Amateur Night at the Bubblegum Kittikat

by Victoria Fedden

  I shifted around in my folding chair. I jiggled my leg and picked at my cuticles while the “psychic,” an older lady with a poodle perm and polyester slacks, breathed heavily and dramatically while pinching the skin around her temples. She appeared to have a migraine. It was probably from all the Nag Champa.

  “Honey, The Universe has a message for you.”

  I nodded eagerly.

  “You’re in a period of transition right now,” she said.

  “Yes! I am!”

  “And it’s going to be very hard. You have many lessons to learn and your career is going to play a key role.”

  “Career?” I didn’t exactly have a career.

  “Your current job. You are there to learn lessons essential for the progression of your soul.”

  I rolled my eyes. Please. No one has ever “progressed their soul” taking cover charges, and during day shift no less.

  “I just want to know about my love life.”

  “I hate to tell you this but it’s not happening. This lifetime for you isn’t about love. It’s about learning. You have a great deal of karma to work through and The Universe has closed the gates to romance. I’m seeing that you will never marry and never have children.”

  “Can I at least live with someone?” I asked, sounding more like I was begging than inquiring.

  “I’m sorry I’m not getting anything about romance. It’s all about career. Your spirit guides are telling me you will make art through your career.”

  Fuck my spirit guides. I got up and left.

  “It’s all bullshit those psychics,” my mom said when I told her, “Hell, I could be a psychic. You just tell people a bunch of stupid mess and don’t say much of anything that means anything and people believe it. Desperate people believe any damn thing. Take Raymond Haines. You mark my words. That damn watch he’s been flaunting around town is going to be the most expensive gift he ever received because Mohammed’s nothing but a shyster. Ray’s never going to see a dime of that half a million he gave him come back just like you ain’t never going to see that seventy five bucks you gave to that damned psychic.”

  She drank from a can of caffeine free Diet Pepsi and lit a Vantage Ultra Light. We were sitting in the backyard on the dock. My parents’ house perched at the very end of a small canal off the main Intracoastal waterway that makes Fort Lauderdale America’s Venice, and the tide splashed in. I hated South Florida. I really did. I couldn’t stand the flat tackiness, the pink and turquoise neon, the endless strip malls, the crotchety retirees and the classless nouveau riche idiots from the northeast who lived here, but I liked the pleasant evenings leading into fall when we could sit on the water without being carried off by mosquitos and when the whole yard smelled of night blooming jasmine, my favorite scent. I took a sip of my mom’s soda.

  “What if it’s true? She said it was my fate,” I asked.

  “You make your fate and no idiot with a set a cards and a crystal ball knows what in the hell is going to happen to you. You decide how you end up, so you have to say to yourself, what the hell do I want? What do I need to go to get it? And then you make the right choices to lead you in that direction.”

  “So what if I don’t know which choices to make?”

  “You’ll figure it out. We all do. Remember, it’s about choices. It’s about learning from your mistakes.”

  Well, I had a lot of mistakes to learn from, especially in the romance department and I was about to make a few more.

  11

  I couldn’t believe I’d gotten so upset about what a dumb psychic said. Obviously they were all scams because the week after she told me I’d never get married and never have kids, I met the man of my dreams. Ok, so he wasn’t six feet tall. Ok, so he wasn’t even taller than me. He had red hair and looked like Bobby Flay’s Jewish, half-brother and I never thought I’d find a red headed man attractive, but it was dark enough to pass for auburn and he had nice blue eyes; pale like a Huskie. Does it already sound like I’m making excuses for him?

  I met Adam through my friend Angelina. I had a total of two friends in South Florida. Olivia was one of them and Angelina was the other one. I’d recently started spending time with Angelina, who was herself going through a traumatic breakup. Her Jewish ex had dumped her because he didn’t want to get serious with a Catholic.

