3. CHAPTER TWO #2
“Well, we can’t call you ‘Gretchen,’” she laughs.
“I mean, that’s not exactly drip, right?
Maybe if we were hosting, like, a quilting circle, your name would be super-cute.
But this is pole, babe. We’re here to bring out the sexy.
‘Gretchen,’” she goes on, using air quotes around my evidently-now-defunct name, “is, well. Just, no.” She places one hand on a cocked hip.
Wow .
Discombobulated by the interactions of the past two minutes, I simply nod and accept my fate. I am here to make money. If my moniker – passed down from my beloved grandmother – is a no-go, I can live with that. I smile and nod, affirming my rebirth as Summer.
“Slay,” Arrow says. “Come. I’ll show you where to put your stuff.”
I follow her to a bank of lockers in the corner of the room. They look like the ones at the Diamond Excelsior, all wooden laminate fronts and electronic code locks you can set and reset over and over again.
“Nice, right?” Arrow comments. When I look up at her, curiously, she adds, “What? I can tell an impressed face when I see one. I’m very intuitive.”
I clear my throat. “Sorry. I was just noticing how these are the same lockers as the –”
“Chatham Bars Inn? Wequassett Resort? Diamond Excelsior?” She grins.
“I know. I was hooking up with a guy who did spa deliveries for the company that makes them. He was able to score me a bank of these lockers when they were ‘damaged’ in packaging by a rogue Sharpie marker. The guys at the factory designated them for the garbage. Evidently, no one ever told those fools that a little rubbing alcohol can take Sharpie marker off most non-porous surfaces.”
I render myself surprised by this anecdote, partially because I was unaware of that nugget of knowledge about rubbing alcohol, and partially because it sounds rather intelligent, and the speaker of this information is wearing little more than a sparkle panty.
The adage don’t judge a book by its cover comes to mind. I shake it off, willing myself to be present. “They’re nice – um – the lockers. And yeah. I used to work at the Diamond Excelsior. ”
“Well, good. Then, I don’t have to teach you how to program the code. So, you’ll lock up your personal belongings when you come in. Cosmo-pole-itan is not responsible for any of your stuff going missing.”
“Got it.” I nod.
“Put your phone in there, too. None of us have phones during parties. That way, we can’t be blamed for sensitive material ending up on the internet.”
“Understood.” I toss my keys, cell phone, and wristlet into the locker, program my code (9-1-9-9, my birth date) and follow Arrow past a garment rack through a doorway that leads to a cramped office space.
It houses an old metal desk with some post-its, pens, an oversized toaster oven, a Maglite flashlight, and a pair of fuzzy handcuffs strewn about – because that makes perfect sense – alongside a shelving unit packed to the brim with oversized shoeboxes.
Against the wall rests a broom and dustpan, a tall stack of large, cardboard boxes, and a handful of serving trays.
But the centerpiece of the tiny space is a black refrigerator covered in penis magnets and a lone photograph of Arrow (but with brown hair instead of blonde) standing with her arms around a little girl.
“Aw, she’s a cutie,” I offer, wondering if that’s her daughter in the picture.
“Yup,” Arrow says. I wait to see if she’ll say anything else, but she just lets the unfinished answer hang in the air between us.
“This will be your staging area,” she continues, clearly not one to discuss anything of a remotely personal nature with a new hire.
“Your job is to keep the patrons safe and happy and to monitor the party vibe. ”
“Uh huh,” I nod.
“So, the name of the game is Jell-O shots,” she explains, opening up the refrigerator and gesturing to its contents.
That’s all that’s in there – just layers upon layers of Rubbermaid baking boxes filled with red and pink Jell-O in little, plastic shot glasses.
It looks like a peculiar advertisement for children’s Benadryl.
Oh, wait. There’s also one Oikos yogurt.
I chuckle, trying to seem worldly in my Jell-O consumption. “People still drink these?” I ask, in an attempt to look like one of those party girls who regularly consumed alcohol prior to meeting the legal age requirement.
“You have no idea,” Arrow replies. “Even people who come in all virtuous like, ‘I’m good, I’m not drinking,’ can be swayed to partake in a Jell-O shot.”
“Pssh. Right?” I interject, hoping she can’t see right through me.
She nods. “They’re arranged by color based on how the party’s going. The red ones mean we need to turn up the heat and get people to loosen up. They’re made with Absolut 100. Those have to cook for longer because of the elevated alcohol content.”
“Cook?”
“In the fridge. You know what I mean,” Arrow says. “Anyway, the dark pink ones are raspberry. They’re made with Smirnoff, so instead of being 50% ABV like the red ones, they’re only 35. It’s like a continuum.”
