Life of the Party

by Christine Anderson

  “I mean, I’d always feared … the worst, but I never actually thought ….” She shook her head and dropped her face into her hands. “I never really thought he’d do it.”

  Wordlessly, I crossed the living room and joined her on the chair, wrapping my arm around my friend and drawing her near. She wasn’t actually crying, but her petite frame was shaking with pent-up emotion.

  “Hey, you can do better.” I encouraged. “You can do so much better than that asshole, Charlie. He doesn’t deserve you.”

  “Yeah.” She sniffed doubtfully.

  “No, I mean it. You are way too beautiful to waste tears on a loser like him.”

  Charlie smiled weakly, her blue eyes full of emotion as she cast them up at me. “Why are you being so nice to me, Mac? I’ve been terrible to you.”

  “Because you’re my friend.” I shrugged. “And I love you.”

  Charlie scoffed and sniffled loudly. She looked down at her hands, twisting in her lap. “So this is what it feels like to have your heart broken.”

  “I’m sorry.” I repeated. I didn’t know what else to say. She leaned her head against my shoulder and we sat silently for a moment. Despite Charlie’s sorrow, I couldn’t help but be happy that we were friends again. Now I wanted nothing more than to help relieve her pain, to help her forget everything, to help her forget all about Zack ….

  A wicked, horribly tempting idea crossed my mind then. I sat up, excitement coursing through my veins at just the thought, and glanced down at Charlie, beaming impishly.

  “Charlie, I have the perfect thing, something I know will cheer you up.”

  “Oh yeah?” She replied doubtfully. “What’s that?”

  “Heroin.”

  “Heroin?” That sparked some interest in her dull blue eyes. “What? Where’d that come from?”

  “I did some on the weekend.” I remembered fondly. “Trust me, nothing on earth will ever make you feel better. It feels so friggin’ good. I can’t even describe it.”

  That intrigued her, I could tell. “Really? But … where would we get some?”

  “I don’t know. I was hoping you might know somebody.”

  “I don’t.” She frowned a moment, but then her eyes lit up with an idea. “But I bet Courtney would. Come on, let’s go ask her.”

  “Okay.” I smiled eagerly.

  It felt like old times again as Charlie and I—swept away with anticipation and the age old desire to get as wrecked as we possibly could—hurriedly readied ourselves and then trounced out down the old wooden steps, giggling as we headed for Courtney’s idling car.

  CHAPTER 47

  Courtney was really pretty. Not Charlie pretty, but pretty in her own punky, perky way. She had dark short hair, straightened, with bold chunks of blonde and red throughout. Her wide almond eyes were lined heavily with black liner, her lips smiled with blood-red lipstick. She was a waitress at the Aurora; I knew I recognized her from somewhere. She had this experienced, bored aura about her, like she had seen everything and been everywhere and tried everything at least once. Just from looking at her I could tell she was bad. It made her mysterious to me, I couldn’t help but wonder what wild, crazy things she’d been apart of before.

  Courtney barely batted an eye when we asked for heroin, just threw her car into gear and started driving, tearing through the streets, chain-smoking and swearing a lot. She knew someone in town that could hook us up and was taking us straight there. I was amazed and surprised by the fact. I figured our little town too small, too innocent for anything like heroin.

  We stopped before a small, decrepit old house; the saggy entryway lit by one dim, failing bulb. Charlie and I eyed the exterior nervously as Courtney got out of the car.

  “I’ll go talk to him, and if he’s cool with it, you can come inside.” She explained. I nodded silently, my eyes wide. I wasn’t usually involved with dealers and I didn’t really want to be now. But I didn’t want to argue with her, either.

  Charlie and I watched as Courtney ambled up the crumbling sidewalk and paused upon the entry, the dim light casting over her little figure. It took a few seconds before she was let in—a single hand pushed the door open and then she was swallowed up inside. Charlie and I glanced at each other silently. I bit my lip. I didn’t know what it was about the situation that made me feel so sketchy, but it seemed to have the word “danger” written all over it.

