Bliss Read online

  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.

  “We’re so proud of you,” trilled her mom. “If Stacy were here, she’d be so proud of you, too.”

  “Don’t talk about her, Jesus,” she snapped.

  Dad frowned, as he always did when Mom brought up Stacy. “We have something for you,” he said, thankfully changing the subject.

  He presented her with an envelope. She tore it open, and pulled out a flight itinerary, a hotel reservation voucher, and $3,000 in cash. She scanned the paperwork, struggling to read with bloodshot eyes. The destination seemed to be spelled Phuket. “You’re sending me to fuck it?” she asked.

  “It’s pronounced poo-ket,” said her dad, annoyingly jovial. “Thailand’s beach haven. The Phi Phi Islands are supposed to be the most beautiful spot in the world.”

  “The pee pee islands in fuck it? Thank you, guys, soso sososo much.”

  Leandra didn’t mean to sound ungrateful, but her head was throbbing and, frankly, it was just the way she related to her parents. Her parents spoiled their only surviving child way past rotten. Her salesman father had always encouraged her inate desire for more. When she haggled for another cookie, he said, “That’s my girl!” At twenty-one, Leandra’s greediness wasn’t as adorable as it used to be (if it ever was), but it was her default setting.

  She’d hinted heavily about her graduation gift, dropping the phrase “exotic and expensive” many times. Her parents had done well. She would have preferred Tokyo, but whatever, Thailand was close enough. Fighting her hangover, Leandra got up—slowly—and hugged each of her parents. Her mom cried. Her dad kept a stiff upper lip, and said, “My baby is leaving the nest.”

  Leandra itched to fly. Going to college in Toronto wasn’t far enough. She loved her parents, really. But she bore the heavy weight of their neediness and overprotectiveness. It was understandable, considering. Leandra empathized, but she had to break free of it all and start over somewhere far away.

  “When do I leave?” she asked.

  “Tomorrow night!” said her mom. “First, you fly to New York, then Dubai, then Phuket!”

  Mom was overselling it to mask whatever real emotions she was dealing with about losing another daughter, this one to wanderlust. Leandra played along, and spent the rest of the dinner talking excitedly about her grand adventure. Her real life would begin the minute she boarded the plane.

  * * *

  Leandra sat in a window seat in coach for the Emirates flight from New York to Dubai. She was wedged in, trapped next to a Middle Eastern man who smelled like BO. His hefty wife didn’t speak a word, but he wouldn’t shut up. From takeoff until now, several hours into the thirteen-hour flight, he’d babbled about his job in tech and how he knew a guy in Mumbai who ran a Bollywood movie studio. “You’re much prettier than any of those girls,” he said. “If you give me your number, I can introduce you to my friend. You can live with me in Mumbai while you become a star.”

  Leandra iced him, but he refused to take the hint. Even if he really did know a guy in Bollywood (doubtful), she would never want to do that. She knew from watching Sophia that acting was hard work. Leandra had no intention of working at all, even a glamorous job. “Please move your face,” she said when he leaned too close. “Your breath is rancid.”

  She took two Ambien and passed out. When she woke up, Leandra crawled over her seatmates to go to the bathroom. The man was now asleep, thank god. His wife was awake, and shot daggers at her. She was used to being despised by wives and girlfriends, and didn’t take it personally.

  In leggings, a blouse from Anthropologie (so ethnic!), and Silence + Noise heels, Leandra walked forward up the aisle to stretch her legs, hoping to sneak a peek at the legendary first-class cabins on the double-decker Airbus’s top level. At the very front of the plane, she found a staircase leading up. It was blocked off with a red velvet rope and guarded by two stewardesses in red pillbox hats. For a woman like Leandra, velvet ropes were optional.

  “What’s up there?” she asked.

  One of the stewardesses said, “First-class cabins and lounge.”

