“Steady there, girl,” he says, yelling above the music and patting me as though I am a horse. I grab my midsection as if I can somehow stop it from rebelling with this small pressure alone. I keep moving until I reach the bar, arriving just as a girl seated on a bar stool gets up, moving off into the crowd with a vacant look. I sit down on the stool gratefully and try to catch Ethan’s attention. Since almost puking I feel a little better, but not even remotely approaching good, or even OK. Now that I’m back in familiar surroundings, my heart is pattering away normally in my chest and I feel a little less like I’m about to keel over and die, which I guess is an improvement, all things considered.
“Are you OK?” Ethan stands above me behind the bar, his golden-brown hair hanging to his shoulders in waves, biceps chiseled beneath the rolled-up sleeves of his black T-shirt.
“That seems to be the question of the night,” I mutter. “Where is everyone?”
My eyes sweep the room, but Giovanni, Sebastian and the usual crew of club kids are nowhere to be found.
“I think they’re all in VIP,” Ethan says, jerking his head toward the back of the basement, where a red velvet rope sections off the VIP room. “You want a drink? You look like you could use one.”
“Tequila shot,” I yell over the din as a cheer roars up from the dance floor when a hard-hitting house track segues into Blondie’s “Rapture.”
Ethan places a shot glass in front of me, filling it to the top with Herradura Silver tequila. I gulp it down and he holds the bottle over the empty glass, looking at me questioningly, but I shake my head and he places the tequila back on the bar.
“Are you going to Alexa’s party later?” Ethan yells, cupping his hands around his mouth so the sound will travel farther.
“What party?”
“I guess she rented out some swanky hotel suite all the way uptown. I’m actually getting off early tonight, for a change, if you can believe that.” He grins, and I remember just how good-looking he is, which of course causes me to blush hard. “You going?”
“I don’t know,” I mumble. “See you later,” I yell. I get up before he notices how red my cheeks are, and walk purposefully toward the small VIP room located at the very rear of the basement.
When I get to the velvet rope, an unfamiliar girl with a blond, high ponytail is standing behind it, clipboard in hand. Rhinestones sparkle in a heavy column around her throat, and her face is adorned with a slash of red lipstick and a pair of the heaviest false eyelashes I’ve ever seen. Despite all of this, or maybe because of it, she is ravishingly beautiful, her breasts mounded up beneath a black lace bustier that shows off her tiny waist.
“Yes?” she says. Her voice is a deep growl that hints at some sort of an accent, the vowels clipped and staccato.
“I’m Cat,” I say brusquely, itching to get inside already. “I work here.”
Her face breaks into a small, cruel smile.
“Not anymore you don’t.” Her nails are lacquered a bold red, and she taps them against her clipboard.
“What are you talking about?” I ask, my blood rising.
“Christoph called a few minutes ago. He said that if someone named Cat showed up, I should tell her she was fired.” She runs a tongue over her lips as if this bit of info is delicious, a tasty morsel. Watching her, I feel nauseated again. She reminds me of a lion licking the last drops of blood from its own mouth.
“That’s bullshit,” I snap, reaching for the rope to unlock it, the metal cool under my hand.
“Don’t make me have to call security, OK?” Her voice is a lazy drawl.
“Call them,” I say, stepping inside and pushing past her. “Knock yourself out.”
The VIP room is packed, and I push through the mass of bodies, furious that Christoph would pull this kind of crap, my arms shoving random limbs out of the way, contorting my body like an elaborate game of Twister as I slide through the crowd. But inside I am scared. Without the club, what do I have? I could move over to The World, or Save the Robots, maybe even Nell’s, but if Christoph blackballs me, I’m pretty much finished. My eyes fill up with hot salty tears, and I angrily blink them away.
Alexa is holding court on the red velvet sofas in the back of the room, a huge mirror on the wall behind her reflecting the bottles of Cristal strewn across the top of a gilt-legged coffee table, the legion of club kids at least three feet deep who are listening raptly to whatever she is saying. Alexa throws her head back as she laughs, her voice pealing out into the room. Giovanni and Sebastian sit on either side, and Sebastian in particular seems dazzled, looking up adoringly as she reaches out to refill his glass. A mirror piled with white powder sits on top of the table, and Alexa watches as her followers snort long lines from a rolled-up dollar bill, sniffing loudly.
