Tea Leafing: A Novel

by Weezie Macdonald

  Rolling racks of costumes — top hats and tails, Santa coats, or whatever the season dictated — were brought into the dressing room. The girls wore their own g-strings with the costume du jour. The club’s outfits were rarely washed so they reeked of sweat and cigarette smoke. The dancers would split into two groups and march down the staircases at opposite ends of the stage in a chorus line kick, waiting to be picked by a customer. The whole experience was gruesome. Humiliating if you were unlucky enough to be left on stage, unselected for the two-for-one. It was a startling break in the regular hustle of the evening and dreaded by dancers.

  The dressing room and service bars were all located on the first floor, at the far end of the building from where Sam stood. Their entrances were camouflaged behind a series of faux ficus trees that weren’t fooling anyone with their authenticity. The club was set up in a well-thought-out arrangement, funneling men into cozy seating groups close to small “satellite” stages, or near the elevator leading to the second level, guarded by bouncers. It had the carefully applied ambience of exclusivity.

  As usual, the main floor was a hive of activity. Dancers in brightly colored outfits twisted through the slow-moving men clutching drinks and dollar bills. Waitresses carried trays laden with glasses and beer bottles high over their heads. Just as Sam was turning from the railing to return to her perch next to Boise, something caught her eye at the mouth of the hallway leading to the main entrance. She paused, making sure her eyes weren’t playing tricks on her.

  CHAPTER 6

  Fyodor Il’yavitch Patrushev, or Fedya as he is affectionately known, stood in a cloud of thick, blue smoke, originating from the pudgy Cuban cigar he always carried. As the owner of the Pink Pussycat Cabaret, he’d appear from time to time to entertain business associates or just enjoy himself in the privacy of his own sanctuary.

  Fedya had proven himself to be a shrewd businessman. His generosity extended to any number of charities. Foundations such as AIDS, Make a Wish and ironically, Susan G. Kommen Breast Cancer — were at the top of his list. His philanthropic activities placed him on Atlanta’s A-list of darlings sought after for events and parties. Sam found it interesting that Atlanta’s proper society was able to not only forgive the Russian for his involvement in the skin industry, but also embrace him in their culture. He was everyone’s favorite naughty boy, although nothing particularly naughty was ever linked to him — other than the Pink Pussycat, of course.

  A bouncer hustled past Sam, speaking into the microphone on his headset. He was headed for the back door next to the Skybox. Sam knew one of Fedya’s friends must be using the back entrance. It was common for politicians and celebrities to slip in through the privacy of the club’s rear door.

  Fedya’s hair was a salt and pepper tousled mix, finger-combed back into a style that made him look younger than his years. His clothing was custom-made with the telltale drape only an expensive tailor could achieve. His shoes, Italian leather loafers, were polished to a shine without a scuff in sight.

  Sam watched Fedya’s face melt into a warm, genuine smile as employees approached to pay homage. He shook hands with the bouncers and gave the dancers innocent hugs as if they were his own daughters. Sam admired his business sense and always liked that he was accessible to his employees. He was so different than other club owners who kept their distance and resented interruptions.

  A customer slipped past the horde surrounding Fedya. Even though he moved through the shadows, Sam recognized the shiny, bald head. A few strands of hair long enough to braid reached across his skull like stringy fingers. Tic. The muscle above her eye jumped as she looked around for a bouncer. Anyone who could help her catch the greasy intruder. There was no one. She pushed herself off the rail and trotted toward the staircase.

  A shrill “Aw my Gawd!” rang out as Pietra Maria Speranza DiFrancesco offered up her mating call. Her eyes locked on Fedya. She rushed past Sam, plowing through people like a freight train to reach her beloved. Gio tagged helplessly behind her in an attempt to derail her efforts.

  “Ma! MA!” Gio shouted through gritted teeth.

  “Just a minute Giovanni! I gotta say hello to my dawling Fedya. He loves me!”

  “Ma. Please. Give the man a minute. He just got here. Please, stop.”

  Pietra cut through Fedya’s entourage with the deft maneuvering of a champion quarterback faking a play. Before he could react, Pietra had cupped her hands around Fedya’s face and was planting a big, wet kiss square on his lips. Sam wondered if she ever tried to slip him tongue, feeling her stomach turn for poor Fedya.

