White Lines (21 page)

“Since when do you care about throwing parties?” I ask Alexa, a thin sheet of ice coating my voice like a shield. “Or anything below Fourteenth Street, for that matter? Just last week you were scared to even come down here in broad
daylight,
and now you’re the new It Girl?
Please.
”

My voice is coated in sarcasm as thick as motor oil, and my eyes narrow as I watch Alexa’s expression change, watch it seal itself off expertly. Vacant and expressionless, the remnants of a small smile still on her lips, she reminds me of a doll, her eyes glittering faintly in their sockets, skin emitting the reflective sheen of smooth, coated plastic. If I moved closer, she would smell like a combination of sickly sweet vanilla and toxic chemicals. I realize I’m shaking like a leaf shuddering in the wind. I feel like I’m actually
vibrating. Too much coke,
I tell myself.
Too much, too much. Isn’t that what the Mad Hatter said to Alice? Or was it “your hair wants cutting”?

“You’re not really mad, are you, Cat?” Alexa asks, her eyes widening innocently. She’s good, I’ll give her that much. She knows enough to back down in the face of a potential explosion, so that if and when it happens, she won’t look responsible. “It’s just a few tiny parties. It’s not like I’m trying to take your
place
or something!”

“Not
yet.
” My words are as taut as wire.

Alexa and I stare at each other, transfixed, and I see a gleam of recognition in her eyes.

So. You’re on to me
.

“Now, ladies,” Giovanni says smoothly as he saunters to my side and places an arm around my shoulder, “why are we wasting time on this stupidity when there’s champagne to consume?” He holds up a bottle of Cristal in front of me, and I wave it away, glaring at him. “Among other things,” he finishes, looking at the table, still covered with blow.

“I don’t even know what you’re
doing
in here!” Sebastian yells at Giovanni, cocking one hand on his hip, his face twisted into a scowl. “You are
so not
VIP material!”

“Well,
honey,
” Giovanni says, smiling sweetly, “I may not be VIP ‘material’ but at least I don’t look like some second grader’s
art
project, or the
main attraction
at a fucking
freak show.
” Giovanni points at the bright blue spots on Sebastian’s cheeks. “What are those, anyway? Leprosy?”

The crowd erupts in laughter as the skin around Sebastian’s dots turns increasingly red. If smoke could come out of his ears at this moment, it probably would. After the laughter dies down, Sebastian smiles grimly, grudgingly, and I can tell that he’d like nothing more than to snatch the bottle from Giovanni’s hands and smash the top, twisting the broken end into Giovanni’s flushed, smirking face. But outnumbered and now ridiculed, he retreats, until later, when he will no doubt exact his revenge by spreading some kind of noxious rumor guaranteed to embarrass Giovanni down to the core of his being, or at the very least, dream up some way to get him permanently eighty-sixed from the VIP room.

Alexa reaches over and grabs my arm, pulling me closer to her. I can smell the strong, cloying perfume she is wearing, Calvin Klein’s Obsession, and the smell of it, the musky base, makes me feel dizzy, my head light.

“Look,” she whispers urgently, “I’m not trying to steal your thunder or anything. I’m really not. He asked if I would do some parties with him, and he just wouldn’t take no for an answer.” She lets go of my arm, throwing her hair back and smiling winningly over my shoulder as Ethan approaches, walking past the velvet rope. He leans in, kissing her on the cheek as she closes her eyes, her lashes dark as insect legs.

“You off?” she says softly as he wraps his arms around her, nuzzling his face in her neck.

“Mmm-hmm,” he mumbles, lost in her flesh. “Way off.”

Watching the two of them, I remember Alexa crying on the floor of her bedroom, and it’s all I can do not to burst out in peals of laughter. From what I can see, she doesn’t have much to worry about where Ethan is concerned. He seems to like her just fine—more than fine, really.

“This scene is
tired
!” Sebastian yells out, picking up a forgotten bottle of champagne and holding it to his lips, tilting his head back as he drains it.

“I have the cure for that.” Alexa grins, looking up and winking at me expertly, the skin beneath her cheekbones dusted with powder that glows dangerously under the lights.

