Or maybe it’s just the drugs.
We’re not allowed to let the known dealers into the VIP room. Actually they’re not supposed to make it past the entrance, but a few always sneak through the cracks. In exchange for admittance, they make sure to press a few rocks of blow, expertly wrapped in plastic, into the palm of my hand as they pass under the velvet rope. It’s the way things work around here. I turn a blind eye in exchange for nose candy, and they get into the VIP room where the prime customers pack the tiny dance floor with their voracious appetites. Sometimes I give my stash away at the end of the night to Giovanni or a random club kid—there is no shortage of people who will covet such a windfall. Sometimes I do a line here and there, when I’m bored or super-tired. But lately my consumption is becoming more and more frequent, to the point that I’ve begun to associate going out itself with cocaine, the two intricately mixed together in a way I’m not sure I know how to separate anymore. I’d been clubbing for just a few weeks when Sebastian offered me a line in the bathroom, the white tiles smudged with the imprint of hundreds of pairs of shoes, a drag queen in front of the mirror pouting at her own reflection. Sebastian didn’t even bother going into a stall, just pulled a small vial from his pocket, unscrewing the top and holding the vial beneath his nose, sniffing loudly.
“You want?” He held out the vial in my direction, leaning into the mirror to check his nostrils for traces of powder. I turned the vial over in my hand, terrified of his immediate dismissal if I refused. I stared down at the white powder that looked as innocuous as the fake snow that crusted our tree at Christmas. I uncapped the vial, holding the little black spoon under my nose, plugging the other side with my fingers the way I’d seen Sebastian do it. My hands felt clumsy, too big for my body, and I was panicked that I might drop the vial on the floor, spilling the presumably expensive contents all over the dirty tiles. When I inhaled sharply, there was a sensation like kindling suddenly catching fire, a fleet of Roman candles exploding behind my eyes in flashes of pink and blue. Jagged white lightning. Diamond dust. The unease I’d been feeling moments before evaporated completely, swept away on a tide of euphoria and well-being, and when I smiled at Sebastian in the mirror, my teeth seemed coated in silver, my tongue glittering with crushed glass. And ever since then, it’s never been quite the same. The high is there, but only for a few moments before it slides away from me, moving elusively out of reach.
From my vantage point above the dance floor, I see Christoph out of the corner of my eye, his blond ponytail grazing the back of his neck. I raise my hand in a wave, wondering if he’ll be pissed that I’ve abandoned the VIP ropes to dance on a speaker like some bridge-and-tunnel lunatic. He nods, raising his chin in my direction, his eyes catching the light. Even though I’ve been working here nearly nine months now, Christoph still scares me a little. I think he’s around forty-five, though his chiseled, overly tanned features make him seem much older. Or maybe it’s the fact that I’m seventeen, and forty-five just seems impossible on so many levels. Christoph was briefly married to Jemma Jill, the reigning queen of Studio 54, and when that relationship fizzled, he became the creative director at Tunnel and proceeded to turn a cavernous, run-down space in a pretty undesirable location into a playpen for club kids and lunatics.
“He totally has a crush on you!” Giovanni whispers excitedly.
“I know,” I moan, rolling my eyes and grimacing uncomfortably. Ever since I’d shown up in his office last year wearing a black baseball hat with the word SEX running across the top in mirrored lettering, Christoph has, as they say, “taken an interest” in me. The hat was a gift from Giovanni, who bet me five bucks that I’d never wear it outside, much less to a meeting with Christoph. It may have been why he not only hired me on the spot, but also handed me five hundred dollars for “expenses,” which I promptly shoved into the toe of my black combat boot and later spent at Betsey Johnson, sacks of glitter and sequin-studded tulle trailing in the street behind me.
