Nikki

Everyone knows Nikki, I swear. Everyone. I’m surprised that you don’t. But don’t worry, you will. Very soon. I know she’s late. The trick is that you add at least forty seven minutes to the time you’re supposed to meet. Sometimes you have to wait longer, but it’s worth it. I swear. It’s not like her to be on time. She’s probably meeting someone on the way, stopping to smell the roses and stuff. She’s always got some story, always says “You won’t believe what just happened. There’s just never a dull moment.” No matter how bizarre, I believe it. I always do.

One time, on the way to PB, she basically becomes best friends with the Uber driver, Chad I think it was. She convinced him to stop at 7/11 to buy us energy drinks cause the alcohol was making us slip into sleep. Hours later, when we were at the club, Firehouse I think, guess who the hell shows up? Chad, the Uber driver. Too bad Nikki already lost interest in him, poor guy followed her like he was lost. Turns out Nikki knew one of the bartenders, flirted with him the whole time. We got free shots until black dotted our eyes. Gave me the courage to dance with this chick from New Jersey named Skylar. She was hot as hell grinding on me. Nikki taught me that girls like to be twirled; I twirled Skylar until she was a cyclone. After her friends glitter bombed me while pulling her away, I don’t remember much other than the Uber driver ordering a Lyft, Nikki and a group of goth girls jumping into the ocean, black boots trudging through sand, and Nikki getting pink towels from an elderly couple on their fourth honeymoon. I guess she stayed at their beach house, had mimosas in the morning, and years later spoke at their funeral. I hear it was a beautiful service.

 I know what you’re thinking. She sounds intimidating, but she’s not. You’ll see. She’ll come in with this smile like she hadn’t seen you in years. Even if she doesn’t know you, she knows like fifteen members of your family and friends. Believe me, I’m sure she’s heard of you, knows stories of when you were a kid, like stuff only family should know. Damn, I can’t believe you haven’t heard about her.

You won’t believe this, stranger than fiction, but it’s true. So Nikki meets this guy at T-Mobile on her birthday, April first. They get tattoos together after, and he ends up at her birthday party that night popping bottles at Fluxx. I mean, the guy was so bro, tattoos and dickie shorts while I’m in slacks and a dress shirt. Somehow she got him in, guess she knows the owner. I mean, of course she does. I didn’t like that bro at all, but Nikki got him to pay for the pedicab, the bottles at the table, and the hotel after. She cleaned him out. But he didn’t care. So as we stumbled out of the club, these British girls start stammering about some Go Fund Me page they have cause they got a ticket for parking on the wrong side of the road. Nikki gets the bro to donate until his bank accounts were in the negative. I was happy when we ditched him, didn’t feel bad at all. I think Nikki did it all because she knew I didn’t like him. She can sense that kinda shit. Anyways, so the British girls end up with us at the hotel. Nikki winged for me so hard that I could have had em all. But, I don’t know, I couldn’t with Nikki there. So I made them some tea, that they liked by the way, and we listened to The Wombats all night until we could see orange reflect off the ocean from our twenty third story view.

I know it’s weird that I didn’t, you know, sleep with em, but you’ll see why. She’ll be here soon. Any minute actually. And when you see her, you’ll get it. See one time, Nikki saw that I was feeling down. She’s so perceptive you know? She can just read people. So, she sees im feeling like crap cause of a bad breakup and even worse rebound. She takes me to this country bar, line dancing, two step. That ain’t my gig, but I’m with Nikki so I give it a shot. She tells me, “The only way to get over a cowgirl is to get under another cowgirl.” So she tries to get me under one. But I can’t two step or line dance, so I can’t get on the dance floor. Nikki, in the middle of Bebe Rexha’s, “Meant to Be,” starts line dancing to her own thing. She twirls, stomps, and spins. And, of course, everyone wants to dance like her, but they can’t keep up. I jump in and meet this girl named Shay, white girl with a black name, cultured as all hell, smart, like intimidatingly smart. So my “in” is that we both don’t know the dance, and she tries to teach me when I’m trying to teach her, and we just laugh when we miss the steps. Nikki just spins and kicks, doing her own thing all night, disco ball reflecting glitter onto her skin. And even though I’m talking to Shay, I lose sight of her because of Nikki. I mean, I’m sure I could’ve gotten a number, at least slided into her DMs. But when I turned away from Nikki, Shay was gone.

It’s all good though, Nikki’s going to take me out again. Wing hard for me tonight. She’ll invite you, wing for you too. North Park tonight. Bring a passport, we may need it cause you just never know. Oh! See her through the window? Do you see her? Wait you can’t? She’s right there. Oh my god, she has a Chinese crested dressed in a tux. Dapper as all hell, he has a plastic rose in his mouth. Didn’t know she had a dog. You sure you can’t see her? She’s right there. When she comes, she’ll tell you the story and you won’t believe it. But you should, with Nikki, you always should.