I stand there as the room gathers up its jackets and shoes, as Sebastian tosses the empty champagne bottles on the floor, the glass crushing like ground diamonds under his shoes as he dances among the glittering shards, the bass pumping through the room like an earthquake. As I watch him, I can feel my pulse slowing for the first time all evening, the drugs winding down in my system like a worn-out mechanical soldier. I’m so tired that all I want is to lie down right there amidst the shattered pieces of my life and sleep for a hundred years. Instead I know I will follow Alexa and Sebastian out the door and into a limo, that on the way uptown I will finish the coke in my poison ring, my fingernails scraping the metal bottom to get at the last of the white powder, staring dully at the city streets as the lights go flashing by, snow sparkling against the cold, frosted windshield.

TWENTY-NINE

WE PULL UP
in front of The Plaza hotel, past the shine of Columbus Circle, the row of flags out front swaying in the night breeze. Thanksgiving hasn’t even passed yet, but I swear, Christmas comes earlier and earlier every year. There are lights and trees covering every square inch of Manhattan already, the boughs sparkling with silver.

I remember coming here with my mother for my birthday when I was eight. The tables in the restaurant piled with elaborate, gold-dipped centerpieces of pinecones and holly. The huge tree in the center of the room, draped in twinkling white lights. My mother’s face as she plucked a small cake from a silver tray, placing it carefully on my plate. In the lobby, the portrait of Eloise smirking down at me, her plump, rounded figure dressed in black and white. It hurts to remember these things.

At the curb, the doorman opens the limo door and Giovanni tumbles out, lying in the gutter faceup and cackling like a demented snow angel. Someone throws Giovanni’s black duffel bag out of the limo and it lands squarely on top of his face, muffling his laughter and high-pitched shrieks. The red-carpeted steps stretch before us like a tongue, and I uncurl my legs, stepping over Alexa perched on Ethan’s lap. As I exit the limo, I reach down and grab Giovanni’s hand, pulling him to his feet. He sways there dreamily for a moment before grabbing his bag, throwing it over one shoulder. On the way here, I watched as Giovanni drank two bottles of champagne in quick succession, the bubbles moving down his throat effortlessly as he leaned into the bottle.

“You are a MESS.” I laugh, brushing snow off the back and shoulders of his long black coat.

“Look who’s talking,” he snaps, brushing past the doorman, chin lifted high. “You did enough blow in the limo to stun a small elephant into submission.”

I sniff loudly in response, the inside of my nostrils caked in concrete. I’ve reached the point in drug consumption where the coke no longer makes me feel spastic, but almost mellow. The cold air hits my lungs like a plunge into ice water, and I crane my neck upward to search for stars, but all I see are the drifts of snow spiraling down to the ground, waiting to cover us all.

“Are you going to stand there all night staring at nothing?”

There is a low voice in my ear, something between a growl and a purr, and it sends shivers down my spine. Alexa’s ruby lips are so close to my skin that her words are almost a kiss. When I tear my gaze away from the night sky and turn to face her, she is beside me holding on to Ethan’s hand, a wry smile on her face. She’s on her turf now, and I watch the confidence with which she strides into the hotel lobby, her fur coat thrown across her shoulders like a cape, her heels clicking purposefully across the marble floor. She removes her platinum AmEx from a Louis Vuitton wallet and pushes it across the counter.

Club kids file into the lobby in droves, posing insanely with the potted palms tucked into corners, legs wrapped around the trunks, heads thrown back. One black drag queen in a tight-fitting cocktail dress begins voguing through the lobby, using the marble floor as her own personal catwalk. Sebastian enters wearing huge, dark sunglasses and immediately starts rating the queen’s performance, screaming, “Ten, ten” and “Work it, bitch” at the top of his lungs while clapping wildly. I watch as the desk clerk, his face flushed with embarrassment, registers the queen’s antics, then looks away.

The suite is on one of the top floors of the hotel, and the carpet underfoot is a luxurious beige pile that seems to creep up my ankles as I walk. Most of the club kids immediately commandeer the living room area and begin raiding the minibar and calling room service, ordering bottles of Cristal and tequila. Alexa smiles triumphantly, sitting down on the long white couch, her body framed by a row of windows. She pulls off her heels, flexing her feet against the carpet with obvious pleasure. Ethan turns on the stereo and music floods the room.

