Paige Johnson

Party Pickle

Everyone calls me Pickles, from my biological family to my found one at Club Climaxxx. Don’t judge—or assume I got that nickname because I smell briny. Just ask my customers, I smell more like the raspberry jam of Linzer cookies. 

The nickname has more to do with my good luck. And okay, I drink the juice straight out of the jar, neon seeds and all. But ’tis the season for green stuff. You see, it’s German tradition to hide a pickle in the Christmas tree so whoever finds it gets an extra gift and blessing to carry into the new year. And I always win that Gherkin.

Some would say I’m too competitive over it, except now it’s strippers, not siblings, insisting it. But I need that good fortune more than ever since my family ices me out over my “exotic” job. I won’t have any celebration to come home to.

“So, let’s have X-mas at the club,” my boyfriend Geo says from the front seat of his shiny Escalade. He started as my escort to and from the club and remains that way for safety reasons. Sometimes I think I should still tip him for his advice. “Why not? Plenty of us are disowned by our families for running in underground crowds. Screw them. Let’s pop some bottles, exchange some bags, toss around a li’l mistletoe.”

I stop myself from chewing off my gloss. Though I can’t imagine candle-lighting the family tree after twelve teary “raised you better” voicemails from Mama, unstuffing stockings with near-naked girlies sucking on oranges and airplane bottles seems as off. 

He glances in the rearview as I stick rhinestones around my eyes to simulate a snow-speckled ice queen. The Santa toy from the Kinder Joy chocolate I gave him a year ago hangs off the mirror, its egghead winking at me as it metronomes to the soft techno. “C’mon, the holidays are bigger than the two of us. Let’s bring some folks together. We’ll have a blast. I’ll bring the Grand Brulot. Been eyeing a bottle since your girl turned me onto the VSOP.”

My smile resurfaces when I remember Chastity drinking him and DJ Jinx under the table over a game of Never Have I Ever. “I don’t know. . . That sounds like a big to-do. Chastity would be on board, but I don’t know if the girls wanna ‘waste’ their money so last-minute.”

“Ah, don’t sweat it. I’m not taking lip from selfish Sheena or too-cool-for-school Anissa. Trust me, I’m a master debater.” He rolls up to the big sign with the club’s bit lip logo. “I’ll bring the whole fam together. You can call me K-rizz Kringle,” he laughs. 

I lean over to noogie him. “Think you got too many sugar plums dancing in your head, handsome.” 

I kiss that big forehead, then we tell each other to be careful. But as I’m walking into the back of the club, I see Geo get out and beeline for the club owner’s mini monster truck. He knocks on the slime-green decaled door and down rolls the window. 

I scrunch my shoulders and push away thoughts of Mister Miser laughing at the idea—or polling all his pole minxes and them doing it to my face.

“Ooooh, Pickles,” Chastity cheers from her vanity, waving a sparkly blush brush at me. “What’s up, girl? Did you hear Miski finally got fired for thieving? Christmas come early, right? Now I can actually afford who’s on my Nice List.”

I plop into the pink roller chair next to her. “Good. That girl was feral. Worse attitude than the Cash Me Outside girl.”

“Total Grinch,” Anissa agrees, leaning into our conversation to borrow Chastity’s cotton candy perfume. “I’d put coal in her stocking and beat her with it like a prison rock sock.”

“Naughty, naughty,” Chastity clucks. “Have you really been to prison?”

“Just jail.” Anissa rolls her shoulders like it was a stint in summer school. “One night over a stupid lotion set I ’lifted for my moms… Bitch wouldn’t even pick me up at the station.” She shakes her head until her frown turns into a grin usually reserved for customers. “Who knew Kmart had security like that?”

“His helpers are always watching,” Chastity ominously intones, staring at a bedazzled Santa hat somebody draped over a mirror bulb.

“You play too much.” Anissa gives her a half-hearted shove. “What about you, Pickles? I know you ain’t never been to the pokey. But you ever done some stupid shit over people you thought was family?”

I flash on the holly-dotted embroidery hoop I have sitting on my coffee table, likely to become a dust-catcher after Aunt Zelda told me I’d “have better luck being an esthetician, not an embarrassment.” Scratching at the clasps on my bustier, I murmur, “Well, haven’t we all?”