Besides the fact that he scares the bejesus out of me, I can’t decide how I feel about Christoph, except that he’s way too old for me. Christoph is just so intense about everything: the club, money, his hair, me. Sometimes I catch him staring at my face as if he’s contemplating a world takeover or a coup. He’s just so adult, and that terrifies me more than I can say. I already live the life of a grown-up in so many ways—I cook for myself, do my own laundry—and these things are already a struggle without adding a fortysomething boyfriend to the mix. Plus, Sara would kill me if I even so much as contemplated a relationship with him. But still, I’m not always one to take my own—or anyone else’s—advice. Even Sara’s. There’s something that thrills me whenever I catch a glimpse of his vaguely feline face, some sort of magnetic force that draws me closer. Might be interesting, my inner self whispers when I show up at his office each week to be paid in cash, my breath stopping in my chest when his eyes lock on to mine. Might be trouble, I usually hiss in response.
“You should go talk to him!” Giovanni screams over the music.
“You are full of bad ideas,” I mumble, dropping to my knees and out of Christoph’s line of vision. I sit on the edge of the speaker, my feet swinging out into space. Christoph keeps walking, but throws a look back at me over one shoulder, and I quickly close my eyes and pretend to be lost in the music, my eyelashes so heavy from Giovanni’s overzealous mascara application that my lids feel like they’re being pulled down by a pair of impatient hands.
Sebastian steps out of the crowd, an impish grin on his cherubic face, blue eyes sparkling under his signature bowl cut. Tonight he’s wearing blue-and-white-striped knee socks, white satin shorts, his chest bare and smeared with white paint and glitter. His cheeks are sprinkled with penciled-on freckles, and he holds a brightly colored Jetsons lunch box in one hand. If the scene had a Pied Piper, Sebastian would be it, dropping ecstasy pills behind him as he skips away, club kids following in his wake like rats. Nobody really knows where he came from—somewhere in the Midwest, if you believe the rumors—but since arriving in New York he’s pushed himself into the scene with the ferocity of a toddler throwing a temper tantrum. Still, as obnoxious as he is, it’s hard to dislike him. Maybe it’s because he was one of the first to invite me to breakfast after the clubs closed, stuffing our faces with eggs and bacon before we cabbed over to Save the Robots. We huddled together on the smoke-filled dance floor for hours before exiting, stunned by sunlight, into the early stillness of the day, the crowd parting around us as Sebastian, wearing only a jock strap and black boots, jubilantly skipped down the street. Creeping in to my mother’s apartment, my breath catching in my throat until I closed my bedroom door behind me.
Sebastian is lucky enough to have the kind of charisma that would make most people follow him into a burning building without a second thought. Even though he’s the force behind some of the most awful parties in the history of the club—like the time he filled the entire Tunnel basement with raspberry Jell-O, which was pretty unhygienic, to say the least—he’s managed to charm his way to the very top level of party promoters in the city. I’m still not even really sure how he managed it. One minute he was this weird kid in diaper, strutting through the club blowing a whistle he wore on a string around his neck, and the next he was hanging out with the crème de la crème of Manhattan nightlife, staging three-legged drag queen races accompanied by bowls of ecstasy punch, and turning busboys and random clubgoers into superstars.
I have a strange allegiance to Sebastian, even though I don’t completely trust him. I’ve seen him destroy some defenseless bridge-and-tunnel club kid wannabe with a few carefully chosen put-downs, a rolled eye, or, worse yet, complete ambivalence. After all, there’s nothing worse than being ignored.
“What are you doing up there with that fat Puerto Rican queen?” Sebastian screams, one hand on his hip, his eyes wide under the makeup.
The animosity between Giovanni and Sebastian is long standing, and no one’s sure exactly how it started, but it�
��s safe to say that they despise each other. Someone told me that Sebastian stole Giovanni’s last serious boyfriend, Hector, a design student from Parsons, and then dumped him unceremoniously in the basement before eighty-sixing him completely from the club, effectively breaking his heart and forever earning Giovanni’s hatred. The real story, like everything else in the world, is probably a little more complicated.
