The next person, a squat man with a thick mustache and black-rimmed glasses, was about to speak.
“I love my limousine,” he said. “My driver takes me everywhere.”
Gary tried to sneak out, but the scrawny woman grabbed his ankle again.
“Respect,” she said.
Finally, Gary found the words to speak.
“What are you guys?”
“Alcoholics Anonymous,” she said. “I am Tara G. What’s your name?”
Gary was staring at the glass of champagne in Tara G.’s hand. Then he swallowed hard and kicked her hand away with his other foot. The impact caused her to lurch sideways and pitch her drink headlong across the spa, but her body didn’t stop arcing away, and she ended up spilling sideways into the Jacuzzi.
Gary bolted out of there before any of the rich people could round up the energy to chase him.
He found himself back in the main hall facing the club’s entrance—a.k.a. the mouth—within less than a minute. Fortunately, the crush of party guests hogging the space had since gone elsewhere, so he could move around more freely.
In the section nearest the entrance to the right was the “green room,” which housed a smoky cloud hovering over a series of tables where old white men traded cards and puffed on cigars. A stoic bouncer stood guard at the entrance of the roped-off area surrounding the floor. He was stiff and beastly, standing stick straight with his legs spread at shoulder width and his arms folded over his barrel chest. Even though it was dark and murky in the club, he wore sunglasses to hide the menace in his eyes, or that one puppy dog feature—Gary couldn’t tell from here.
It was pretty obvious that Nikki wasn’t in here.
“Go fish,” said one of the old men to another.
Gary spotted a half door in back of the room cracked open and leading into some dark place. He edged past the bouncer, refusing eye contact, and made for it. When no one tried to stop him, he pulled the half door open to investigate. He found nothing but a broom closet and two emo goths making out inside.
He winced and closed the door tight. Then he peeked back in to make sure the girl wasn’t Nikki. It wasn’t, so he returned to the mouth, where he could check on the mysterious place beyond the uvula.
Just like a biological throat, the room beyond the cave-like entrance curved downward at a steep slope and descended into a basement lit only by torches. Past the basement was another hallway, this one more generously brightened by the pleasant luminance of opposing walls fit with illuminated aquariums. It was there that he realized he was running out of places to search.
At the end of the hall was a single door, pleated with leather, and guarded by a woman in a can-can uniform. She sat on a stool, and her ruffled dress did its job covering her legs, but a sign on the wall beside her promised all entering guests that she had the power to kick anyone right in the face if they were to act up, so they should behave if they knew what was good for them. Gary wasn’t certain if the warning was for those attempting to use the room beyond, or for those attempting to hit on her. He moved past her with his head down, just to be safe.
The room beyond the can-can bouncer, the “gold room,” had the dimming atmosphere of a café built for CEOs, politicians, and mobsters, with its recessive lighting, its juicy potted plants, its buxom beauty serving staff, and its low-volume jazz music (most likely at extreme odds with the blaring music piping out of the magenta room above). The visitors here were anything but “classy,” though. The majority of people dining in here tonight were scantily clad twenty-somethings who were interested only in beer and nachos.
Once again, Gary searched the faces of the people in the crowd, but he was getting tired of it. The whole club was a magnet for Nikki types stretched to the extreme, and examining each similar face caused his brain to swirl. Adding to the exhaustion was the obvious romantic leaning the gold room had over all the other rooms in the club, including the blue room, which Gary would’ve expected was the destination for romance if not for the rich alcoholics roosting at the Jacuzzi or the goth kids making out in the broom closet where the old men played cards. To check for sign of Nikki, he had to study the face and the clothing of each woman he saw, and each one was sharing a table with a man who did not seem happy that Gary was checking out his date.
At one point, a short bald guy jumped up from the booth and confronted Gary about his intrusive staring.
“Dude, what’s your problem?” he said.
Gary was looking past him and didn’t know what he was talking about, so he shrugged.