  Angelina is Italian, with olive eyes and wine-dark hair. She has perfect teeth, adorable freckles and a body that most women would give up their firstborn for (I’m talking about me when I say most women). She reminded me of a Renaissance painting. I could see her face in a Florentine fresco. Guys always found Angelina hot and sexy and she was one of those girls that men worshiped because she loved sports and would do things on dates like bungee jump, parasail and make out with random girls in bars. She owned a zebra print, pleather cat suit and she wasn’t afraid to wear it. In public. Often. And because I adored her, I tried to overlook that thing, though it was extremely difficult.

  Angelina and I, now both single and wanting to meet some new men to get back at our old men, started going out. Angelina, albeit, went out a lot more than I did since she actually liked clubbing and had zero qualms about dirty dancing with total strangers because, did I mention that Angelina was a former stripper?

  They all say they’re working their way through school. I’d barely worked at the Kittikat for three weeks, but I’d already overheard at least twenty strippers telling the customers that they were poor college students who needed to pay tuition and buy books and I swear it was nothing but a line they used to garner sympathy and make themselves look all “girl next door” to the guys who were into that. I think one of them was legitimately going through massage therapist training, but that’s it. Angelina though, told the truth. Her dad, a heroin addict, had died and left her family not just broke, but owing. Angelina wanted out of that existence. She wanted to be an elementary school teacher and had danced three nights a week through college, calling herself Serenity, to supplement her Pell Grants and avoid student loans. She even made enough money to pay her mom’s rent and utilities and whatever she had leftover she saved to live off of while she finished up her teaching certification.

  Angelina met this guy Rick somewhere. I don’t remember. Maybe it was at the gym or through a friend. They had dinner a few times. He took her to nice places and didn’t cringe when she ordered the lobster, so she thought he was pretty nice, but what really impressed her was his house.

  Rick was an heir to a huge oil fortune and was one of the ubiquitous trust-funders that run rampant in South Florida east of I-95. He had a mansion on the beach as his bachelor pad and the place was decorated like an opium den. I mean that in the best possible way too. It was tastefully sensuous with lots of jewel toned velvet, drapes with tassels and all sorts of Moorish, Hindu and South East Asian touches like hanging lanterns, night skies painted on the ceilings, enormous satin pillows to sit on and peacock feathers.

  “Holy mother,” I’d exclaimed as quietly as I could when Rick creaked open the front door and escorted us inside.

  I was there because one Friday Rick said he was hanging out with his best friend Adam so he asked Angelina to bring along another girlfriend. That house dumbfounded me. Rick’s place was a modern day Sultan’s palace; a scene painted right out of Aladdin. And one whole wall, from floor to ceiling, was a saltwater aquarium, the likes of which I had never seen without having to pay admission. The dude practically had his own manatee.

  Angelina took me aside.

  “Adam might not be that cute, but I think he’s pretty nice. My friend Michelle dated him a couple years ago and I don’t think she liked him that much, but whatever, who cares. We’re just having fun, right?” she said.

  Adam wasn’t that bad, but he wasn’t that great either. I already said he was short – yet another one claiming to be five eight. He wasn’t exactly ugly, but he definitely wasn’t in Evan’s league. Since we saw where that got me, I thought, maybe I could like Adam. He was Jewish! Yay! My
parents would be so excited if I dated a nice Jewish boy and this one owned his own insurance company and was investing in real estate. He would definitely do and besides, he was well dressed. I love a well-dressed man. I couldn’t resist Adam’s Kenneth Cole button-up and pressed dress pants and he smelled like Curve and expensive hair gel, the kind you have to buy at the salon instead of CVS.

  We’d met earlier for drinks at an upscale bar in downtown Fort Lauderdale, and since I was One Drink Vic, I nursed an Amaretto Sour the whole time, mostly sipping the top which was all water from the melted ice cubes. An Amaretto Sour is about the least alcoholic, most syrupy cocktail there is, so it was perfect for me. We went back to Adam’s house to let his dogs out. Adam had a nice house too, not like Rick’s, but nice like my parents’. Adam lived on the water and had a little boat. His home was clean and well decorated, and unlike most single guys he had things like canisters, Yankee candles, and pictures displayed in tasteful frames. I noticed things like that. Would you believe the guy even had hand towels in his guest bath with seashells on them?