“I’m not trying to hear that,” Giovanni mutters, pulling a compact from his pocket and inspecting his face, ignoring Sebastian as he shines the mirror on his skin and purses his lips, enthralled by his own reflection.
“Play nice,” I say sweetly, a warning just below the surface of my voice. These two have been known to come to blows if they get agitated enough, and I am not in the mood to pull them off of each other if things get too heated. Sebastian moves closer to the speakers, and I lean down so that I can hear him over a break in the music.
“Well, I just came over here, Cat, to ask if you wanted to be on the invite for this outlaw party I’m throwing next week. You see, we’re going to get this giant truck, and pack as many club kids as we can on it, along with huge speakers and a DJ, then drive around Lower Manhattan . . .”
Did I mention that Sebastian often has the worst ideas ever?
“Yeah, count me in,” I say casually, trying to act like it’s no big deal to be included on an invite with Sebastian, when in reality it’s a position that any one of the nameless club kids trailing behind him would beat each other to death with a pair of stilettos for. Maybe he’s choosing to include me just to piss off Giovanni, or maybe he’s high. Whatever the reason, there’s no way I’m going to say no.
Sebastian beams so hard that I can almost feel the heat radiating off his body. “Fabulous!” he screams, throwing his lunch box over one shoulder and stalking off across the floor, the posse of kids behind him all jockeying for position, pushing each other to try to get closer to his diminutive frame.
“Well, little Miss Mover-and-Shaker,” Giovanni says lightly, “I hate to be a party pooper, but don’t you have school in a few hours? Or are you ditching . . . again?”
Ugh. School. Now that he’s invoked it, the word hangs between us like a threat. Then I remember Julian, and a warm feeling begins to grow in the pit of my stomach, gathering strength as the embers ignite. Maybe tomorrow won’t be so bad. And after all, it is, or was, Monday, and Monday nights usually end early anyway, so I wouldn’t be considered completely lame for going home now . . .
“Yeah, you’re right,” I say with a sigh. “I really should go home.”
“Home?” A sardonic smile coats Giovanni’s face. “Where’s that?”
Underneath the sarcasm, I can see the pain in Giovanni’s eyes, the way they mist over and look away from me, coated with a film of tears so delicate and subtle that most people wouldn’t even notice. My stomach begins to ache a little because I know exactly what he means.
“Right here,” I say, leaning in and whispering the words in his ear. “With me.”
“Love you, girl,” he says, reaching over and squeezing my hand tightly, his face uncharacteristically naked beneath the pressed powder dusting his brown skin. I look down at the floor, afraid to meet the sincerity in his eyes. I never know what to do when I’m confronted by a show of real emotion. It’s like some necessary part of me was turned off long ago and a numbness has slowly crept into my veins, moving through my blood like a silent killer and turning it to ice.
As if on cue, a song by Information Society begins blaring out onto the dance floor, and Giovanni grabs my arm as the insistent beat makes the speaker throb below our feet. Giovanni hates Information Society, along with all other mainstream bands he refers to as “mall music.”
“OK, now we really are leaving.”
* * * *
SOMETIMES, MY MOTHER SPENDS a whole day with me. A “girls’ day out,” she calls it. On these days, I am in love with the red velvet interior of the Russian Tea Room, the gilded paintings on the walls, in love with my mother, who throws her blond mink coat over the back of her chair and orders me a Shirley Temple with a wave of her hand. I am fascinated by the gleam of the crystal, the ginger ale somehow made fancier by the bloodred cherry floating blindly in its depths. Her elegant hands grasp the silver serving boat of sour cream, placing a graceful dollop beside her caviar blini. My own plate holds chicken Kiev, and I watch openmouthed as the waiter pierces the flesh with a knife, releasing a stream of golden butter that pools along the edges of the fine china. There are trips to Rumplemayer’s after ice-skating lessons at Rockefeller Center, the gaggle of brightly colored, googly-eyed stuffed animals and year-round Christmas lights flashing brightly overhead as my spoon plumbs the depths of a hot fudge sundae. My fingers are sticky, and I wipe them frantically against my tights when she’s not looking, afraid even then of my constant imperfection.
