The sunset faded and I turned on a lamp. I sat on the floor, flipping through an old Southern Living I’d brought home from the café. I studied a recipe for pressed herb pasta, thin sheets of dough encasing the tiniest leaves of basil and thyme, like flowers flattened in a book. I didn’t have a pasta machine or know where to buy those baby herbs. Maybe you had to grow them? And if I made the recipe, what would I do, eat it? Have a dinner party? I marveled that such a thing existed in the world. It was so pretty and foreign and ridiculous I almost laughed.
My phone rang. It was Audrey.
“Hey,” she said. “Are you busy tonight?”
“No.”
“Can I come over?” she said. “I have weed.”
“Sure,” I said. “That sounds good.”
A half hour later she sat in the chair by the window and pulled a one-hitter from her bag. It was painted to look like a cigarette, white with a brown filter. I poured her a drink and we smoked the weed.
“I can’t stop thinking about Danielle,” Audrey said.
“Me either.”
Audrey passed the fake cigarette to me.
She said, “When we first met I knew she would be my best friend. I knew immediately.”
“How?”
“We connected. It was like we already knew each other. I can’t explain it.”
“We became friends right away, too,” I said. “I thought she was cool. I couldn’t believe she liked me.”
“How could she not?”
I shrugged. “She was rich, popular. I wasn’t.”
“Well, you’re really easy to talk to. That matters more than money, you know?”
“I guess,” I said. “She did need somebody to talk to. With all the shit that happened to her.”
“What do you mean?”
“You knew, right?” I said. “That she was abused.”
Audrey shrugged. “Yeah, that. Well, who wasn’t?”
“Me,” I said.
“I bet you were and you don’t remember. People block it out. You have to get hypnotized and stuff.”
“I don’t think so,” I said.
“Well, if you don’t remember, that’s what you would say.”
“You’re nuts.”
“Whatever, I’m not the one with repressed memories.”
“How do you know?” I said.
She giggled, and I did, too. I was glad to be high, to laugh and not be alone.
Audrey said, “I keep thinking about before she died. I stopped by Brandon’s to borrow this top from Dani, this little blue silk halter with cutouts along the bottom, super cute, and we smoked weed and watched some reality show on TV, I can’t even remember what show it was. And I left. With the fucking top. I should’ve stayed.”
“Audrey, you were friends. You cared about her. Think about that part.”
“I’m sick of being sad,” she said. “I’m fucking tired from it.”
“Me, too,” I said.
She breathed out, as though to expel the sorrow. “Let’s go out,” she said. “It’s a nice night.”
“Sure.”
I sat on my bed and watched Audrey hunt in my closet. She held a pink sequined party dress from the sixties I’d bought thrift shopping and never worn.
“Here we go. This is perfect,” she said.
“You’re wearing that?” I said.
“What size shoes are these?” She held a pair of sandals with rhinestone buckles.
“Eight,” I said.
“They’re a little big,” she said. “But it’ll do.”
The sequins on the dress tossed light around the room as Audrey pulled it over her head. The pot made me slow, distracted by sensation. I sipped from my glass and had to close my eyes at the taste of the bourbon and the way it burned my throat.
“Hurry up, get ready,” Audrey said.
She was talking from the bathroom, applying her makeup, and her tone altered as she stretched her face this way and that. I changed into a skirt and top and some pink wedges. I sat on the rim of the tub while she did my face. It tickled. I liked the sensation of her hands on my skin, her scrutiny and care. I smiled.
“Hold still,” Audrey said, concerned with my eyeliner. She finished and I studied my face in the mirror. I looked like someone else. The makeup made my eyes smoky, glamorous.
I pocketed my keys and we went down the steps together. On my block there were no curbs, and trash accumulated in the muddy ditch. I kicked a lone brown shoe out of the way. Wrappers and bones from the chicken place were piled here and there. A scruffy dog lay in the shade across the street, gnawing on something.
“Chicken bones are bad for dogs,” Audrey said. “They splinter.”
“He does all right,” I said. “His name is Tupac.”
“That’s awesome,” she said. “Hop in.”