  She peered up the stairs and saw a circular bar with bottles arranged on mirrored shelves. “Can I go up there, just for one drink?”

  “Only flight crew and first-class passengers.”

  “Just a quick look?”

  A man in a suit approached. “Is there a problem?”

  The stewardess said, “The young lady is returning to her seat.”

  “What’s the big deal?” asked Leandra. “I’m just curious.”

  The flight attendant leaned closer to say, “If you don’t leave this area now, the air marshal behind you is going to arrest you.” The edge in her voice made Leandra believe it. Okay, no need to start an international incident. She used one of the economy-class bathrooms and went right back to her seat. If she got in trouble, it might delay her adventure, so best to stay out of it.

  The plane landed a few hours later. At the arrival gate, Leandra noticed a large family group exit the plane. The women wore black burkas, covered head to toe. The kids, including the girls, wore Western clothes. They ran around the women standing in a tight circle. One man with a white headpiece, like a sheet, on his head seemed to be in charge. He spoke in Arabic to two other men in black suits and earpieces (bodyguards?). She took them for a sheik and his multiple wives, and their many offspring. It was so foreign, so exotic; she gawked. Couldn’t help it. When the bodyguards noticed her and glared suspiciously, she scurried off to find her connecting flight to Thailand.

  The family must have been in first class. She would have noticed them in coach. Leandra did the math. The Middle Eastern man told her that first-class suites—with full-size beds, hot showers, unlimited delicacies—from New York to Dubai cost $20,000 each. For a family of ten, one flight would run $200,000. Why didn’t the sheik just buy his own plane? Maybe his was broken? No matter. Dude was insanely wealthy. It was hard not to be awed by that. Vast riches and mysterious men were what she’d come for. One day in the no
t too distant future, she would find herself in an Emirates first-class cabin, and take a hot shower at 30,000 feet. That fantasy kept her smiling for the last leg of her twenty-four-hour journey to Phuket, including a sickening forty-five-minute taxi ride from the airport along the construction-clogged one-lane “highway” to her hotel on Karon Beach.

  “This can’t be it,” she said when she arrived at the street-side entrance to Sawasdee House. The website photos sparkled like a jewel, but in reality, the hotel resembled a crumbling Holiday Inn tightly sandwiched between a yoga studio and a pharmacy. Leandra paid the driver in baht the exact amount on the meter. She’d read that Thai people didn’t believe in tipping.

  Leandra lugged her own bags into the small lobby, and had to wait a few minutes before a woman came to the desk to check her in. The whole process—filling out forms, giving her credit card—was a letdown. Where was the champagne cocktail, Thai mini-massage, the bowing-and-scraping she expected? Her room, on the first floor facing the street, was a disappointment, too, but she wasn’t in Fuck It to sit in a moldy room. Leandra put on her skimpiest bikini, walked through the lobby and a shabby dining room, and out the hotel’s back glass doors to the beach.

  Karon Beach was glorious. Pink sand, teal blue water, sexy Asian surfers riding waves at the crest of the horseshoe shoreline. Sawasdee House might have a trashy façade, but it was right on the beach. She stationed herself on a lounge, ordered a Singha from a passing waiter, and let the Thai sunshine soak into her skin. It was divine. Heaven. Rapture.

  Except.

  It was kind of boring just lying there, waiting for her fabulous life to begin. She looked up and down the horizon, and caught the eye of a woman trolling the beach selling sarongs out of a plastic bag. “No!” she had to repeat five times before the woman stopped pestering her.

  “They’re rather persistent, aren’t they?” asked a stranger on a nearby lounge in a posh English accent.

  Leandra smiled at her. It was hard to guess her age with her hat and sunglasses. Asian women looked like they were twenty-five until age seventy-five, and then they looked one thousand. She was exceptional with a kitten-shaped face, a preciously pointy chin, impossibly thin with golden skin and red lips. A Chanel tote bag (that probably cost $5,000) was on the sand at her feet.