“You’re not still mad at me, are you?” Alexa yells over the music, grabbing on to my arm and holding on tight. “Don’t be mad,” she continues with a hard look. “It’s boring.”

“Yeah, don’t be
boring,
” Sebastian parrots affectionately, pushing me to the side so he can sit in the middle of us, next to Alexa. The two of them immediately begin chattering like magpies, locked in their own private world, and after a few minutes of this, I begin to feel stupid and unnecessary. I get up, pushing past Giovanni and a bunch of club kids I’ve never seen before who are in the process of turning the living room into a makeshift dance floor, moving coffee tables and lamps out of the way, and walk toward the bedroom. Despite the fact that the suite is crawling with people, some of whom are supposedly my friends, I am suddenly lonely.

When I push the bedroom door open, I see Ethan sitting in a pool of light in the middle of a king-sized bed covered in gold silk, his legs crossed beneath him. When I close the door behind me, he looks up hopefully, his face falling slightly when he sees that it’s only me. At that moment, Aria and Amy come stumbling out of the bathroom clutching bottles of champagne, and switch on the large TV at the end of the bed. They settle down on the floor in front of it, giggling at the videos filling the room with color and light. Amy has a long blue ponytail that reaches her waist, and wears matching blue fake eyelashes. Aria is wearing a yellow tutu with a black unitard underneath. With her bright yellow tangle of curls, she reminds me of a bee or some other winged insect complete with poisonous stinger. I sit down on the bed and face Ethan, drawing my legs underneath me.

“Hey,” I say. “What are you doing in here? All the action is out there.”

“I could ask you the same question.”

He smiles, showing rows of even white teeth. I remember Julian’s slightly crooked smile, and regret clutches its fingers around my throat, stopping my breath momentarily.

“But you won’t,” I manage to say when it passes.

“No,” he says, reaching over to the bedside table and lighting a cigarette. Smoke drifts up, obscuring his face. “I won’t.”

“I thought you came here to hang with Alexa.” I pick at a loose thread on the bedspread and breathe in the scent of lilies in a gold vase on the dresser. Their sweet, cloying scent makes me think of Christoph, his face when I got up and walked out, how quickly it erupted in anger and resentment. INXS’s “Need You Tonight” flashes onto the screen, and Aria lets out a large whoop, immediately cranks the volume, points at Ethan, who more than resembles the lead singer, and whispers loudly into Amy’s ear.

“I guess she’s busy.” He exhales, and smoke drifts toward the ceiling. Although his face is impassive, I can see a glint of hurt in his eyes, and I know from working at the club for as long as I have what it must’ve cost him to get off so early.

“You really like her, don’t you.” My voice is flat, emotionless. Maybe it’s the coke, but I feel like I can talk to Ethan now without nervousness. Right now I feel like I could say anything.

“I thought I did,” he says, crushing out his cigarette in the ashtray. “But if she’s really that into all of this”—he gestures toward the other room and the crash of music and broken glass coming through the half-open door—“then I’m not so sure. For me it’s a paycheck, you know? This whole scene makes me fucking restless, if you want to know the truth. I mean, it’s not
real.
”

“And you
want
something real?” I ask, incredulous.

“Sure.” He looks at me levelly. “Don’t you?”

I think about the club, how in the beginning it made me feel so free, like nothing could touch me, all the weight of the day falling from my shoulders like a heavy coat sliding to the floor. Flitting through the fractured light on the dance floor, my skin shimmering and so alive I was giddy with it.

“I used to think I didn’t. Now I’m not so sure.”

Ethan smiles softly, waiting for me to continue.

“I’ve never been too comfortable with reality.” I look over at Aria and Amy, who are passing a bottle of champagne back and forth between them. “It kind of sucks in a lot of ways.”

“What do you mean?” He draws his knees up, grinding his black boots into the bedspread.

“My realities aren’t always that great,” I say in a voice that comes out gratingly, as if I’m about to cry, and I realize that I actually am. I blink back the tears and look up to watch Ethan’s expression change. He says nothing, but his eyes dare me to tell him everything.

“Alexa and I are a lot alike, weirdly enough,” I begin, the words falling hesitantly, jaggedly from my lips. “On the surface, at least. We’re both from the Upper East Side—”

“I thought you lived downtown,” Ethan says, clearly confused.