We took 288 to 45 and got stuck in construction traffic for nearly an hour. Workers operated their machines under floodlights, and the jackhammer got into my head like grit. Her AC didn’t work when the car was stopped, and we had to have the windows up to keep out the dust and noise. My clothes wrinkled and my enthusiasm flagged.
“Typical Houston,” she said. “Sitting in traffic forever on our way to find drugs.”
“It is emblematic,” I said.
We got to a shithole bar on the north side. It smelled of stale cigarettes and cleaning products. Behind the bar were bottles of flavored vodkas, cheap gin, Southern Comfort.
“Don’t worry,” Audrey said. “This’ll only take a second.”
She went in a back room. I ordered a drink from a pale man with dyed black hair and inscrutable tattoos covering his skinny arms. He poured the drink in a plastic cup. Rust stains marked the sink behind him. After a minute he went to a shelf at the end of the bar and fiddled with an iPod until a ska song from the nineties blossomed from the speakers. He raised the volume and the bass rattled the bottles. Audrey came out, sniffing and shaking her head like a frightened horse.
“Let’s get the fuck out of here,” she said.
She had to yell over the music. I swallowed the drink. I was down from the pot by now, hungry, my brain swaddled in cold leather.
In the car, I said, “How about some food. Aren’t we near those dim sum places?”
“Have a bump,” Audrey said. “It’ll clear your head.”
I pinched some of the powder and breathed it off my palm. Immediately I felt focused, alert, ready. My throat tasted like detergent.
“Give me some,” Audrey said. She snorted the coke and put the car in gear.
“Still hungry?” she asked.
“No.”
“Good.”
We drove to a bar called Slush and took over a picnic table. I ordered a martini with cucumber in it and Audrey got this slushy drink with rum, pink and fruity and cold. She slurped it through a straw. We sat under an umbrella adorned with logos of Mexican beer and a network of Christmas lights.
“This is what’s so great about this town,” she said.
“What?” I said.
“Well, you drive around all night, sweating in traffic.”
“Yep,” I said. “That’s awesome.”
“No, by the time you finally sit down with a drink, it’s like you appreciate it more, because you earned it.”
“Wow,” I said, smiling. “Where does this optimism come from?”
“Necessity,” she said gravely. She held her daiquiri aloft. “To Houston.”
“To Houston,” I agreed.
“You always lived here?” she said.
“My whole life.”
“Your family, too?”
“It was just me and my mom,” I said. “She died.”
“I don’t have family either,” she said. “Sometimes I wonder what it would be like.”
“I bet it’s not always that great,” I said. “Look at Danielle and Sally.”
“Good point.”
“I’ve been wondering if Sally had something to do with it. The timing of it. The money involved.”
“They always say that in TV shows, the family members are the most likely suspects,” Audrey said.
“It kind of freaks me out. I mean, I know Sally. I practically lived at her house.”
“After your mom died?”
“No. Before.”
The waitress came by and we ordered more drinks. We took long sips.
Audrey said, “I have a dead mom, too.”
The way she said it, so casually, struck me as funny and I laughed without meaning to.
“What?” she said.
“I’m sorry. You make it seem like such a normal thing to have, when you put it that way: I have an apartment, I have a cheese sandwich. I have a dead mom.”
“Yeah,” she said. “I have a pair of scissors, an accordion, a Dolce handbag.”
“Why do you have an accordion?”
“I found it in my place when I moved in,” she said. “What, you don’t?”
“No,” I said, “but I have a CIA coffee mug that I found in my apartment.”
“Close enough.”
“It was weird. It was on the floor of the bedroom closet.”
“That’s where spies always keep their dishes.”
“What happened, with your mom?” I said.
“It was years ago. She had cancer. How did yours die?”
“OD’d,” I said. “Prescriptions.”
“That sucks.”
“It’s weird,” I said. “It’s not like she took care of me. And it’s not because I miss her. I mean, I miss her, sure. But that’s not what bothers me. It’s like now there’s no buffer between me and . . . I guess everything.”
Audrey nodded. “Exactly,” she said. “You’re alone.”
“You’re alone,” I said. “And you’re going to die.”
Our little encampment under the umbrella seemed haunted. Danielle huddled in on one side, my mom on the other.
