The New York Doll (8 page)

_______________

If you think that a dancer’s job is to dance, you are terribly mistaken. A dancer’s job is to sell a sublimation of a personal life a customer doesn’t have. Or it just plain sucks. And so he comes to the club to escape his 24/7 life that he hates, his jobs that pays the bills and his wife who he hasn’t spoken to in days.

We are always here to listen, to support, to understand, to help to make the right decision…as long as you pay us. We are the best therapists that you can possibly talk to, we never judge or laugh at you, we love you here and now, as long as you keep putting twenties in our bras. But don’t count on us as soon as you run out of money; we’ll thank you for a drink, we’ll wish you a good night and tell you to come again. Right after your pay day.

I’ve always felt sorry for those poor Wall Street guys, whose personal life was only existent within the gentlemen’s club walls. They will take you to the private room and pay cash for 3 or 4 hours just to tell you how his job sucks, what an asshole his boss is and how he would just give it all up to go to Himalayas and live there with Buddhist monks and be happy. But too bad that he has three kids with his ex-wife and a child support to pay; and too bad that his new wife loves Chanel and cocaine so much that he has to pay for it with half of his salary. I can understand it too, if I were a wife of one of those Wall Street guys, I would probably do the same thing. I wouldn’t have a choice: if my husband isn’t at work, he’s at the business meeting. If he’s not at the business meeting, he’s away on a business trip. Or a business lunch with his partners. Or a business dinner with the same partners, at the strip club. So much money and nobody’s happy. Good thing I understood it by 26 when it wasn’t too late for me as it is late now for those poor Wall Street wives. And I recall the times, when I was nothing but a poor Russian girl, and all I wanted was money. Cash. Louis Vuitton bags. Christian Louboutin shoes. I mean like every normal girl I still like those things and I still buy them now, but occasionally, not on a daily basis as a therapy for my fucked-up married life. I know that all I want is just to be comfortable with what I have, I want to have just enough to do my laser hair removal monthly; to do my gel manicure weekly; to get a full body massage when I need it. But I would never want to kill myself physically and morally by 40 and realize that now I have money but my life isn’t worth shit. Like in that saying that you probably heard: some people are very poor, all they have is money. And thank God, I’m a blessed girl, I’m very happy with what I have now, I have my boyfriend who spoils me rotten not only with presents, but what is more important with his love and care and I wouldn’t trade it for any Louis Vuittons in the world.

Some girls aren’t all like me though. Megan just got another Chanel bag from a customer and is very happy about it. She travels all over the states when she doesn’t dance and uploads her bikini pictures on Instagram. Good for her! I guess she’s happy at where she is. A week ago, at the club anniversary, Lexi, another former dancer, said that Megan looks shabby, that she got fat and her hair looks dirty. Megan did get a little chunky, but don’t put the girl down because you are jealous. I honestly never understood Lexi’s thirst for gossip and hostility towards almost all girls. She retired from dancing more than a year ago, after she met her future husband (the president of some company) in the club and married him (or shall I say, made him marry her with a Tiffany ring) after 4 months of dating. Now all she’s doing is spending her husband’s money on shoes, clothes and bags and adds trendy locations she’s been at to her Facebook. Looks like a very pretty picture perfect suburban Jersey housewife life, so how come Lexi is so mad at Megan’s white outfit from Victoria’s Secret that “looks dirty on stage”, or at Megan’s hair with “too much hairspray on it”? It’s hard to believe now, but they were good friends at some point, they went on vacations together and now hate each other with the same passion that they loved each other with before. Because Megan was laughing at how Lexi would die thirsty before she would pay for her own drink and Lexi keeps telling each and everyone how Megan fucked four different guys on that trip. And that’s how, my friends, female friendship dies.

We both don’t work anymore, but unlike Lexi, who hates even mentioning of her former “career”, I like remembering something good that came out of my “stripper” job. And now, sitting by the bar with Lexi and her invisible husband Kevin, I’m thinking of how much fun I had on Sundays with my good friend Emily, when the club would just open its doors and there were no customers yet… We would change early, do our make-up and hair and go to the main stage to learn some new pole tricks. Emily would get us a couple of Red Bulls from a bartender and we would start the fun.