“I do now, but I grew up on the Upper East Side. I even went to Alexa’s coming-out party.”

“What the hell is
that
?” Ethan laughs.

“Don’t ask. It involves white gloves and whole lot of pretension.”

“So I’m not missing anything?”

“Not by a long shot,” I say, laughing. “Anyway, I moved downtown six months ago because my mother . . .” My voice trails off the way it always does when I try to talk about my family. Watching Ethan as he waits for me to speak again, I have gone suddenly mute. But this time something’s changed, this time there’s an urgency building up inside me, a kind of heat, and I know that for once, the words are going to leave my lips whether I like it or not. For once, I’m going to say the truth out loud. I don’t know why it’s happening here in this room with Ethan, whom I barely know. Maybe it’s the simple fact that it’s easier to share things with someone you have no real relationship with, where nothing is at stake. Or maybe after all this time, I’m just
ready,
unable to hold it in any longer. I’m too tired of keeping it all inside, where no one can see, and for the first time, I don’t
want
to anymore. I want to hear the words out loud.

“Your mother
what
?” Ethan prompts gently.

I take a deep breath, and the words fly out all at once like air rushing out of a deflated balloon. “She hits me. She’s always hit me, ever since I was little. It was never any one thing . . . It was
everything.
It didn’t matter how good I was or how well I did in school. It was never
enough
to make her stop, to make her . . .” The words stick in my throat and my cheeks are suddenly wet. “Love me. That’s why I moved out. My father just watched it happen, and divorced her when he met someone else. I don’t know why.”

Ethan nods, his face solemn. He reaches for another cigarette.

“Why don’t you live with him?” he asks, but before I can answer, he jumps in again, the answer already written on my face. “Oh, I get it. She doesn’t like you, right? The girlfriend?” He raises one eyebrow, tapping his cigarette ash against the ashtray. “Is that it?”

“Well, no, she doesn’t. And the feeling is kind of mutual.” I look out at the buildings across the way, and notice that they look almost blue. “But I guess I don’t live with him because . . .” Words fail me once again, and I wish more than anything that I had a glass of champagne or a line to make it all recede far into the distance, to make everything hazy and unreal again. “Because he just doesn’t care.”

When I can finally look Ethan in the face, he’s staring at me through the gently curling smoke rising in the air. He doesn’t say anything at all, and I realize that the thing I dreaded seeing most on a person’s face when I finally was able to tell them about my family was pity. But there’s none of that in Ethan’s expression, just some kind of understanding. As we look at each other, it’s as if a veil has fallen away and I can breathe again, and I realize that the person I most want to hear the words that have just left my mouth is Julian.

“Hey, guys.” When I look up, Alexa is standing in the doorway. She walks over to the bed and slides down next to Ethan, curling her lithe body around his, her golden hair falling over his black sweater. “Guess what I have?” She looks up with an impish grin and opens one hand. Inside are three large capsules filled with white powder.

“X?” Ethan asks, reaching out and plucking one from her palm, holding it up to the light. “Where’d you get it?”

“Sebastian.” Alexa laughs. “Where else? He’s in the other room giving them out like candy.”

Ethan calls out to Aria, tossing her the X in his hand. She lets out a squeal of delight as she pops the pill into her mouth, drinking greedily from her bottle of champagne.

“I think I’m OK with plain old reality tonight.” Ethan stares at me, a faint smile on his lips.

“Party pooper.” Alexa pouts, screwing her face up adorably, a two-year-old on the verge of a tantrum. Any minute now she will stomp her foot.

“Are you going to?” I ask her.

Alexa looks down at the two pills still reclining in her palm. “I never have,” she whispers, looking at me intently. “I will if you will.” She leans closer to me, and I can feel the heat coming off her skin in waves. “Please, Caitlin. I don’t want to do it alone.”

I remember my first hit of X, Giovanni at my side. How the warmth of his skin made me feel safe, like everything would be all right one way or another if I could wait, if I could just learn, somehow, to be patient.

I tilt my head back, plucking the pill from her hand and swallowing hard. Alexa grins, bringing the pill up to her lips, and Ethan’s eyes cloud over, go blank, and I watch as he turns away, grabbing a beer bottle from the bedside table.