Diary of a South Beach Party Girl by Gwen Cooper

Author:Gwen Cooper
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gallery Books
Published: 2007-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Ricky usually managed to pry me out of Kojo’s apartment once or twice a week for a party that simply had to be attended. Groove Jet, Liquid, and Shadow Lounge were our top three scenes of choice. Sometimes we varied our circuit with side trips to cocktail parties poolside at the Albion or Raleigh hotels. “Nothing gets started until midnight, which is plenty of time for you to disco nap after work and still make an appearance,” Ricky would argue, when I tried to protest that I was too busy or too tired. “You don’t want people to forget about you, darling, after how hard we’ve worked.”

We went to Guido one night for the birthday party of a rising young star in the fashion world named Enrique Colon. Walking in at about twelve thirty, the first thing I saw was a slender little boy—a child no taller than my chin. “Since when are kids allowed in Liquid?” I asked Ricky.

“That’s Enrique,” he said. “It’s his birthday party—he just turned thirteen.”

I nearly dropped the lit cigarette I was holding. “You’re kidding me.”

Ricky seemed surprised at my surprise. “He’s a fashion prodigy, darling. Todd Oldham discovered him a year ago.”

Naomi Campbell, Niki Taylor, Todd Oldham, and Chris Paciello were clustered at one of the VIP tables not far from our own. Enrique greeted them rapturously, receiving an equally enthusiastic greeting in return. Chris Ciccone—Madonna’s brother—was following Enrique around with a camera crew (“For the documentary they’re making about Enrique,” Ricky informed me). There were paparazzi everywhere, snapping flash photos indiscriminately until Liquid looked like a sparklers factory.

“The emperor has no clothes,” I observed.

Enrique himself came over eventually to thank us for attending his birthday party, hugging us in the spastic way peculiar to overexcited children. He seemed so genuinely, gosh-darned thrilled about the whole spectacle that I couldn’t help but hug him back warmly. “This party is fierce, Miss Thing!” he exclaimed in a youthful, high-pitched voice, snapping his fingers once in the air for emphasis. Then he turned and scurried off.

“Oh my,” I said meaningfully to Ricky, and the two of us cracked up. “We are so going to hell for contributing to the delinquency of a minor.”

“That’s okay,” Ricky replied, with an amusing lack of concern. “That’s where all our friends will be, and I’m sure the parties in hell are much better, anyway.”

Naturally. Heaven or hell, it didn’t matter—as long as our names were on the right list.

I wanted not to care about things like which parties I was invited to, or if or where my picture appeared. They seemed like such silly things to be concerned with. But then I’d see my photo in the local magazines, or get the VIP treatment at some club where there was an actual red carpet with all the South Beach paparazzi lined up on either side—and how crazy was that? I was just some nobody from nowhere, who’d had only one picture in her entire high school yearbook. Now I got

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