  I loved Adam’s two black labs, which we fed and walked before the four of us went back to Rick’s house. This was great! A guy with scented candles, nice clothes, cute dogs, a boat and a good house, and he was Jewish! It was too good to be true.

  As we walked the dog, I happened to trip over absolutely nothing except the ridiculous pair of heels I had on (Nine Wests from Marshall’s that felt like I’d strapped bear traps to my ankles) and fell down on the street. Splat. Right there on my hands and knees at the end of his cul-de-sac and it was a damned miracle that I didn’t rip the knees of my jeans. I was mortified, but Adam helped me up, then bent back down and brushed the crumbs of asphalt from my denim.

  “Whenever you fall I will always be there to pick you up,” he said and then paused for what seemed like a very long time, looking into my eyes.

  Well that was it. I was definitely having sex with him. There was no question about it. Adam and I were going to have sex and right then I began thinking of what sort of bridesmaid’s dresses I wanted and wondered if Adam would like carrot or chocolate for our wedding cake. I didn’t care because I liked both, so he could definitely pick and if he wanted red velvet or something that was fine too because cake was cake, right?

  Back at Rick’s house, we all went for a swim in his pool that was designed to look like a real lake with rocks and waterfalls. It was pretty much “Fantasy Island” come to life. Angelina and I had been instructed to bring our suits, which I thought was strange and I sure as hell didn’t want anyone seeing me in mine, but that was before I met Adam, my soul mate. Being that he was going to pick me up whenever I fell, well obviously he wouldn’t care about my pot gut and flat butt. Clearly I was correct in this assumption because we ended the evening making out in the hot tub, and Adam was a really good kisser. God, I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d been kissed. I’d made out with a hot George Clooney look alike one night when I was out with Olivia, but he hadn’t been all that into me and it was so brief that it barely counted anyway. Adam’s kisses counted. Wow did they count. Had I ever felt like this, this crazy hot feeling that made me want to slip out of my bathing suit and pour myself across every short Jewish inch of him? I couldn’t remember. It was like his tongue reached up through my mouth and into my skull and licked out my memory and any sense of propriety I was trying to have. Adam slid his hand up under my bikini bottom and I let him. If water were a better lubricant I would have had sex with him right there, but I am speaking from experience when I tell you that pool sex only works in movies and I’m pretty sure you can get an infection from it, so don’t try it.

  “You’re so amazing,” Adam whispered. He gathered my wet hair in his hands and licked the beads of chlorinated water from the back of my neck, “I love that you work in a strip club. It’s so hot.”

  I was about to tell him I was just the hostess but Angelina was playing hard to get with Rick and she announced from the deep end that it was time for us to go home, pissing me off royally. Just my luck of course. My stripper friend who had to practically beat the guys off of her, ruins it for me the first time I manage to score some affection.

  “I really like you, Victoria. I can’t believe how lucky I am to have met you tonight. I figured I’d be stuck with the fat friend or some ugly chick that I’d have to be nice to all night, but oh my God, you are fucking beautiful. I want to take you out to dinner. I have to see you again. Please say you’ll give me your number,” Adam begged.

  If I’d have had a water proof pen I’d have written my number with it on a beach towel. I practically flew up out of the water so I could go inside and get a pen and paper. Adam laughed.

  “I can just program it into my cell phone. People don’t write down their numbers anymore, Vic. Can I call you Vic?”

  I couldn’t help but smile. “All the people who love me call me that,” I said.