  But then Courtney reappeared in the doorway and waved us in. I really didn’t want to go, but as Charlie clicked her seatbelt off and opened the car door, I found myself following her. We ushered silently into the little house, hit by a wave of heat and stranger smell as we trailed behind Courtney into a tiny living room off the main entrance.

  I was nervous. Part of me wanted to get away, to run right out the door and keep on running until I felt safe again. My heart was beating loudly in my chest. But the other part of me—the part that wanted the heroin—was more than willing to stay, to sit with the sweaty, shifty eyed men that occupied the dim, hot little room as we waited for one of them to get us our stuff. I didn’t look at them, I didn’t look at anything but my sweaty hands in my lap, I didn’t want any recollection of that place and how dirty it made me feel. Thankfully Charlie was beside me. She seemed calm, anyway, though neither of us was brave enough to speak to the other. Courtney was the only one that seemed totally unaffected—she smiled and swore and joked with the guys around us like they were her closest friends. For all I knew, they were. I could feel the sweat trickling down my back, but I was too afraid to even wipe my hands down the legs of my jeans, too frightened to bring any kind of attention to myself by moving. I wished fervently that Grey was with me. I just wanted to get the dope and get out of there.

  “Okay, ladies.” The man who introduced himself as Jack strode back into the room. He was good looking enough, with longer blonde hair and a huge, built body. He was just as sweaty as everybody else. I could understand the need for privacy, for the thick curtains hanging in the windows that would block out every ounce of light and all the neighbours prying eyes, but really, couldn’t they open a window or something?

  “Here you go.” Jack handed Courtney a little ball, it looked like a balloon or something, full of black sticky stuff.

  “Uh ….” My craving overcame my terror and stupidly, I spoke. “The kind I had was like, powder. Do you have any of that? China White, I think? You can sniff it.”

  “No.” Jack looked at me from the side of his eye, like it angered him that I had opened my mouth. I clamped it shut. “Mexican black tar is all we serve here. Like it or leave it.” The way he said it sounded like a threat.

  “No, no, this is good.” Courtney gave me a quick glare, like, shut up and quit being an idiot. “But I don’t think she knows how to do it this way. Can you show her?”

  I wanted to intercede, to tell them I really had no interest doing it any other way—but at the moment I was too petrified to argue, terrified of angering this lumbering hulk of a drug dealer any further. My tongue seemed swollen, dry, stuck to the roof of my mouth. I didn’t know what to do. And I wanted the heroin.

  “Well, why didn’t you say so?” Jack smiled at me, creepily, like he enjoyed teaching new users how to inject. “Let old Jacky here show you how it goes.”

  He sat down on the beat-up, old reclining chair beside the loveseat we were occupying. Pulling out a kit from beside his chair, he proceeded to take out a spoon, a lighter, a cotton ball, some water, and two clean syringes that he set on the coffee table before him.

  My heart began to pound furiously in my chest at the sight of the needles. I hated needles with such a passion. In school they had to wrap me up in a sheet to immunize me, and the only way I could get my belly button ring was with Riley standing between me and the needle, holding my hand. My mouth went horribly dry, like the cotton ball on the coffee table. The part of me that was scared before nearly got up off the chair and bolted, but I knew I couldn’t go now; I was trapped there, feeble, helpless. I tr
ied to calm myself down, to focus on the heroin and how good it had felt, how good it was going to feel. How all of this would be worth it, in the end. But it didn’t work. The same, panicky sentence repeated itself over and over in my mind, “… not safe, not safe, not safe, not safe ….” I nearly wanted to cry. I wished for Grey, prayed for Grey. For Riley. For anyone to come and get me out of there.

  I watched anxiously as Jack took a chunk of dark, sticky heroin from our balloon and put it on the spoon. He added a splash of water and then expertly flicked the lighter and began to heat up the concoction. I watched the heroin dissolve, turning the liquid an oily, browny-black. Then, using a little piece of cotton as a filter, he sucked it up into a syringe.

  “Ready?” He wondered wickedly. I shook my head as he held the needle menacingly towards me.

  “N-No, I think I’m good.” I stammered thickly, trying to be cool.