  Even from her vantage point, Sam saw irritation flash across Fedya’s face. Smiling to herself, this quick peek of reality endeared the club owner to her even more. The bouncers crowding around Fedya peeled Pietra off him. Gio arrived on the scene and began apologizing as he tried to usher Pietra away.

  “Gio, stop Goddammit! Let me say ‘hello’ to Fedya!”

  It was like watching a parent pull a petulant child away from a rack of candy at a five and dime, only the roles were reversed. A temper tantrum ensued.

  “Iz okay Gio.” Fedya’s baritone boomed, “Come here my Pietra! Hellooo.” Fedya wrapped the aged nitwit in his bulky arms and rocked her back and forth in his hug. He beamed at her. Gio watched, having apparently developed a twitch of his own.

  Sam saw Nikki, Fedya’s Atlanta girlfriend, and a local politician, flanked by bouncers, glide into VIP 1, known as the ‘Skybox’. The largest of the rooms, it was located at the top of the staircase on the far side of the club, and was outfitted with a private bar and bathroom. When Fedya wasn’t present, the room was reserved for high rollers and celebrities who could afford the hourly rate. It was the only VIP room with a door. Just outside the Skybox was another door leading to the cold, concrete stairwell that led up to the roof and down to a back entrance that emptied out by the dumpsters behind the building. This passageway was casually known as ‘the red carpet,’ for obvious reasons.

  Sam continued along the balcony, trying to keep an eye on combover’s progress through the club. She’d lost him. Glancing into a VIP room to her right, she saw Grace sitting with a handsome forty-something she had seen before. Sam poked her head in.

  “Hey lovebirds.” Sam cooed.

  “Sammy! Come sit for a minute!” Grace looked happy and relaxed. “Drew, this is Sam. Sam, Drew.”

  After pleasantries and some brief small talk about Drew’s periodic visits to Atlanta, a waitress appeared to check on drinks and see if he needed a Pink Pay girl to replenish his stack of pornographic Monopoly-style money. The pink bills were how the club guaranteed all cash drawn on credit cards stayed in the club, unlike a cash advance from an ATM.

  “Fedya’s here and so is Pietra.” Sam whispered to Grace while Drew ordered another Jack Daniels. “But more importantly, combover is here too. I need to find a bouncer or at least get to him and see what he knows!”

  Grace’s eyes widened slightly but her smile never faltered. “Where is he? Sam, don’t talk to him alone! Let me come with you.”

  Sam shook her head at Grace as she rose to leave. Bussing Drew’s cheeks lightly, she smiled and said, “Nice to meet you Drew, take good care of baby Grace, okay?”

  Drew smiled and slipped Sam a few pink bills with a wink and a smile.

  “Nice to meet you too.”

  Ignoring Grace’s wide-eyed stare, Sam stepped outside the VIP room and made her way back along the balcony toward the elevator, tucking the money into her garter.

  The DJ’s voice boomed over the sound system “Next up on main stage is our own little Chick-a-dee from the other side of the pond. Please welcome the one, the only, BIIIRRRRDIIIEEE!” A cheer went up from the crowd of men Birdie had been sitting with. Prodigy screamed “Smack My Bitch Up” through the speakers, causing the entire building to thump in time with the music.

  The Bird pounced on the stage like a force of nature, commanding the attention of anything drawing breath. By the time Sam reached th
e first floor, Birdie had shimmied half way up the pole, locked her legs around it and extended backwards, arms outstretched into an inverted iron-cross, causing a gasp from those who hadn’t seen this move before. Few dancers were able to elevate the art of the pole to something straight out of Cirque du Soleil. No fear, no nets, no limit to the money. It did, however, require a tremendous amount of strength and athleticism.

  Sam watched the edge of the stage to see if combover — Lena’s former stalker —would approach to tip.

  Nothing.

  One of Sam’s favorite waitresses slipped by her. “Seen Mary Jane?” Sam inquired. The waitress nodded toward the dressing room and was off through the crowd. Sam quickly weighed her options. Combover was nowhere to be seen and money was ticking away. Making a brief pass by Boise, she promised to return quickly. He nodded and smiled, transfixed by Birdie’s ability to defy gravity.

