2. Elyse
Elyse
Do I ever play upstairs?
Such a stupid question, asked by a stupidly wealthy man who probably does nothing but play.
Play is not a word in my vocabulary unless I’m hanging out with Fleur, and even then it feels more like duty dressed up as play.
I don’t mean that it’s not fun, or it’s not a pleasure, but I indulge in play as a form of caregiving, I guess.
The playing isn’t about me but about her—it’s about all of us making sure that her childhood is as carefree as possible.
It’s not about me being carefree. Honestly, even the idea of that feels laughable these days.
You’d expect that for guys like Sinclair Voss and Felix Wolff and their buddies, being carefree is literally all they have to do. So it’s kind of funny that when Sinclair asked me if I played, he looked anything but carefree. He’s kind of intense.
And yeah, I knew who he was when I asked for his name, even if I’ve never seen him in here before.
Of course I did.
Every woman in the club knows who he is, but it’s called having some self-respect—something the beautiful blonde lady in the silver dress who was all over him at the bar might want to remember.
She’s every bit as hot as him—and tall, too.
If I had legs as long as hers, my modeling career would be a whole different ball game.
She’s gorgeous. I wish I could remind her of that.
But she’s currently ignoring her own friends and staring at him and his friends as they drink their Old Fashioneds, and she looks super sad.
I don’t get how you get to be as hot and wealthy and shiny as her and still feel like guys hold all the power. It really, truly sucks.
I’m not trying to deny that he’s hot. Denying Sinclair Voss’s hotness is like being a climate change denier or a flat-earther: downright wrong.
But, while I may now share the same airspace as guys like him and women like his sad bar buddy on a regular basis, it doesn’t mean I have anything else in common with them.
I’m here to make their drinks, stamp their hands, and make as much as I possibly can in tips before I catch the PATH home.
As my coworker Pixie reminds me, I’d make a lot more in tips if I flirted more.
I know she’s right. Pixie should run a Teachable masterclass in flirting for tips—and she does a lot more than flirt.
She definitely plays upstairs, if you catch my drift, even though she’s bar staff and not one of the designated hosts who service the members of Alchemy.
I know she’s right. I should flirt more, but it gives me the ick, smiling and simpering at these guys for tips.
It makes me feel cheap, and, in a world where I don’t exactly feel in control, it’s one little crumb of agency I hold onto.
Somewhere quiet and private, deep inside of me, I can admit that if it weren’t for my looks, I’d be completely invisible at Alchemy in the way that so many waitstaff are.
We’re here to make these members’ privileged lives even smoother, even more pleasurable, and beyond that, they don’t want to know us.
My face makes me stand out more than I’d like, and it’s a mixed blessing.
I realize it’s probably the reason I got this job last month—everyone who works at this place is hot—and it’s the reason I get any modeling work at all, obviously.
But it also brings me attention I don’t want in the shape of rich guys hitting on me just to prove something to their finance bro peers.
Still, he tipped me a hundred dollars—the equivalent of over five hours’ work on my rate—which was both generous and unnecessary, especially as twenty percent service is automatically included on all checks and I wasn’t exactly brimming with personality.
Most likely, it was less about generosity and more about throwing his money around, and the thought makes me uneasy even as I calculate how nicely it’ll bump up my tips for the evening.
Rather than think about how uneasy and conflicted it all makes me, I cast my eyes up to the ceiling, where the dancer in her nude bodysuit is making the most beautiful shapes with her body.
The way she moves is like horizontal ballet.
She’s so unhurried. She makes it look easy, twirling two stories up with just some lengths of silk for support. She makes it look relaxing.
She’s moving to a slow, sexy beat that the DJ on stage is nailing, and, just like everything else in this huge converted warehouse, it feels elevated and hypersexual in equal measure.
It’s so much less traditional than The Mark uptown, where I worked before this, and I’m still not exactly comfortable with the reality of what Alchemy is: a discreet place for rich, beautiful people to fuck other rich, beautiful people.
If they play in boardrooms and bars, on yachts and on beaches, then Alchemy takes the definition of playing that Sinclair Voss and his bros use to whole new levels.
Pixie comes around to my side of the big square bar so she can check if any bottles need to be replaced.
“Incredible, isn’t she?” she says with a nod.
“Uh-huh,” I agree, still looking up. The dancer’s silks are suspended from the double-height ceiling.
There’s a big metal staircase near me that leads up to the second floor, which is more of a gallery where the private rooms are.
Then, above that, the third floor that houses the main Playroom.
I was given a tour on the day I interviewed, when it was thankfully empty, but it was still a lot.
It’s safe to say I told that guy the truth—I do not go upstairs.
Period. I’m thankful management hasn’t asked me to work the upstairs bar yet, because I doubt I’d be able to hide my shock at the things that go on in that Playroom, and I’m even more thankful that this floor is a firmly clothes-on space.
“How are tips tonight?” Pixie asks, and I turn to give her my attention.
She’s been super kind to me as I’ve found my feet these past few weeks.
If you need confirmation that what I said is true—that Alchemy only hires hot employees—then I give you Pixie.
She’s stunning: tall and slim, with the kind of lean, toned body only a yoga obsession can give you.
She teaches yoga by day, and she’s told me I can swing by for a free class anytime I like, but I keep making excuses.
Just like playing, yoga is too much of a time luxury right now.
Pixie’s skin is an even brown and, I’m not kidding, flawless, with this beautiful sheen, and her bone structure is perfectly displayed by her bald head.
Of the two of us, she should be the one doing modeling.
No question. I’m obsessed with the way she does her eye makeup.