“It’s like you’re next,” Audrey said.
“Yeah, as if it goes in order. Stupid to think that way.”
“It’s not stupid. I mean it feels true, right? But you don’t have to be scared of it. It can make you free.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“If you’re going to die no matter what, you can do whatever you want. Nothing matters.”
I wished I could believe that; it would make things easier.
“Nothing matters? Do you really think that?” I said. “There’s nothing you care about?”
“That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying you can do anything you want.”
“So what do you want to do?”
“I don’t know. More blow.”
She took my arm and we walked through the bar into the alcove of restrooms. Audrey pulled me into a stall and brought out the coke. With one more bump the world drifted from the stream of regular existence. I loved the separateness of it. I opened the stall door. Black granite covered the floor, the walls, the counter of sinks. The polished surface reflected light but the darkness underneath sucked it in. I watched the struggle between the stone and its sheen, like a tug-of-war, pulsating. I smelled the cocaine in my nostrils, a plastic bitterness that repulsed me if I gave it any thought. Back at the picnic table I was jittery, excited. The music played louder. We had to be close in order to hear.
“I saw one of your movies,” I said. I heard my voice shaking.
“You did? Which one?”
Haltingly, I described the video of Danielle and Audrey together.
“Well?” she said. “What’d you think?”
Her words brushed against my face. They smelled like rum and mangoes. I hesitated. I didn’t know how to talk about it, what I was supposed to say. A thread from my skirt was coming loose. I pulled at it.
“Quit,” she said, her hand on mine. “You’ll tear out the hem. We can cut it later.”
She smoothed the skirt over my knee and squeezed my thigh.
“I loved that dress you wore,” I said.
“Oh, I loved that dress, too,” she said. “Fucking George ripped it during the shoot.”
“I liked the beginning,” I said. “The part where you’re on that couch.”
“Do you like girls?” she said.
“Um,” I said.
My face flushed. I fished out the cucumber in my drink and nibbled it.
“People think I’m a dyke,” she said.
“Are you?”
She made some gesture I couldn’t decipher, perhaps a simple nerve response to the coke.
“I thought you were sexy,” I said. “You looked—real.”
“Thank you.”
“But I’m not,” I said.
“Not real?”
“I’m not gay,” I said.
“Duh, Charlotte. Obviously. No one would ever, ever, ever mistake you for a lesbo.”
Absurdly, I felt hurt. “Why not?” I said.
“Because, come on!”
“What?”
“You’re such a fucking girl,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, like, here’s how you stand, here’s how you move your hands, you wear this frilly dress.” She touched her pink party dress.
“Audrey, technically you are wearing that dress.”
“So? It’s your dress!”
“Still,” I said, giggling.
“We’re alike, us two,” she said. “We have a lot in common.”
I didn’t see it, but I wished I could be more like Audrey, with her allure and easy laugh. She adjusted my skirt on my knee again, and kept her hand there.
“I was in love with her,” she said.
“Who?”
“Danielle. Weren’t you?”
“We were best friends,” I said. “It was more like I wanted to be her.”
“Do you think she loved me?” Audrey said. “She told me she did. But did she, really?”
“If she said she did, she probably did,” I said.
“We never messed around except on camera. I don’t know what it meant to her. I won’t ever know.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Ugh, anyway,” she said. “We’re not being sad tonight. Let’s get another round.”
We signaled the waitress. We drank. We snorted more coke. It helped.
“So you liked it,” she said.
“What?”
“The video. You liked watching me?”
I nodded. She tucked my hair behind my ear. I felt hollow, deliciously empty, like a bubble that grows when you blow into it. Her fingers skimmed my neck and clavicle, making me shiver.
She took a handful of my hair and drew me towards her. She kissed me, opened my lips with hers. The emptiness inside me blossomed and blossomed until I didn’t think I was there at all. Audrey touched my arm, my waist, my knee, her delicate fingers alighting, leaving each place aglow with nerves. I quit thinking about Danielle and Sally and Brandon and my mom. She kissed me again and her desire rolled through me, like the opposite of fear. I was dissolving inside her smallness, her softness. I had no idea what might happen next, and not knowing thrilled me.
