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I rub my eyes. “Are you kidding me?”
Jack clasps his hands. “Come on, man. Please? I’ll be a legend if you get us in here.”
I put my hands on my hips, the businessman in me sensing leverage. Maybe I can solve one of my problems right now.
“Okay, I’m going to make a deal with you,” I say. “I’ll get you in there. I’ll even get a private table, though that’s less for you and more so that these people’s sweat doesn’t get all over my suit. But on Monday you’re getting a job.”
He starts to protest but I talk over him. “It doesn’t have to be with me. It could be at a deli for all I care. But you’re getting a job and you’re signing up for GED classes. That’s my price.”
Jack waffles, looking between his eager friends and me. I check my watch. “This offer is only good for another thirty seconds,” I say. “Then I’m getting back in my car and going home.”
He relents. I’m not sure if I’m happy about it or not. He takes my offered hand and we shake on it. As we do so, I can’t resist saying, “But I am baffled you want to hang out with these people at all.”
“Oh come on,” Jack says. “They aren’t that bad.”
The group is taking a big selfie in front of the building, tongues out and middle fingers raised. Yes, they definitely are “that bad” and I can’t help but wonder if Jack getting a job is worth entrenching him further with this crowd.
A problem for later. For now I just need to get through this night.
I ignore the kids and go up to the bouncer at the head of the endless line that hasn’t moved at all in the time since we’ve arrived.
“There’s a line, pal,” he grunts.
“What’s it take to get in here?” I ask flatly.
He glances at me, noting my clothes with a professional eye, and asks, “How many followers do you have on Instagram?”
“Zero,” I say flatly.
“You famous?”
“No.”
“Then you’re a rich guy?”
“Bingo,” I say. “How much is this going to cost me?”
One significant check later, I’m in hell. The center of the building is open from the ground floor to the top where a glass ceiling shows the surrounding towers stretching overhead. Ringing the open space are banisters on each floor, illuminated by pulsing, flashing lights, behind which people either dance or stand, looking over to watch the main floor below and chugging drinks that probably cost sixty bucks a pop. The main floor itself is a gyrating, sweaty mass of humanity. At least nobody appears to actually be naked.
I manage to find someone who works there and shell out again for a private seating area on the second floor. Before long, I’m sitting on a black leather sofa that’s sticky from the sweat of whoever was sitting there before us, sipping from a glass of Scotch that’s swill compared to my private collection, and trying to avoid the attention of an eighteen-year-old friend of Jack’s.
“I’ll bet you have a huge company,” she says, enunciating the word “huge” and scooching so close she’s practically sitting on my lap. I look around for help but Jack, Chip, and the rest of the guys have all dipped out to the bar for drinks, leaving me sitting with a collection of girls so young I look like a predator.
“Excuse me,” I say stiffly and flee the scene. I’m not needed anymore. Let Jack and his idiot friends enjoy the space. I have no interest in having a conversation with any of them anyway.
Unfortunately that leaves me with the problem of where to go myself. I’m not buying another seat; I’ve already given this place too much money. I should just go home.
I’m almost to the door when I stop. As irritating as this club is, at least it’s pushing my work problems squarely to the back of my mind. I’m not too eager to return to that dark, empty apartment to be alone with my thoughts. Maybe I should stay. I think back to what Jack had essentially told me earlier, that I need to get laid.
He’s not wrong, but has it really come to this? Picking up women in a trashy club?
I move to an open spot at the flashing bar and lean against it, looking out over the sea of women.
My sex life is pretty boring, almost clinical, another task to be accomplished, and lately I’ve been so busy that it’s been constantly pushed to the back burner.
But even when I was getting laid more regularly, I never went out and picked up women at bars. Approaching Evie on the train had been completely out of character for me. No, to put it simply, I have a roster of women I’ve met over the years who I can call for a quick fuck.
Saying it that way sounds callous, but they know the score, and it’s not like they’re complaining. We drink top-shelf liquor, we hook up, we say goodbye as she gets into the private car I call to send her back to whatever corner of New York she came from. No television afterward. No sleeping over. Definitely no cuddling. Anyone who starts to toe these boundaries isn’t asked back.