  “Yeah, you will be, in a moment.” Jack promised, ignoring my request. He grasped my arm and quickly tied one of those rubber band things they use at the hospital around it, the kind that pinch the skin with their tightness.

  I tried to pry my arm free, but he had it locked in his hand. My heart hammered wildly as I watched the veins sticking up in my arm.

  “No! D-Don’t!” I blurted, tears of terror stinging my eyes. I couldn’t get my arm free. What had I done? What had I gotten myself into? Jack held the syringe just above my elbow. He gave me a wicked upwards glance and re-gripped my arm like a vice. I struggled against him as then, with a grin, he plunged the needle into my arm.

  It was instant. It was intense. It was wonderful, beautiful, magical. All the fear was gone, all the tension, all the anxiety. I’ve never felt so good in my entire life, I’ve never known that kind of euphoria—not in all my drug use had I even been so overcome with such overwhelming bliss. I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t do anything but relax against the couch cushions, my mouth open in awe, a tear slipping down my cheek. I was awash in utter joy, I could feel the heroin dancing in my veins, spreading and peaking and making me tremble with uncontrollable pleasure.

  Charlie went next. At least, I think she did. I couldn’t really concentrate, but suddenly she was next to me on the couch, slack and motionless, her eyes shut and a peaceful, ecstatic smile on her face. I don’t know how long we lay there for. I forgot everything, my fear of the sweaty men, the dirty junkiness of the house, the unbearable heat. I couldn’t even feel the heat. It couldn’t even affect me.

  When I “came too,” basically, when I was aware enough again to take in my surroundings, we were back in Courtney’s car. Charlie was slumped over in the front seat, Courtney was driving us around the darkened town, smoking, humming quietly along with the intro to the Rolling Stones song, Gimme Shelter. I’d always found that part creepy and haunting, but right now it seemed to fit.

  “How you feeling?” Courtney chuckled, eyeing me in the rear view.

  I didn’t know how to put it into words, the warm nothingness that consumed me, the peaceful lethargy I felt, the emanating bliss that wound its way through my entire being.

  “… Good ….” I answered simply, my head nodding with pleasure.

  Her blood-red lips smiled at me in the mirror.

  “What time is it?”

  “I don’t know.” Charlie groaned. Her beautiful blonde curls were a tangled mess around her face, her make-up smudged beneath her eyes. She peeled her cheek from the carpeted floor. “Morning?”

  “It’s too bright to be morning.” I argued, laying my arm over my eyes to keep out the blinding rays from the window. My throat was parched, it hurt to swallow. I tried to sit up but my stomach muscles still ached from the all heaving and vomiting I’d done, a blur in my distant memory. “Can’t you see the clock?”

  “No.”

  “What time did we get to bed last night?” I wondered.

  “I don’t know.”

  I couldn’t really remember either. I knew it had been very, very late when Courtney finally dropped us off at home and Charlie had insisted we shoot up again. I’d been just high enough from the last batch that I hadn’t minded the needle so much that time, but I made Charlie do it for me—I couldn’t even look as the cold steel penetrated my skin. She was sloppier than Jack had been, but the results had been the same, and we’d spent the rest of the night nodding off in the living room, apathetic and perfectly, wonderfully happy.

  Aside from the odd bout of crippling nausea, of course.

  “So, was I right, or what?” I wondered, risking the light to look over at my friend. “Did you like it? Wasn’t it great?”

  “Better than great.” Charlie admitted. “So good. Do we have any left?”

  “I don’t know. You cooked up our last one. Did you use it all?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  I rubbed my face with my hand, already craving more. “What time is it?”

  Charlie laughed at me. “I still don’t know.”

  “I’ve got to work tonight, and Grey’s getting in ….” I started, stopping myself as Charlie’s face fell. I realized my mistake too late. If Grey was getting in, that meant Zack was getting in as well. She closed her eyes and frowned at my reminder.

  “Sorry, Charlie.” I grimaced.

  “It’s okay.” She shrugged. “Let’s do some more.” Her blue eyes lit up at the prospect. “Jack gave me some more needles, they’re clean.”

  “He did?” I couldn’t keep the eagerness out of my voice. With much effort, I sat up and peered at the clock. If I had even an hour to spare before work, I was going to do some more with her. I stared at the timepiece, puzzled by what I read there.

