That's What Frenemies Are For, page 13
But I also remember the glinting cheer, the feeling that everything was as it should be, that everything was possible. I suddenly craved that—I told myself I deserved it. And if Brooke and Tatum could handle it on an empty stomach, then surely I could too.
“Don’t be afraid,” Brooke said, watching me. “You’ll love it. You’ll see. And you’re with us—nothing bad will happen.”
Richard was watching me too, looking amused, and the music was thrumming up through the floor into my body. I wanted him to flirt with me too; I wanted to trade in the currency that Brooke spilled like sand from her fists. I held the pill between my finger and thumb, considering.
“Come on, Julia,” Tatum pleaded.
“Forget it,” Brooke said, tossing her hair over her shoulder. “She’s too scared.” She turned her back on me and clambered onto Richard’s lap, straddling him, and began a languorous bump and grind in time to the pulsing beat. A new song came on, and Tatum shrieked and jumped up, distractible as a butterfly, and danced out into the crowd.
My perilous moment had passed. I’d resisted Brooke and I told myself that it was a victory—someone had to be the tedious adult in the room. I dropped the pill back in the tin and slipped it into my purse, and stood up too quickly, instantly dizzy.
“I’m going to get some water,” I announced. Richard had both his hands on Brooke’s ass, and neither of them looked up.
At the bar I wedged myself into a narrow space between people and took stock. I was definitely drunk—I’d put away most of the second bottle of wine at the restaurant by myself, not to mention the two cocktails. Thank God I’d come to my senses; I was in no condition to put one more thing in my body until I’d sobered up. As I tried to catch the bartender’s attention, I realized I’d left my purse under the coffee table. Someone leaned into me and drawled, in a gust of garlic and beer, “Damn, you’re amazing.”
My admirer was wearing a T-shirt with a vintage Olympia beer logo and a modest, hopeful thatch of facial hair; he couldn’t have been more than nineteen. Okay, twenty-one, since not even the best fake ID would get him in this place.
“Dance with me.”
“I need to find my friends.”
“You don’t need them,” He hooked his fingers into my waistband and tugged me into the mass of gyrating, undulating bodies, and I spotted Tatum. She’d taken off the leather jacket and her mesh top slipped fetchingly off her shoulders as she danced with a man with skin the color of walnuts and hair as long as mine. They were doing a contained samba amid the crush of strangers, their hips touching, Tatum’s hand on his shoulder. I remembered she’d once been a dancer.
I maneuvered so my new friend was between me and Tatum. I didn’t want her to see me. I watched her roll her shoulders and let a strand of her hair get stuck between her lips and thrust out her breasts. People watched her, clearing space around them to make way for one final, whirling spin that ended in—what else?—a nearly acrobatic dip, Tatum exposing the long, pale expanse of her throat, her blond hair dusting the floor.
This was a different Tatum than the one I knew, her peppy cheer giving way to unbridled provocation, as though she was channeling Brooke on steroids. As the music changed, there were catcalls and a smattering of applause—and I went in search of a better vantage point, not even bothering to say goodbye to my frat-boy friend. My purse was right where I’d left it, but the sofas had been overtaken by a bunch of millennials, girls with crop tops and wrists heavy with bracelets, boys in tortoiseshell glasses and European-cut blazers. I snatched up my purse and headed for the ladies’ room; I really had to pee, and a splash of cold water on my face would help sober me up.
The line was a dozen deep. I’d been waiting for what felt like an hour when Brooke appeared, grabbing my hand. “I’ve been looking for you! Come on, this line is ridiculous.”
She led me past the bar and through a pair of swinging doors marked STAFF ONLY into a harshly lit, steamy room lined with dishwashers and kegs and racks of glasses.
“Brooke—”
“No, come on, there’s a bathroom back here.”
She led the way through the room and down a hall, at the end of which was a dull metal door covered with a crude drawing of a cock and years’ worth of graffiti. “It’s us,” Brooke said, knocking, and Tatum opened the door, smoking a cigarette; a girl I didn’t recognize was sprawled on a vinyl bench in the corner. Brooke gave me a little shove and locked the door behind us.