***

On the stage, glacial in temperature and shade, I forget about all my sad-browed relatives and lack of holiday plans. I shake off the stress, keeping the beat even though I’m sick of Ariana Grande’s caterwauling and the customers who think I don’t see them reusing bills from the edge. Men keep their billfolds closer to the chest this time of year, squeezed tighter from their kids’ wish lists, hosting the in-laws, and their wives’ endless list of “necessary decorations.” 

I’ve heard about it for countless lap dances and tabletop bops, so I dip, slide, and shimmy through the night and early morning until Geo comes to get me. He greets me with Mister Miser, Chastity, and Anissa at his flank. 

“You gotta real fun braintrust here, Pickles.” The club owner winks and glances at his gold Rollie. 5AM. “Merry Christmas Eve. You gonna deck the halls with us next shift or what?”

“Huh?” I wipe sweat and glitter off my forehead, raising a brow to my man.

“Said I gotchu, Pickles!” He shakes up a bottle of Moet but doesn’t pop the top. “This Christmas will be five times funner than some dusty ol’ family function, a fusion of the new and classic! Let me surprise you.”

Well, this is surprise enough, I think, but seeing he’s even got the cheapskate club owner and snooty booty Anissa on board… “We’ll see.” My smile shows I’m already cautiously optimistic.

***

Though 7PM is more like breakfast to clubsters, twelve of us sashay through the doors of The Melting Pot. We soak in all the actual and metaphorical cheesiness of eating liquid cheddar while draped in fluffy white bras and hookah smoke. 

“Germans always have fondue for Christmas Even, right?” Geo asks, as eager as a puppy who actually studied the homework instead of ate it. “That’s what Google said. It’s corny fun anyway, right? Nice.”

“Yes. Kitschy in the best way.” I beam, hoping he’ll relax. “Can’t believe you actually coordinated something with eight strippers,” I whisper as he pulls my chair out.

“Can’t believe you doubted your boy!” He winks and asks the waiter for a round of cranberry mojitos. Once they arrive, he toasts, “Miami doesn’t have much of a winter, but it’s definitely the coolest place to come together. I hope this is the first of many years we support this tradition. Even if we move away from the club, we can all take a piece of this memory, knowing that family is what you make it. Thanks, Pickles, for inspiring this! Cheers, everybody!”

Everybody clinks glasses, then laughs about the droplets that fall and sizzle on the hotplates at our roundtable. The bouncer teases Mister Miser that these drinks are less watered-down than his, and the girls squeeze each other’s shoulders in playful shoves, kidding about who’ll get drunkest before dusk. We share cauldrons of Swiss to dunk duck and fillet mignon, charcuterie and shrimp, we cook ourselves on skewers. Anissa entertains us with how she used to slink into her mom’s closet as early as November to slit open her presents with a nail file. Chastity talks about how glad she is not to have to be glared and ogled at for free in church this year. By the time we move onto chocolate and wedges of bread, pineapples and pretzels, I forget why I ever feared rejection here.

“And the best is yet to come,” Chastity sings at me with as Geo signs the bill. 

***

The Champagne Room is strewn with candy-striped balloons. On the red-hot couches, we all sit for the gift exchange by a Charlie Brown tree. Our heels excitedly stomp on the carpet patterned with hair-swinging babes. Anissa tries her best not to fight over that Agent Provocateur lingerie set she had to trade in the shuffle. Chastity and I giggle like schoolgirls over the gag gifts of literal stress “balls” and pregnancy tests that got passed around. I’m more than pleased with the Body Works basket I won and the spa certificate I gave away, but Geo’s sweet deep voice says, “Wait. Pickles, it’s not Christmas without your signature.” 

He nods toward the artificial tree. 

It’s easy to see through its limbs but it takes some digging to pluck that ornament of a Vlasic classic. The other girls halfheartedly search, munching Haribo gummies. 

That pickle prize is mine! I hold it up like a torch.

The girls whistle and clap. 

Geo snatches it from my hand. 

Before I can ask why, he plants a jewelry box in my palm instead. He flicks open the small square and reveals an emerald ring. 

“Ol’ switcharoo. Whata ya say, Pickles?” He proposes, “Year one of many traditions?”

I say, pickles really are lucky. I am.