- I hate you so much right now! – she would yell at me, laughing. – How did you just do that?

I drink more Red Bull and laugh too.

- Look here. Just jump on the pole and slide your legs down, and twist. That’s it.

I show her the move again. After a couple of shots she gets it.

- I did it! Did you see? I did it! – when Emily smiles, you can’t help but smile back; she has that little cute doll’s smile that just lights up the whole room.

- Good job! Now show me that move again, when you put your legs back and turn, - it’s my turn to learn now.

Customers start coming in and the DJ calls the first girl on the bar stage. We keep fooling around on the main one. I hold the pole tight with my hands and put my legs above my head to slide upside down. It doesn’t look too gracious and it makes me laugh even more. Emily can’t stop laughing too.

- Oh yeah, baby, that was really hot! – she says, giggling. – Keep doing that and you’ll make a million tonight!

- Shut up! – I’m wiping my hands on my skirt and hold the pole again, getting ready to do the move again. – You try to do it yourself!

We both jump on the poles at the same time and do the same routine. Customers at the bar are no longer interested in the girl dancing on the bar stage and look at us instead. Later on we’ll tell them that we are lesbians, we are renting an apartment together and sleep in the same bed. They have no choice but to take us to the room together. Men are stupid, they will pay ridiculous money to see two girls make out. And that’s how we make our first several hundreds tonight.

Chapter 11

I’m celebrating today with a can of a diet Pepsi. As it happened many times before, God interfered and helped me with someone very precious to me. God saved my little baby, my sweet little Chihuahua Eliana.

I bought her a year and a half ago, because I knew that only a puppy could help me to get out of the deepest emotional crisis. I just found out that my fiancé, the man who I was supposed to spend the rest of my life with, cheated on me…again. He was stupid enough to reveal himself. Thank God, he was always dumb enough to cover up what he was doing; he was the worst liar ever. But if at the beginning of our relationship I kept closing my eyes on many things and pretending that I didn’t know anything, this time it was the straw that broke a camel’s back. I gave him back his ring, blocked him from my Facebook page and from my life. Now, if I saw him one day, I would probably tell him how grateful I am for his cheating, how great it is that he was such an asshole with me, because now I am as happy as can be with the love of my life, with the man of my dreams, who shows me every day what love really is.

But at that time I had only two choices: to start popping pills and get wasted in the club to forget not only his face, but even my name…or get a puppy and start doing yoga. I chose the second option. Frankly speaking, I’ve always loved myself too much to destroy such a remarkable body and mind with alcohol.

So I went to the puppy store, but got very disappointed when the owner told me they were out of female Chihuahuas. But boys they have are just so cute! Do you want to hold one?

- No, I’m sorry, I can’t see myself interacting with males of any kind in my nearest future!

- Well, we have one girl left, but someone is getting her this week.

- Can I see her?

- Sure.

The sales guy goes to the back room and comes out in a minute holding…an exact copy of my Ava when she was a puppy! A tiny, sweet, little, cutest ball of fur, with sad big brown eyes, shivering in his hands. My first question is:

- Did they leave the deposit? Because I’m not leaving the store without her!

Luckily for me, they didn’t, but even if they would, I was so loaded with cash that I would have paid the double price to take my little sweetheart home. It took the sales man five minutes to prepare all the papers for me.

- Ok, sign here and here… Congratulations, you are a parent now!

- Thank you!

I smile at him and get a free puppy bed, puppy T-shirt, bag of dry food and the toy she liked. But I don’t even care about all that. I’m holding her close to my heart and keep hearing his voice: “You are a parent now!” Yes I am. I am a mommy now. And I promise myself I’ll be the best mommy my beautiful baby could possibly have.

_______________

R. and I are laying in bed and talk about our plans for the day. His phone rings. He always gets a lot of calls in the morning from his customers, so I play with my puppy and let him talk. After a couple of minutes he says:

- Do you know who just called?

- Who?

