then at last, when he happened to be pacing in front of my desk, interrupting my game of Solitaire on the computer, some radio chatter came through. I watched as Gordy grew rigid and pressed his earpiece deeper into his ear. Hazel and Harrison, also hearing the radio, became alert.

  ‘It’s time,’ said Gordy softly, turning to look at me, eyes aglow. ‘It’s time!’ He swung around and pointed at Hazel and Harrison. ‘It’s time! Man your posts!’

  Hazel and Harrison glanced at each other. They were already at their posts. Gordy didn’t care. Gordy just wanted to yell and run and go nuts. Which he did until we heard the telltale beeping of the security pad just beyond the door.

  ‘He’s here!’ hissed Gordy, buttoning, smoothing, then unbuttoning his jacket.

  I stood behind my desk, arranging my face into an expression of perfect docile stupidity, just what our customers liked.

  Breanna pushed open the heavy door and in they poured. Behind her was the Attorney General, whose face I easily recognized from the news as one of the island’s rare white politicians. He was a hulking man with a barrel belly and a dashing white stripe in black hair that had been coiffed into a tall, square do. Like all
politicians who came into the Pie, he had remarkably smooth, pudgy hands. I could tell from his bearing and the way he kept his fleshy fingertips pressed together that he thought of himself as a modern-day Pharaoh. To me he was just a spoiled fat-boy lucky enough to have a friend who became Prime Minister. Gordy, however, was eating that Pharaoh shit up, fawning over the AG and the stream of sycophants flooding the reception area, pumping their hands, grinning deliriously. By the time Breanna finally shut the door and escaped to the front desk, there must’ve been four dozen men packing the reception area, all dressed in their Sunday finest for the Attorney General’s birthday celebrations.

  Once the security door was closed, Gordy addressed everyone.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ he said, flushed and sweaty with exuberant pride, ‘most honourable Attorney General, allow me to welcome you all on behalf of Mr Ugly to The Pink Pie. My name is Gordy, and it is my privilege to have you here with us this evening. Should you need anything at all, you need only ask any of our fine, friendly staff, like Yola over here, our lovely receptionist.’

  Ninety-six curious eyes turned to stare at me.

  ‘Welcome to The Pink Pie, your honour.’ I bowed obsequiously behind my desk, batting my eyelashes. There were tips to be made after all.

  ‘Thank you very much, miss,’ sneered the AG. ‘Although “your honour” isn’t quite right.’

  His cronies chuckled smarmily.

  ‘My apologies,’ I said, bowing again, putting on the full geisha act. ‘Your … majesty?’

  At this, the room erupted into roars of laughter, the AG slapping his big belly with glee. ‘I like this girl, man!’ He threw an arm around Gordy. ‘If this is what you have on offer at the front desk, I can’t wait to see what other goodies you have for me inside!’

  ‘Oh, just you wait …’

  Gordy blathered on, but the AG wasn’t listening. He was taking a wad of hundred-dollar bills out of his jacket pocket. He whipped two bills out from the roll and waved them at me. I took them, giving another geisha curtsey.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said.

  ‘I hope to see more of you later,’ he replied, baring his teeth.

  My skin went clammy as I wondered what it must be like to feel the immense weight of that belly over you, that big soggy body thrusting away. I lowered my eyes, afraid that he’d see my revulsion. The lowered gaze worked. He handed me another hundred-dollar bill. I knew he’d like the blushing damsel thing. All weak men do.

  Moments after the AG and his entourage were led through the pink curtains, I heard Hazel and Harrison’s radios going again. Listening intently, Hazel snapped his fingers to call my attention and mouthed Ugly is here.

  Oh God.

  Thirty seconds later, I heard the beep, beep, beep of the security pad. The door opened to a gale of laughter from Breanna. Ugly followed her through, looking smug as hell at his own hilarity. I was about to deliver a mechanical ‘Welcome!’ but the words caught in my throat. Walking through the door behind Breanna and Ugly was none other than Román, slick in an impeccably tailored grey suit, eyes fixed on me. I forced myself to look away, already feeling my cheeks reddening, a smile tugging at the corners of my mouth at the pleasant surprise of seeing him there. Fortunately Ugly was too distracted by his flirting with Breanna to notice while I recalibrated to robotic receptionist mode.

  Ugly strode up to my desk, adjusting his neon yellow ascot (presumably selected to match the neon yellow pinstripes on his black suit). ‘Well, well, if is not little Miss Yola. Aren’t you something to see.’

  ‘You’re too kind.’ I gave a simperingly sardonic smile, squirming as he smacked his lips, his eyes lingering on my exposed bra.

  ‘Quite the little morsel.’

  Pressing my lips together, I smiled so hard my cheeks hurt, not trusting myself to respond without saying something that could cause me and my family serious harm.

  Giving me a final once-over, Ugly returned his focus to Breanna. ‘Why you don’t take me on through to the main room, sweetheart? I sure the AG would like to see a little more of you anyway.’

  He offered Breanna his arm with exaggerated gallantry. She took it and walked with him through the curtains. But before they’d disappeared from view, Ugly paused to holler over his shoulder. ‘Román! What you waiting on, man? More breast in here than a bucket of KFC!’