Tonight, it’s a thick slash of teal across her eyelids and the prettiest dusting of tiny diamonds as freckles across the bridge of her nose.
“Pretty good,” I tell her. “A guy just gave me a hundred dollars extra.”
“Girl! Look at you! Did you flirt like I told you?”
“Not even a little bit,” I confess, and she pouts.
“Useless. Well, clearly you did something right. Who was he?”
I jerk my head to the cluster of guys I know to be still within easy viewing distance of us. “Sinclair Voss.”
“Well, he can certainly afford it,” she says. “Glad he’s repatriating some of the family billions.”
“Right?”
We stand and watch for a moment as the guys chat, a tableau of dynastic wealth and power the level of which I can’t comprehend.
There’s laughter, downright snickering, and a lot of backslapping (literal, but probably figurative, too).
It’s like observing the animals at Staten Island Zoo: they’re exotic and basic in a confusing way.
The appetites of monkeys and the egos of peacocks. So damn sure of themselves.
They’re all tall and dark-haired, but Voss stands out, even at a distance.
There’s something about his intensity. Dude is practically vibrating with it.
Mom would have been able to feel it too, I know it.
His energy is fucked up. Still, with his dark hair and stick-up-his-ass posture and Hamptons tan, he’s a walking ad for the health benefits of concentrated wealth and for the famously enviable Voss genes.
Generation after generation of hot, successful guys marrying insanely beautiful women, and this is the result.
If personality could be eradicated from sperm before the point of fertilization, then the guy should really consider donating to a sperm bank.
“They on their first drink or second?” Pixie asks.
“Second. For all of them.”
“Then I give them five minutes before they’re running up those stairs in search of their next fuck. Apparently, he’s an animal. Voss, I mean.” I turn to look at her in alarm, and she nods. Mark my words. “He may be wearing a twenty-grand suit, but the girls say he’s totally feral.”
A shiver runs through me. I can only imagine.
Actually, I can’t even begin to imagine how guys like that are behind closed doors. And I don’t want to.
Felix Wolff, the charming Brit who seems to be connected to absolutely everyone in here, comes over shortly afterward with the empties.
Apparently, his stepmom founded the original London club, which is pretty cool.
I’ve heard crazy stories about the British founders, but none of them have made it over stateside since I’ve worked here.
I thought Alchemy would be super sleazy, no matter how expensive it is, but that’s not the case at all.
Honestly, it’s kind of like a giant family.
“You get an A-plus for those drinks, Elyse,” he tells me. “Seriously good.”
“Thanks,” I tell him with a smile. I’m sure the quality of the drinking experience was more down to its being made with top-shelf liquor than anything I did, but he’s cute and genuinely friendly, and I’ll take it.
Honestly, I’ll listen to anything he says in that posh British accent.
No wonder many of my coworkers have succumbed to his charms upstairs on more than one occasion.
Employees get automatic access to the Playroom, which I assume is a perk if you like that kind of thing.
He tips two fingers to his temple in a salute. “I’m going into battle, ladies. Into the Valley of Death, as it were. Send prayers.”
“I’ll send them to the poor women who are unlucky enough to collide with your dick,” Pixie retorts, which is exactly the kind of inappropriate, unprofessional banter that guys like Felix seem to love and that I could never in a million years manage with our members.
He howls like a wounded wolf, and I can’t help but burst out laughing.
It’s only when I look behind Felix that I see Mr. Voss staring with something like shock on his face, his blue eyes boring right into me.
I have no idea what that guy’s problem is.
A few months ago, moving back to Bayonne felt like a sign that life was imploding, that dreaming of a big future was both dangerous and something I had no right to do.
But honestly, sometimes I’m glad to leave Manhattan behind and hurtle through the darkness to Jersey.
Sometimes the glittering, thoughtless kind of wealth I witness at Alchemy leaves the kind of scum on my soul that eating cooked spinach does on my teeth.
Most nights, though, my philosophical questions go unasked, because I’m just too darn tired to think.
Most nights, my focus goes on keeping my wits about me as I speed-walk through the deserted streets of Meatpacking to Fourteenth Street.
Tonight, I do more sprinting than running, a mace spray gripped tightly in my hand.
We closed up a little late, and I’m desperate to catch my usual train.
Forty minutes on an empty platform I do not need.
Right now, it’s the end of September, and the weather is New York-perfect.
I can’t imagine what it’ll be like when winter comes.
I make the train and listen to my Hoopla audiobook as we trundle under the Hudson.
There’s an all-too-regular calendar alert on my lock screen for nine a.m. tomorrow: Sylvie - hospital.
When the train spits me out at Hoboken, I make my way out of the station as quickly as possible.
My shifts at Alchemy end later than at The Mark, and that means there’s no light rail to get me home.
Instead, the endless conflict of taking more pain for more money casts its ripple effect outward.
But it doesn’t matter, because this is a team effort.
We pool whatever shattered remnants of our energy we have left, and we pool whatever money we scrounge together from those remnants.
Case in point: the headlights of the fifteen-year-old truck idling across the street.
I smile, even as my heart breaks a little more. We all do our piece, and this is his.
I pull open the door and climb up into the truck, mustering up a smile for the man waiting for me. If I’m tired, he’s exhausted—and we both have to be up again in five hours. I stuff my bag at my feet and lean across the cab to kiss him on his bearded cheek.
“Hey, Dad,” I say, pulling blindly on my seatbelt.
“Hey, baby. There’s my girl.”
I let my head fall back against the headrest as he pulls the truck out of the bay and we head into the night.