- Dr. Berkovich, that veterinarian I was telling you about. I made a sign for him a long time ago and now it needs some service to be done.

- Oh wow, it’s great!

- Yes, it is. I told him that we have a doggie we wanted to fix long time ago, so he said we can bring her today!

At the doctor’s office Eliana did what she always did the best: played a scared victim. While he was checking her before an operation, she completely froze and kept looking at us with her big brown eyes: “Mommy, daddy, they are torturing me, why don’t you help me?”

- What an actress! – I smile.

R., my big scary Italian mobster, couldn’t stand the sad eyes and walked out “to make a call”. Dr. Berkovich found Eliana healthy and scheduled the operation for the next day. I had to take her alone since her daddy wouldn’t be able to see the scared eyes when she would get her shot and start going to sleep. After they took her to the surgery room, I went home and was waiting for the call from Dr. Berkovich. The phone finally rang.

- Ok, Milana, the operation went well and Eliana is resting now. But we had some surprises on the way.

Oh, no. My heart sinks. It’s always bad news when the doctor says “surprises”.

- What is it, doctor?

- Well, she had a really bad urinary infection. Couple more days and it would have burst.

Oh my God!

- Is she ok now?

- Yes, she is fine, everything’s out, so she’ll be back to normal very soon.

On my way to the clinic I thanked God a million times. And a million more times after Dr. Berkovich showed me a picture of my puppy’s uterus that was taken out. Instead of a healthy, pink flesh, I saw a thick brown something, that looked everything, but normal.

- I took such good care of her! How could she get that?

- That’s not an outside infection. She underwent some hormonal changes in her body, which are very uncommon for the dogs of her age. Usually, seven-eight year old dogs get that when they are reaching their menopause.

- Can she get it again?

- No, everything’s out now. Don’t worry.

It’s been three days since her operation and I watch her being so playful, running like crazy and jumping at me like nothing even happened to her, and I thank God every minute for saving my baby. Just like He saved me so many times before and after.

_______________

I was trying to heal my broken heart not only with canine therapy. They say the best way to forget about the previous relationship is to quickly jump into another. They are wrong, because that’s exactly how I got into my “stupid-in-between” phase, also known among my friends as “the DJ phase”.

One warm April night, when I was waiting for the van to pick me up after I finished my shift at the club, drunk, happy and rich after VIP rooms, I was approached by our club DJ Zed, or how everybody called him, Izzy.

- What’s up? – he jumped in a chair next to me smiling uncontrollably.

“Did I give him his tip? I think I did. God, I’m so drunk!”

- Everything’s up, - I smile back. If you’re a dancer, you’d better be nice to all DJs, because they are the ones who are responsible for the music you will dance to every night. – How’s it going?

- Good, good. You’re Milana, right?

- Yep, that’s my name.

- Is that a real name?

“Oh God! Not you too asking me that question!”

- Yes, it is, why?

- Just asking. Where do you live? Brooklyn?

- Nope. – Every single customer who heard my Russian accent immediately assumed that I lived in Brooklyn. – I’m from Staten Island.

- Staten Island? – Izzy genuinely surprised. – Wow, you don’t look like a Staten Island girl.

- What do Staten Island girls look like? – I’m laughing.

- Well, they are all acting like they better than anybody else, you know? And you seem to be very sweet.

“I’m always sweet after five apple martinis, four Bellini’s and several shots of Patron!”

- Thank you, it’s nice of you to say.

- You know, you must be really sweet, all those guys really love you. I have to mark girls’ names, you know, when they go to the room, so I wouldn’t call them on stage. You were the leader tonight.

- I guess, - I smile. Another reminder of how much money I made tonight is always nice.

- Do you wanna ride home?

That was unexpected. I knew that most of the girls in the club didn’t like Izzy since he always thought of himself as of a great DJ, one of the David Guetta league, who, unfortunately, was stuck in a NJ strip club. So he was bitching a lot, let’s put it this way. I didn’t have any conflicts with him, so I didn’t really care about him. I also knew that he didn’t like strippers and never went out with girls from the club, so a ride home offer was a big surprise.