Bliss (5 page)

“That's crazy. I'm thrilled for you.”

“It's only human nature to be jealous.”

“Honestly, I'm not,” said Sophia. “I'm relieved! We're going to be in LA at the same time.”

Renee nodded. “I'll be really busy but we'll definitely get together.”

A blow off? Really? With her landing a big job, Renee's opinion of Sophia seemed to have changed. Did she see her as a thirsty wannabe now, one of the people she'd leave behind on her road to stardom?

“From Molson to Skyy vodka, from five percent alcohol to twenty percent. You went up fifteen percent in the alcohol world!” said Sophia, grinning. Renee wasn't amused, though. It was meant to be a joke, not an insult. Sophia hoped it didn't come out wrong. “You think I could meet the Skyy people?” she asked. You didn't lose anything by asking.

“Yeah, sure,” said Renee. “I don't know if they'll have time. I'll ask, but no promises.”

“Okay,” said Sophia.

DJ Squayla cued up. The overhead house lights went off, and the LED spots came on. The club was open for business. Sophia smiled at Renee, and gladly left the bar to man her section. The conversation had been disquieting. She vowed to herself that if she ever had any kind of success, she'd be generous with it.

In the meantime, Sophia would have to accept the unfortunate truth. Renee was right. She
was
jealous, absolutely seething with it. You could be happy for someone—and she was happy for Renee—while also wishing you were the one doing the victory dance. The feeling wasn't fair, but neither was life. You could be the next Meryl Streep, but unless you got a break, no one would ever know. On the other hand, you might have all the talent of a bar of soap, but if the right person-in-a-position liked you, hello limelight.

Fuck fame
, she thought.
It's not about that for me
.

Then Sophia called bullshit on herself.
I do want it all. Success and everything that comes with it
, she thought. The first step to mastering her craft was to acknowledge and explore the ugly emotions inside—including jealousy.

*   *   *

“Bottle of Magnum Grey Goose,” shouted the silver suit with a mustache, diamond studs, and grabby hands at table one.

Sophia could barely hear him over the thudding house music. She didn't need to. When it came to brand names of premium vodka, champagne, and tequila, Sophia could read lips. The crew at table one—four creeps in Armani suits and six girls around her age—were already on their second bottle. The table charge alone was $4,000 for ten people. Each bottle was $1,500. If they didn't stiff her, her tip could be huge.

Just to confirm so there was no haggling over the immense bill later, she leaned down to speak into the guy's ear. “Magnum Grey Goose, right?”

The stachehole answered by slapping her ass, hard enough to make a solid
thwack
. The other guys in the booth laughed uproariously, because harassment was hilarious.

Sophia wagged a finger at him. “Bad touch,” she said, smiling with tight lips. “I'll be right back with your bottle.”

Walk like a star
, she told herself, navigating through the sweaty masses. Sophia shouted the order to Renee, who sounded an air horn. It was a call to all bottle-service girls to come to the bar. Renee taped three sparklers onto the neck of the bottle and dropped it in a flashing LED-lit bucket with a stack of LED shot glasses. The other girls arrived to get their sparklers.

“Motherfucker at table ten grabbed my boob,” said Brenda, a new girl. She'd only been at CRUSH for a few weeks, and was still shocked by manhandling. “I called my boyfriend. He's going to pound that asshole in the parking lot later.”

Sophia said, “Good. Can he pound the guys at table one, too?”

Renee asked, “Ready?”

The girls touched their sparkler tips together. Renee flipped open her Zippo and lit them, as well as the ones on the neck of the bottle. Sophia raised the LED bucket over her head. The other servers fell in line behind her, sparklers blazing overhead. Clubgoers around them started cheering and cleared a path as the girls made their way to table one. Sophia plastered a smile across her face as she hummed the “Oompa Loompa Song” from
Willy Wonka
in her head, as always. She placed the bucket in the center of the table. She and the other girls jumped up and down, clapping like they'd just won a car on
The Price Is Right
. The bimbos at table one hopped onto the bench seats, jumping up and down and flashing their thongs.

