Sex, Secrets and South Beach (6 page)

"See what I meant? You
were cute before. Now you're
beautiful
," Ginger said. Desiree
gave her a great big hug, which caught Ginger completely off
guard.

"Thank you, Ginger, for everything!"
Desiree spoke with sincerity, her eyes slightly misty. No one had
ever taken the time to teach her how to style her hair or put on
makeup. No one had ever taken her shopping for pretty and
fashionable clothes. It had been so long since anyone
cared.

"No problem, shawty" Ginger hugged
Desiree back, thinking that Oprah and all those other talk show
hosts must feel just like she did when they did makeover shows.
Every once in a while, it felt good to do something for someone
else, Ginger silently admitted. But she wasn't going to make it a
habit.

They got dressed and hopped back into
the BMW. Ginger's home looked so beautiful in the moonlight, little
foot-lights illuminating her tile driveway. Desiree felt like she'd
been on the go nonstop but was loving every minute of it. In a
short twenty-four hours she had found a great place to live, had
come up on some funds, had a whole new look and a new best friend.
Desiree vowed to herself that she would have a whole new life in
Miami, a glamorous life. She had a clean slate. No one knew who she
was or where she had been. In Miami she was going to be somebody.
It was obvious by the way things were falling into place for
her.

When they hit the strip,
Desiree was amazed at
how different
everything looked. Gone was the laid-back casualness she'd seen
earlier that evening. After dark, Miami came alive. Exotic cars
were jammed bumper-to-bumper on the strip. Women paraded the
streets in skimpy fashions. There was a line outside of every club
they passed.

"Usually, it isn't this hectic during
the week. But since the Super Bowl is here, everyone is out and
about."

Ginger enlightened Desiree about South
Beach. "This is Washington, where we were earlier. See, there's
Metro. There's a bunch of clubs on this street. There's Cream all
the way down there on Sixth; there's Glam Slam, Prince's old club,
which is closed right now. I think someone is about to buy it,
though, and do something new. There's also Liquid and the Living
Room; there’s Chaos, which is my personal favorite, and the Cameo
Theater. There are more clubs spread out here and there, like
Penrod's and Amnesia. Plus, there's this new spot called the Bar
Room. Oh yeah and Alonzo Mourning's Club Onyx, but I'm not sure if
it's open. Just don't go to Club Cristal. Everyone says it's fun,
but it's way too ghetto in my opinion. You gotta be real careful in
joints like that. A lot of niggas from the club be up in there, so
why would you want to go anyway? You gotta go where the hot shit
is. The tourists that come over from Europe and South America be
havin' major paper. I'm trying to roll like that, so I go where
they go. For example, restaurants are fun, and nice places to see
and be seen. There's a lot to do on the beach. You'll get to know
it well soon enough. Plus, I've got to take you to Coconut Grove.
Oh and Bermuda Bar up in Aventura. Plus, there are a couple of
spots like Baja's, the Chili Pepper, Manhattan's, Christopher's,
and the Brickhouse up in Broward. That's Fort Lauderdale and
Pembroke Pines and Hollywood, but you'll see all that soon too."
Ginger was pointing left and right, rattling off details like a
tour guide.

Desiree's head was swimming with all
the information, her pulse racing with excitement. Everyone looked
so beautiful and in shape. The people were glamorous and just
seemed to have flavor. This was what the hype was all about, South
Beach. Desiree could dig it.

"Damn, there seems to be a lot of
clubs," Desiree remarked.

"Oh hell yeah! That's what we do in
Miami. We kick it. This week is going to be real fun. We're going
to work, but we're going to play a little harder. You said you
wanted to meet a baIler. If it doesn't happen this week, it's never
going to happen. I'm gonna school you on how to run these niggas."
Ginger headed away from all of the action and made a couple of
twists and turns, then left her car with a valet in front of Groove
Jet. There was a line, and a big bouncer stood guarding a velvet
rope.

"Damn, we've got to wait in line?"
Desiree pouted. She was ready to party.

"Ha!" Ginger snorted. "I
don't do these kinds of lines. The key is to walk to the front of
the line like you belong in there. If you act like you
belong
in line, like you
deserve to wait and plead to get in, that's how these people will
treat you. Look confident," Ginger instructed. They strolled to the
velvet rope. The bouncer did not acknowledge them right away, but
when he did, he smiled and asked them to take their IDs out. They
went to another doorperson, who glanced at their IDs using a
flashlight, then handed them two VIP wristbands.