“I saw you!” Tatum said gaily, her eyes unfocused as she sat down on the toilet. Her makeup had smudged and strands of her hair were plastered to her cheek. “Who was that guy you were dancing with?”
“Can I just—”
There was no privacy, but I was desperate so I grabbed her hand and pulled her up and basically pushed her into Brooke’s arms, then pulled down my pants and sat on the toilet to pee. The relief was almost pleasurable. As I washed my hands, Brooke eased Tatum back down onto the lid.
I leaned against the tiled wall and checked my watch, but it wasn’t there, and I couldn’t remember if I’d even worn it tonight. I looked in the mirror: my mascara pooled under my eyes, my lipstick was worn off except at the edges. My eyes were red and my hair was a mess. There was dirt on my blouse. I looked like a crime victim.
“I think we should call it a night.” I turned on the taps again and splashed my face, getting water all over the floor and mirror.
“You have nice tits, Julia,” Brooke said. “Have you had work done?”
“I really don’t feel well,” I said. The girl on the bench shuddered and made a gasping sound. “Hey, is she okay?”
“Her? Who cares?” Brooke took Tatum’s cigarette and used it to light one of her own; she handed it to me after taking a single puff. “Look at those thighs.”
I looked: they were dimpled with fat, the lace edge of her panties visible where her skirt had ridden up. “Seriously, you guys, I don’t think she’s okay.”
Tatum stood up unsteadily and started humming, performing the ghost of the dance she’d done for the crowd, watching herself in the mirror. She spun once, twice, closer and closer to Brooke, and then she took Brooke’s hand so her long, pale, tattooed arm wrapped around Tatum’s body on the final spin. Brooke pulled Tatum into her arms and kissed her neck.
“Poor little girl, you’ve torn your party dress,” she murmured, her hands on Tatum’s hips as she kissed her way to her earlobe, Tatum making little mewling sounds. I didn’t get it until I saw the tip of Brooke’s tongue trace the edge of Tatum’s ear. Her hands snaked up Tatum’s rib cage until they were underneath her breasts, her thumbs caressing them, while Tatum’s head lolled against her.
Brooke grinned wolfishly and winked at me. “You like her too.”
“Yes, I like Tatum,” I said stiffly. “But none of us are in any condition to—”
What? What were we in no condition to do? Keep drinking? Smoke directly under the NO SMOKING sign screwed into the tile? Molest our friends? I knew what I needed: a taxi, fresh air, a chance to sober up before I had to walk past my doorman. And I was getting ready to say so when Tatum sighed and twisted in Brooke’s arms, wrapped her arms around her neck, and kissed her full on the mouth.
A real kiss, a hungry kiss—I’m sure you can imagine. Brooke leaned against the wall, her hands sliding down to Tatum’s ass, grinding against her. I couldn’t look away—I watched, transfixed, until the girl on the bench started making noises behind me.
I turned around to see her choking. Vomit covered her chin and neck, the stench hitting me a second later. As she gasped for breath, her back arched and she slid to the floor, her skull hitting the tile and her eyes rolling up. There was blood on her mouth and a cut on her shin.
“Call 911!” I yelped, kneeling beside her.
Brooke steadied herself on the sink while Tatum knelt down next to me. “Jesus—what’s the matter with her?”
“I don’t know, but we shouldn’t touch her. Can’t you please call?” I had my own phone out by then and I was trying to dial, but my hands were shaking. “Brooke, go get someone, get help!”
But neither of them moved. Brooke seemed immobilized by shock and the drugs, but Tatum started backing away, saying, “We can’t be here.”
“What do you mean?”
“We can’t be here when the paramedics and cops get here, they’ll get the wrong idea—we need to go. We’ll call from outside, she’ll be fine, I swear. Come on!”
