But this? Saying I’m different? I had no idea how to interpret that and figure out the meaning behind what he was saying. Was it just statement of fact...or was it statement of feeling?
“You’ve made a choice to do something different with your life than everyone else here. There are tons of men around the city popping bottles of champagne to give girls foam facials, by the minute if not the second. But how many young women are taking notes on their peers within this unique setting? I wouldn’t be surprised if you were, say, a sociology major, given the fact that you’re observing this situation the way Jane Goodall would have observed her apes.”
“Chimps.”
He raised an eyebrow. “That’s not a nice thing to say about your friends,” he said in a tone I wasn’t sure was joking.
I rolled my eyes. “No, Jane Goodall studied chimps, not apes.”
The waitress came up to the VIP with two bottles of luxury champagne in a silver champagne bucket, filled with ice, still frosty from the freezer. Before she opened it, I stopped her. “My party can’t afford this, sorry.”
“I’ve got it,” said the man, giving the waitress a nod, and I sighed.
“You know, I can’t repay you,” I said, and it was a matter of fact, not a thanks.
“I’m not going to ask you to.”
“Well, I’d want to, but I didn’t want this in the first place.”
“Well, it’s here now, so you might as well enjoy it,” he said, raising a glass and not letting it touch his lips until the lips of our glasses met first, the crystal ringing metallic even in the loud nightclub. “Pay me back with your company.”
I put the glass down. “I’m not that kind of girl.”
He let out a laugh. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean like that. I meant conversation, keeping me company here, right now, until you want to get up and leave for any reason. I don’t meet people like you often. My name is Lawrence Lamont.” He looked at my face, as if he expected me to recognize him or the name, typical rich guy attitude. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes, but I was intrigued. Was this some sort of intricate play to get in my pants, or was he someone I actually wanted to spend the evening with, in a way that was less than chaste but more than fleeting.
“Kim Lee,” I said, shaking his extended hand. This was the first time I’d actually touched Lawrence, and his hands, so warm, so strong, were hands I didn’t want to let go of, but as soon as he broke the handshake, I pulled away too, all of a sudden nervous about what I was doing with my body parts and whether I looked awkward or weird.
“So, you attend college around here, Miss Lee?” he asked with a smile.
I knew I blushed, I knew it, because whenever anyone called me “Miss” I had an arbitrary habit of blushing. Maybe it’s because it made me feel special. Maybe men like Lawrence knew this, knew that women wanted to be treated like princesses and made to feel special, or maybe it was just his nature. I had no idea yet. “It’s Kim, just Kim, and yes. I go to UCBH.”
“A great school,” he said, sipping at the bubbly and nodding his head.
“Yeah, it is.” And over the next half hour, we chatted about things that were inconsequential, that were probably indistinguishable from what the people on the dance floor were discussing. What we talked about wasn’t special, but the way we met, and what draw him to me, and what drew me to keep talking to him, was. There was so much that I didn’t know about Lawrence, and so much he didn’t know about me.
Samantha straggled up the stairs and took a seat and a glass of champagne. I introduced her to Lawrence but she was more interested in the free alcohol, so Lawrence took the unopened of the pair of bottles and two glasses. As I got up to thank him for his time, he pulled me in close. Lawrence wrapped his arms under mine, pressing his hands up against the back of my shoulders, and pulling me into his chest, so he could whisper, “How about we go upstairs?”
His embrace was like his handshake: powerful, protective. I wanted to just press all the way into his chest but something inside me told me not to, because I wasn’t worth it. Instead, I pulled away a few inches and looked up at him and the behind him before answering with a question: “Upstairs?” The only way we could go up was if we went into the part of the VIP I’d never seen, the part hidden behind many layers of curtains, some sheer, some opaque, but from the outside, there was nothing visible. I’d wondered what was up there before, so I let him place his hand on my lower back and take me up the stairs as Samantha took over my post. The only things I took with me was my clutch and thin black cardigan, and, of course...the clipboard.
Before we even entered, the curtains were drawn back by three women more graceful and beautiful than those that served bottle service to people like those in my party. Their dresses were as expensive as Lawrence’s suit, dresses by designers like Alexander McQueen and Rick Owens, not stuff from a discount store or a big box behemoth, but items that were works of art meant to augment the appearances of their hangers, to which they were frames. Their shoes all had red soles, a deeper red than the false Louboutin inspired aesthetic adorning my clipboard and the many like it back at Omega House. The only thing I could barely judge was their faces, which were red tones in the low light of the VIP, lit by a few red lights as if we were in a display window in Amsterdam, selling our wares to the first man to come our way, although the only man present was Mr. Lamont.
“Welcome back, Mr. Lamont,” said one, and the others joined like a Greek chorus before moving to take the bottle from his hand, but he held fast.
“Your services won’t be necessary tonight, ladies, but thank you,” he said, as they bowed and curtsied before disappearing into the shadows and then, into the curtains.
“Are those your girlfriends?” I asked, half joking, half scared.
“No, no, they’re just...the best employees Club Grit has to offer.”
“That’s not hard to believe,” I said with a sigh. “They’re so...”