The very second the sparklers fizzled out, the bottle-service girls stopped cavorting and returned to their own sections where they'd take orders and fetch drinks until the air horn sounded again. This ritual was repeated a dozen times a night. It lost its charm for Sophia by her fifth sparkling conga line from hell. By the five hundredth time, she despised it. Whenever she heard an air horn, her belly flopped. It was a conditioned response. She might never go to a hockey game again. What could you do but laugh … or audition for one of those shows about weird phobias.
Hello, I'm Sophia, and I hate air horns.

Sophia's job at table one wasn't quite done, though. She removed the sparklers from the bottleneck, and opened the cap. She made a big show of pouring the vodka into shot glasses from high up without spilling a drop. She was on the last one when the stachehole cupped her butt, making her overshoot a glass and pour a good amount of vodka on the table. The bimbos jumped like she'd throw sulfuric acid on them.

“I'm not going to pay for that!”

“How's everyone doing?” asked a voice behind her. It was Vinnie, riding in to the rescue. His timing was eerily impeccable.

“Your waitress washed the floor with our vodka,” he said.

“If you didn't grab my ass, I wouldn't have spilled it.”

Vinnie put his arm around her and gently squeezed her shoulder to quiet her down. “Apologies. I'll deduct half the bottle from your check,” he said.

“You should put a muzzle on that girl.”

Sophia removed Vinnie's hand and stormed away from the table, knowing she'd dump the bottle over the scumbag's head if she didn't.

“A word,” said Vinnie, coming after her, clearly pissed off.

“It was his fault, and I'm the one who's going to pay for it.” By cutting the bottle charge, he'd also cut her tip.

“Just follow me,” he said. Vinnie led her all the way around the dance floor to the club entrance. “Outside.” He pointed through the front doors.

She followed him to the street, and shivered. Even in June it was cold at two o'clock in the morning, and she was practically naked. The sheen on her skin from running around instantly froze. She folded her arms over her chest, covering herself for warmth and from the eyes of gawkers on line to get in. Bruno the bouncer gestured to a group of girls off to the side. At five paces, Sophia could smell the gin.

“Do you know these ladies?” asked Vinnie.

Leandra? “What are you doing here?” asked Sophia. “I thought you had a graduation party.”

“Sophia! There you are! Where have you
been
? I texted you like
five
times.”

Leandra was wasted, and so were her four sorority friends. “That party sucked. We wanna
dance
! Tell this gorilla to let us in!”

“You hate house music. And you hate dancing.”

“According to your friend here,” said Vinnie, “you promised them a table and bottle of Belvedere. Is that true?”

Sophia gulped. It was a hard rule at CRUSH that staffers' friends were not to be given preferential treatment. They weren't allowed to cut the line, wave the cover, get free drinks, or sit at a table for free. If her friends wanted to come to the club, that was fine, as long as they paid and didn't distract Sophia from doing her job. She'd made no promises to Leandra, ever, but if she called Leandra on her lie in front of her college friends, she'd never hear the end of it.

“Tell you what,” said Leandra, pressing her melon boobs into Vinnie's arm. “Come on, Vinnie. You could use some pretty young thangs at your table.”

Leandra's friends howled. Vinnie's ego was too big to understand that Leandra was making fun of him. He owned a club, which made him something of a local celebrity. But Leandra had her sights set on the type of guy who owned the bank that held the mortgage on the club. For whatever reason, tonight Leandra was in the mood to slum it and flirt with men she'd rather cut off her own hand before touching with a ten-foot pole. Sophia had zero sympathy for the pseudo-VIPs who treated her like meat and dropped thousands on booze to impress girls who were into that. But she liked Vinnie. He was a sleaze and a crook, but he didn't deserve to be played by sorority girls in Prada dresses after dealing with creeps all night.

