Almost a year since Casa Whaaa. My second dispatch from Miami. Merry Christmas.
I’m squatting outside of La Playa supermarket in South Beach waiting for my Hinge date to pick me up. I’m wearing bootie shorts and a spaghetti strap over my bikini. A red corvette pulls up, top down. Santa is driving, his beard looks cheap. A voluminous woman sits next to him. They park, close the top, and get out. He circles the car. She films with her phone, ring light attached.
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Last night at MILA, a Ukrainian with perfect lip filler told me not to trust a single man in Miami. They are all liars, she said sipping a glass of Chablis. Her wrists are thin, delicate, stacked with a Bvlgari Serpenti watch, Van Cleefs, and Cartier Love bracelets.
We are standing at the bar. A man, older, 50 maybe, in a black beanie and beaded bracelets is staring at me. I think he likes me because I’m the type of girl he’d pick up at Gospel.
Next to us is a pack of 20-something year-old boys in linen white button-downs, bare chests, and starter Rolexes. A girl with thick red Dysoned hair circles them in a sequined turquoise skirt. They’re giddy.
There are a lot of double dates with double of everything: big tits, big asses, big pecks, big arms. A belly dancer holds a ring of fire. A firefighter looks on. There’s a table of Arab men in expensive oud and adjacent, a table of OnlyFans girls in expensive bodies. One of them has lime green hair. She’s caught her neighbor’s attention. A very normal Latino couple sits in front of them not speaking, just looking. They are dressed exactly as they should be.
We are taken to our table by an imposing woman with an exotic accent. I am scared of her. She is magnificent. There are palm leaves everywhere.
An hour later, two guys, mid-30s, approach our table. Their muscles are flexed, popping out from black t-shirts. They glow. We let them sit. Isn’t this just like Mykonos, one of them says. Babe this is Mykonos, I say. They luxuriate in our company, especially in the Ukrainian’s. I can’t stop looking at her lips. They order several rounds of beers. We eat. They don’t. The bill is paid.
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Santa is still filming. I’m taking selfies while on the phone with my girlfriend. My extensions almost touch the floor as I squat. I take my Tom Ford sunglasses on and off. There’s a pack of Marlboro golds sticking out of my bag. I wonder if my Hinge date will find them sexy. I don’t smoke.
5 min out. OK. Look for a green g-wagon. OK.
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We leave MILA and go to E11even. Earlier that day at the beach, I listened to a group of guys discuss whether it’s a red flag for your girlfriend to let you go to E11even without her. Red flag. But would you take her with you? Of course not.
We’re escorted to a table. There are several girls there already, each holding a mini Kelly or a Birkin. They look kind of fake. Three large, tatted guys stand around them. They offer me a bucket of fried chicken. I take a bite.
We are on the mezzanine level with a great view. The crowd is marvelously diverse. Offset is at the table next to ours with a large crowd of iced-out black guys smoking splifs. I turn to one of the guys. You can smoke in here? Baby you can do whatever you want in here.
Below us is a table of Miami Jews. A large Sephardic guy is wearing a long black nylon coat from which his Tzitzit peak whenever he leans over to the dancer next to him. There’s a group of Latino guys who glisten in gold and throw dollar bills at one another. A table across the floor is filled with mid-level Brickell finance guys. I spot two girlfriends. There’s a table of burly Serbians. Unlike other clubs, E11even doesn’t need to follow the 60/40 girl to guy ratio. Girls are built in. Like alcohol. On demand.
We bumble from table to dance floor, upstairs, downstairs, back bar, front bar. No one hits on us. We stand and watch the dancers for twenty-four minutes. Some guys sit in chairs and quietly watch. Others tip right over, touching without abandon, shoving dollars, twenties, hundreds, into the girls’ bras. A guy nuzzles himself into a dancer’s thong. The crowd erupts.
We go back to the table. The owner has joined us. You’re the Harvard girl? You’re too hot for Harvard. My lipstick gleams. He leans in, one time a guy walked into E11even after work on a Thursday and didn’t leave until Sunday.
E11even is Paradise for Sale.
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To the left of La Playa supermarket is one of those old, 1930’s art deco buildings. Its gold door makes for a beautiful backdrop for my selfies. I think of Miami Vice, of the Delano, of a mid-beach penthouse I pace through in a caftan and kitten heels. Of Michelle Pfieffer’s blonde bob.
I spray Portrait of a Lady on my neck, behind my ears, into my hair. My lips are sore. I’ve lined them, glossed them, plumped them. My skin is dewy from the humidity. I’m chewing 5 gum, spearmint. A man in a wifebeater and JBL speaker strapped to his back chugs a gallon of milk.
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It’s 6am. We leave E11even. On the highway, there is a billboard for $2,500 breast augmentations, followed by a Miu Miu ad and an STDcheck.com ad. My uber driver asks me what I’m doing in Miami. Fucking around. You single? Yeah. How come? I laugh. I’m difficult. At least you admit it. He tells me he’s going back to Colombia. It’s been 8 years and 8 years too long.
I’m standing on my hotel balcony eating gummy bears and Tate’s chocolate chip cookies looking down at the tiny, dainty islands that support Brickell’s metropolis of 50-story luxury rentals. They are splendid to look at night. I sleep for four hours. I wake up and go downstairs in boxers and a tee shirt that says American Dream. I walk through a flood of tax consultants in business formal to pick up my Uber Eats order – tweezers and a Pellegrino handed to me by Reginald who has delivered my order two days in a row now. I leave the hotel an hour later with washed hair, a tote bag, bootie shorts and spaghetti straps in search of a Pura Vida. I scroll through my dms. I listen to Tate McRrae. I message a guy who followed me off of Hinge if he wants to go to the beach. I walk through an underpass. A homeless man stands in a sheet and hums next to the bay. I’m lost. I go up an alley and find myself in front of the Miami Asylum Office where two officers stand and a Hispanic woman smokes a cigarette. She looks tired. I look tired. I order an Uber and leave.
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Santa and his girl have departed. A man, about 70, pulls up in a white Vespa with a red rose in his lapel and a very tall woman, about 30, in a halter and long ponytail behind him. They get off and walk into La Playa, hand in hand. He’s a head shorter.
A car honks. I look up. A green Toyota SUV is double parked. I smile, gather my stuff, and get in.
Love,
Nikole
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