“Don’t know.”
The short bald man cocked his head to the side and raised his hands like he wanted to start some trouble.
“Yeah? Your problem is that you’re staring at my girl a little too longingly.”
Gary blinked, then looked at the guy. He had actually been looking at another girl about three tables away.
“Er, which one’s yours?”
The man gestured sideways to the brunette sitting embarrassed beside him, clearly out of Gary’s line of vision. Then he poked Gary in the chest.
“You ain’t gonna sleep with her tonight, so quit your lusting, you piece of crap.”
Gary shrugged.
“Okay.”
He walked on before the guy could accuse him of making a pass at his girlfriend, who was now behind him.
Little did the short bald guy know, Gary did have a problem. But not with him, or his embarrassed girlfriend. No, the issue now was that he was beginning to fear he had lost Nikki. Even though she was a terrible first impression, after spending twenty minutes dealing with the nuts and freaks who dwelled in the bowels of the Wild Luck Hut, he realized that Nikki was a beautiful saint who needed a second chance, and he hoped among all hope that he could give her that second chance. He didn’t understand why she’d want to come here in the first place, but he remembered what she’d told him nonetheless. She came here to meet her boyfriend. That meant coming here was his idea. That meant he was the freak. And Gary couldn’t stand the idea of Nikki wasting her life on a freak. So, if she were still anywhere in the club, he would find her, and he would rescue her, and he would take her far away from this awful place, giving her the proper chance to date a man of normal character.
***
At the opposite end of the gold room, Gary found an opening adorned with black leather streamers. When he brushed the streamers aside and peeked through the doorway, he finally caught sight of Nikki. She was sitting in an egg-shaped chair, pixelating under a black and white checkered rotating light. The room was mostly monochrome, with the occasional splash of hot pink, and it was populated with a sparse mix of people who danced cobra-style in their chairs. The music was scored with a trance track, a continuous stream of instrumentals peppered with seductive feminine vocals uttering a version of “ooh” or “ahh” every eighth meter, and the swaying of the people in the room matched its progressive rhythm.
He entered the room, stepped over a pool noodle, and crossed the digitally enhanced floor with caution, weaving around the egg-shaped chairs until he found himself beside the lonely Nikki and her blank stare. Her eyes were open, but she was looking at nothing. He waved his hands in front of her. She didn’t react. He wondered if he should turn around and run as far away from this place as possible. But he didn’t. He just took her hand instead.
“What happened to your boyfriend?” he asked her.
She maintained her gaze upon nothing.
“Did he stand you up?”
No answer.
“Whatever he did, he’s probably an idiot, so I wouldn’t worry about it.”
She blinked.
“I’m sure you could do better.”
He wasn’t sure if he believed that, but he was trying to console her, and for her, that took a little faith.
“Want me to buy you a milkshake?” he asked. “To ease your pain a little?”
She looked up at him, but didn’t say anything.
“You like vani
lla? Chocolate? Banana?”
“Wasabi,” she said.
Gary blinked.
“Say what now?”
“I like unique things.”
He tugged on her hand and lifted her out of the chair.
“Where are we going to find a place that sells wasabi flavored milkshakes?” he asked.
“I know a place.”
“Sounds awful. Let’s go find it.”
***
Gary sat in that plush stool across the table from her, mesmerized as he watched her sip the pistachio green milkshake. Every sip she took ended with her massaging her temples and squeezing her eyes shut, as if she were enduring a consistent stream of freeze headaches. He wondered why she would choose to punish herself so much. But he kept watching, fascinated by her masochism.
When she got halfway through the shake, she tilted her straw forward.
“Would you like a sip?” she asked.
Gary wasn’t sure how to answer that. On the one hand, he liked the idea of sharing a milkshake with this new, beautiful, unusual woman he’d found on the street, and nothing spelled “date” like sharing a milkshake. But on the other hand, it was wasabi flavored. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that drinking anything wasabi flavored took balls or insanity.
