Party Girl

by Anna David

  At seventy bucks a pop, Alex provides the best deal in town for door-to-door service but his coke sometimes tastes and smells so strongly of gasoline that, as it makes its way up your nose and begins its drip down your esophagus, you can’t help but envision the tanks it was stored in for its trip from Mexico. Inevitably someone will always complain when we’re doing Alex that they feel like they’ve strolled down to the nearest 76 station and started inhaling directly from a pump and someone else usually points out that inhaling gas probably isn’t that much worse than inhaling pure cocaine.

  Alex is as timely as ever, and twenty minutes to the second after he returns my page, his Toyota Tercel pulls into my building’s driveway. I have about ten neighbors who could look outside and see me doing my deal with Alex—he pulls up, I hand him an envelope filled with $140, usually in twenties, and he hands me a similar envelope, with two grams, each folded neatly into Lotto tickets—and during my more paranoid moments, I’m convinced that my neighbors make a sport out of watching me buy my drugs and secretly gossip about what a bad person I am. It has to be obvious—I mean, who else but a person buying drugs would exchange envelopes with a Mexican guy she never speaks to?—but either they don’t find my behavior all that notable, aren’t watching me, or simply don’t care because no one has ever uttered a word about it or wandered out while Alex has been there and gazed at me suspiciously.

  Inside, Jane and I each chop up lines from our separate bindles as Stephanie busies herself playing with my makeup. Stephanie’s relationship with our coke snorting is sort of the same as the one my parents have with my smoking. It’s done—rather blatantly, as a matter of fact—but it seems to still go unseen. As I watch Jane roll up a twenty, I pack up my supply for the night. I usually carry the coke I bring out with me in a bullet that’s attached to my car key chain—such a ridiculously asinine move in terms of getting busted that it’s probably akin only to keeping a beer holder on your steering wheel—but I couldn’t resist its cool practicality when I saw it for sale at the Pleasure Chest.

  We do our lines in silence while Stephanie drinks until Jane says that the gasoline smell is giving her a headache and Stephanie suggests we get to Steve’s before it gets completely overrun by fake-titted aspiring actresses looking for their next casting couch.

  The party is even bigger than I expected it to be, and during the initial circle that Stephanie, Jane, and I make around the indoor and outdoor bar areas, I feel my skin tingle with excitement over all the promise the evening holds. I remember how much that tingle kept me going when my love affair with partying started back when I was a sophomore or junior in high school. It would build from a sense of excited anticipation I usually had the day of an event—anticipation that was typically far more enjoyable than the actual party—and grow as I strolled around a place, marveling at all the potentially exciting things that could happen to me that night.

  Somehow, seeing the odd celebrity—Nicky Hilton talking to a stylist I once interviewed, Colin Farrell laughing with Selma Blair as they wait in line for the bathroom—only enhances my excitement. If these celebrated people could go anywhere they wanted to and they chose to come here, “here” must really be amazing. It’s usually not until a good hour later, when I realize that nothing’s really happening and probably won’t that the inevitable depression—as heavy and over-the-top as my previous elation—sets in.

  At least we have pockets full of Alex to help us through those periods. It can be challenging to do coke at parties, considering the complications: not showing judgmental nonimbibers that you do it while also not giving it away to the free riders who like to hit you up and ask if you’re “holding” or who gather in the bedrooms, knowing those are the number one choices for people looking for special party rooms. Jane and I opt for the roughly thirty-minute-interval bathroom break routine. There’s nothing that screams “we’ve just been doing drugs” louder than two girls emerging from a bathroom together, usually sniffling, after having held up a line for longer than it could possibly take them to pee, but it usually seems like the lesser of several evils.

  Jane and I seem to be doing a solid job of not letting each other get too paranoid or sensitive or unable to communicate with other people, and I find myself intensely grateful for her companionship. I marvel at those people who seem able to cruise through a party solo, who don’t need a friend by their side to help them deal with bitchy women or cute guys that ignore them. Without a wing-woman, I tend to fall apart.

