Party Girl_ A Novel - Anna David [48]
Once I’m back at the table, though, something strange starts happening to me: I sort of lose the ability to speak. One second I’m fine and the next I can’t seem to form words. It sort of reminds me of how I didn’t feel like I could move earlier, but this seems more alarming because there are other people around, people who will be expecting me to behave normally. Luckily, Simon doesn’t seem to notice. He’s telling stories and his friends are laughing and I want to laugh, too, but I feel nauseous and overwhelmed and like my head is maybe caving in on itself, though I’m not really even sure what that means. My head pounds and I want to lie down, even though I don’t really feel tired.
“I don’t feel well,” I manage to get out.
Simon nods, as if this is par for the course. “Falling into a K-hole?” he asks, conversationally.
“A K-hole?” I ask. I picture a donut hole.
One of Simon’s friends overhears and yells, “So that’s what happened to the Special K you were supposed to leave me!”
I look from Simon to his friend and, though very little seems clear at this point, I’m able to make a crucial and horrifying connection.
“Special K?” I ask, and Simon and his friends all look like they’re laughing but the volume of the universe seems to have been put on mute because I can’t hear anything anymore. Even in this state, I know what Special K is—ketamine, a horse tranquilizer.
“But—” I start to try to tell Simon that he’d told me the line was a line of coke but then I can’t remember if he said that or if that’s just what I had assumed or hoped. Simon and his friends continue to talk, and I can’t believe how a part of the world they seem, and how far away.
“Outside for air,” I say and Simon nods. Part of me is offended that he doesn’t offer to come with me, but mostly I’m just relieved. I just need to sit down outside, have the wind blow on me, and feel better, I tell myself as I weave through the crowd and outside. An enormous trash bin sits under a street lamp near the middle of the parking lot and I decide that it looks like the perfect place to sit and relax.
Part of me knows that I must be pretty out of it to be in such a disgusting place and not really care. The trash doesn’t even seem to smell that terrible, which is weird because usually the stench from this back bin is noticeable from the street. I greedily suck in gulps of air, wondering why I don’t feel any better. Then I lie down and close my eyes.
At some point, a Mexican guy, one of the valet parkers, starts trying to shake me awake. My eyes flutter open and I realize that a dirty brown jacket rests over me like a blanket.
“Hospital?” he asks, and I shake my head. It seems like a pretty ridiculous question to me, but when he starts pushing me up to a sitting position, I notice that I’ve thrown up all around me. Humiliated, I try to sit up, but my legs feel paralyzed.
“Two thirty A.M.,” the guy says after muttering a whole bunch of other things I don’t understand, and when I look past him, I see there are a few other Mexican guys gazing at me like I’m some kind of a circus freak. And suddenly I feel very clear, recalling that I did Simon’s line at around ten, a lot of time has passed, and that’s not good. I’m also clear on the fact that I’d very much like to go home but I know that moving right now is out of the question.
“I’m fine,” I manage to say, as I lie back down again, this time in the direction away from my vomit. I decide to take a nap.
12
I’ve always heard about how people come to and have no idea where they are, but the minute I open my eyes—before I even look down at my depressing gown or glance at the sterile environment—I know that I’m in a hospital. Call it anti-amnesia: I had the misfortune of remembering with perfect clarity doing Simon’s line, feeling paralyzed, learning that it was Special K,