“I know,” he said, taking me by the hand to the pile of pillows and fabrics in the center of the room. It wasn’t until I sat on it that I realized it was a large bed, a California King at least. I think the fact that there was no frame, no headboard, and no walls bordering it made me think it was just some elevated platform at first, but as my thighs sank into the soft mattress, there was no mistaking the seat as anything but a bed. I knew I was playing a dangerous game, coming up to the VIP with a strange man I’d just met, after drinking, and getting onto, if not into, bed with him, but I didn’t want to stop.
“Champagne?” he asked, and before I could answer, he’d popped the cork, the champagne’s still cold foam spraying the two of us. My dress, a bargain basement knockoff of a designer piece, could be thrown in the wash, but his suit was expensive and to see him soak it with the sticky, sweet fermented juices without a care was so alien to me.
The only thing stranger was him pulling the bottle away from me, him shielding me from the spurting foam as if the bottle was a grenade and the bubbles shrapnel, and the fact he apologized and offered to call for a towel to help me clean up. I refused, and instead, looked out onto the club as he poured us both glasses of champagne.
Even though nobody could look in and see us, we could look out and see everyone, not as clearly as if there weren’t layers of sheer curtains, but still better than they could ever hope to see us. It was weird and voyeuristic, but in a way, it was just a more covert version of what I did from the normal VIP section, but with better angles, and, of course, it had to cost much, much more.
Who was Lawrence? Who was Mr. Lamont? And how could he afford this room? Why did the waitresses know his name? This was a set of questions that I hadn’t received answers too, and wouldn’t that night.
We just sat in silence, watching the masses dance in small, independent groups of at least one, at most five, and most often, in pairs, and commented on the people, people who we’d never meet, who would never know we were talking about them, who might not even know about the secret room overlook
ing Club Grit. The masses, which turned to a thick, populous gelatin that wobbled and throbbed at certain points in songs, points that everyone knew, like points of call and response, of choruses, of memetic lines spewed ironic as people raised their fists in the air, shattered and reassembled over and over that night, multiple times in certain songs, and sometimes, not at all for a few songs: sometimes unified for chorus after chorus, other times, barely even facing the same direction.
We sat next to each other on the bed, the curtains open, looking out over the VIP. The most comfortable bed I’d ever been on and I was sitting on the edge, not lying down, but at least my thigh was touching Lawrence’s, not crossed over it, not draped, not like some distracting doll, but just next to him, because to anyone looking up not into the VIP, but past it, they’d see two people sitting next to each other, two shadows, looking like any other shadow found in Club Grit or outside, from the shadows cast by the dancers on the floor to those cast by the homeless that were sure to be panhandling outside the club at closing hours.
I kept one hand behind me, propping me up on my right, and the other on my left thigh, the thigh touching Lawrence’s right thigh, the thigh that propped up his own hand before he took mine in his and held it, and nothing more, nothing more, just to have and to hold.
I took no notes from above the dance floor, from above the VIP.
Chapter Two:
OF A FEW THINGS I WAS CERTAIN: First, that I hadn’t had sex with Lawrence that night. Secondly, that even though I’d fallen asleep on his shoulder, I’d woken in my own bed at Omega House. And finally, I hadn’t asked for his number.
But there was a card in my clutch, and it read, “Lawrence Lamont”, with his number, and nothing else. I slipped it away, back into the clutch, which I kept in my closet. I’d lied and told people that of course my Chanel purse was real, of course it wasn’t a knockoff, and that the reason it was a little “different” was because I knew someone who was an insider. The lie had snowballed, and, along with a few other small lies I thought were white lies, the mythos of Kim Lee, the daughter of the wealthy South Korean businessman gained legs. It was too late to tell people I’d bought it for twenty bucks in Chinatown, where they were kept in a clean backroom. It was too late for a lot of things.
I changed into my black horn rim glasses, a cable knit cardigan light enough for spring, a tank top, and a plaid skirt with black Mary Janes before going downstairs to grab a cup of coffee and breakfast, where I met up with Becca by choice, Samantha by consequence, and Emma by coincidence. Somebody suggested we go have a beauty day, and, still hung over but with a free schedule for the day, given that it was a Friday and I’d stacked my courses so I had no classes on Fridays, I was dragged along by Becca.
We hit De La Sol, a tanning salon, and after De La Sol, we went to La Aqua to get our nails done. La Aqua was a salon that reopened every few months with a new name in the same place with the same staff, but different décor, services, and prices. During this phase, it was obviously ocean themed, supposedly based on the luxury spas of Mexico. The décor was all white with eggshell finishes, smooth to the touch but with a fine orange peel like texture if you looked and felt closely, with blues (and obviously, aquas), smoky grey frosted glass, and transparent glass to complete the look, as well as special “foot baths”: aquariums filled with schools of small fish that would “eat” our feet’s dead skin. It felt ticklish, and it was weird (how hygienic could it be? That same fish nibbling on my toes had probably been nibbling on someone else’s hours before!), but it was trendy so nobody questioned it.