When she notices me watching her, she stops dead, her body going momentarily rigid. A look passes over her face that might be something like guilt, but it disappears as quickly as it arrives. Her face is smooth again, poreless under the colored lights. As I approach, Giovanni turns to face me, his eyes widening at the very fact of my presence.
“What are you doing here?” he hisses, pulling my arm so that my ear is now flush with his lips. “Shouldn’t you be handcuffed to some strange S-and-M torture device that we both know is in Christoph’s apartment?”
Giovanni is convinced beyond all reason that Christoph’s apartment is some kind of bizarre den of iniquity, complete with whips, chains and an assorted array of shiny silver handcuffs. Giovanni giggles uncontrollably, and the glassiness of his eyes and the shrillness of his voice tell me that he is very, very high. “You still look fierce, by the way,” he adds, blithely downing the remaining drops of champagne in his all-but-empty glass.
Alexa looks over at me and smiles, leaning over to whisper in Sebastian’s ear.
“What’s going on?” I ask Giovanni. “Since when does Alexa hang out in VIP?”
“I guess she came to see Ethan, but once Sebastian saw her, he dragged her back here and made her buy champagne for everyone. Not that I’m complaining. Did you really get fired? What did you do?”
“Whose is that?” I ask, changing the subject and pointing at the rapidly disappearing blow. “And now that we’re on the subject, who the hell is working the door?” I glance toward the Soviet vixen behind the rope, who glares right back at me.
“Well, I got here after it was already out, but I’m assuming it’s Miss Thing’s.” Giovanni nods at Alexa. “I think we both know that if it were Sebastian’s, I wouldn’t be allowed to so much as breathe on it, much less hoover it up my nostrils at such a terrifying rate. And that’s Svetlana. I think she’s from Ukraine or some other underdeveloped Eastern European country where they still stand in line for bread every morning.” He sniffs loudly, reaching up and pinching both nostrils together.
“Svetlana?” I ask incredulously. “Sounds like a Russian hooker.”
“Honey, please,” Giovanni deadpans. “Aren’t we all?” Giovanni leans over the mirror and does another line, wiping his nose and sniffing hard as he comes up for air.
“Russian?”
“No, silly—hookers.” Giovanni laughs, leaning back on the red velvet cushions of the couch.
“How much blow have you done, anyway?”
“Enough.” He laughs again, the sweat on his neck shining. “Although that’s the funny thing about drugs, coke in particular—there’s never really enough, is there? Not for me, anyway.”
Giovanni is still laughing, but his eyes are somewhere far away, and his expression is startlingly sober.
“Cat, are you just going to stay there talking to that fat queen all night, or are you going to come over and say hello?” Sebastian yells out, standing up and placing his hands on his narrow hips, every move exaggerated to sheer comedy. There’s nothing Sebastian loves more than having center stage. You’re no good to him if you aren’t paying strict attention to his every move. Tonight he’s painted his entire face in those round, blue, entirely stup
id spots that make him look like he’s contracted a flesh-eating disease.
“I believe I’ve been summoned,” I stage-whisper in Giovanni’s ear.
“And the Academy Award for best actor goes to . . . ,” Giovanni says, staring at Sebastian with a smirk. I walk over to Sebastian, watching as Giovanni grabs a bottle of Cristal, emptying its contents into his waiting glass.
“Hey,” I say to Sebastian and Alexa, as Sebastian air-kisses both of my cheeks, my tone conveying a brightness I don’t even remotely feel. In fact, since the cab ride to Tunnel, I feel less than nothing. Deadened. All the coke, or maybe the emotional burnout of the past day, has finally rendered me numb.
“Somebody’s in trouble . . . ,” Sebastian drawls, a mischievous glint in his eye. “Girl, what happened with you and Christoph? He’s seriously pissed!”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I say, looking over at Alexa, who looks on silently, taking in my shaking hands.
“I thought you’d be at the bar with Ethan,” I say to Alexa, who immediately sits down on the sofa, smoothly crossing her legs sheathed in sheer black stockings.