  Stephanie handles big parties completely differently. She basically goes in search of liquor and boys and disappears entirely, only to emerge hours later with her lipstick smeared. Tonight is no different, and by the time Jane and I are on our fifth bathroom visit, we’ve completely lost her. Gus and his friend Dan wander in and Jane and Dan go off to smoke pot—a drug I’ve yet to see the appeal of.

  Gus and I move onto the impromptu dance floor in Steve’s living room. 50 Cent’s song about wanting to unbutton my pants just a little bit is blasting from Steve’s enormous Bose speakers as Gus and I start dancing alongside a slew of drunken William Morris assistants.

  “God, this song makes me want to have sex,” I say to Gus, and he smiles, nods, and moves closer to me.

  And I guess if you want to be annoyingly accurate, you’d probably say that Gus and I start dirty dancing. Nothing insane—it’s not like we’re all but having sex with our clothes on or anything—but yes, it gets a little intimate. But that isn’t really the problem. The problem is more that Gus starts kissing me and I kiss him back.

  We’re kissing for maybe a minute or so when I look up. And that’s when I see Stephanie standing at the door staring at us with this completely devastated look on her face. And, even in my not terribly sober state, I realize that for all that she talks about how she doesn’t really care about Gus and they’re just “friends with benefits” and all that, she’s devastated. And I should have known—it’s my responsibility as her best friend to translate what she says into what she means. I pull away from Gus and motion for her to come over.

  “Steph, there you are!” I say like I’ve been looking all over for her and not swapping spit with her sometime fuck buddy.

  There’s something different in her face than I’ve ever seen before. See, Stephanie is just about the most tolerant person I know—she’s put up with my moodiness and crying jags and negativity like no one else I’ve ever met—and no matter how inappropriate my behavior has been, the look on her face is always one of forgiveness. But now she’s gazing at me coldly, like I’m someone she doesn’t understand or have any interest in tolerating. Obviously, if I’d been thinking—if I hadn’t been high and liked the song and the feeling of connecting—I’d have realized that Stephanie probably wouldn’t have liked the idea of my kissing Gus. But somehow I never seem to understand these things until it’s too late. She gives me the world’s nastiest glare and starts walking down a staircase. I follow her.

  “Steph! Wait! Can I talk to you for a minute?” I yell as I run after her. Gus is right behind me.

  Stephanie looks past me to Gus and says, “You’re coming with me.” She grabs his hand and leads him outside and I’m left standing there alone, feeling even lower than the dirt they’re probably walking on.

  And then I’m wandering around the party by myself, with the distinct feeling that Stephanie, Jane, Gus, and Dan have all left together and are currently talking shit about me. But maybe the coke has made me paranoid? After a solo coke bathroom visit, I start to think that this may be the worst night of my life and I should probably just try to find a ride home and call it a night.

  But when I get outside, I realize that utter mayhem seems to have broken out on Temple Hill Drive, with cops flooding in, drunk people pouring out, and the odd random person showing up a bit on the late side. I get carried along with a crush of people the cops are kicking out, and realize that although everyone looks familiar, none of them are my friends. Depression and something worse—panic—st
arts to take over me.

  As I stand there looking for someone—anyone—I know, Adam walks by.

  “Hey!” I scream excitedly, grabbing his leather jacket.

  “What’s going on here?” he asks as he gives me a hug.

  “Cops are breaking it up, I’ve lost everyone I know and it’s been invaded by agents’ assistants,” I explain, gesturing toward the mayhem at the front of the house. “Why are you so late?”

  “I just got off my shift,” he says, and I’m reminded that he’s an out of-work actor, someone who deals with things like shifts and punch cards and tips. But I’m so grateful to see someone I know—even if it is someone who abandoned me by the fire and then didn’t say good-bye to me in the morning the last time I saw him—that I force my judgmental side to relax.

