I was underdressed and underage for this party, but I moved through the room like I belonged among this cattle call of hungry women. Hungry in every sense of the word. Their little black dresses hung on brittle clavicles and crucifix shoulders, surgically altered tits hard and hoisted. They outnumbered the middle-aged males five to one. The men—producers, I guessed—were soft-bellied, balding, bespectacled. But they had penises and power, and could take their pick of these ambitious wannabe starlets lining up to audition with an enthusiastic blowjob.
It was the kind of party I went to great lengths to avoid, and that even Gemma tended to steer clear of. We were not like these girls, the ones who would do anything for their big break. We didn’t need this scene. So what was Gemma doing here?
I would be sure to ask her while she was still drunk. Alcohol made people honest, and Gemma lied as easily as she told the truth. I hadn’t trusted her since she learned how to form simple sentences.
Curious glances shifted my way, but I didn’t think anyone recognized me. I looked like a different person before the hair and makeup department prepared me for camera, teasing out my best features, my absent father’s high, round cheekbones, my mother’s cornflower-blue eyes, the pouty mouths Gemma and I shared. I’d heard us referred to as the BJL—blowjob lip—sisters. Such lips were a hallmark of any child star worth his or her salt, whether we used them or not. I did not. I wasn’t so sure about Gemma.
A quick tour of the first floor turned up no sign of Gemma, so I moved to the lower floor. The tiered house was built into the hillside, with a living room on the second level, as well. When “The Big One” hit, this house would most likely topple like it was slapped together with Elmer’s Glue. The lights were dim downstairs, the music louder, the crowd younger, hotter. A dozen people were dancing, making out, groping whatever was within reach. A blonde slumped on the couch, passed out with her legs slightly parted, giving anyone who looked at her from a certain vantage point a view up her dress. For a moment I took her for Gemma, but on closer inspection I realized she was a cheap imitation of my sister. I tried to wake her up anyway, ask her if she wanted me to call her a cab. She was in bad shape. Her breath, when she muttered a request that I gofuckaway, was vodka and vomit.
The lower-level party guests were more Gemma’s crowd, but I didn’t see her anywhere. I had explored all of the common areas in the house, which left only the bedrooms. I’d saved those for last, hoping I wouldn’t have to play “what’s behind door number 1, 2, 3, 4, etc.…”
The repetitive thump of house music switched abruptly to dreamy Portishead. “Sour Times” plunged the mood of the party into something darker, more surreal. I caught two guys staring at me from across the room. They were around my age, one tall with a striking, angular face ruined by terrible, home-dyed maroon hair chopped at his chin, a Kurt Cobain clone; the other unremarkable in every way except his eyes, which were a radioactive shade of green. I felt a magnetic pull to the one with the eyes. Growing up surrounded by professionally good-looking people, average looks had always struck me as exotic. I craved a nice, normal boy, a beta male who went to public school and maintained a B average, someone who didn’t know what he wanted to do with his life, had no big dreams, no great expectations. This guy would have seemed my type, but this was not a party for ordinary guys.
“Hey,” Maroon Hair said, approaching me with more swagger than most guys his age could muster. A momentary swoon of heat passed through me at the smell of his cologne, the kind designed to make girls’ stomachs flip. It was probably full of pig pheromones, something that would disgust me if I knew what I was inhaling.
“Are you looking for Gemma?” he asked.
I blinked in surprise. They recognized me. Did they know Gemma? Had she asked them to keep an eye out for me?
“Where is she?” I asked.
“She left with a couple of older dudes. She was pretty out of it, though. She could barely walk. We tried to get her to stay, but she wouldn’t listen.”
“Shit,” I muttered. Had Gemma blacked out and forgotten I was on my way? “How long ago did they leave?” I asked.
“Fifteen minutes, probably,” Green Eyes answered. “They went to another party. Something exclusive.” He glanced at his friend as though for permission before saying, “We know where it is. We can take you there if you want.”
“Thank you,” I said, overcome with relief. “I need to find her.”
Maroon Hair shrugged, starting toward the stairs. “We were about to leave anyway. This party sucks.”
I hesitated, turning to Green Eyes. I had already decided he was the one I could trust. His friend had a smarmy vibe that put me off, reminding me of studio executives and agents, the kind who didn’t see a person when they looked at me, only a value. What value did I have to Maroon Hair? Bragging rights for screwing a famous chick? Perhaps he thought that’s how I would repay him if he helped me find my sister. He would be disappointed. In some ways, I’d lived more in seventeen years than most people did in eighty, but one thing I had not done was have sex. I wasn’t giving my first time away to some random guy I barely knew. Call me old-fashioned or uptight or even a prude—and Gemma had—but I was holding out for something more meaningful than a hookup.
“How do you know Gemma?” I asked Green Eyes.
He looked momentarily confused, and then seemed to deflate a little, his shoulders sagging. “You don’t remember us.”
I squinted at him, as though trying to bring his face into focus, and then smiled. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry! Yes, of course I remember you. We met at that thing. When was that?” I had no idea where we’d met, but I didn’t want to offend him.
Luckily, he seemed to buy my act. “Last month,” he said. “It’s okay if you don’t remember. We only talked for a few minutes. I’m Jimmy, by the way. And that’s Russel.”
Russel stood at the foot of the stairs, waiting with an expression of vapid impatience.
“Jimmy and Russel. Yeah, I definitely remember you guys.” And I actually thought I did. Sort of. The names sounded familiar. “It’s just—” I gestured around at the darkened lower level of the house. “Different context.”
“Sure, don’t worry about it,” Jimmy said. “It’s weird we ran into you here. This doesn’t seem like your kind of party.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” I told him, though I thought it strange that he presumed to know what my kind of party was. “I could say the same about you,” I said, moving through the crowd toward the foot of the staircase.
“Gemma invited us,” Jimmy said, and then in a smaller voice, “Not us, really. She invited Russel, and I tagged along.”
“So they’re…friends?” As far as I knew, Gemma didn’t have friends. She had a stable of beauty foils, wing girls half as attractive as her that she clubbed with, and a few preening teen heartthrobs she occasionally pretended to date for celebrity gossip’s sake. But she did not associate with the likes of Russel and Jimmy, nobodies who couldn’t advance her career.
Jimmy didn’t get a chance to answer my question. We reached Russel, and he slung his arm around me. “You get to ride shotgun. Sorry, Jimmy.”
He said it as though I ought to feel privileged at such an opportunity. I noticed his eyes were red and watery, too wide open. He was on something. Maybe Russel was Gemma’s drug dealer.
I slid out from under Russel’s arm. “I’ll follow you in my car. It’s easier that way.” And I wasn’t about to get into a vehicle with two strange guys, whether they were Gemma’s friends or not.
I was leaning toward not.