"We don't have to pay?" Desiree
whispered to Ginger.

"Not when you look like us. Don't get
me wrong. Sometimes we will definitely have to pay. Shit! Sometimes
we'll have to pay out the ass, but it'll be worth it. Just enjoy
yourself."

Desiree was amazed at how many people
were out kicking it on a weeknight. There was a live band that was
playing some funk, accompanied by a DJ who provided an occasional
scratch or break beat. It was different than anything Desiree had
seen personally, though she was sure that in Manhattan there had to
be something similar. After the band finished their set, a new DJ
appeared and took over, spinning hip-hop. Desiree and Ginger drank
apple martinis and danced until the club closed at 5
a.m.

They repeated the ritual several times
that week at other venues. They attended a private party to
celebrate the opening of the Bar Room on Thursday; checked out
Amnesia on Friday after they'd had drinks at the Marlin, and went
party hopping and strip cruising on Saturday.

Rather than work the strip clubs,
Desiree and Ginger entertained at a few private parties. Some were
held by businessmen, but a couple of them had been for professional
athletes. They were always paid one thousand dollars up front for
dancing. They made a few hundred more in tips. Then if there were
men who wanted special attention, they would provide it with one
stipulation: only one man a night. That always started a bidding
war for their services, the men's natural competitive instincts
kicking in. Men always wanted something that they thought they
couldn't have. Desiree wanted to screw all night and collect as
much cash as possible, but Ginger explained to her that they
weren't some cheap hos to get run up and done up. They didn't,
however, mind the exchange of ass for cash, if – and only if – the
price was right. They earned a couple thousand a night for a couple
hours of work, and a few humps and pumps from a man with money to
blow and an ego to feed. They managed to arrange their work and
play schedules so that they transitioned seamlessly; the week felt
like one giant party. The pinnacle of the week was when they
attended the Super Bowl with some fat cat lawyers they'd
"entertained." Desiree felt as if she were dreaming, because in one
short week her entire life had changed.

Desiree was becoming addicted to the
rush she got when a stack of money exchanged hands. It was almost
like an aphrodisiac to hear the rustle of bills being counted.
Ginger told Desiree what men wanted and what they liked sexually
and otherwise, and how to get them to come up off the dough. She
taught her where the rich men were, and what to say to them. Ginger
seemed to have a different approach for every type of baIler:
white, black, Latin, young, old, street, corporate, old-money,
new-money. Desiree absorbed every bit of information that Ginger
gave her like a giant sponge, because Ginger had the goods to back
up all her talk. In Desiree's eyes Ginger had made it, and she was
going to make it too. Desiree realized that Ginger had been very
right about her potential when at the end of the week she realized
she'd made over ten thousand dollars.

February 1999

P
ack your bags, pickney. We gwan to St.
Thomas
,
mon!" Ginger bubbled in a Miss Cleo-fake, Caribbean accent as
she bounded into the house, her arms full of bags. Desiree sat on
the couch scribbling furiously in a notebook and eating chips while
she bobbed her head to music blaring from a set of headphones.
Ginger sat next to her and pulled the headset away from her
ear.

"Did you hear me?"

"No."

"What are you doing?" Ginger craned
her neck to get a peek at Desiree's notebook.

"Nothing, just doodling," Desiree
said, snapping the notebook shut. She turned the headphones off.
"What did you say?"

"I said pack your bags because we're
going to St. Thomas!"

"We are? When? Why?" Desiree bombarded
her with questions, jumping up from her position on the couch,
chips spilling everywhere. She'd been to the Dominican Republic,
but only once, and that was when she was a little girl. Aside from
that, her travels had been limited. Now she was going to the Virgin
Islands! She was so glad she'd met Ginger. She'd been living with
her for only about a month, but the woman was truly broadening her
horizons.

"We can leave tomorrow. The club is
paying for our ticket over and our first night's hotel," Ginger
explained.

"You mean that there are strip clubs
in the Virgin Islands? We're going to work?"

"Of course! Remember I got the soup
there that helped cure your hangover?" Ginger was talking a mile a
minute.

"Yeah, I remember, but-" Desiree
started.

