Shatter (Club Grit Trilogy) (6 page)

I tapped my clipboard while glaring at the pledge in question. Last week, Katie had been given a report for mouthing off to the social chair of Beta Rho Omega and she used thicker margins than allowed. Of course, I had noticed, and of course, the reprimand was loud and public. Honestly, how Katie had thought that anything else was appropriate for college was beyond me. Comic Sans made it even worse, but the clipart? That was cringe worthy.

I pulled aside Emma, made sure she’d go and hang out with Becca and her big, Samantha, that afternoon, and then, finally, got to take a nap, before I got ready and met with the girls in the limo. We picked up DeAndre on the way, and I made a note of the fact that the Beta Rho pledge was joining us, so that Pearl wouldn’t bring it up again. It was the end of the year and honestly, too late for relations between Beta Rho and Omega Mu to “heal”, as she’d said in one of her pep talks, and she should have just abandoned the issue, but she had an obsessive personality, like a bloodhound that wouldn’t let go of a scent, even if it meant it had to jump off a cliff to follow it.

As usual, the VIP station was set up.

As usual, the girls all headed down to the dance floor and danced with their friends until they found partners in the crowd, except for Rina and Laura. I didn’t mark them as absent, because I knew about Rina’s secret. It wasn’t like Pearl would ever find out I fudged the numbers.

What wasn’t usual was the fact that the bottle service girl brought me a rose. Inside the petals was a small red note, which I pulled out gently so as not to upset the petals further. As two petals fluttered down onto the lap of my dress, my cheeks turned as pink as the gentle lips of the flower were soft.

In black ink, the note read, “For Cinderella”. Cinderella? Not exactly my princess of choice, but then again, I never was into princesses. I looked up towards the owner’s box, but what stood out was a line of red rose petals, leading from the entrance to the secret lair of Lawrence Lamont to my seat. I rose and followed, as if in a trance, unable to control my legs but still moving up the stairs gracefully. Before I could pull aside the curtains, though, another set of hands reached through, and took my hand firmly. I recognized the touch, even without seeing a face.

“Lawrence,” I said gently as I walked into the room and was pulled into his embrace. He laid his head on top of mine before pulling his shoulders away from mine and giving me a kiss on the forehead, before raising my hand to his lips, which he pressed in a way that I knew he wanted to recreate on my lips, and which I wanted to mimic on his neck.

“Kim, it’s been too long,” said the man whose billionaire status had been revealed. “I was expecting you last night.” I hadn’t texted him and let him know I was going to Beta Rho Omega. I’d thought of it but I hadn’t, so I while I’d expected him to be at Club Grit tonight, I hadn’t expected the flowers, or the trail of petals, or for him to want to see me at all.

“These flowers seem fresher than that,” I said coyly. Why did I feel drawn into the game that Lawrence was playing, a game of mystery and mystique, of secrets told and of truths unsaid?

“You minx,” he practically purred and I melted. I wanted him to pull me in and say more than sweet nothings to me, I wanted to have him on top of me, holding me fast against the bed, and taking me the way that I knew he must want me to, but instead, he just took my hand, pressed his firm lips against the smooth back of my hand, and gave a soft kiss, like an airy spirit passing between us and leaving as quickly as it had come.

“Why didn’t you tell me...?" I started, using a teasing voice, but unable to finish the sentence. He and I both knew what I’d done, that I’d found out his secret. It didn’t have to be said.

He pulled away so that I could look him over as he motioned to himself with both his hands. “That I own Club Grit?”

“And...the rest,” I said awkwardly, twirling one straight, black glossy lock around my finger and not able to meet Lawrence’s eye. I knew that I must be blushing a bright pink, but it didn’t matter. Here, I was at my most vulnerable, and so was he. Whatever he could do to hurt me I could match twice over. However, I wouldn’t have been in the owner’s box if I’d thought that he meant me ill. I wouldn’t have been with Lawrence if I didn’t trust him, and I did, even though we’d kept so much from each other, even though I still kept so much from him.

He poured two glasses of champagne for the two of us, a chilled strawberry on the bottom of each graceful, delicate crystal flute that, if mishandled, could easily shatter into a thousand unfixable, unusable pieces. He passed me my drink and our glasses kissed lightly, letting out a small high pitched ringing that lingered in the air until it was replaced by the interior sound of champagne going down my throat.