  Adam takes a look at the people milling around and suddenly says, “This looks a little like what Sartre might have created if he was crafting my own personal version of hell. Want to get out of here?”

  I bring him back to my place because there doesn’t seem to be anywhere else to go at two on a Saturday night-slash-Sunday morning, feeling optimistic again because the possibility still exists that tonight can be salvaged.

  “Be right back,” I trill, leaving him petting one of my cats in the living room, and make my way to my bedroom. I hope he’s sort of out of it and just thinks I went to the bathroom, I think as I remove a framed print of Gretna Green—procured during a trip to England with my family like a decade ago—off the wall and pour some Alex onto its glass surface. I snort four lines quickly, then slide a bit onto my index finger and over my top gums for what my friend Lisa used to call “Numb-y Gummy” when we’d find her dad’s coke in high school. I light a cigarette and feel the coke flow through me as I make my way back to the living room, where Adam is continuing to pet my cat.

  “I’m mad at you, you know,” I say, as I make my way over to where he’s sitting and join him.

  “Mad at me?” he asks. He motions for my cigarette and sits up. “Why?”

  “Why? Well, after telling me you wanted to take me away from our sordid Hollywood scene, you left me alone, without a pillow and blanket, by the fire, and then never even said good-bye to me when I left,” I say, amazing myself at how casually these details are rolling off my tongue. I don’t tend to be a fan of making myself vulnerable but then again, Alex has a way of making me forget about things like that.

  “Oh, Amelia, Amelia, Amelia,” he says, leaning back on the couch and suddenly wearing a sweet smile. I notice that his ears are bright red. I wonder if I’ve made him incredibly uncomfortable.

  But then he looks at me confidently, right in the eye. “I held you as you fell asleep but then you pulled away from me and onto the floor,” he says. “I tried to tuck a pillow under your head and a blanket over you but you pushed them away. And then”—he takes another drag off my cigarette—“I watched you sleep, and thought about how it was one of the most beautiful sights I’d ever seen.”

  It’s such a genuine and sweet thing to hear from a typically sarcastic person that I literally don’t know what to say. I wonder for a second if I ought to mention the whole making-out-with-Gus incident, but I love the feeling flowing through me so much that I don’t want to do anything that might make it go away.

  So I just move closer to him and he puts his thick hand on my knee and we start talking—about nothing in particular but at the same time pretty personal stuff. It feels a little like how postcoital pillow talk is supposed to feel but never does—complete with the passing of the cigarette back and forth. I notice for the first time that he has one of the deepest, sexiest voices I’ve ever heard as he tells me how much he hates working at Norm’s Deli and how much it sucks to see this completely talentless but attractive guy he knows get called into auditions he’d kill for. We discuss how depressing Hollywood parties can be, and I explain to him how much trouble I have with my friendships. The whole time we’re talking, I’m wondering if he’s thinking about kissing me.

  I don’t mention to Adam that I’m jetting to my bedroom for regular intervals of coke because I feel utterly certain he’ll judge me, and we seem to be getting along so well that I don’t want to risk putting him off. My next trip to my bedroom and inhalation of four lines, however, puts me a little on edge and I find myself rambling more manically than usual when I return. I suddenly see myself as an outsider, or a movie camera, might capture me, telling some incredibly pointless story about how I may or may not have a hostile relationship with the gossip columnist at work. I need to chill out, I pep talk myself, then immediately wonder again if Adam is thinking about kissing me.

  And then I basically lose patience with wondering, and lean in to kiss him myself. Call me a feminist but I’ve never much seen the point of always waiting for guys to make the first move. Adam returns my kiss with far more passion than I’m expecting, and I’m suddenly literally dizzy as we continue to make out. The word “swooning” travels through my mind, as does the phrase “weak in the knees.” I’m not exactly sure what he’s doing but Adam has somehow found a way to access something apparently deep inside my larynx that is turning me on more than anyone ever has before. I wonder if I’m literally ever going to be able to stop kissing him. As I start to feel my chin tingle with that raw-verging-on-scabbed feeling I always get when I’m making out with a guy who has stubble, Adam suddenly pulls away and looks me directly in the eye.

