“Stop appraising me,” Christina said. Melissa looked away—she’d just been caught frowning in disapproval. “I told you, I’ll just stay in the car.”
“Nobody’s staying in the car,” William said. “Just pretend it’s the CB Lounge. Look”—he pointed out the window—“they have a velvet rope and everything.”
Christina scratched her head. “Things I hate include dance music, dancing, people who dance, and air that has recently been danced in. Explain to me why I would go into a place like this?”
“Maybe we should pregame first,” Daniel suggested. His energy seemed to be flagging. Even so, Melissa had noticed that he went out of his way to be kind to Christina.
“They’ll probably give us free drinks inside,” William said. “Look at all these people!”
Melissa took note of two separate groups: people waiting for the massive bouncer to let them in, and a loose coalition gathered on the sidewalk.
“Fuckin’…mimosas,” Daniel said.
Melissa recognized the tone and cringed. “Not now. Please.”
“Fuckin’…Bloody Marys,” William said, adopting the same faux-tough-guy inflection. Melissa had watched them perform this stupid back-and-forth a million times. The premise was that they’d volley increasingly pretentious items until someone made them shut up. It was an obnoxious inside joke with no apparent source and no clever origin.
“Fuckin’…apple martinis.”
“Fuckin’…cosmopolitans.”
“Fuckin’…pomegranate margaritas.”
“Fuckin’…rye old-fashioneds.”
“Fuckin’…vodka sodas with lime.”
“Jesus Christ, okay, okay.” Christina slapped her palm against the door and it slid silently open.
Melissa had to stop herself from screaming NOOOOOOOO as Christina’s sneakers hit the pavement, and cameras flashed. A million posts of Christina dourly representing the #AutonomousRoadTrip flashed through her mind. She would be guilty by association! Jessa Park would forever link Melissa Faber and *DIYfashion365* to basement dwellers and upstate hicks who shouldn’t be allowed to set foot in a city with an actual nightlife.
Before she knew it, she was scrambling out after Christina, heels stabbing the sidewalk, eyes on the back of the girl’s shaved head where she’d missed a clump of hair. She had to catch up before Christina directed some snide remark at the bouncer that blew their chances of getting in. The last thing they needed was to star in somebody’s video: #AutonomousRoadTrip Hilariously DENIED at Azimuth.
“Hey!” some random guy yelled. “Can I get a ride in that?”
Before Melissa could think of a witty response, Christina raised both fists, middle fingers extended. Cameras flashed.
Melissa could seriously not even.
People who hid behind computers and only popped up to strafe the world with random bursts of hostility were the worst. Why did anybody think it was okay to radiate such negativity? What had that ever accomplished?
Just as she reached Christina’s side, she felt Daniel’s hand on her shoulder. The boys must have climbed out after her, self-conscious kids stumbling into their first big night on the town. They might as well have emerged from the car chewing tobacco and wearing overalls stained with mud from the swimmin’ hole.
“Hey, chill out,” Daniel said.
It was good advice: her shoulders were hunched with tension. Ahead, the bouncer swiveled his head on his thick neck to regard them with half-lidded bemusement. There was something cold and reptilian in his gaze. He spoke quietly into his Bluetooth.
This was all wrong.
The club was housed in a former church, and the ornate façade stretched up into the misty night with gothic grandeur, floodlights pouring long shadows down the stonework. The rain’s aftermath gave the neon Azimuth sign a fuzzy halo.
“Fabes, I think the line’s that way?”
She linked arms with her boyfriend. “We’re not waiting in the line.”
“Oh. Did Otto put us on the guest list or something?”
“I have no idea. It doesn’t matter. Either way, we’re not people who wait in lines. Not on this trip.”
“So, next stop Disney World, then?”
“I mean, if we present ourselves as people who don’t wait in lines, it’s easier to become people who don’t wait in lines.”
She was supposed to be having fun. She was also trying to leverage the experience into something greater. Right now she was failing at both, but she couldn’t snap out of it. Her smile felt unnatural and waxy. She stood in front of the bouncer. The eyebrow lifted in his doughy face.
Skinny girls glared from the line.
“Fuck off,” the bouncer said.
“Excuse me?”
“Gotta be twenty-one.”
The bouncer nodded sleepily to a guy in a white linen suit who looked like he’d just stepped off a plane from 1980s Miami. White Suit lifted the rope, and people streamed inside the huge wooden doors. He refastened the rope, and the line stopped moving.
“We got IDs,” Daniel said. Melissa thought he sounded a little too proud of this.
The bouncer made a harsh guttural rasp that might have been a laugh. He turned to face them again, held up his phone and gave it a little shake. “I know you’re high school kids, dipshit.”
“We’re not,” Melissa protested.
“Lesson number one: think before you tweet. Lesson number two: lots of bouncers are moonlighting cops.”
Melissa stared blankly. What was this guy driving at?
He sighed. “You stirred up a shitstorm for that rookie trooper today, you know that? And then, lo and behold, you’re coming to my club on a night I’m working the door. You eat a lot of shit in this life, but sometimes the universe does you a favor. Now, go hop back in your spacemobile and enjoy your visit to the island of Manhattan somewhere I can’t see you. This is a club for grown-ups.”
The bouncer shot them a mirthless grin and went back to work. White Suit lifted the rope, and a gaggle of kids streamed inside. They might as well have had their foreheads stamped UNDERAGE.
Melissa struggled to find words. She could feel everyone’s eyes on her, Melissa the Fixer. Daniel beside her, Christina