The generic “spa” smell filled our sinuses as we were hurried over to the mani stations. Becca and I had our French gel manis fixed up. Sam got gels too but she opted for nail art she saw on Pinterest: turquoise with stripes of metallic, done with striping tape and layers of polish, and on her accent finger, a triangle. She always went for what was trendy but still opted for the expensive gels so they wouldn’t chip. Emma went for a grey and green set of nails, traditionally done, but still expensive because she wanted different treatments done to make it look like she had grass and cobblestones for nails.
When we got back to the sorority house, I spent more time than usual figuring out what I was going to wear to Club Grit that night. I was tired but, as Vice President of Omega Mu, I had a duty, a responsibility, and if that meant I couldn’t afford to just have a night in this weekend, so be it, but I also wanted to look my best, and I won’t pretend it wasn’t for Lawrence, because it was.
That night, we had trouble at the door. You’d think that being gorgeous would be enough to get into Club Grit, and usually, it was, but that night, the club was packed, with a line reaching around the block. Usually, we just went up to the bouncer and he recognized us, and let us in. At least, that’s what was supposed to happen. We had trouble getting in, but Emma had insisted that the bouncer from the other night had added us to the list. “We’re on the list,” insisted Samantha. “Check for Emma Nelson. Skylar put her on the list.”
“Skylar?” asked the guy working the door.
“Uhm the new bouncer?” said Samantha with a smirk and raised eyebrows. Not cute, just bitchy, and just what she used to get her way. She wasn’t one to charm with honey and milk glances. Things were supposed to be ready for her at a hat’s drop and if they weren’t, there was hell to pay. The fiery redhead didn’t take shit from anyone, especially not some bouncer.
“Yeah, he’s not new, he just works here seasonally, but I know who he is...but he doesn’t have that kind of authority. Bouncers don’t, none of us can do that. Plus, he didn’t mention he was having guests tonight,” said the bouncer, confused.
“You texted him, right, Emma?” I asked her, turning and resisting the urge to glare, although my tone was terrible.
“Oh, I guess he didn’t get the text in time,” said Emma with a nervous laugh. She passed me her phone and a series of texts between her and Skylar.
Emma: “hey”
Skylar: “ey girl wassup!”
Emma: “NM, hitting the club w my girls, wanna meet up?”
Skylar: “LOL sure.”
I rolled my eyes. Before I could suggest another club, the bouncer’s walkie talkie buzzed. He answered it, looked us over, and then waved his hand, ushering us in. I sighed and answered Emma. “Maybe not. Whatever. Let’s go in.”
We got into the VIP and, along with the usual bottle of champagne, there was a plate of shots brought up to us by the cocktail waitress. Even though the bouncer didn’t recognize us, our place in the VIP was still ready. “We didn’t order these,” I said warily, but secretly, I was hoping it was from Lawrence.
“They’re on the house, courtesy of Jason,” said the blonde in the black dress, nodding her head to the bar. A bartender was waving up at us. The other girls giggled as they grabbed at the shots. Someone took two and I swatted at their hand as my heart sank.
“Don’t be a fucking pig,” I snapped as I looked at the pledge. Laura? Lauren? It didn’t matter, I’d taken notes on what the pledges were wearing and I’d put a red dot by whoever matched her description. “There’s one for each of us, and you wouldn’t even have them if Becca wasn’t friends with Jason. She hasn’t even got a shot.” The pledge put one of the shots down, but I glared until she put back the second too, and I still put a red dot by the pledge’s name (“Laura Leigh”, navy blue bodycon dress with sequin accents), along with a furious scribble. I wasn’t in the mood to fuck around.
Becca downed her shots and headed down to the bar, leaving me with Sam. I was only friends with Sam because of Becca but when Becca was gone, things between us were weird. Sam didn’t have an official sorority position but she acted like she was president, social chair, and recruitment chair all in one. If I’d been in charge of recruitment when she was a pledge, she never would have passed, always such a mess and a meddler, to boot, but it didn’t matter. Sam wasn’t my concern: the pledges were, and so far, they had failed to impress me.
�
�Back so soon?” teased Sam as Becca got to the VIP.
“Ugh, I don’t want to talk about it, just pass me a flute,” Becca said, taking a flute of champagne and sitting on my free side as I took notes.
Emma walked up the stairs with the boy toy bouncer from the night before and tried to come chat with Sam and I, while Becca’s phone was off the hook but she refused to answer it, ogling a bartender, as usual. Excuse me: “her” bartender.
Instead, I joined the conversation with Emma and the bouncer. “So, where are you two going on your first date?” I asked, looking up from my phone and sipping at the champagne flute instead. I needed a drink if I was going to deal with Jason and Keanne tonight.
“Our first date?” asked Emma.
“Yeah, you two have to go somewhere,” insisted Becca, ever the sucker for young love. “But your schedule is booked through the week. We have a lot of socials this next week on campus so you can’t come to the club after this weekend, at least for a while. You’re going to have to start doing more activities with the other frosh. A day date would probably be best.”
“Coffee,” said the man beside the pledge.
Shatter (Club Grit Trilogy) Page 2