“Right,” I say. Again, I’m equally baffled and impressed by her lexicon .
“Then, we’ve got the strawberry pink shots. They’re made with Cruzan coconut rum. Super light, only 21% ABV but they taste good. Once the party hits its peak, we serve up these ones to maintain the vibe.”
“The raspberry and strawberry look kind of similar.”
“Oh, fuck,” she says, standing up straight to look me over. “You’re not color blind, right? That’s a no-go.”
I shake my head. “No, I’m not color blind. I was just noticing that those two are –”
Arrow picks up the Maglite. “In the dark, it’s even harder to tell.
So there’s a few options. One, you use this mack-daddy flashlight here.
Two, you open a container and smell them.
Three, you taste one. But only one,” she warns.
“These go like hot cakes, and we can’t be wasting our supply.
Also, you and I haven’t partied together, so I have no clue what your tolerance is.
We don’t drink on the job unless necessary – like, I might take the welcome shot with a party just to get them warmed up.
Anyway, if we get the sense that the group is getting too rowdy – which, to be clear, is when someone starts looking a little green or can’t stand up straight anymore – we switch to the lemon drop shots.
By that point, they won’t care what color they’re drinking, and they’ll gladly take whatever we give them. ”
“What are those made with?”
“Nothing. Just lemon juice, gelatin and water, with a lime garnish to make it look fancy. We’ll also bring out pretzel bites at that point.
We cook those in the toaster oven. The bread absorbs the alcohol, the salt makes them thirsty, which leads to more lemon drops, and the acid in the citrus slows the effects of drinking and rehydrates the body. ”
I’m stunned into silence. “Hm,” I mumble.
“Your job is to be the server, as well as the party barometer. You have to decide what color shot to bring out based on how the party’s going.”
“Okay,” I say.
“You’re also responsible for the key box and making all the shots.”
“I’m sorry, the what?”
“Oh. The key box. You’ll be the party police. The babysitter. Jenna said you’re good with kids, so this’ll be a good job for you. You know how, at a Chapelle show, you gotta give up your phone at the door?”
“Um, I think I’ve heard that, yeah.”
“Same thing here. When each person comes in, they give you their car keys, like a valet. Just the car. We don’t want or need anyone’s house keys or extra mailbox key or whatever else they’ve got.
Keys go in the lock box, which works the same as the lockers.
You keep the box and when the party’s over, you decide if a patron needs an Uber or can drive.
We hold keys overnight, and then the next day, we have tow-yard hours in the late afternoon just before the next party.
People can come get their cars during that time. ”
“Wow,” I say. “This is a lot more detailed than I expected it would be.”
“Listen, Summer. We’re here to throw the best party of these people’s lives. That shit takes diligent planning. And there are two things that really fuck up a good time. Do you know what they are?”
“Um – ”
“Vomit and death.”
“Right,” I agree.
“So, I won’t have those in my house. Every party will be you, me, and three of my girls.
We never host more than 30 at a time just based on pole space, but they can bring in whatever they want – catering, additional entertainment, whatever.
These are ladies with money to spend: they’re getting married, they’ve come up for the weekend or the week, they’re sunburned and horny as hell, and it’s on us to show them the time of their lives. ”
“Okay. Yup.”
“You get paid a flat rate of $350 per party. Each party costs them $3,000, which includes alcohol and 3 hours at the studio. They pay half that up front and the balance on the night of the event. We add an automatic gratuity to the bill of 25%. It’s listed right there in front of them but usually they still pull me to the side and ask me how much to tip.
So I tell them that $100 per girl is customary, and not to forget their shot girl.
Usually that gives us an extra $500 added to the bill.
Whatever we make in tips, we split evenly.
This is a sisterhood, so it doesn’t matter if you’re dancing or teaching or managing the party temperature, we all need to work together to pull off a perfect night.
On a typical day, each of us will make an additional $250 in tips. ”
Quick math tells me that’s $600 for one shift. If I work five days a week, that’s three grand.
Holy shit. My mouth turns up into a smile.
“Good?” Arrow asks.
I nod.
“You ready to party? ”
The last party I attended was for Sadie’s fourth birthday.
She’s my little cousin. The party was in the backyard of their home in southeastern Connecticut.
We played Hot Potato and Pin-The-Tail-On-The-Donkey, and after the cupcakes, the tiny tykes took turns smashing a pinata shaped like Peppa Pig with a yardstick.
Everyone was gone by 8:00 p.m., which was way past the bedtime of the children invited, and was not too far off from my own bedtime.
I suspect this evening’s festivities will be a bit more interesting.
“Hell, yeah,” I respond.
Not in Kansas, indeed.