Chapter 12 Elit
Elit
Iran inside for long enough to snatch the purse and a pair of heels from my room, and then I was on the move again.
The stairs were slick with melted snow from countless boots, and I passed three sets of people who yelled something at me and it was possibly ‘Happy New Year!’
He’d gone silent once I asked him if he was seeing someone else—and never actually told me he wasn’t. He always reassured me—why didn’t he reassure me?
“If this is how you want to remember it,” I repeated in the most nasally voice I could, to make myself feel better. It didn’t help.
Flagging a taxi down was easy, as long as I didn’t question the driver’s sobriety. I chuckled madly at the thought that I would be paying for it with Vitali’s money.
Elit.
The most popular club known to be frequented by the New Russians. Undoubtedly packed wall to wall on New Year’s, and impossible to get in. Of course, not for Vitali and whoever came trailing after him like a damned mother duck.
I wasn’t very good at being angry. Even in my head, I couldn’t bring myself to really swear. A homeless man got shot in front of me, and then my best friend told me the man I’m in…fatuated with is lying to me, but I was still a lady, damn it.
“Blyad,” I whispered, trying the word on.
“Eh?” the taxi driver spat.
“Nothing.”
He barely let me out before his wheels spun and threw muddy snow over the car behind him. I scrambled not to fall where the ice bank had grown tall enough it could almost be called ‘climbing’ when I made it onto the sidewalk.
The line was so long… and so full of beautiful women. But I could bet very few were as determined as me. He couldn’t give me all that and then just leave. How many sets of flowers and to whom did he have Misha deliver every time he left…
My throat tightened. Maybe the other woman was in the country with no phones…
“Blyad,” I choked out, desperately searching the immediate line. Somebody would probably hit me for trying what I was about to try.
I composed myself and marched up to the third group of girls behind the velvet rope closest to the door.
“Girls? I’m sorry girls?” I tried as they chatted among themselves, laughing and stomping foot to foot, trying to get warm.
“What?” one said, finally noticing me. “What do you want?”
“I stepped out for a smoke and can’t get back in,” I tried in a kind of desperation people have when there’s no room on the last bus. “Can I stand in line with you? There are people waiting for me.”
She eyed the heels in my hands and the winter coat that had gathered snow and clearly hadn’t been taken off anytime recently. I hurried to loosen my scarf as if that’d save my lie. It didn’t.
“Go to hell,” she said, and turned her back to me. The group beside them jeered and my cheeks warmed.
“Hey!” the man by the door barked. “You want to be banned? Get away from the line!”
He strolled over. Big man, wide and built just like Vitali’s guys. Balding, but not yet bald. I braced myself to either cry, or leave then cry, because I wasn’t getting in.
He got close, and his expression changed, lips tightening. I tried to figure out what he was staring at.
It was the necklace, reflecting the New Year’s lights where my scarf had come undone.
“Ah,” he said. “Well. That’s a different story.” He lifted the rope and I ducked through to the chorus of furious ladies yelling after me as the doorman escorted me inside.
The floor had a heartbeat, even behind a set of padded doors just past the coat check.
“Thank you.” I hacked a cough from the oncoming warm air.
“Next time, come in with whoever gave you something as expensive as that,” he said, and not too kindly.
I gave my coat and boots over to the bored-looking lady my mama’s age. She stamped a return ticket while I pulled on my tallest pair of heels. Unfortunately, by now some of the heat had left my chest, and clarity began setting in.
Crazy. I was being crazy. Absolutely insane—Misha even said Vitali goes out with them, but it’s just business.
Of course they talked about it because they were all going—God, but I was about to make such a huge mistake and then he’d know what kind of girl I was and I’d never receive red roses again.
And I really was about to make a huge mistake, but I wouldn’t know how big of one until later, and then it would already be too late.
As I reached for the handle, someone on the inside opened the door, and the sound struck me in a physical way. The man waved me in, and I did my best to look like I belonged as I took a dignified step through.
Good posture. You’re a beautiful girl who does this all the time. You’re going to peek at who is inside, maybe get a ‘calm your nerves’ drink and leave, I told myself.
But not vodka. Never vodka.
The thought had Vitali’s voice and the echo Misha’s, and when two possibly-thugs tell you to get something else, you get something else. Maybe gin.