Lawrence was the one that broke the silence. “I knew what you’d think of me, Kim. I knew that if you found out about whom I was, the relationship between us would change,” he said, turning and, keeping my hand, taking me to look out over the dance floor. “Look at them, Kim. They have no idea who I am, the way most people don’t, because I’m one of the elite members of this society, of our society, that is afforded privacy and protection from public scrutiny because of what I have, and I know that if you know I’m the owner of this club, that you know the rest.”

“You could have anyone at this club...why me?” I blurted out. It was the question that had been on my mind since the moment that we’d gone to the owner’s box. I’d know Lawrence was special, but me? I was like every other girl in the club. Lawrence’s status and wealth was what differentiated him from the rest of the people at the club, and while I wasn’t a gold digger, I knew what money meant.

Money meant he was either lucky and smart enough not to blow his money on stupid trinkets, or it meant he was skilled in something, that he’d placed his skill points in a strategic manner to ensure he achieved maximum success in the MMORPG of life, and that he didn’t end up stuck as a perma-noob. Money meant that Lawrence wasn’t like other people, as much as people might misquote Hemingway and state that no, the rich are like everyone else, no, they’re not special. Tell that to someone who lived in recession era America; tell it to their fucking face. Tell it to the homeless man on the corner, tell it to the person paying with change at the grocery store, tell it to people who have to budget their money to see a doctor, who have to wonder when, not where, they’re getting their next meal, who have to save money to buy instant ramen noodles and who can’t buy their dignity back.

Tell that to me.

“I could ask you the same question, Kim.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re gorgeous, Kim. The way you carry yourself? It’s like a feather dancing on the wind, even when you sit still. You’ve got this gentle grace about yourself that few have. Even when we drank, you kept your cool. Any man who hears your laugh would be instantly entranced, for it’s like a summer breeze softly entering and exiting crystal flutes, hanging on a porch in a doorway and casting their rainbow lights as far as they can possibly can,”

“I take it you enjoy your vacations, Lawrence,” I said, instantly regretting how weird that sounded. The game that I’d played with him the other night? Why wasn’t I good at it anymore, why wasn’t I good at being the Kim that I was in front of everyone else? In front of him, I wasn’t the Omega Mu VP, I wasn’t the valedictorian of the sociology department, I wasn’t anyone except Kim Lee, and for some reason, that wasn’t scaring him away...it was just scaring me into his arms, the arms I was glad he hadn’t taken his firm, warm grip off of.

He pressed his cheek against mine and I could feel the stubble against my smooth cheek. I inhaled and took in his scent, of balsam and bergamot, like an Hermes store. He was a luxury product of a man, wrapped in his all black Armani suit that fit him perfectly, not too loose like someone’s borrowed suit, and not too tight. “And it’s that, Kim, it’s your ability to read people, your ability to discern things from them that you know are important to them and that they’re scared to share with the rest of the world.”

“It’s not that special,” I said shyly, brushing a lock of hair out of my face. “I was really awkward and weird as a kid, to the point that it became...an issue. My school counselor told me I needed to learn empathy, needed to learn to be nicer and I went around asking people, “How can I be nice to you?”. But, eventually, I learned how to guess, and not have to be told and directed into being a decent human being. I’m always watching, Lawrence. I’m always watching and taking notes,” I joked, holding up the clipboard, the cheap pen still in its holder. “Even if they’re in here,” I said, tapping my temple. I knew it was cheesy but I barely needed the clipboard. It was a symbol, though, of my skill, and of my role. It wasn’t something that I’d even liked, to begin with, but once it became associated with me, I started carrying everywhere, the way a kid might carry a blanket. It was Moses’s staff, parting the sea of sorority sisters into the chosen and the exiled.

Lawrence took the clipboard out of my hands, gently, and placed it on the bed. Then, he took both my hands in his, folding his fingers around and into them, like a secret kept between young lovers of some technical misdeed like carving their name into a tree. “You know I’m a busy man, a business man. My visit to Club Grit? Was just supposed to be a check-in, to make sure that everything is running smoothly, but when I saw you? I wanted to spend my time with you, here, in the most private place in the club. It had been set up for my arrival, because my employees know how much I need privacy, but around you? All I need is to be around you to feel like maybe, it’s okay to be vulnerable. You’re someone I trust, Kim, and we only just met. That’s not supposed to happen, and it doesn’t, usually. You’re no fool: you know I can flash my black card and get any floozy on the dance floor, but I don’t want that. Or at least...I haven’t, since I met you. Damn it, Kim, I can’t get you off my mind! You’re like the memories of a well spent vacation, the kind that...you want to have last forever.”