My mother’s eyes flicker with approval as I blot my mouth on a napkin, leaving behind the dark, immutable stain of a kiss.
SEVEN
IT’S WAY TOO EARLY to be awake, and all through history class and a discussion of the Vietnam War, my eyes struggle to stay open even though Mr. Cass is showing a film featuring images so horrific and violent that when my eyes do flutter open, I’m greeted by the sight of a wailing, naked Vietnamese boy, his flesh streaked with dirt. Bodies are piled behind him, the flesh charred, unrecognizable, a small hut in the distance reduced to a plume of smoke. I close my eyes, letting the blackness wash it all away. When I open them again, a soldier is crossing a burned-out field, a human head held in one hand by a shock of black hair, its mouth distended in a silent scream.
I raise my hand and ask for the bathroom pass, and as I stand up, I realize that I’m shaking. My organs are vibrating beneath my skin, and there is a rolling in the pit of my stomach. I walk quickly to the girls’ bathroom hoping that no one’s inside, and push the door open.
The pink tiles sparkle in the early morning sunlight coming through the bank of frosted windows at the far end of the room, and a tap drips insistently, the sound comforting in its repetitiveness. I walk to the sink and turn the cold water on full blast, place my wrists under the rushing stream and try to breathe deeply. It’s a good thing I didn’t stop for a bagel this morning, because it would already be strewn all over the spotless floor, mushy and unrecognizable.
I bend down, cupping my hands together and filling them with water, slurping noisily as I drink. I stand up and look in the mirror, wiping my mouth with the back of one hand as the bathroom door swings open and Alexa Forte enters the room, her blond, waist-length hair wrapped around her body like a cashmere sweater. At the sight of me she stops dead, her boots clicking on the tile, her green eyes surveying my face in the mirror. She stands immobile only for a moment before walking over to the stalls, locking the door behind her with the sharp sound of metal kissing metal. I know I should probably leave, but I still feel awful, my stomach uneasy, my feet riveted to the floor. From inside the stall I can hear the sound of retching, and I wonder if my queasiness isn’t a preview of several horrible sick days to come. Worried, I put a hand to my forehead, but the skin is cool, if slightly clammy. The flushing of the toilet interrupts my thoughts, obliterating them in a ferocious rush. When Alexa exits the stall, she seems composed, business as usual, as she approaches the sink and turns on the tap, lathering her hands vigorously, steam obscuring her face in the glass.
“Ms. Sykes brought doughnuts today. I fucking hate doughnuts.” She switches the tap to cold, cupping the water in one hand and rinsing her mouth out, spitting delicately into the sink.
I could explain Alexa Forte in detail, but I probably don’t need to. There’s an Alexa Forte at every school and they’re all the same. Long glossy hair, perfect skin, bodies that are effortlessly thin and curvy, or so I’d thought. My mother absolutely adores Alexa—along with everyone else on the island of Manhattan—and we had the misfortune of living down the block from her family for three whole years. Alexa was basically my m
other’s image of what an Upper East Side debutante should be, and for a few years I was constantly compared with her. “Why can’t you be more like that Forte girl?” my mother would sigh in exasperation, her eyes sliding over my tattered black skirt, striped tights and black platform boots before they glazed over entirely. That was before Alexa was caught at her last school in the supply room making out with her physics teacher, a recent Columbia grad rumored to be pretty easy on the eyes. Her parents promptly freaked and sent her here, hoping that a transfer would help to expunge the incident from her record or at the very least make it less noticeable—or so I’ve heard. Lost in my own thoughts, I scramble for something to say before Alexa becomes disgusted with my muteness and flees.
“So why eat them?” Somehow, miraculously, I’ve found my voice. It sounds tinny and strange bouncing off the tiles, reverberating in the small room.
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