The Glamorous Life by Nikki Turner

be paid—the electric bill, the rent, the phone bill, and the water bill. Just covering the basics was dwindling her bank account balance. Damn how they gonna charge me for water? Water should be free, but it ain’t a damn thing free in this world, believe that. The phone rang again, but this time it wasn’t a bill collector. It was the answer to her prayers and her worries.
    The voice on the other end belonged to Disco, the owner of the club where she’d had Egypt’s birthday party. He was so impressed with what Bambi had done with the VIP room in such a short amount of time that night of Egypt’s party that he wanted to meet with her and possibly bring her on as an events planner for the club. She agreed to meet with him the following morning.
    On the way to the club the next morning she remembered that the night of Egypt’s party, some hater had broken off the side-view mirror of her car and she needed to get it repaired before she got a ticket. So she decided to drop the car at the dealership and have the oil changed while it was there, too. The dealership was only a block away from the club, and she could walk to her meeting.
    Bambi arrived at the dealership and drove around back to the service department, where she was greeted by Joe, a middle-aged man with salt-and-pepper hair. Joe had checked her in the few times she’d brought in her car before, and every single timehe was always nice, giving her pointers and helping her however he could.
    “Joe,” she said, pointing to her mirror. “I am going to need you to fix my mirror for me.”
    Joe nodded. “Ms. Bambi, that mirror is going to have to be ordered. It will take about a week or so to get here and it’s going to cost a nice piece of change.”
    “Like how much?” she asked.
    “Almost three … four hundred bucks, I’m guessing.”
    “What?”
    “Yes, sweetheart, you don’t have yourself a Chevette. You got yourself a Corvette.”
    “Well, right now I got a Chevette budget,” she said.
    He put his hand to his chin. He then put his finger up, motioning her to wait a minute.
    “Ummm, let me check on something else first,” he said as he picked up the phone and made a call.
    For several minutes he was on the phone, talking as if it was an old friend instead of a business associate. Finally he hung up, smiled, and said, “Look, Ms. Bambi, I found that mirror that you need for your car, but it’s at the junkyard.”
    She frowned as he told her, “Hold your horses and let me finish. My friend owns a junkyard of salvage cars, cars that are wrecked, with the mirror you need. We can go down there when I get off. I can take it off the wrecked ’vette and put it on your car. He’ll charge you about ten or fifteen bucks for the mirror.”
    Smiling, she asked, “And how much you gonna charge me to put it on?”
    “Ummm, just buy me a cold beer, that’s all.”
    “It’s a deal.” Bambi smiled and shook his hand. “I’ll make it a six-pack.”
    Joe promised her the oil change would be done in thirty minutes, and that they could go get the mirror later. She left her car and headed to the club, eager to hear what Disco had to say.
    Once behind the closed doors of Disco’s office, she walked around the room looking at all the expensively framed photos on the wall of what looked like pimps and players to her, but were actually snapshots of Disco and his friends who also owned clubs. She could tell he had put a lot of effort and time into his Wall of Fame. Disco took the time to explain who each and every one of them was, as if they were his kinfolks. She asked questions as if she were truly interested, but actually she could give a solitary fuck. She was mostly interested in the business at hand. Once he was done giving her the history of what seemed like every major club owner in America, they got down to business. She listened as Disco went on and on for about thirty minutes straight about how impressed he was with her.
    “Bambi, I believe party