  “Then I will too,” he said, tapping in my ten digits, “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  I didn’t have a cell phone, though it seemed like everyone else certainly did. I’m generally late to every party and I didn’t need the added expense when I had legal bills. I only had two friends anyway and I’d taken over my sister’s bedroom landline now that she’d gone to Purdue, and that suited me just fine. It didn’t allow me much mobility though. The Kittikat only opened for day shift on weekdays, and I didn’t work weekends yet, though Brent informed me I was nimble with the register and would be promoted to the lucrative night shift within the month. I spent my Saturday off at home, within earshot of the phone, so I wouldn’t miss Adam’s call. I didn’t want him to think I was unavailable or something. I waited all day.

  But he didn’t call me.

  Monday, Angelina and I had lunch with her friend Michelle, the one who had briefly dated Adam a few years before. They’d wanted to go for Chinese, but I didn’t want to leave the house so I had them come over, picking up subs on the way. We ate them outside by the pool and I worried that the cordless phone was too far away from the charger and might not get enough reception outside and then I’d miss his call.

  “Are you freaking kidding me?” Angelina asked.

  “No, call it with your cell phone so I can see if it works out here,” I told her.

  “You can’t wait for guys to call you like this,” she said.

  Michelle rolled her eyes and put down her Italian combo.

  “Adam’s an asshole and he has a small dick,” Michelle warned. “He’s a jerk and I wouldn’t waste my time with him. He’s not going to call you.”

  What the hell did she know? She was probably jealous. Maybe he dumped her and she was mad about it. Michelle hadn’t been there and she didn’t see the way he looked at me or the way he talked to me. There was something special between Adam and me.

  For the next three days I sat and tried to will Adam to call me. I tried to communicate with him telepathically - call me call me call me. I stared at the phone and demanded it ring. I didn’t want to leave the house in case I missed his call. I’m surprised this didn’t inspire me to go get a cell phone on the spot and have the calls to the landline forwarded to it, just so I could be available for his call at all times.

  Going back to work Wednesday afternoon almost caused me to have an anxiety induced pulmonary embolism. If I’d been working there longer I might have called in sick just in case, and the farthest I’d gone since Saturday morning was to the refrigerator. I wouldn’t even go out and get the mail without the cordless phone in hand, so I probably needed to get out of the house. He knew where I worked, so he could call 411 and get the number. He knew where to find me if he tried me at home and I wasn’t there. Comforted by this thought, I took my seat at the register.

  Brooklyn bought Marlboro Lights from me on Wednesdays and Fridays, the only two days she danced, and when Brooklyn danced, the stock brokers paid. Nothing like Mohammed’s nebbishy, middle-aged accountants, the stock brokers were barely older than me. Slick f
rat-boys who cashed in on the dot-com bubble, these guys could easily get any girl in town to take it off and then some for free, but twice a week, after lunch, the stock-brokers made the floor of the Kittikat their office, passing out their commissions in big bills from their bank account to Brooklyn’s bare hands. Tracking the Dow and trading from their Blackberries, they made deals between table dances, pouring drinks from an overpriced bottle of Belvedere and chewing on the ends of barely lit Cohiba Esplendidos. Cash meant control and these guys paid out so when they showed up, the staff of the Bubblegum Kittikat scrambled to kiss ass. Even the DJ bowed to their commands, playing only hip-hop, east-coast because they were a New York crew. They loved Lil Kim and they’d stuff Brooklyn’s garter full of c-notes when she swung her hips to “Eat My Pussy Right.” Brooklyn’s body was the pungi’s tune and the brokers were her cobras.

  The brokers, all four of them, only wanted Brooklyn and they didn’t care that they had to share her. Apparently, neither did she. I’d never seen her dance for anyone else. I’d never seen her trawling the room, begging for someone, anyone to buy table dances from her to dredge up enough to make her house fee and still have enough left over at six pm so there was money to take home, so that the whole shift wasn’t a sad waste of time, like so many of the other daytime girls. Brooklyn lacked their anxious expressions. She wasn’t a sore like some of those girls were, leaking the lymphatic fluid of desperation. Brooklyn made it look like fun.