Ginger cut her off. "Why did you think
I was over there?" Ginger rolled her eyes toward the heavens and
put her hands on her hips.

"Vacation?" Desiree
responded.

"More like a working vacation," Ginger
clarified.

"Oh. Well, that sounds cool. Tell me
about the club." Desiree grabbed Ginger by the hand and pulled her
onto the couch. She imagined the club to be lush and tropical,
maybe with no ceiling or roof like one of her favorite nightclubs,
Amnesia.

"Well, the club looks like shit:
concrete floor, wooden benches, a tiny little stage with a
pole."

Desiree's bubble burst. It didn't
sound like anything to be excited about. "Uh, okay. So do the men
have a lot of money?"

"Some do. Most don't. We're not gonna
make a g a night."

"Well, if we're not gonna make our
paper, why are we going?" Desiree furrowed her brow.

"St. Thomas is pretty," Ginger
stated.

"Uh-huh..." Desiree waited for a
reason to get hyped.

"Plus, I know a couple of fine-ass
niggas, they're brothers, and they're gonna take us dancing and
shopping and to eat and stuff."

"They got money?" Desiree
queried.

"My my my, don't we catch on quickly,
little protégée? Slow your roll!" Ginger chuckled at Desiree's
gold-digger attitude.

"Well, do they?" Desiree
insisted.

"They do all right. St. Thomas is real
small, so for there, yeah, they're ballin' out of control. They got
a nice-ass crib up in the mountains and you can see the beach. They
got some tight little whips too. But, nena, you should see them!
Girl, they are fine as hell! Their faces, their skin, their
bodies...oh my God! I don't think you can begin to understand how
fine these niggas are!" Ginger closed her eyes, hugged her body,
and shuddered as if the mere thought of their beauty were
unbearable.

"Well, damn. Now I really wanna go.
I've got to see these niggas. They're brothers, you
said?"

"Yeah, I fuck with the older one, but
his younger brother is cute to death. You'll like him. Plus, we can
layout on the beach and tan. We can just be beach bums for a while
but still make some bread on the side. I need to recharge my
batteries, nena. I've been kind of stressing lately."

"Why?" Desiree inquired.

"Just some bullshit." Ginger brushed
off the question. "There are spots over there that are so calm and
so peaceful, nothing, absolutely nothing, can bother me there. No
ghosts can haunt me there. I can be free, totally free, even if it
is only temporary." Ginger smiled faintly, her eyes distant. In
spirit, Ginger was already lying on the pale white sand, soaking up
the St. Thomas sun.

Desiree thought Ginger was the freest
person she had ever known. She had money, clothes, jewelry, a nice
car, and everything else a girl could want. On top of that, she was
smart and she was beautiful.

"How come you don't feel free now?
You've got it all, and you call the shots."

"Then I guess it's true what they say,
‘More money, more problems,’ " Ginger replied, a tear rolling down
her cheek. She brushed it away quickly and went into her
room.

Desiree fell asleep that
night running from
ghosts
.
It
was a fretful sleep; the sweaty palms of things she couldn't elude
kept clawing at her, mauling her with their despair. Distorted
images flashed through her head; voices dragged like a record being
played on the wrong speed.

"It's all your fault! It's all your
fault!" a voice taunted from nowhere, singsongy and teasing like a
schoolchild.

"It's not my fault! Not my fault!"
Desiree bolted upright in bed, her skin moist with perspiration. It
took a long time, but finally, she was able to get back to
sleep.

The next morning Ginger was her usual
self, focused on paper and not problems. Desiree, however, was a
bit unsettled. When Ginger asked her what was wrong, she blamed it
on being nervous, so they smoked a fat blunt to calm their flying
jitters. They ended up speeding to the airport because they'd
gotten too high to concentrate on leaving soon enough to arrive on
time. They caught their plane by a hair, arriving just as an
attendant was about to close the door to the ramp leading to the
aircraft that was taking them to St. Thomas. Desiree had never
heard of Presidential Air before, and prayed they weren't some
shiesty airline that skimped on safety. Out of breath and
disheveled, they flopped into the first seats they came to; the
plane was practically empty.