Audrey giggled. “Check them out,” she said, pointing.
On the picnic bench near us a couple of guys sat watching. I accidentally made eye contact with one. I didn’t care. Their attention confirmed this was actually happening.
Audrey said, “Fuck this. Let’s go.” We walked out to the parking lot, Audrey leading, tugging on my hand. In the car I sat awkwardly. The people at the bar had made me feel safe, like we were in a clearing in the woods, protected by trees. Being alone with her, each move required deliberation. She parked on the street outside my apartment and we went upstairs and inside.
“Want something to drink?” I said, opening the fridge.
“No. Come here.”
“Okay.” I shut the refrigerator door.
“I like hanging out with you,” she said.
“Me, too,” I said. I blushed.
She stepped towards me, more tentative than before, and we kissed. Strange to touch a girl. Her soft mouth, the fineness of her skin disoriented me. My hands were clumsy, oversized on her tiny shoulders. I leaned against the doorframe. She touched my face, my breasts. She pulled my shirt over my head, her eyes wide, observing. My nipples hardened at her touch, and my thighs tensed. She gasped as my body jerked. I unzipped her dress and lowered the loose top off her shoulders, revealing her tits, the long brown nipples I had seen on the video.
She yanked my skirt up around my hips, roughly. She pushed my thong to the side, slid her finger inside me. I cried out. The emptiness converged around her hand. I wanted more, I wanted more. She stopped and I thought I might sob.
I reached for her. She grabbed my wrists, kissed me on the mouth and down my neck. She kissed my breasts and licked them, her tongue darting out and in, sliding over my skin, warming it and leaving it wet and cool. Her grip on my wrists stayed firm. It made me less nervous, not having to do anything with my hands.
“Please,” I said, barely able to speak.
“Please what,” she said, but I didn’t know what to say.
I loved her mouth on my body. I loved her topless, seeing her nipples get hard.
“Take off your clothes,” she said.
I wiggled out of them, embarrassed at how wet I was. Strands of it fell down my thighs. I ran my fingers over her tits, the nipples against my palms. I took one in my mouth. She stood still and her breath came quicker. I liked hearing it. She stepped out of her panties. She was hairless there, slick and pink and swollen. I glanced at her face, met her eyes, looked away. She pressed my head to her chest and pushed me down.
I knelt, her hands on my head, and kissed her. She tasted like lemons, like wine about to turn. She was whispering nonsense syllables, high-pitched sighs that came from her throat. She pushed into me now, grinding. Her voice grew louder, wavered in conjunction with her body. She wouldn’t hold still. Suddenly, I had to make her hold still. It was a feeling foreign to me, akin to fury. I fucked her with my hand, faster. I wanted to bite her, but I didn’t. She gave a staccato cry, and her whole body stiffened, her muscles pulsed. She stopped moving and rested against the wall. I was amazed I could bring such a thing about.
My knees hurt from kneeling. I wiped my face on my arm and stood. Audrey slumped, whimpering, her eyes glazed. I kissed her mouth and she jumped at my touch before melting into me. She moved her hand from my waist over my belly, down. She studied me with a vacant expression, open-eyed. I moved against her palm, involuntary. She stared hard at my face as though from a distance.
She shoved her fingers in roughly. It hurt, maybe, though my body was confused and didn’t care. She kissed me and I didn’t have to think. My mind switched off and I let it. Audrey was controlling my heartbeat, my breath, making me shake. My body gave up trying to understand what it felt. I yelled as I came, and clung to her, not believing my own sounds.
“Come on,” she said. “Lie down.”
I took a few trembling steps to the bed and collapsed. My confusion dissolved in her tender kisses and she touched me, softly, until I bucked against her again. My heart rate slowed and my will returned. She left and came back and I understood I had been asleep, for how long I had no idea. She knelt by the bed, slender and naked. I hoped she would lie down with me and then I didn’t. I wished a man was there, someone strong to hold me. I said her name.
“You’re not like her, are you?” she said. “You like it, even with no one watching.”
Her voice sounded sad. I didn’t know how to answer. She smiled and touched my face and we slept.