‘Look,’ Patrick nods excitedly at the bookcase before us.
‘What?’ I frown,perplexed. He smiles mysteriously. ‘It’s abookcase!’ he says, tapping it. ‘You know what that means. That means it’s adoor– a secret door, babe!’
‘Shut up, it’s not!’ I scoff. ‘And please stop calling me “babe”, it’s not funny.’
‘It is very funny, babe, and you shut up,’ he is still smiling. ‘We have to find our way in. Help me.’ He starts pulling at random books and I roll my eyes.
‘You are such a dweeb, Patrick,’ I say affectionately. ‘You’ve seen too many Indiana Jones films.’ He ignores me, yanking at pretentious tome after wealthy moron autobiography. He stops to swig from his drink and a few books fall noisily to the floor. We look at each other, startled by the loud clatter. The president in the booth next to us looms up in the darkness.
‘Just keep goi—’ Patrickbegins, sounding a bit panicked, but we are interrupted by the stealthy arrival of anangry-looking waiter. Oh crap, we’re going to be chucked out. Haven’t I been ejected from enough places inLAby now? And I haven’t even had myBUIyet.
He regards us in the dim lighting, we look back at him. There is athree-way slow blink and I clear my throat, ready with my poshest royal family Englishaccent.
‘Erm, good sir, we do beg your forgiv—’ I begin, but he cuts me off. ‘Every night,’ he hisses. ‘Every. Single. Night. Every stinking night one of you does this.’ He waves at the books on the floor despairingly. ‘You know the owner likes them in a special order? So after we finally get rid of you rich leeches at 3 a.m., I have to stay behind to pick up the books people have thrownon the floor, and sort out the ones you’ve pulled out.’
‘We’re not rich,’ I mutter sulkily. ‘I am a bit of a leech, but I’m not rich.’
The waiter ignores me. ‘Every night!’ he continues. ‘Which pretentious garbage monster came up with the wholebookcase-secret-entrance-in-a-bar thing anyway? Because I want to find them andwater-board them.’
We hang our heads, ashamed of ourselves.
‘I told you,’ I nudge Patrick. ‘Itold youit wasn’t a secret d—’
The waiter interrupts, sighing, ‘Anyway, it should’ve specified which book it was on your invitation.’
Hold on.
‘But everyone ignores that, don’t they? They come in just grabbing at any old Trump biography.’
Oh?
He sighs, exasperated. ‘It’sLolitato get into the West event.’ He nods towards the Vladimir Nabokovbook at the top corner end of the shelf.
Patrick and I sneak a look at each other; he’s trying not to smile.
The angry man gives us another aggressive sigh before moving off. I catch a faint, ‘Douchebags’ in the wind.
Patrick reaches up and there is a click as the bookcase nudges ajar.
‘Holy mackerel, Batman!’ I gasp and Patrick snorts.
‘We have to go in,’ he says, grippingthe edge of the door.
‘Can we though?’ I whine, excited. ‘It must be a private party; they’d clock us straight away. And, er, hello,Lolita? What kind of disturbing shit is that? It’s probably some kind of sex ring in there with underage slaves.
‘Even more reason to crash it!’ Patrick looks a little too delighted. ‘We could be heroes, saving them all.’
‘Or get murdered,’ I giggle,thrilled. ‘Ooh, what if it’s a secret celebrity party? He said it was the “West party”, right? That could be Kanye! We could be about to crash Kanye West’s birthday party! I’ve always wanted to crash aVIPA-list party! I have this theory that me and Khloe Kardashian would be best friends if we were only given the opportunity to hang out. I justgether, y’know?’
‘Come on!’ Patrick grabs myhand, interrupting what would’ve been a lengthy monologue about reality telly, and we slip inside. ‘This is going to beEPIC!’
It is super lame.
An hour later and we haven’t seen any celebrities or sex rings so what is even the point. It is almost exactly the same situation as the main bar –rich-looking white people dressed in dark, expensive clothes. Everyone is standing aroundin small cliquey huddles, not talking to each other. In fact, everyone looks miserableAF. There is aDJdeck in the corner, but it’s just playing some tinkly lift music rubbish. The only reason we’re still here is that this secretVIP-type area seems to have free alcohol. So Patrick and I have been pounding the prosecco like teenagers.
‘Do you think there might be canapés coming round?’ Iwhisper from our position in the corner,people-watching. ‘We should stand next to the kitchen door just in case. So we can have first option on everything. I want some kind of fancy, tiny mac ‘n’ cheese.’
‘But that’s the other end of the room from the bar,’ Patrick looks rightly worried. Food v. booze is the eternal question on a night out. I nod agreeably. ‘Maybe we should split up?’ I slurthoughtfully. ‘Divide and conquer. I’ll go forage for food, you forage for drinks? We’ll meet in the middle with supplies.’