  Mary Jane sat in front of Sam’s locker in the dressing room drawing deeply on her Marlboro Ultra-Light 100. Sam admired the bartender’s profile as she approached. Her features were chiseled without being hard. She kept her smokes tucked into a granny-style clasp-top cigarette pack with embroidery on the front that read: “Between two evils, I always pick the one I’ve never tried before. — Mae West.” Mary Jane studied the pack as she slowly spun the clutch in a circle by the metal prongs, her cigarette balanced gently between her first and second fingers.

  Mary Jane had the perfect Florida girl look, which was fitting since she’d grown up in Jacksonville, raised by her single mother. Her white-blond, blunt-cut pageboy framed her features perfectly. Razor-straight bangs sat just above the arched eyebrows guarding her piercing blue eyes. Not just blue, but a white, gray, blue so pale if it weren’t for the darker ring around her irides, they might blend imperceptibly with the whites of her eyes. She was medium height, but in a world of six-inch stilettos, she seemed shorter than her five-foot six. Her skin glowed with a light tan, although not nearly as dark as most of the dancers.

  Mary Jane looked up as Sam grabbed a nearby chair and sat backwards on it, folding her arms across the back and propping her chin on her forearms.

  “Combover is in the house.” Sam whispered.

  Lowering her head, Mary Jane did a quick scan of the dressing room out of the corners of her eyes. The beauty of a strip club is that there isn’t much loitering in the dressing room when it’s a packed house. Straight commission is a great motivator. But as Birdie always pointed out, it’s not straight commission since girls are in the hole a minimum of a hundred and twenty dollars when they set foot inside the door to work. Between house fees, DJ fees, house-mom tip-out and various other charges, the club sees to it that a dancer’s pay supports the rest of the staff. So, the dressing room was almost empty except for Lucille, the house mom, who was rumored to have once slept with Elvis. She lurked nearby, pretending to be preoccupied, like a bad spy. And that’s exactly what she was, a spy for the management.

  Mary Jane glanced briefly toward the locker where the masking tape with “Lena” written on it had been torn from one of the lower doors. “Where’d you see him?” She asked, rolling the burned paper ringing the tip of her cigarette around the lip of a black glass ashtray.

  “On the main floor, but I lost him.”

  “The bouncers will boot him when they see him.” Mary Jane looked at Sam’s reflection in the long vanity. “Do you think he did it to her?” she whispered.

  Sam raised an eyebrow, “Who knows, but I’d sure like to have a word with him.”

  Looking down at her feet, Sam thought about kicking off the platforms they were wedged into. She didn’t dare, since they would swell like popovers the minute the shoes came off. Once those bad boys puffed up, nothing but time would help.

  Birdie came slamming through the back door that led from the stage to the dressing room, soaked with sweat.

  “DAMN! Got any watah?!” Birdie said, huffing for air and tromping towards the two huddled by the lockers.

  Mary Jane handed Birdie a big bottle of Evian she’d stashed in her apron. Birdie turned the bottle up and drank most of it in a single chug.

  Birdie’s garter was crammed full of money, and bills were stuck to her body like tissue paper on a piñata. Sam knew it had been a good set for the Bird since there were several Benjamins visible in the mix. Birdie grabbed a towel from her open locker, draped it across the seats of three empty chairs and lay down, panting.

  Sam and Mary Jane started picking bills off Birdie straightening the origami crap some guys twisted their bills into. Sam watched the muscles in Birdie’s torso rise and fall as her lungs worked to re-oxygenate her blood. Her hair draped over the seat of the chair above her and fell in disheveled ringlets that almost touched the floor. Small half moons of mascara filled the creases below her eyes. Mopping her face with the black, lycra dress she’d worn on stage, she tossed it unceremoniously into her locker.

  “What’s this?” Mary Jane asked holding up a particularly strange looking fold.

  “Beaver.”

  Mary Jane pulled the bill flat. “Classy.”

  Lucille’s walkie-talkie squawked to life and Gio’s voice hummed through it with remnants of some distorted bass line.

  “Right boss.” Lucille shouted back into the box. “Okay ladies, nap time is over. Mr. F. wants to see you three and Grace upstairs in the Skybox. Pronto.”

  CHAPTER 7

  “I hear about Lena,” Fedya wasted no time getting right to the point, “She has this tragic thing. I want you know that we all can’t believe this. Is so sad.”