Ginger and Desiree got toasted when
the liquor cart came I around. They chugged miniature bottles of
Jack Daniel's and then sipped on Heinekens while Dez stared out at
the cotton-candy clouds that floated in the snow-cone-blue sky. At
least the airline didn't skimp on the liquor. The plane hit some
turbulence and shook like an earthquake, causing her stomach to
lurch. She grabbed the airsickness bag just in case. Ginger looked
at her and laughed.

"I don't see how you can't be scared
shitless," Desiree moaned, clutching her stomach.

"Girl, I came to America on a raft. It
takes more than this to scare me. Besides, I'm not afraid to die. I
wanna see what's on the other side anyway," Ginger slurred. "Break
on through to the other side! Break on through to the other side!"
She sang the Doors classic happily, shaking her hair wildly.
Desiree cracked up. Then the plane dipped and dropped a few hundred
feet. Ginger threw her arms up in the air like she was on a roller
coaster. Desiree threw up in the barf bag.

The plane made a brief stop in St.
Croix, landing on a teeny little strip of concrete surrounded on
all sides by the lapis-blue Atlantic. Frantic that they would miss
the runway and plunge into the ocean, Desiree began to
hyperventilate. She was in tears by the time the plane made its way
to the Charlotte Amalie airport on St. Thomas.

"I'm never flying again!" she grumbled
as they deplaned.

"You'll get used to it, shawty. Death
can come at any time, and you're safer in a plane than you are on
the street anyway. Besides, if you don't fly, how you gonna get
back?" Ginger teased.

"I'll float over on a
raft."

"Well, you better make sure you do it
from Cuba, because if you come from Haiti, they gonna try to send
your ass right back."

Red, the owner of the club
where they were
working, met them at the
baggage claim.

"Damn, he's fine," Desiree mumbled
under her breath. She took one look at Red, a six-foot stunner with
dark, wavy hair and Asian eyes and felt self-conscious. Her hair
was a mess, she was sweaty, and she smelled like throw-up. This was
not a great way to start a vacation, even if it was a working
vacation.

"He's married with like ten kids by
fifteen different women, a total waste of time." Ginger rolled her
eyes and slipped on her Versace shades. Desiree thought that if Red
was half as fine as the dude she was supposed to meet, she was in
for a treat.

Red took them to the Windward Passage
Hotel and got them settled in. The hotel staff was far from
friendly or accommodating. They treated Red with a certain level of
detached respect but rolled their eyes and sucked their teeth at
Ginger and Desiree. Ginger later explained that the locals hated
the strip clubs. The women all thought that the dancers were out to
steal their husbands and boyfriends, and some of the men thought
American women were lazy or stupid or stuck-up, or at least fronted
like they did so as not to make waves with their women. She also
warned that they would have to be on their p's and q's, because the
women would try and cause them some static.

They took the night off and went to
dinner at the Greenhouse Café. A lot of tourists were there, all
inebriated, mostly white, dancing off-beat to the ska rhythms a
reggae band skanked out on a small stage. They could barely eat in
peace; every man in the joint was enthralled and captivated by
their beauty. All the food they could consume and all the liquor
they could drink were theirs for the taking, compliments of their
admirers. Desiree loved the feel of all eyes on her and all the
attention she was commanding. They staggered to their room shortly
after 2 a.m., and passed out from too much food and too much
drink.

Desiree awoke from her semi-coma to
the sound of insistent pounding in her head. Coming to her senses,
she realized the pounding was the housekeeper banging on the door.
Before she could respond, a heavyset cleaning woman entered and
began tidying up the room. She rustled and bustled and dusted, then
stood in between the room's double beds.

"Uh, as you can see, we're still
sleeping. No thank you." Ginger spoke without opening her eyes. The
woman rolled her eyes and sucked her teeth at them.

"Motherscunt," she muttered through
her gritted teeth. Ginger sat straight up in the bed and threw back
the covers.

"Did you call me a motherscunt? Well,
did you?" Ginger's eyes flashed with anger.

"Good night," the maid answered, as
was traditional in St. Thomas no matter what time of the day, and
then dragged her bloated body out of their room, making sure to
take as long as she wanted.

"You backwards bitch! It's daytime!
Say good morning! I swear y'all are so country! I hate this fucking
hotel! Y'all always want to start shit. That's okay, though, y'all
won't be getting a penny of my money. Motherscunt!" she spat at the
woman's flabby backside.