“Sure.”
She passed the cup to him and he carefully pursed his lips around the straw’s tip. Nikki’s lips had been around it just a few seconds earlier, so in a way, taking this sip was a little like kissing her via remote. But the second phase, the slurping of the shake, made him fidget. Unfortunately, he was too deep in the process to chicken out now. He couldn’t look like a coward to her. He just had to get it over with. He slurped.
The initial flavor was like a hard mint, slightly bitter, but distinctively sharp. Then the nasal pain kicked in. He felt his sinuses catch fire in an instant. Then, just as quickly as it had zapped him, it went away. He hiccupped, passed the shake back, and then smiled at her.
“It’s…good,” he said.
She smiled.
“You don’t have to lie to me. It’s not.”
He shook his head.
“No, it’s a terrible idea for a milkshake flavor.”
“I agree.”
He rubbed his temples. Then he reached for a napkin to wipe his mouth. Then he stared at her. She was staring back.
“You were testing me tonight, weren’t you?” he asked.
“What makes you think that?”
He leaned forward and looked her right in those icy blue eyes.
“No sane woman would date a guy who’d ask her to meet at the Wild Luck Hut. That place is a freak show, and I’d lose respect for you if your story was even remotely true.”
She smiled again.
“You passed.”
Chapter 6
“The Relationship Montage”
Gary and Nikki decided to give dating a legitimate try. They agreed to take it slow, since they were less likely to kill each other if the passion were to burn out before they anticipated. But, they also didn’t know each other’s relational pasts or thresholds for pain, and they didn’t want to screw things up right out of the gate. Immediate passion was fun and mysterious, but they’d tried that with other people, and they weren’t with those other people anymore, so they figured the slower approach was worth a shot. They had no idea if it was any better; they just knew it was different, and different came with hope.
For their first post-Wild Luck Hut date, they chose to hang out at the mall. It was the Friday after Thanksgiving, and they were instantly swallowed up by a maddening crowd. But they made a game of it. They pretended they were salmon swimming upstream a busy river. Then they talked about why salmon swam upstream and immediately changed the subject. It was too intimate, too soon.
They met up again the first Friday in December at a park downtown. Even though the park closed at sundown, they decided to walk along the shadowed paths under the waxing moon. They thought it was a good idea initially, but changed their mind when they stumbled upon a campsite full of naked hippies roasting marshmallows by a fire. Again, too intimate, too soon.
The second and third Friday in December, they just spent texting each other. Nikki was too busy studying for finals to go out, and Gary was stuck working late at his retailer for the holiday rush. They did what they could to make the most of it, but Gary was certainly less than engaged. He preferred seeing her face-to-face.
Gary: Hey, Nikki.
Nikki: hey
Gary: What you up to tonight?
Nikki: studying
Gary: Going well?
Nikki: OMG, no!
Gary: Hey, BRB. Work calls.
Nikki: k
(time passed)
Gary: Back.
Nikki: k
Gary: What’re you studying?
Nikki: school
Gary: What subject?
Nikki: all of them
Gary: Argh, another customer.
Nikki: k
Nikki wasn’t much of a conversationalist, he realized, but she was stunning to look at. Therefore, spending not one but two Friday nights in a row just texting her kinda sucked.
Fortunately, they got to see each other again after her semester ended. They decided to spend the holidays together.
The holiday was a quaint affair. Her family was in Europe on a three-week vacation, and she couldn’t afford to go with them, so she stayed behind to keep an eye on the house. While she was on her own, she had bought a small Christmas tree—basically a malnourished shrub—and wrapped around it a string of lights and set it on the coffee table. Then she clipped cherries to the branches to give it some additional color. Gary had helped her with the decorations. It had brought them closer together. They’d kissed for the first time beside that ugly shrub. Their dating relationship had officially ignited a minute later. Whatever plan they had in taking it slow went out the window in that moment. They spent the next three hours kissing by the Christmas shrub. Gary had never tasted anything so sweet in his life.