“Lawrence, you don’t mean that, trust me. You...you don’t know my dark side,” I said, breaking away from his embrace and sitting on the bed before looking out at the entrance to this special place, our place. I could stay, and who knows what would happen between Lawrence and I now that his feelings about me had been revealed? Or, I could leave, and leave with him thinking of me fondly, before he learned about my terrible secrets.

“But I do, Kim, I do mean it. You’re right, but so am I. I don’t know your dark side, and I don’t care about most peoples, in that I don’t care about knowing more, but you? I want to know everything, even if you think it will scare me away, it won’t. I want you, Kim, and I want you to want me, too. You think I’m perfect? Hell no. I’ve done a lot to get where I am today. I’ve made my mistakes, and I’ve learned from them. But you? It’s not too late for you to do what you want. I’d give everything I have to be in your position, to be young, to have few major mistakes in your life, to be able to have the freedom to whatever you want without worrying about failing,”

“But I do, Lawrence. You don’t get that! It’s why I make so many stupid mistakes in my real life,” I said with a sigh, guilty I was wasting his time with my stupid problems. He was a billionaire businessman who had a life, and me? Mine didn’t even have a purpose, not anymore. I’d wasted four years in a sorority that I’d wanted to have act as a shield but which had enveloped and engulfed me. I was in the belly of the beast, and the beast wore Lilly Pulitzer tennis skirts, Longchamp bags, and Tory Burch flats with their grandma’s pearls.

“This is real life,” he said confused.

“I meant, in my day to day life, but that is real life. This? This isn’t real life. People spending as much on bottle service as I get in scholarships? People having random sex and not worrying about stuff like commitment and pregnancy and STDs? I guess it’s real life for some people, but it isn’t for me, and yet, here I am.”

“It isn’t my lifestyle either, Kim. It’s nobody’s lifestyle. It’s a fantasy that nightclubs sell. Club Grit sells the fantasy of living the millionaire playboy lifestyle, for men and for women. But in real life, this isn’t what I do either. Real life is paying bills, getting audited every year without fail, worrying about whether or not the causes I donate to are going to do something stupid like name a fund after me even though I tell my PR department that I want to donate anonymously, because really, how anonymous can I be when I’m meeting with a chairman and learning about what exactly it is their organization does? Real life is knowing that if I make a mistake, if I fuck up, I don’t just lose my money: people lose their jobs. Even if I lost ninety-nine percent of wealth, I’d still be in the one percent, and I make more money in a day than most people make in a year, in ten years, in their lives. I easily lose track of sense of scale and responsibility and luckily, that only happens in my personal life, when I buy Chanel golf clubs on a whim, or an Hermes Birkin even though I don’t even use purses.”

“I’m not asking you to be perfect, Lawrence. I’m just asking why you’d...why you’d want me,” I said, my eyes almost welling with tears, tears that I blinked back into my eyes, back into my head where they belonged, because Lawrence didn’t need to be bothered by me and my girlish emotions. Not feminine, but girlish: reminiscent of youth, of being young and lost, like a lamb walking in a meadow, alone, not a shepherd in site.

“If you have to ask, Kim, you’re not as smart as I thought,” he said, and he sat next to me on the bed. I turned to face him, and he pulled me in, close, for a kiss, for our first real kiss.

His lips were softer that I’d imagined: they weren’t soft like those of some office-dwelling cubicle jockey, but they were the kind of soft that a man’s lips get when they’ve been exfoliated by the elements, by adventure, by life, and I could have sworn I tasted the sweet salt of the ocean as our mouths opened and we finally had the chance to explore each other in a way I’d only thought about as I resisted the urge to Google him. Right now, the searching we were doing wasn’t done in an address bar, but in a nightclub. The searching was still for what all searches are for: for results. As I ran my hands over his torso, feeling his muscles rippling beneath the fabric of his white button up shirt, as he slipped off his black blazer and tossed it onto the floor, I thought about how his body was an engine, optimized, in a way, for this kind of searching, searching for some meaning in my life, for something to hold onto, with my hands and with my heart.