The Cher wannabe pursed her lips. "And I really need a tummy tuck. But nobody gets what they want. Get in the back like everyone else."
"You don't understand. I said, LET ME IN RIGHT NOW." The words were a roar in her mind, even stronger than the last time she had tried it.
The drag queen staggered back, holding her head as if she'd received a blow. She nodded to the door goons, who lifted the rope.
Schuyler strode in, mentally waving away the ticket taker and the ID check who were thrown backward toward the wall as if they were just dominos.
Inside the club was pitch-black, and Schuyler could barely make out the shadowy forms of revelers swaying, humming and dancing to the intoxicating music. The music was so loud, she could hear it in every pore of her body. She felt rather than saw her way through the crowd, slowly but steadily pushing her way forward through the mass of dancers. Finally, she found the stairs that led up to the lounge on the top floor.
"Grass, crank, blow," came the hiss of a reptilian drug dealer perched on the third step. "Something for the little lady? Take her to the stars?"
Schuyler shook her head and hurried past him.
She found Oliver on the second level, next to the windows, sitting cross-legged and admiring the view of Avenue A. He looked at once aloof and perfectly miserable. She felt exactly the same way. She didn't realize how much she'd missed him until she saw his familiar face, his hazel eyes hidden underneath his long bangs.
"Well, well. To what do I owe this honor?" he asked, when he noticed her standing in front of him. He pushed his hair out of his eyes and stared at her in a hostile fashion.
"I have to tell you something," she said.
Oliver crossed his arms. "What is it? Can't you see I'm busy?" he snapped, motioning to the large empty space surrounding him. "Well, I was busy," he muttered. "There were tons of people here just a minute ago. I don't know how you missed them."
"Just because..." she protested. Just because I left you at the dance alone and went to be with another guy, she had begun to say, but she stopped herself right in time. She had left Oliver alone, and for all intents and purposes, she had been his date at the Informals. He was her best friend, and she saw him all the time, but at the dance, they were supposed to have been a couple. Not in a romantic way, but in a, we're-here-at-this-crappy-dance-together-so-let's-make-the-best-of-it kind of way. What she'd done was incredibly rude. How would she feel if Oliver had done the same to her? If he'd left her alone, with no one to talk to, while he went off and danced with Mimi Force? She would probably give him as cold a shoulder as he was giving her now. Colder, most likely.
"Ollie, I'm sorry about last Saturday night," she said finally.
"What's that?"
"I'm sorry. I said I'm sorry. Okay? I wasn't thinking."
He looked up at the ceiling, as if talking to an unseen observer. "Schuyler Van Men, admitting she was wrong. I don't believe it." But his hazel eyes were crinkling, and she knew they were friends again.
That was all she'd had to say. Sorry.
No matter how overused and abused it was, sorry was still a powerful word. Powerful enough to make her best friend talk to her again.
"So we're okay?"
Oliver had to laugh. "Yeah. I guess."
Schuyler smiled. She sat down on the ledge next to him. He was her best friend, her confidante, her soul mate, and in the past week, she had ignored and neglected him, pulling away because she was too frightened to tell him the truth about herself. "I have to tell you something about me." She reached out and took his hands in hers. "Oliver, I'm a... I'm a vam..."
Oliver's face softened. "I already know."
"Excuse me?" she demanded.
"Schuyler. Let me show you something."
Still holding her hand, he led her down past the basement pit and the coed bathrooms toward the corner where she had encountered that strange blank wall the last time they were at the club. He muttered a few words, and an outline of a door glowed brightly. Oliver pushed softly on it, and the wall swung open, revealing steep, curving stairs that led to the lowest bowels of the building.
"What is this?" Schuyler asked as they stepped through the entryway. The wall shut behind them, leaving them alone in the dark.
Oliver removed a thin flashlight from his shirt pocket. "Follow me," he said. They began to walk down the stairs, which spiraled down for what seemed like miles. Schuyler was out of breath by the time they arrived at the bottommost stair.
There was another door, a more magnificent one this time, made of gold, ebony, and platinum. INGREDIOR PERCIPIO ANIMUS read the inscription around the perimeter.
Oliver removed a gold key from his wallet and twisted it in the lock.
"Where are we? What is this all about?" Schuyler asked, stepping tentatively inside the room.