“Well, I was”—Alexa flashes me a quick, almost apologetic smile—“but then I ran into Sebastian and—”
“And she looked so fabulous that I absolutely insisted she come in here and join us,” Sebastian interrupts, his cherubic face flushed and agitated. “You are fabulous, you know,” he says, grabbing her arm, his voice a low, satisfied purr. Alexa tries her best to look humble, but like a frog in a trench coat, it really isn’t her style.
“In fact she’s SO fabulous, I’m going to tell Christoph to hire her ass as soon as he gets here tonight,” Sebastian babbles on, his fingers tightening against Alexa’s slim, pale flesh. Alexa rolls her eyes in mock exasperation, but I can tell that she’s loving every minute of the attention. Sebastian leans his head closer to Alexa’s, and my stomach flips over again as he whispers something quietly in her ear. My head is filled with so much static that my thoughts are a blizzard of disconnected images mixed with rage and panic. My hands at my sides curl into fists, nails scraping against the meat of my palms.
“What do you mean, hire her?”
My voice comes out louder than I wanted it to, and manages to arrive precisely over a break in the music. All heads in the VIP room turn to face me, expressions somewhere between quizzical and bemused, hands over mouths, glasses stopped dead before parted lips. Sebastian looks up with a shocked expression, his blue eyes growing larger by the second. I can tell by his face that he thinks I’m a fool, that I’ve somehow stepped over some invisible line of coolness by reacting emotionally not only in public, but at the club, of all places.
“Well, like I said, she’s fab, and Christoph could do much worse than to let her throw a party or two. We were talking about starting out small,” Sebastian gushes, his words coming faster as he talks, “just something in the Chandelier Room, maybe a kind of mock society event . . . Oh, I know!” Sebastian jumps to his feet as if he’s been electrocuted. “What about a coming-out party? But instead of debs in white gloves, we’ll have all kinds of white food and drink, white orchids everywhere, and oh, I don’t know . . . maybe a drag queen cotillion?”
“Yes!” Alexa squeals breathlessly, and the high-pitched register of her voice makes me dig my nails deeper into my skin until I’m sure it’s flayed open, streaming blood. But when I uncurl my hands, the flesh is still white, pocked with tiny red half-moons.
“And don’t forget those names we talked about earlier, dollface.” Sebastian giggles conspiratorially, reaching out and nudging Alexa with one pointy finger, his nails painted a neon yellow that glows under the black lights.
“No problem,” Alexa says, shrugging her slim shoulders that might look bony if not for the swanlike grace of her neck. “I’ll invite my whole Rolodex.”
At this, Sebastian’s eyes widen, and a smug, satisfied expression comes over his face. I realize that it’s not just Alexa’s beauty that impresses him so deeply, it’s also her pedigree, the impressive roster of names she can potentially bring to his parties. I’ve always known Sebastian is a shameless social climber, but now with Alexa, he’s got a way in—and up—to her level. Just watching the way he’s hanging on her every word, it’s obvious he’s no longer satisfied with playing in the sandbox alongside all the other club kids. And now, because of Alexa, he doesn’t have to.
I watch as Alexa smiles, blushing prettily, her face open as a fresh pink flower, and I can feel the anger rising up inside me, threatening to burn the room, the building, the whole goddamn block to the ground. My chest is tight and dry, a mass sticking in my throat like a dry, rotten piece of bread. How dare she, I fume. How dare she come in here and take my life when I have so little, so very little that I care about in any real way? Everything I have left is swirling away, down an empty street like trash picked up by the wind. I cough once and try to clear my throat, my rage a ball of black sludge blocking my windpipe. If I don’t spit it out, I’ll stop breathing entirely.
“Since when do you care about throwing parties?” I ask Alexa, a thin sheet of ice coating my voice like a shield. “Or anything below Fourteenth Street, for that matter? Just last week you were scared to even come down here in broad daylight, and now you’re the new It Girl? Please.”
My voice is coated in sarcasm as thick as motor oil, and my eyes narrow as I watch Alexa’s expression change, watch it seal itself off expertly. Vacant and expressionless, the remnants of a small smile still on her lips, she reminds me of a doll, her eyes glittering faintly in their sockets, skin emitting the reflective sheen of smooth, coated plastic. If I moved closer, she would smell like a combination of sickly sweet vanilla and toxic chemicals. I realize I’m shaking like a leaf shuddering in the wind. I feel like I’m actually vibrating. Too much coke, I tell myself. Too much, too much. Isn’t that what the Mad Hatter said to Alice? Or was it “your hair wants cutting”?