  “What is it?” Charlie wondered.

  “The clock says its 5:17.” I frowned. “It can’t be five in the morning, can it? I feel like I’ve slept all day.”

  Charlie just shrugged. Confused, I flipped on the TV and changed the channel to the cable guide. The channels scrolled down the screen, some twangy country music playing in the background. And then I realized why it felt like I had slept all day. Because I had. It was 5:17. PM.

  “Oh, shit.” I looked at Charlie, aghast. “I’m like, over an hour late for work.”

  Charlie grinned up at me wickedly. “I guess that means you’re not going.”

  I bit my lip, lit a smoke and debated for a moment. I needed my job. I needed the money I made to support all of my habits, to keep living on my own. Surely, going in an hour late was at least better than not showing up at all. They’d probably forgive me.

  But Charlie was already getting out the supplies to whip us up another batch. At the very prospect of more heroin, all my responsible deliberating went right out the window. All I could think about was how good it felt, how in mere moments, I wouldn’t even care about missing work. And then my decision was made.

  CHAPTER 48

  It was like I was moving in slow motion. Everything took me about three times as long as normal. In the shower I just stood beneath the hot spray, amazed at how good it felt, how the warm, beating water seemed to soak directly into my skin. And when the water turned cold from my lengthy stay, it still felt good, invigorating almost. I had to take the time to appreciate the softness of the towel as I dried myself, the smell of the laundry soap. Slowly I picked out something to wear, amazed at the sheer beauty and variance of the colours in my closet. I settled on a tight turquoise sweater dress and some black skinny jeans. Then, like old times, Charlie sat me down before her and did my hair and make-up. This too, took way longer than intended, like we both lacked the energy to put any speed into our movements, savouring each moment instead.

  I was so happy to be friends with Charlie again; I had missed her very badly. Not just for her beauty expertise. We chatted now and then as she worked. Our thoughts were slow and profound, but I’d never felt more connected to her, I’d never been closer to her. We were on such the same level that words didn’t even seem necessary.

  Grey was going to be home soon. The very thought sent ti
ngles up my spine. That was the reason for all the fuss, Grey’s homecoming. I was touched when Charlie had offered to make me up, knowing how hard it must have been for her to see me so excited. I wondered what it was going to be like now that Zack and Charlie had split up, I wondered if we’d all hang out again like before.

  “So, what are you going to do?” I asked her carefully.

  “About Zack?” She shrugged, but his name didn’t seem to ruin her mood any. “I don’t know. I wonder if he was even going to tell me, or if he thinks we can just pick up where we left off.”

  “Would you?”

  “I don’t know.” She shrugged again. “I mean, there goes all hope of us having like, a real relationship, you know? But, I don’t see why we can’t still be … friends.”

  “You’d want to be friends?”

  “Yeah, I would. I don’t know how to explain it Mac. He’s like … he’s like, the only one for me. I’ve never known anyone so … perfect. I don’t know.” She looked up at me sheepishly. “Does that make me pathetic?”

  “No.” I decided resolutely. If Grey had cheated on me, I’d feel the same way. “I know exactly what you mean. Are you going to tell him though, that you know?”

  “I guess we’ll see if he tells me or not.” Charlie sighed. “And maybe this is weak of me, but if he asks me for another chance, if he asks me to forgive him, I already know that I will. Even knowing that he’s cheated on me doesn’t change how I feel about him. It just hurts more.”

  “Yeah. Well, you deserve to be happy, Charlie. Whatever that entails.”

  “Thanks Mac. And you look beautiful, if I do say so myself.” She smiled at me. “Go look in the mirror.”

  I did look beautiful. Maybe it was just my heroin-induced haze, but Charlie had worked her magic, yet again. My long dark hair hung in shimmering waves to tumble around the teal shoulders of my sweater that hugged down my torso and flared slightly at my hips. The jeans I wore could have been painted on, they were so tight, emphasizing my long, lean legs. My eyes were smouldering, dark and lined with black—my lips a natural, shimmery red that went well with the sweater.