During their adventure through the mall on Black Friday, Nikki had finally noticed the sorry state of Gary’s shoes and made a snide comment about them.
“Your toes enjoying all that air?” she asked.
Gary didn’t think anything of it. He liked his shoes, even if they were falling apart. The important thing was that the soles held, for the most part, and he could walk without them peeling off mid-stride. But Nikki continued to make silly comments about them. Then, as a joke, she walked him into a shoe store and showed him all of the brand names she was going to buy him for Christmas. He laughed, of course, even though it wasn’t that funny, and that was that. They left the store and went on with their date.
The days went by, and the relationship continued to heat up. Gary had no idea what he’d done right, but he couldn’t believe his luck the day the bus had almost smashed into him. And he also had to thank Shawn, a number of times, for urging him to make that move on her. He admitted that he never would have believed it was possible on his own, and if not for Shawn, he wouldn’t have ended up with someone as amazing as Nikki.
But, as Valentine’s Day crept ever closer, Gary noticed Shawn’s attitude about Nikki changing. When they were out trying to figure out what to buy their respective girlfriends for the holiday, Shawn said something to Gary that Gary didn’t expect.
“I think she’s using you, dude,” he said.
Gary was a little surprised by the comment. For the last three months, Shawn had been fist-bumping him over every new milestone he had reached with Nikki. It was on Shawn’s advice that Gary introduce her to his parents, which he hadn’t followed through on, but he had nonetheless appreciated the suggestion. Shawn had even volunteered to let Gary spend the New Year alone with Nikki, to enjoy the time together without outside distraction. So, when Shawn made that claim, he didn’t know where that idea had come from.
“I see how she looks at you,” he said. “It’s not the way Ronda lo
oks at me.”
“Ronda doesn’t really like you though, does she?” Gary asked.
Shawn shrugged.
“Doesn’t matter. The point is, Nikki doesn’t look at you like she’s into you.”
Gary stuffed his hands in his pockets. He had no idea where Shawn had gotten that idea. He tried searching his mind for evidence to his claim, but every picture of her he saw in his mind, Nikki was smiling at him as if she wanted him to take her right there right now.
“I think you’re wrong.”
Shawn shook his head.
“No, I’m not. I know when a chick is into a dude, and she ain’t into you like you are into her.”
Gary wanted to laugh. Clearly, Shawn was delusional. But he thought about it more. Then he realized that he saw her smile that way at him even when she was doing her taxes the week before. He frowned. Maybe Shawn had a point.
“How does she look at me then?”
Shawn patted him on the shoulder.
“Like she’s doing you a favor.”
Gary narrowed his eyebrows. That didn’t sound right to him.
“No, I reject that,” he said. “What favor could she possibly give me? We’re in love.”
“You’re in love. The favor she’s doing is dating you.”
“That’s ridiculous. We kiss like all the time.”
“Yeah, women are great at that, even when they’re not into it. It’s a game.”
Gary smirked at the idea. He knew Nikki. They were great together. She loved him. Shawn was being ridiculous.
“Okay,” he said. “If she is doing me a favor, then what’s her angle?”
Shawn swiped an ad for a vacuum cleaner off of a display rack on their way to the next shop.
“She wants you to do her a favor. Obviously.”
He slapped the vacuum cleaner ad into Gary’s hand.
“Okay, what favor?”
Shawn shrugged again.
“How am I supposed to know? She’s not using me.”
***
By April, Gary noticed Nikki making more or more excuses about how busy she was, and how they would need to postpone their dates for another night. By May, she was kissing him less often than in the months before. By June, she was kissing him almost exclusively on the cheek. When Gary asked her if everything was all right, she simply smiled, patted his arm, and said, “Of course.” He didn’t know what more to ask, so he left it alone.