  Nikki sniggered from her seat next to Fedya.

  Fedya turned and gave her a look that was so cold, it made Sam shiver a little.

  Everything was still.

  No one blinked.

  Nikki stayed put, mouth shut, head down. Fedya turned his attention back to the girls.

  “I want you know that is anything you need, come to me. I help with whatever. I know you miss work to take some time so here something helps.”

  Gio appeared from nowhere with four neatly banded piles of bills. He handed each girl a stack and melted quietly back into the darkness.

  There was a fine film of sweat beading Gio’s neck and forehead and he seemed to be doing his best to maintain his cool. It was rare that he was nervous in Fedya’s company, but there was an odd charge in the air tonight.

  Fedya was not happy and Gio wasn’t entirely sure why. He needed to get his mother out the door and then get Fedya drunk. He wished this business with Sam, Grace, Birdie and Mary Jane could just be done.

  “Something like this happen and its best to put behind. When it come into the club and we talk all the time about this, it will hurt the way the girls feel . . . morale . . . yah? Is best we move on and no talking about this again. This just gift from me to you so no more talking.” There was a long pause in which Fedya seemed to be turning something over in his mind, “Okay, now, we square?”

  The girls nodded dumbly, not understanding what had just happened.

  Gio smiled, stepping in front of the girls with his hands outstretched like a cruise director trying to herd the masses onto the Lido deck. The girls rose from their positions on the couch, smiled and thanked Fedya. Grace started to say something about not being able to accept the money but Gio hissed at her under his breath. “Take it and go.”

  “Mary Jane,” Fedya called after them “Mary Jane will pour here tonight.” Referring to the SkyBox's dedicated facilities.

  The bartender standing behind the bar looked furious, but naturally, couldn’t argue, so she packed her few belongings into her apron and followed Gio out to take Mary Jane’s post behind the main bar. Mary Jane glanced back at Sam, Grace and Birdie as she ducked under the hinged bar counter and began checking bottles to familiarize herself with the set-up.

  The pocket door slammed shut behind the girls the minute they emerged back onto the loud balcony. Two neckless, crew-cut mountains of flesh stepped shoulder to shoulder in front
of the doorway as if one of the girls might pull out an Uzi.

  Sam and Grace were both staring at the money they’d just been handed. Birdie worked to secure her cash to a garter she wore around her ankle.

  “I’m not paying fucking tip-out on this dosh. The house does NOT get a cut.” Birdie spat. She turned and resolutely marched off towards the dressing room giving her left ankle an odd little shake every few steps to test the security of her ankle-safe.

  Sam and Grace thumbed the stack of bills, pulling back the crisp twenties that bookended it, revealing the remaining bills to be hundreds, not twenties.

  “What in the hell did we just take this money for?” Grace whispered.

  “Silence.”

  CHAPTER 8

  Judging by the small cluster of cars parked on the street, Sam guessed she was the last to arrive. Tanya’s lavender, shingled cottage sat in the east Atlanta neighborhood known as Kirkwood. Pushing the white picket gate open, she admired the pruned landscape Tanya had created. Low-voltage landscape lighting washed the small yard in a soft glow, hinting at the splendidly planned array that daylight would set fire with color. Walking up the path of pavers that Birdie and Tanya had laid down the previous spring, Sam noticed the porch light was off. Enough light filtered through the drapes of the house that she still felt the air of warmth and welcome.

  Pushing the heavy, red front door open, she stepped into the pineapple scented living room. Tanya’s Chihuahua, Edna, waddle-hopped over to Sam and began the welcome dance at her feet. Edna, like Tanya, was always dressed to the nines. Tonight she wore a pink terrycloth bathrobe and teeny tiny bunny slippers, clearly ready for a late night girl pow-wow. Sam lifted Edna to her chest, nuzzling her face in the dog’s perfumed hair. Birdie and Mary Jane each rose slightly from their sprawled positions on the couch, “Hey Sam.”

  Tanya sat on the floor in front of her makeshift fireplace, a carved antique mantle she’d purchased at Keller’s Flea Market and refinished. White pillar candles blazed, taking the place of logs. Sam saw a nail polish wand in her right hand, poised over her foot.