She tried to take the phone out of my hand, but I held on to it; she grabbed for my wrist, but I pulled it away.
“Tatum, stop!” Brooke said, finally snapping out of it. “What the fuck are you doing?”
Tatum stood up and grabbed Brooke’s face and forced Brooke to look at her. Suddenly, she seemed perfectly sober. “Think about it. If something—they’re going to want to know what we were doing in here. They’re going to want to talk to us, do you get it? Think of your parents.”
Someone started pounding on the door. “What the fuck, open up!”
“This is serious!” I said, finally managing to make the call. “Let them in!”
But Tatum took one more swipe at my phone, and this time she managed to grab it. She ended the call and set it on top of the paper towel dispenser, out of my reach. “The club will take care of it,” she said. “They’ll call for help. Come on, Julia.”
She grabbed Brooke’s arm and twisted the lock, and the door banged open. Tatum pushed past the man standing in the doorway, dragging Brooke with her, saying “My friend’s going to be sick, let us through, she’s sick.” I heard the sound of the fire door opening and closing at the end of the hall.
“I was trying to call 911,” I said to the guy, who was wearing a long, stained apron and a hairnet and rubber shoes. “There’s a girl in here who needs help.”
He took one look and yelled over his shoulder, pulling his phone from his pocket. “Elliott! Lara! Get in here now!” he yelled, already dialing.
A bartender in a short black skirt pushed into the room. “Oh my God,” she said. The girl hadn’t moved; blood was trickling slowly down her neck and dripping on the floor.
“She threw up,” I said. “And then she sort of fell.”
“How much has she had to drink?” the woman asked me. Behind her, the guy was talking to the emergency dispatcher, giving the address, tripping over his words.
“I don’t even know her,” I gasped. “I just—”
“What were you guys even doing in here?”
“What did she take?” the man asked. “They want to know what she took.”
“I don’t know her—”
“Then get out of the way,” the bartender said. “Wait in the hallway.”
I backed out of the room, grabbing my phone off the paper towel dispenser on the way.
The girl was okay. Wasn’t she? The blood, she’d probably just bitten herself.
She hadn’t seen me.
I shrank against the wall, out of view of the open door. What did it matter if she saw me? I’d been trying to help. I didn’t even know her. I thought she was okay. I wouldn’t have just left her there if I’d known…I’d peed inches from her face.
I hadn’t done anything wrong, other than get really fucked up with two women who were even more fucked up than me and—but Tatum had sobered up so fast, taken in the situation and hustled Brooke out of there. Only now was I going down the same path in my mind: how it was going to look, how the cops would ask for my name—would there be cops? There probably would—how I’d have to tell James. Word would get out, because it always does, no matter how careful you are, and everyone would know I’d gotten wasted at Constellation. My blouse was filthy, my makeup wrecked. If there were photos…but there couldn’t be photos.
More people were filling the hall. I peered around the door, and the man was on the floor now too, saying, “They’re on their way,” over and over again while the bartender held the girl’s waxy, pale hand.
I didn’t dare go out the fire door the way Brooke and Tatum had, not with an audience. I ducked my head and headed back down the hall, through the swinging doors, into the club. The music still blared, the dancers still writhed, the TV screens still pulsed as I fought through the packed club and out the door, past the guy with the glasses, the line of people down to the corner, clutching my purse to my chest. A cab pulled over, and I grabbed the door handle before it had even come to a stop. I got in, gave the driver my address, and huddled low in my seat.
And then I started to cry.
CHAPTER 16
I was all done with my little crying jag by the time the cab pulled up to my building. I walked stiffly into the lobby the way you do when you’re trying not to appear drunk.
“Good evening, Mrs. Summers,” Chetan said, though it was no longer evening.
The apartment was quiet. James had left the lights on. There was an empty pretzel bag on the sofa; Paige’s markers were all over the floor. I turned off the lights, and on the way to our room I changed my mind and headed for the guest room instead, unable to face James.
