The Rolexxx Club - Anniversary Edition

by Meta Smith

“No, girl. You were bugging me the fuck out. You completely ruined my high.” Ginger gave her another cup of coffee, which she sipped. “Is your family real religious or something? I don’t even think preachers know all

  the stuff you were spouting.”

  “I don’t have any family, remember?” Desiree’s eyes were icy.

  “Well, you had one at one time. Did you go to church a lot or something, or Catholic school? Because you really knew what you were talking about. You grabbed my Bible, and you were whipping through pages and everything. Everything you said you backed up with a Bible verse,” Ginger recounted.

  Desiree shifted in her seat nervously. “I’ve been to church. I used to be religious, I guess. But then shit happened in my life. I can’t say I have much faith anymore,” she explained.

  “Shit like what?” Ginger inquired.

  “Just shit,” Desiree snapped. She wanted to open up but couldn’t. Ginger had been like a sister to her, but she didn’t want to talk about some things with anyone.

  “Okay. I get the hint.” Ginger dropped the subject. “But you know if you ever want to talk, I’m here.”

  CHAPTER 7

  March 1999

  D

  O YOU THINK I SHOULD GET SOME TITTIES?” DESIREE asked Ginger while they were lying poolside tanning topless.

  “Shit yeah, girl, go for it!” Ginger encouraged her.

  “How much were yours, five g’s, right?” Desiree queried.

  “Yeah. But you’ve got it, and if you don’t want to spend it all at once, you can finance them,” Ginger explained.

  “Yo, get the fuck outta here! I can pay for titties in installments?” “No doubt. You can go to my doctor. She’s the best.”

  “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  So Desiree made an appointment for a consultation with Ginger’s doctor, a Hispanic woman who assured Desiree that she would look fabulous once the procedure was over. She used a computer program to show Desiree what she looked like now in comparison to what she would look like after. Desiree gawked at the computer-generated image in disbelief. The after picture looked like a woman, a beautiful one at that. It was the body she had always dreamed about.

  The night before her surgery, she and Ginger went to fill her prescriptions for antibiotics and painkillers for after the surgery, and also went shopping for a bunch of sports bras, since that would be all she could wear for a few weeks while she was healing. Her stomach rumbled relentlessly; Desiree was not to drink, eat, or smoke for twelve hours

  before the surgery, but she was too nervous to really think about food. “You scared?” Ginger asked her.

  “Yeah. What if I die?” Desiree panicked.

  “Your holy-rolling ass will go straight to heaven,” Ginger quipped. “Don’t call me that. It was one incident.” Desiree looked fearful. “But

  for real, what if I die?”

  Ginger chuckled. “Chill, you ain’t gonna die.”

  “Okay. Well, what if my titties end up crooked? You know, one nipple pointing one way, the other in the other direction. You’ve seen those chicks with cockeyed tits!” Desiree giggled.

  “Relax, nena. Those heifers had crooked tits to begin with. Besides, mine look great, don’t they?” she asked Desiree, who nodded in agreement. “You’re gonna be fine. Trust me,” Ginger reassured her.

  The next day Ginger drove Desiree to the plastic surgeon’s office and dropped her off.

  “Aren’t you gonna wait with me?” Desiree pleaded.

  “Nah. You won’t have to wait. Plus, even if you did, you’d drive me crazy I’m tired of hearing you yap on about them damn tits. Get the water bags put in already,” Ginger teased her before pulling off, her hair blowing in the wind. She would pick Desiree up when the center called to tell her that Desiree was in recovery.

  Ginger was right: Desiree did not have to wait. She was ushered into a pre-op room immediately, where she was ordered to undress and put on a robe. Shortly thereafter, the doctor came in and gave her two sample implants to stick in her sports bra to double-check that the size she had selected during her consultation was okay. After they were all cleared, the doctor left her to receive her anesthesia.

  “Make sure you juice me up good. I don’t want to feel a thing. You might want to give me extra, you know. I have a strong system. Oh yeah, my veins are super-tiny. You might want to use a butterfly to run my IV,” Desiree told the anesthesiologist.

  “Hon, I’ve been doing this for fifteen years. You’ll be fine. But I’m gonna knock you out real quick so you can shut up, okay?” He grinned.

  Desiree laughed as the anesthesia began to take effect. She was placed in a wheelchair and wheeled into the operating room.

  “Have you got them?” Desiree asked a buxom nurse who assisted her onto the operating table.

  “We all do. We get a discount. I’m getting my nose done in two weeks,’” she answered.

  ‘’I’m getting lipo next Tuesday,” another nurse piped in. And then

  everything faded to black.

  When Desiree awoke, she felt as if an elephant were standing on her chest. She knew her new boobs probably only weighed a couple of pounds, but they felt like two-ton boulders.

  “How are you feeling?” The doctor was holding her hand, gently rousing her from her groggy sleep. Desiree looked down at her chest and willed her eyes to focus. She immediately saw the two round mounds stretching her skin beneath the fabric of the bra.