  ‘Be there in a minute. I need the bathroom.’

  ‘A’right but don’t stick, man.’

  Román waited until Ugly was safely through the curtains, then leaned against my desk. I smoothed my hair back from my face with a glance at Hazel and Harrison. They were talking to each other and weren’t paying attention to us.

  ‘This is some little number, huh?’ I joked, giving a subtle shimmy of my shoulders.

  But Román’s expression was hard as concrete as his eyes flitted to Hazel and Harrison then back to me.

  ‘Listen,’ he said, so low it was barely audible. ‘When the time comes, go straight to the fire exit at the back of the dressing room. Go out the exit to the back alley. Take your mother with you if she’s in the dressing room. There’ll be a jeep waiting. Do not hesitate when the time comes, Yola, just go straight to the fire exit and down to the alley. No detours, understand me?’

  My mouth went dry.

  ‘What are you talking about? Román …’ In my confusion I’d forgotten to whisper, but he gripped the back of my hand once, so hard I nearly winced, to get me to stop talking.

  ‘Dressing room fire exit. When the time comes. Do not forget, Yola.’

  ‘But …’

  Román straightened up. ‘Just do as I said,’ he said again, still low enough that Hazel and Harrison couldn’t hear.

  I watched the back of him as he passed between Hazel and Harrison, acknowledging each with a nod, and then disappeared through the pink curtains. Unable to run after him without attracting dangerous attention, I let the cold portentous dread of his instructions trickle through me.

  Gordy had introduced silver, gold and platinum chips that customers could buy and give to the strippers in exchange for protracted lap-dance sessions. Silver for fifteen minutes, gold for a half-hour, platinum for a full hour, with a whopping twenty per cent house commission when the girls cashed in their chips at the end of the night. Now he was flitting out from the main floor every fifteen minutes to replenish the AG’s ceaseless stream of dance chips, leaving me no choice but to stay fixed at my post. That meant there was no way to tell my parents about Román’s warning, and I for shit sure couldn’t venture into the main floor to glean more information from Román or to at least pass his warning along to my siblings and cousins. Not unless I wanted Gordy to use the AG’s gold party streamers to hang me from the rafters.

  All I could do was sit on my ass while my nervous tension mounted. In an attempt at being proactive, I conjured up a mental image of the dressing room. The fire exit was just behind Mamá’s spa station – the usual big metal door with a pushable bar across it. Aside from that, I could only keep my eyes on the pink curtains, willing Román to come back and tell me what was going on. But there was no sign of him or of anyone else in my family, everyone too busy tending to the needs of the AG and his homeboys.

  By two a.m., the best I’d managed by way of escaping my post was one bathroom break I begged for while Gordy manned the front desk. I tried carrying on up the stairs past the ladies’ toilets, to hopefully reach Mamá in the dressing room, but Gordy was gripping the back of my blazer in an instant, wanting to know why I hadn’t stopped on the landing to use the bathroom.

  ‘I need a tampon from the dressing room,’ I lied.

  ‘Get back to your station! I’ll get it!’ And he’d shot upstairs, returned at reception half a second later with a tampon in hand. I’d dutifully gone to the bathroom to pretend to use it. Other than that, there’d been no opportunity to leave my post.

  At nearly three-thirty, I chugged an energy drink, hoping the cocktail of toxic chemicals and caffeine might trigger an idea. I was
drumming my fingers on the desk, scheming in that ADHD-way that energy drinks make your brain work, when a burst of loud feedback came crackling through Hazel and Harrison’s earpieces. Jittery from the drink, I jumped at the sound of it. ‘What the hell was …’

  Hazel and Harrison had shot through the pink curtains like a pair of unleashed attack dogs. I leaned over my desk, trying to see through the swaying curtains, then shimmied down from the stool and wiggled over to the doorway. Heavy EDM music pulsed louder as I stepped through the curtains to the bar, my eyes adjusting to the dim violet lighting. It was like entering the darkened womb of some beast, swallowed by the echoing electro bass of its heartbeat.

  The stillness of the room told me something had just happened – some of the AG’s buds were sitting at the bar, strippers draped over them, but all rigid, necks craned around to look at the beaded fringe doorway to the main room. Chill was behind the bar and had been in the middle of drying a glass but was now motionless as a statue, frowning intently at the doorway while the beads rustled against each other, freshly disturbed by Hazel and Harrison.

  Then the music shut off abruptly and without the buffer of the sound system, the noise of a scuffle in the main room jumped up by several octaves. Men’s voices shouting. A glass shattering. A woman screamed. Others squawked in response. I kicked my heels off and wiggled as quickly as I could to the bar, wishing I could rip off my constraining skirt.

  ‘Where’s Sancho?’ I shouted to Chill. The ruckus in the main room was growing louder and more chaotic by the second. My siblings were in there. My cousins. Román. My hands went numb. I clenched and released my fists, trying to get the feeling back.

  A thud in the main room, then the heavy clattering of furniture being knocked over. More shouting, shrieking, cussing. The guys at the bar had thrown the strippers off them and were speed-walking past me, back out to reception. They were getting the fuck out of there. Whatever was happening couldn’t be good. They knew it, I knew it.