“You’re not really mad, are you, Cat?” Alexa asks, her eyes widening innocently. She’s good, I’ll give her that much. She knows enough to back down in the face of a potential explosion, so that if and when it happens, she won’t look responsible. “It’s just a few tiny parties. It’s not like I’m trying to take your place or something!”
“Not yet.” My words are as taut as wire.
Alexa and I stare at each other, transfixed, and I see a gleam of recognition in her eyes.
So. You’re on to me.
“Now, ladies,” Giovanni says smoothly as he saunters to my side and places an arm around my shoulder, “why are we wasting time on this stupidity when there’s champagne to consume?” He holds up a bottle of Cristal in front of me, and I wave it away, glaring at him. “Among other things,” he finishes, looking at the table, still covered with blow.
“I don’t even know what you’re doing in here!” Sebastian yells at Giovanni, cocking one hand on his hip, his face twisted into a scowl. “You are so not VIP material!”
“Well, honey,” Giovanni says, smiling sweetly, “I may not be VIP ‘material’ but at least I don’t look like some second grader’s art project, or the main attraction at a fucking freak show.” Giovanni points at the bright blue spots on Sebastian’s cheeks. “What are those, anyway? Leprosy?”
The crowd erupts in laughter as the skin around Sebastian’s dots turns increasingly red. If smoke could come out of his ears at this moment, it probably would. After the laughter dies down, Sebastian smiles grimly, grudgingly, and I can tell that he’d like nothing more than to snatch the bottle from Giovanni’s hands and smash the top, twisting the broken end into Giovanni’s flushed, smirking face. But outnumbered and now ridiculed, he retreats, until later, when he will no doubt exact his revenge by spreading some kind of noxious rumor guaranteed to embarrass Giovanni down to the core of his being, or at the very least, dream up some way to get him permanently eighty-sixed from the VIP room.
Alexa reaches over and grabs my arm, pulling me closer to her. I can smell t
he strong, cloying perfume she is wearing, Calvin Klein’s Obsession, and the smell of it, the musky base, makes me feel dizzy, my head light.
“Look,” she whispers urgently, “I’m not trying to steal your thunder or anything. I’m really not. He asked if I would do some parties with him, and he just wouldn’t take no for an answer.” She lets go of my arm, throwing her hair back and smiling winningly over my shoulder as Ethan approaches, walking past the velvet rope. He leans in, kissing her on the cheek as she closes her eyes, her lashes dark as insect legs.
“You off?” she says softly as he wraps his arms around her, nuzzling his face in her neck.
“Mmm-hmm,” he mumbles, lost in her flesh. “Way off.”
Watching the two of them, I remember Alexa crying on the floor of her bedroom, and it’s all I can do not to burst out in peals of laughter. From what I can see, she doesn’t have much to worry about where Ethan is concerned. He seems to like her just fine—more than fine, really.
“This scene is tired!” Sebastian yells out, picking up a forgotten bottle of champagne and holding it to his lips, tilting his head back as he drains it.
“I have the cure for that.” Alexa grins, looking up and winking at me expertly, the skin beneath her cheekbones dusted with powder that glows dangerously under the lights.
I stand there as the room gathers up its jackets and shoes, as Sebastian tosses the empty champagne bottles on the floor, the glass crushing like ground diamonds under his shoes as he dances among the glittering shards, the bass pumping through the room like an earthquake. As I watch him, I can feel my pulse slowing for the first time all evening, the drugs winding down in my system like a worn-out mechanical soldier. I’m so tired that all I want is to lie down right there amidst the shattered pieces of my life and sleep for a hundred years. Instead I know I will follow Alexa and Sebastian out the door and into a limo, that on the way uptown I will finish the coke in my poison ring, my fingernails scraping the metal bottom to get at the last of the white powder, staring dully at the city streets as the lights go flashing by, snow sparkling against the cold, frosted windshield.
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