I’d forgotten that it was now Tatum’s room. I surveyed her belongings strewn around the room, more than I ever would have guessed would fit in her duffel and backpack. I picked up piles of clothes she’d discarded on the bed and tossed them on the floor and set her laptop on the nightstand and accidentally stepped on what turned out to be a dinner plate with a sheen of grease, my foot skidding on its slick surface. I stripped down to my underwear and folded my clothes and laid them on the dresser. I was getting under the covers when I noticed a familiar bit of scarlet peeping out from a pile of dirty laundry on the closet floor.
It wasn’t actually scarlet, but a distinct shade of brick red that the salesgirl at Loro Piana had called “antique cinnabar.” I knew this because my mother was so enraptured by the color that she bought herself the same cashmere dressing gown she bought me right after Henry was born. I’d barely ever worn it—even Mom was too young for such a matronly item, in my opinion—but it hung at the end of the rod in the section of my closet devoted to unwanted things too expensive to give away.
I got out of bed and dug down in the mound of clothes, and sure enough it was my gown, wadded and wrinkled. I pressed it to my nose and inhaled Tatum’s department store perfume.
What was my dressing gown doing here? Well, that was obvious—Tatum had gotten it from my closet. There had to be an innocent explanation—she didn’t own a robe, she didn’t want to parade around in just a towel after her shower. Likely she would have asked if I’d been home, or she’d meant to tell me and forgotten. After all, how was she to know that it cost nine hundred dollars?
At least I’d found it before Benilda accidentally put it in the washing machine. It was so soft in my hands that I slipped it on, but then I took it off again before I got back in bed and turned out the lamp. I felt too dirty to wear it.
* * *
—
When I woke, light was coming through the shades and I was alone in the bed. Tatum either had never made it home or was passed out elsewhere in the apartment.
I listened for James and the kids—but the apartment was silent.
I replayed the night before, events coming back to me with sobering clarity. I—we—had left an unconscious girl bleeding and choking on her own vomit in the bathroom of a nightclub. I didn’t know if she was all right, if she was even alive, if it would have made a difference if we’d called sooner. We were cowards, no better than hit-and-run drivers.
But I’d tried, hadn’t I? I’d been calling—trying to call—for help. My first thought was for the girl, and I hadn’t hesitated, hadn’t thought about myself. It was Tatum who grabbed my phone from my hands, who dragged Brooke with her out the door. At least I’d stayed.
But I couldn’t trust my memory of the details. The image of Tatum and Brooke kissing, Brooke’s hands on Tatum’s ass, Tatum’s hands in Brooke’s hair…that I remembered clearly. I don’t know how long I would have watched, if the girl hadn’t made those terrible sounds—and after that it was all confused. I remembered the cold, rubbery feel of the girl’s legs, the red blood against her grayish skin, my knees on the hard tile.
But it wasn’t my memory that I needed to worry about—would the bartender remember me? The dishwasher? And was it a crime to leave the scene of a—whatever had happened? If she really was fine, it probably wouldn’t matter, but…
I grabbed my purse from the floor and took out my phone. It was nearly out of power, but I searched “Constellation” for the last twenty-four hours and found nothing other than a few Instagram photos. I tried “overdose,” “accident,” “hospital,” but nothing surfaced.
The girl must be okay, or something would have turned up. I was blowing it all out of proportion. Right now she was probably lying on her couch watching Netflix and nursing a hangover. She might have a wicked bump on the head, but otherwise, good as new. No harm done.
Though James…James wouldn’t see it that way.
He’d been an Eagle Scout; he’d done ROTC in high school. He had old-fashioned ideas about right and wrong, and nothing made him yell at the television more than news stories about bystanders letting terrible things happen while they did nothing. This impulse was one of the things I loved him for. Once, when we were driving in a snowstorm to see his parents before we had kids, he stopped and changed a tire for a car full of elderly women; I’d made him pull over at the next exit and we had sex in the backseat.
If he knew I’d left that girl lying there…