Leandra had been a rock for Sophia at some pretty low times in her life, like during the breakup, after countless audition rejections, and when she got lonely and missed her family in Vancouver (she'd learned never to talk about missing Demi; Leandra would just go off). But sometimes, Leandra tried her patience with her sense of entitlement.

Sophia said, “It's freezing out here. I'm going in.”

“Hey! What about our table? Come on, Sophia. We're college graduates!” The girls started cheering for themselves, and got some people on line to applaud them, too.

Vinnie was won over. “Okay, ladies. You can sit at my table, and Sophia will get you a round on the house.”

Unheard of. Vinnie was in a generous mood, or he genuinely thought he had a shot at Leandra, an ethereal, delicate beauty who looked particularly fetching tonight. As usual, Leandra glided through life, managing to get what she wanted with a smile. If Sophia had been on the other side of it, she would have shaken her head in amazement at what she got away with. But Leandra's free ride meant just extra work for Sophia. It was the last straw. She clicked back into the club, steamed past her section, and ignored the people frantically waving at her. She went down the back stairs, and into the employee locker room in the basement. Sitting on a wooden bench, she unzipped her boots and intended to put on her Tory Burch flats. If Vinnie said anything about it, a single word, she'd quit on the spot.

She opened her locker, and noticed her phone screen lit up with a notification from Demi. “Thanks for checking in,” she texted. “Means a lot. Good to know you care.” Sophia's stomach dropped.

Immediately, Sophia called Demi, but it went to voice mail. She started to text, but her hands were trembling. She had no idea what to say. “I'm sorry” or “I had a rough day” sounded like excuses. Good ones! But Demi would take it the wrong way. In frustration, she threw her phone in the locker and slammed it shut.

She sat on the bench for a few minutes and willed herself to calm down. She just had to get through another couple of hours, cash out her tips, go home, cry, and sleep. This job was just an acting opportunity, a chance to test her chops. If she could get through the rest of the night as a bubbly bottle-service girl, she was Oscar worthy. She could walk like a star through a swamp, through a desert, or back up the stairs to the club. She flipped through Instagram and saw a couple of uplifting quotes, one especially stood out: “Before you see light, there must be darkness.” The light was coming; she could feel it. A positive warm rush flowed through her body.

YOU'VE. GOT. THIS.

She dug deep, and forced herself to go back upstairs. She made a beeline to Vinnie's table where Leandra and her friends were sprawled and laughing hysterically at the lowlifes on the dance floor.

“What can I get you?” she asked, smiling so hard, it hurt.

*   *   *

At dawn, Sophia put herself to bed. As always, she stared at her vision board, wondering if her dreams were worth it. Wesly Shamrock wasn't the first person to tell her that her best shot at life was to be a bimbo. She couldn't accept that. If she let herself go down that rabbit hole there was no crawling her way out. Was she deluding herself? She could stare at her vision board until she went blind and never get any closer to her dreams. Hollywood might as well be Mars.

Demi would say, “You got this, Sophia! You were born to be a star. If anyone can make it, you can. So put on your invisible tiara, and strut, girl, strut!”

Sophia smiled, picturing her friend's face, wishing they were in the same city, hoping she was okay. She needed a Demi-shot of love and she was sure the feeling was mutual. Would it be wrong to turn to Demi for help when she might be worse off at the moment? She'd call her in the morning. Even a pity party was still a party, and it's always nice to be invited.

 

3

you have no idea how much i love monkeys

Leandra's hangover was epic. The worst she'd ever had, although she said that every time. She and her crew stayed at CRUSH until closing—five
A.M.
—and she was still drunk now, twelve hours later, at the dinner her parents insisted on having to celebrate her graduation. They'd flown in from Vancouver for the ceremony and had made the reservation weeks ago at some cheesy Italian place. Even in pain, Leandra dressed well. She wore a Diane von Furstenberg wrap dress and Jeffrey Campbell sandals.When the waiter delivered her spaghetti and meatballs, she nearly barfed in her plate.