Party Girl_ A Novel - Anna David [104]
Pretty soon after that I feel extremely animated so I start scrounging around his CD cabinet looking for music that I can dance to. But when Jeremy mentions that he has a sauna, that seems so thoroughly interesting that I immediately insist on seeing it. This house is like an amusement park, I think as I bound up the stairs after him, realizing that the thought doesn’t make much sense and wondering why I’m so excited about a sauna when I grew up with one.
Turns out I don’t so much want to take a sauna as just see it, and once I’ve seen it, my mind has moved on to something else. A cigarette! Another glass of wine! Maybe a drink-drink? Maybe we should go out? My brain leaps from one possibility to another, attempting to land on the perfect plan of action that will keep my high alive. And then I think of Adam and what a crazy liar he must think I am and the thought feels so sad and overwhelming that it seems like it might take over my entire body and mind.
“I think I’d like to take another,” I say to Jeremy as we leave the bathroom with the sauna.
“I don’t know.” He looks slightly concerned. “This is pretty strong stuff and you’ve had a lot already.” I can read his face perfectly: Girl says she’s sober, then goes off the wagon and now appears to be going on some drug binge, which will probably end with a 911 call.
“Look, I can handle my drugs—trust me,” I say, and hold out my hand. It feels uncomfortable to be having to ask someone for drugs. When I did coke, I was almost always the provider.
“Let’s split one,” Jeremy finally says, and he breaks a pill in half. As we go down to the kitchen for more wine, it occurs to me that I don’t really like him at all, and I don’t even mean romantically. As I swallow my half of the pill, I wonder why I’m even spending time with someone I wouldn’t want to talk to for ten minutes at a party, and that’s when it occurs to me that this entire night may well have been a massive mistake.
After a few more cigarettes, I realize I’m a little tired so I lie down on one of his overstuffed velvet couches. “I think your Ecstasy kind of sucks,” I say, as I tuck one of his Oriental rug–covered pillows under my neck.
“Trust me, this is the best shit in town,” Jeremy says, pulling a pillow of his own from the other side of the couch under his neck and mimicking my position. “My guy is the go-to guy for everyone who works on the Fox lot.”
I guess I close my eyes for a while because when I open them, I feel groggy and confused. At first I don’t remember where I am and in the second where I do, I feel even more confused—especially when I realize that Jeremy’s lips are on mine and we’re kissing.
“Oh, God,” I say, pushing him away and sitting up. He smiles at me and I notice that his pupils are enormous. He trails a finger on my leg and even though I hate it when people do that and I’m fairly convinced he’s taking complete advantage of me, I still feel bad when I move my leg away. When I gaze around the room and see empty wine glasses filled with cigarette butts, CDs scattered all over the floor and my favorite Theory jacket crumpled in a heap by the deck door, I’m suddenly overwhelmed with a nearly paralyzing emptiness that I haven’t felt in over six and a half months.
“I should probably go,” I say, walking over to my jacket and picking it off the ground. “What time is it?”
Jeremy glances at his silver Rolex. “Three thirty,” he says. “Come on—don’t even think about going home. I can’t drive in this condition.”
“I’ll call a cab then,” I say, like it’s the most normal thought in the world, even though I can’t actually remember the last time I called one. Do we even have cabs in L.A.?
“You’re being silly,” he says, standing up and walking over to me. “You should just stay here.”
Now, I don’t know if it’s the fact that his pupils are making him somehow resemble what I think the devil might look like or if I just need to get as far away from this experience as quickly as possible but I reach for my bag, pull