Art by Jenny Rustdad
There is an incredibly important scholarship due tomorrow. My train for Stratford leaves at 7:45 a.m. Also, I can feel the scratchy hint of a sore throat coming on. I can’t possibly go out tonight.
And yet here I am, strapping on the first pair of open-toed heels I’ve worn since September. They are six inches tall even though it is both 40 degrees out and raining. But my roommate said they make my butt look good. And, well, who can resist a compliment like that.
I have been avoiding Boujis since I first came out of the South Kensington Tube Station seven months ago. I hate dancing unless Tina Turner is on the radio, and I am skeptical of any club that requires women to wear heels. Definitely not my style. But it’s “Ladies Night” — free entry, free drinks and even free manicures.
Ten of us waddle down the slick London street together, coats over our heads to keep the drizzle from ruining us. We are only half a mile from our destination, but we push through like the March of the Penguins and arrive at Boujis relatively unscathed. A French man greets us with a kiss on both cheeks. He is dressed like Clint Eastwood from “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.” We check in our coats and are led down a flight of lit-up stairs.
Boujis is a high-class club. It’s in a posh part of town, and rumor goes that Prince Harry makes an appearance every once in a while. About three nights a week, girls in the house go clubbing there. Finally, I am testing the hype.
The manicurists are packing up to go home. French Clint Eastwood has a table booked for us, but it is already filled with young women whose glares indicate they are also bitter about not getting their nails done.
Without any empty seats, my friends and I make our way to the vacated dance floor — the moment I have been dreading for half a year. Once again, we are huddled like penguins, bobbing up and down because no one knows how to dance to these kinds of noises. It’s that ambient techno whose only lyrics are “unts unts unts unts.”
When I pass on my drinks to my friends, one of Clint’s buddies gets mad at me. “They are buying the drinks,” one of my housemates tells me. “So you just have to go with what they do.” They advise me to stay smiley and laugh if I can’t understand them.
Around 11:30, the club begins to fill up with men in business attire. They watch from the side of the dance floor with their classy drinks and half-buttoned collared shirts. Meanwhile, Clint and his friends are standing on a one-foot platform to observe their guests from all the right angles.
After a bit we are brought back to the table and told to stand on the couches and dance. They bring out sparklers, more drinks and cake — cake! — and line us up for a series of unending pictures. They put us back on the couches. Clint’s friend takes a fresh bottle of champagne and shakes it up. I watch in horror, frozen, as he tilts it and empties the bottle all over me.
I stand shocked and drenched and gawky on the wretched couch, trying not to lose my balance in my ridiculous heels. The culprit has already turned his attention elsewhere. I push through the pulse of electronic music and find the bathroom.
My reflection is like one of those melted porcelain dolls from a horror movie. The bathroom attendant is helping me get cleaned up, but she sees this kind of thing all the time and doesn’t give me the sympathy I’m looking for. I try not to get too attached to her because I have no money on me for a tip. It is barely half-past midnight when I get my coat and peace out. My roommate comes with me, and once again we brave the cold and wet.
At 4 a.m., scrubbed free of champagne and with my scholarship nearly ready, I crawl into my bed next to the wall of inspirational women I put up at the beginning of the semester. Women like Aretha Franklin, Katharine Hepburn, Amy Poehler. I can’t help but feel that places like Boujis undo all the respect and status women have worked to achieve. As though our company has no value unless sexed up in a cocktail dress with a lipsticked smile pasted to our faces. It’s a place where girls must “pay up” and show they are thankful to their male benefactors. Dance when told, laugh when told, drink when told. And all I can think is, “Amelia Earhart never would have put up with that s—.”
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