  “I love you,” Desiree told the doctor, her voice scratchy. “It’s the drugs, honey,” the doctor said.

  “No, I love you!” Desiree insisted.

  “I HATE THAT DOCTOR!” DESIREE WAILED AS GINGER’S BIMMER

  hit a pothole on the long drive home.

  “Don’t worry. That Percocet is gonna kick in real soon. You’re gonna be in seventh heaven in no time,” Ginger said.

  “Well, in the meantime, take it easy on the bumps, Ginny,” Desiree criticized.

  “Cranky, cranky!” Ginger admonished.

  Eventually, they made it home and got Desiree in the bed. The painkillers took effect, and she mostly slept for the next three days. On the fourth day much of her pain had subsided. She was able to do normal things, aside from lifting; she just needed special help rising, sitting, and lying down.

  “How are you feeling, baby girl?” Ginger asked Desiree gently, before heading into the kitchen to start dinner.

  “I’m okay, just a little sore.” Desiree shifted uncomfortably on the couch.

  “Well, that’s to be expected. How are the drugs working?”

  “I feel good as hell when I’m up. But mostly, they just make me sleepy.” “Yeah. But you can’t do much of anything, so you may as well sleep.

  Ayo! By the way, who the fuck is Mr. Lopez?” Ginger called out from the kitchen.

  Desiree’s eyes became wide as saucers. She winced in pain from nearly jumping off the couch at the mention of that name.

  “Why would you ask me that?” Desiree inquired. Was Ginger practicing some kind of voodoo? Desiree had never mentioned him, and she hadn’t written anything about him in a notebook or journal.

  “You kept calling out to him,” Ginger answered. “Huh? What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know. I guess you were having a bad dream or something. You kept asking him to help you. I almost woke you up because you were tossing and turning, and I didn’t want you to hurt yourself. But I figured the drugs probably had you comatose and seeing shit. We all know how you act on pills, now, don’t we?” Ginger teased.

  Desiree laughed along, but couldn’t help but wonder what else she had been saying in her sleep. Why did she keep dreaming about the past? Desiree made up her mind that as soon as she could manage her pain with Tylenol, she was going off the Percocet. Ginger was right in one aspect: Desiree did not react well to pills. They seemed to counteract her ability to live in denial.

  She clicked on the huge television in the living room and flipped to BET to distrac
t herself. Since the surgery, she had a chance to catch up on all the videos she’d been missing due to working or partying. She’d spend hours watching BET and MTV, studying everything about every video she saw. From the time she was really young, she’d catch Video Soul and Rap City, eyeing not only the entertainers but the gorgeous models in the background. She used to imagine that they lived such glamorous lives. How could they not? They knew all the rappers and singers, they got to wear the fly clothes, go to all the parties.

  Desiree had noticed that more and more videos were being shot in Miami. That day, she had seen Trick Daddy and Trina’s video for “Naan” and recognized half of the girls in it from the nightclubs and hanging on the beach. She even recognized a few strippers. I’m just as pretty as any of them. Way prettier. I bet I could be in a video, Desiree thought, full of ambition. Shit! I can flow better than these girls too. That new chick Trina is from right here. She used to dance at the Lex too. If she can make it, I can make it.

  “Ginny!” Desiree yelled to Ginger, who was making her famous spaghetti sauce. Desiree was getting hungry from the smell of the meat sauteing with onion, garlic, and green pepper. Ginger came running out holding a spoon dripping with tomato sauce.

  “What, girl?” Ginger frowned at Desiree. “You know I’m trying to hook up this sauce!”

  “I wanna be in videos.” Desiree stated her wish simple and plain, as if Ginger could snap her fingers and make it happen. That was how Ginger operated on so many levels, so it didn’t seem out of the ordinary.

  “Okay.” Ginger rolled her eyes.

  “I’m serious!” Desiree peeled herself from her position on the couch

  with a little help from Ginger and followed her into the kitchen. “Everyone is always asking me if I’m a model anyway.”

  “Oh, I’m sure you’d have no problem doing it, especially now.” Ginger motioned toward Desiree’s enhanced cleavage. “But are you sure you want to?”

  “Sure.” Desiree shrugged. “You deal with models for your Web site all the time. Maybe I could work for you.” Desiree was eager.

  “I don’t think so. If you want to model, get an agent. If you want to do porn, fuck with me, because that’s the kind of modeling on the Web that my girls deal with.” Ginger stirred the bubbling pot of sauce on the stove. “Well, I’m just trying to get paid!” Desiree didn’t care what kind of modeling she did; she just knew that it would be cool for men to open a

  magazine or turn on the TV and see her looking sexy and tempting. “Nah, kid. I ain’t even gonna put you onto that. You can do better,”

  Ginger said.

  “I don’t see why not. I dance. I date. You don’t have a problem with that. But whenever I ask you to put me down with your business, you say no.”