The bass was so loud it was hard to tell what song was playing. It was German, I could tell that much.
The club itself was large, but I thought I could see the far wall.
Unfortunately, that wall and every other wall were covered in mirrors that scattered the colorful strobe lights like fireworks.
It was festive, but completely disorienting, especially for someone who had already put down a bottle of champagne.
Everyone I passed was either beautiful or visibly rich.
Even the air was all money—cigars and designer perfume with a hint of expensive liquor.
Just as I wondered if I would find Elena somewhere in the crowd, I spotted Lyosha.
I didn’t see Dmitri or her beside him; instead, he was with some rough-looking, bearded men wearing close variations of the same red sports jackets.
Suppose the dress code didn’t apply to those whose money came in rolls.
Oh God what if I ran right into Vitali. Or Misha. Or any one of the other guys who would clearly recognize me and know I wasn’t invited. Stupid Katya. I needed to stop feeding these obsessive thoughts and go home.
The music boomed, and the lights hit the cages suspended over the dance floor.
There were six of them, each containing an elaborately decorated naked woman.
They danced and writhed, sparkling with all the Swarovski crystals left over from my dress.
The people underneath moved as one living organism, pulsing and swaying to the music’s hypnotic beat.
Then, I spotted one of the guys. Boris (or Ivan? I wasn’t actually sure which was which) held a full drink and leaned casually against a railing that separated the large dance floor from the VIP couches—which is exactly where they were.
And there were a lot of women with them.
I didn’t know everyone, or maybe I did but I didn’t recognize them because there were girls plastered to their faces.
Long hair, beautiful short dresses with model-like legs.
I wanted to throw up. I wanted to look away because I saw Misha with a girl straddling him, but I still hadn’t spotted Vitali, and I didn’t want to spot Vitali.
It was stupid to think someone so attractive and so generous would be single at his age (did I even know his real age?) and so different from every New Russian Elena kept in her rotation.
‘No, they’re lovers,’ she’d told me. Maybe every single one of them was a Vitali for short periods of time and I was just naive.
And all these thoughts had riled up the kind of anxiety that really could make you puke, so I made off to the nearest bar. I needed to hold a glass of something and occupy my hands, didn’t matter what it was.
The music stopped abruptly as I leaned on the bar top. The stage previously occupied by the DJ lit up, leaving the rest of the club in deep darkness. A middle-aged woman in a dress like a sparkler took the microphone.
“My dear friends,” she started, and then went into an inspired speech about the success of the prior year and all her well wishes for the next.
“Want something?” someone behind me asked.
I snapped around to see the annoyed bartender tapping her fingers on the bar. There was something familiar about her.
“Ah… yes.” I glanced at the stage again and back at her. “Gin and tonic?”
“Oh, you’re Katya,” the woman said, and I immediately placed her as Ana’s friend, Mila. “You want Bombay?”
It was too expensive—but I thought of the wad of Vitali’s cash I now wanted to spitefully spend.
“Yes.”
Mila nodded and plucked the bottle out of the well.
I glanced around again, and this time I spotted him. He sat with his legs spread and foot propped up on a low, glass table. There was no girl on top of him, or beside him, and thankfully not underneath him, either. His eyes were fixed on the dance floor and hand tapping on his lap.
“Here,” Mila said and slid over the glass which smelled strongly of pine needles.
“How much?” I asked.
The lady on stage said something that warranted the entire crowd to clap and cheer. The bartender indifferently waited to answer until it died down.
“I put it on Vitali’s tab,” she said.
He was buying me things even when he didn’t know it. Ha!
“Hey,” I said, and took a long swig, “did he… I mean, when they came in, was it with the girls?”
She raised an eyebrow and suspiciously cocked her head. “No, those are—”
THE NIGHT IS DEEP MY BODY SWAYING—
We both flinched because the song dropped on us suddenly, like a pile of bricks. Mila was undoubtedly used to it, but I wasn’t, and my glass splashed around onto my hand. Another German beat—but so much louder and faster than before.
I almost wiped the sticky drink off on my new Versace dress (wow, didn’t that feel strange to think), but caught myself and looked up to ask Mila for a napkin. She was already reaching for me, but there was no napkin, just long, perfectly manicured fingers, closing in on my hair.