The Secret History - Donna Tartt [139]
I examined the bottle. There were two drab tablets at the bottom. All the label said was FOR PAIN.
I said, annoyed, “What is this? Anacin or something?”
“Try one. They’re okay. This weather’s pretty wild, huh?”
“Yeah,” I said, swallowing a pill and handing the bottle back.
“Don’t worry, keep it,” she said, already returned to her toilette. “Man. All it does here is fucking snow. I don’t know why the hell I ever came here. You want a beer?”
She had a refrigerator in her room, in the closet. I fought my way through a jungle of belts and hats and lacy shirts to get to it.
“No, I don’t want one,” she said when I held one out to her. “Too fucked up. You didn’t go to the party, did you?”
“No,” I said, and then stopped, the beer bottle at my lips. There was something about the taste of it, the smell, and then I remembered: Bunny, the beer on his breath; spilled beer foaming on the ground. The bottle clattering after him down the slope.
“Smart move,” said Judy. “It was cold and the band stunk. I saw your friend, what’s-his-name. The Colonel.”
“What?”
She laughed. “You know. Laura Stora calls him that. She used to live next door to him and he irritated the shit out of her playing these John Philip Sousa marching records all the time.”
She meant Bunny. I set the bottle down.
But Judy, thank God, was busy with the eyebrow pencil. “You know,” she said, “I think Laura has an eating disorder, not anorexia, but that Karen Carpenter thing where you make yourself puke. Last night I went with her and Trace to the Brasserie, and, I’m totally serious, she stuffed herself until she could not breathe. Then she went in the men’s room to barf and Tracy and I were looking at each other, like, is this normal? Then Trace told me, well, you remember that time Laura was supposedly in the hospital for mono? Well. The story is that actually …”
She rattled on. I stared at her, lost in my own awful thoughts.
Suddenly I realized she’d stopped talking. She was looking at me expectantly, waiting for a reply.
“What?” I said.
“I said, isn’t that the most retarded thing you ever heard?”
“Ummmm.”
“Her parents just must not give a shit.” She closed the makeup drawer and turned to face me. “Anyway. You want to come to this party?”
“Whose is it?”
“Jack Teitelbaum’s, you airhead. Durbinstall basement. Sid’s band is supposed to play, and Moffat’s back on the drums. And somebody said something about a go-go dancer in a cage. Come on.”
For some reason I was unable to answer her. Unconditional refusal to Judy’s invitations was a reflex so deeply ingrained that it was hard to force myself to say yes. Then I thought of my room. Bed, bureau, desk. Books lying open where I’d left them.
“Come on,” she said coquettishly. “You never go out with me.”
“All right,” I said at last. “Let me get my coat.”
Only much later did I find out what Judy had given me: Demerol. By the time we got to the party it had started to kick in. Angles, colors, the riot of snowflakes, the din of Sid’s band—everything was soft and kind and infinitely forgiving. I noted a strange beauty in the faces of people previously repulsive to me. I smiled at everyone and everyone smiled back.
Judy (Judy! God bless her!) left me with her friend Jack Teitelbaum and a fellow named Lars and went off to get us a drink. Everything was bathed in a celestial light. I listened to Jack and Lars talk about pinball, motorcycles, female kick-boxing, and was heartwarmed at their attempts to include me in the conversation. Lars offered me a bong hit. The gesture was, to me, tremendously touching and all of a sudden