  “No, you don’t have a problem with that. I don’t think it’s what you

  should be doing, but who am I to knock your hustle? You gotta earn like everyone else. But you’re like a little sister to me, and would I want my little sister doing this, any of this? No. I wouldn’t want my little sister modeling, because that world can be just as bad as dancing, and in some ways worse. I think you should be making some kind of plans for your future, your education. You’re a smart girl, I can tell. You catch on to shit real quickly. So catch this...” Ginger’s expression became dead serious as she met Desiree’s hazel eyes with her green contacts. “This shit doesn’t last forever, and even if it did, you’d get tired of it.” Ginger stood with her hands on her hips authoritatively. Desiree eyed her and digested what she had been told.

  “But hey, you’re a grown woman, little sister or not.” Ginger returned to her sauce and dismissed the topic.

  “Well, I see your point. But if I could model, then I wouldn’t have to date or dance or any of that stuff. I could even be a rapper,” Desiree added meekly. She’d never shared her poetry and lyrics with anyone. But why should every other girl out there be getting a piece of the pie when she could be out doing the same thing?

  “You wanna rap?” Ginger smirked.

  “It’s not funny. I write shit all the time. I know it’s just as good as everyone else’s stuff,” Desiree defended herself.

  “Okay. I’m just surprised, that’s all. You write rhymes? Is that what you’re doing when I see you scribbling in your notebook?”

  “Well, yeah,” Desiree said sheepishly. “Most of the time I just write little stuff, a line or two. But I’ve got a few songs now. And I think they’re pretty good.”

  “I thought it was your diary or something. I guess I don’t really know you, baby girl. Well, if you’ve got a dream, then go for it. I’m sure you can rap as well as any of these other girls. You’re prettier than all of them, that’s for sure.” Ginger always found a way to encourage Desiree even if she didn’t agree with her plans.

  “Well, that’s why I’m talking to you! What should I do first?” Desiree asked her. “Wait a minute!” Desiree walked out of the kitchen and returned with her notebook and pen.

  “You serious, huh?” Ginger giggled. “Okay. Well, what do you want to know? Do you want to model, or do you want to rap?”

  “I want to know it all and do it all. I want to be a star.”

  “Well, first you need to get some really nice pictures. I can hook you up with a couple of photographers who do good work for a good price.”

  Get pictures taken. Desiree took her time scribbling into her notebook,

  dotting the “i” in “pictures” with a smiley face.

  “Okay, then what?” Desiree looked up as eager as a school-child who just realized she could read.

  “God, you are silly. Anyway...then you need to find an agent. There are some to definitely stay away from! But there’s this new girl out, a black girl, she has an agency that is supposed to be pretty good. She has the hookup when it comes to videos. There’s also this guy who I think wants to be an actor too, but he seems to be hooking chicks up on that tip. But you should also send your pictures to the ‘white’ agencies. They handle real work like for catalogs and stuff. Not just videos and urban work.” Ginger made quotation marks in the air with her fingers as she mentioned urban work.

  “Is that just a nice way of saying black stuff?” Desiree asked Ginger, laughing.

  “You know this,” Ginger replied.

  Desiree smiled as she jotted down all of the information. She was beginning to see a clear path for her future, but it wasn’t about all the school shit Ginger was always spouting. Teachers had never done shit for her anyway when she did go to school. And most of the shit they taught you didn’t help you one bit once you walked outside a classroom door. Ginger could talk about school all she wanted, because she was a brainiac.

  Desiree didn’t mind dancing, but if there was an easier way to get paid and get ahead, she was going to find it and take it.

  WITHIN THE NEXT TWO WEEKS, DESIREE FELT BACK TO

  normal, but she had to wait another two weeks before going back to work at the club. The boredom was driving her insane. She had taken a roll of pictures—head shots to get her started—and mailed them to all the agents on a list that Ginger had downloaded from the Internet. But the waiting for a response was driving her insane.

  “Let’s go sit by the pool,” Desiree suggested to Ginger. Sitting in the house watching videos that she should be in was making her angry.

  “Cool. I could stand to get a little bit darker.” Ginger inspected her already sun-bronzed skin.

  “You gonna end up like that lady in There’s Something About Mary,”

  Desiree joked.

  “Nah. Black folks don’t get all wrinkly like that,” Ginger said, giggling.

  Desiree and Ginger sat poolside, sipping a strong pitcher of margaritas made with Patrón and munching on tortilla chips with homemade salsa.

  “I wish I could take my top off, but the doctor said no direct sunlight until my checkup. Do you think I’d be okay if I did?” Desiree fiddled with the triangle top of her hot-pink bikini.

  �
��Probably, but leave it on just to be safe. Your tan lines are going to be sexy as hell and make your boobs look bigger,” Ginger informed her while spreading carrot oil on her legs.

  “I can’t wait to go back to work!” Desiree enthused. “Why? I thought you wanted to be a model and a rapper.” “I do. I just miss the club.”

  “Don’t tell me you actually like working?” Ginger snarled, her upper lip curling up in disgust.

  “Don’t you?” Desiree looked shocked.