  “Wait a minute…have you been doing coke?” he asks. He says the word “coke” the way I might say “coconut,” something I hate, and I become immediately anxious, like he’s a cop and I’m being put through a sobriety test.

  “What are you talking about?” I ask him but I’m really just buying time, wondering what the hell I’m going to say.

  “I can taste it on you,” he says, and I disentangle myself from him entirely, lean back on the couch, and light a cigarette using a funky lighter I got at the Pasadena Rose Bowl flea market. I exhale deeply. I had no idea someone else could taste coke on you if they were kissing you, and I immediately start thinking of all the other men I’ve made out with while I’ve been wired who never said a word about it. Were they simply not familiar with the taste or did they just not want me to stop?

  I cop to what I’ve been doing, both because it’s evident I’ve been thoroughly busted and because I’ve always been an atrocious liar. Adam doesn’t ask any more questions, but the moment is gone and my panties have become about as dry as the Sahara during the stress of The Inquisition.

  And then things are completely, horribly awkward. He says that he should go because he has a lot to do tomorrow, even though he’d been telling me like ten minutes earlier that he had no plans at all.

  “But I’ll call you,” he says, as he stands up.

  I write down my number, even though I feel like we’re both just going through the charade of polite behavior and he doesn’t have any interest in calling me, because I’m an out-of-control girl who secretly does coke while she’s making out with someone. Then I walk him out, where he leans in and gives me a quick and absolutely rudimentary peck on the lips. He folds the piece of paper with my number written on it in half, and puts it in his jeans pocket.

  “I’ll call you,” he says again, but when he walks down the driveway back to his car, he doesn’t look back once. I go inside and tears start streaming down my face. I’m not sure if it’s because I feel rejected, because there’s no more Alex left, or because I know that it’s going to take several vodka shots and at least four Ambien to get to sleep and that even still, I probably won’t be slumbering until long after the birds have started in on their oppressive morning chirping session. Or maybe it’s all those reasons. I chug from the bottle of Absolut I keep in my freezer without even chasing it with Diet Coke.

  I get to work on Monday with every intention of going downstairs to apologize to Stephanie. During my Sunday of only occasional consciousness—I’d opted, after being up for a few hours, to take more Ambien
and sleep the whole day through—I’d come to the conclusion that heavy partying was really beginning to have a negative impact on my life, and that I was going to cut back on drinking and stop doing coke altogether. Stephanie, who I’d heard make more than a few of these apologetic declarations herself, would have to understand.

  But I also have to do a story on Ken Stinson, this incredibly cheesy actor who’s going to be playing Hercules in some terrible-sounding movie you couldn’t pay me $1,000 to see, and I decide that I should do the story first so that I can be more relaxed when I talk to her.

  The story is for our “Most Beautiful People” issue, and though he’s not remotely beautiful and the editors are clear on that, everyone knows that they don’t actually pick the most aesthetically pleasing famous people—just the ones coming out in movies and TV shows the readers will flock to.

  His publicist Amy connects the call and Ken tells me all the basics—no, he doesn’t go in for things like facials, he works out because he loves it and not for vanity—and when it’s over, I ask him if he has a childhood friend I could interview for terts.

  Terts are tertiary comments from people who know the source well, and though Absolutely Fabulous typically likes to use terts from other bold-faced names, they allow us to use “civilians” for our special issues. So Ken, after confirming his height (five foot eleven) and weight (two hundred pounds exactly), gives me the name and number of his best friend from high school, back in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

  The high school friend—a real redneck-sounding guy named Chuck—seems sweet and genuinely proud of Ken’s success. He laughs that before Ken became “an actor stud,” he was a dork “just like the rest of us.”