Party Girl_ A Novel - Anna David [3]
Unfortunately, I seem to inspire a sort of figurative foaming at the mouth from my boss Robert. This could have to do with the fact that I was hired by his second-in-command, Brian, when Robert was on leave, or maybe I just remind him of someone he absolutely hates. I try most everything to turn him around, but when people make up their mind about you, you could save their mother’s life and they’d still think you were an asshole. Case in point: Brad McCormick, my high school boyfriend, who hovered somewhere around the five foot four mark during our adolescent relationship. Though he’s now about six feet tall—a late growth spurt and, unfortunately, not one I was able to benefit from—to me, he’ll always be “little Brad McCormick.”
“You ready?” Stephanie asks me on a Thursday at about six. She’s standing at my cubicle, workbag slung over her shoulder, flashing the flask that I gave her for her birthday from under her coat.
I used to get really excited before going to premieres. I think I imagined that someone would see me there and discover me for God knows what—I’m not an actress, or I should say I only am in my personal life—but I guess I thought getting discovered for being so utterly fabulous that I would need to be immediately removed from my day-to-day life and deposited into an existence that revolved around being fabulous full time. I think I thought that rubbing up against movie stars would make me happy. But it occurred to me this one night that I found myself in a cigarette-fueled drunken discussion with Jeremy Piven at a premiere. Jeremy Piven didn’t seem too happy, so why should I be happy for having had the experience of talking to him all night?
We stop for drinks at some Westwood college bar beforehand. Or, if I’m going to have to be perfectly honest and specific about everything, I should say that Stephanie stops for drinks and I stop for drinks and a few lines.
When I first started doing coke, at parties, it was usually easy enough to count on being in the right place at the right time for a steady supply. But more than a few experiences chatting up thoroughly disgusting men only to learn that they were simply fellow coke-seekers themselves had brought me to a point a few months ago where I finally understood the necessity of having my own dealer. And the sheer joy I’ve felt over the fact that I can do coke whenever I want because I’m not relying on someone else to get it has made the additional expense seem almost irrelevant.
I wander into the bathroom after a woman with gray hair in a bun leaves, and shut myself in the stall farthest away from the door. Pulling a vial from my purse, I shake some coke onto the window ledge and chop it with a credit card, then take a rolled-up bill from my wallet and snort it up. I hear someone come in and hold my breath while she washes her hands and thankfully leaves, then pour some more coke on the ledge and snort it.
“I still have plenty left,” I tell Stephanie as I return from the bathroom and sit down in my swivel chair. The metal taste of cocaine drips down the back of my throat deliciously. Some people say they hate the drip but I love it—that practical evidence that the drug is working its way through my body.
“Nothing could sound more foul,” she answers, as she tries to pour some of her vodka tonic into a flask. Stephanie doesn’t do coke—she used to have panic attacks and is convinced, probably correctly, that a few lines of cocaine would send her right back there—so I ask her more as a course of habit than as some sick kind of peer pressure.
“Ready?” she asks. I smile, nod, and sniffle so I can swallow and taste more cocaine again.
We walk briskly down the red carpet as skeletal blond actresses—shivering in their summer dresses on this uncharacteristically