Chapter Thirty-Three
“Ithought you would have been fired,” says Arabella, as she hands me a glass of champagne.
We’re in the back of a black car, and she’s dressed like a witch with a heroin addiction. A tiny little black dress and fishnet stockings, pointy, sky-high boots.
I take the flute from her and she clinks her glass with mine. “To your success.”
“That’s…I mean. Okay. To yours, too.”
I take a big swig of the champagne and she smiles after drinking her own.
“But anyway, I thought you would have been fired. How exactly did you get away with that?”
I suddenly become paranoid. Like, is she wearing a wire? Of course I know she isn’t, but she’s really zoning in on me.
“It was just a misunderstanding. The paparazzi got into that club somehow and just—”
“Please, honey, don’t try to lie to me,” she says. “I know what you look like when you just got fucked. Remember?”
She pinches my nipple and I shy away from her. I finish my champagne in one gulp and then say, “You’re the worst.”
“You love me,” she says, putting her head on my shoulder and laughing.
Why the fuck am I here? I shouldn’t have come. I’m only here because I don’t like to make Arabella mad.
Why is my whole life about keeping everyone happy all of a sudden? Why is it so tense? So stressful?
It’s not what it’s supposed to feel like.
The champagne went right to my head, so I put down my glass and say, “How close are we?”
“Almost there,” she says, looking at her phone.
Five minutes later, we pull up outside a club. It’s exactly the kind of place I like when I’m with people I trust. When I feel like really losing myself. It’s loud, it’s dark, it’s moody, there’s loud, sexy music playing.
But I don’t want to be here with Arabella.
One drink and then I’m going. That’s it.
Then I realize there’s a line around the block.
“Oh my god, no,” I say, “I hate a line. I’m not doing that.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, lover, you’re with me.”
She loops an arm through mine and leads me to the bouncer. He smiles at her and lets us right in, which pisses off the entire line.
“Sorry, everyone!” she calls out as we walk inside, which really just adds insult to injury, I’m sure.
We squeeze through the many, many people and order a drink.
She walks up to the side of the bar and does a double kiss with the bartender. She orders something, nods, and then comes back to me.
“It’s good to know people,” she says over the crowd.
“Clearly,” I say back.
The bartender comes back with two shots and two cocktails.
I said one drink. Now I’ve got a shot and a drink to take. Ugh. God. Fine.
“To an unforgettable night!” she says, then throws her head back in laughter.
I clink glasses with her, and then shoot it.
It burns all the way down and tastes stronger than usual liquor.
“What the fuck was that?” I say, when I can breathe again.
“Navy strength gin!” she laughs. “And caipirinhas!”
I want to drink my cocktail fast, so I get to leave sooner, but now that I just had a navy strength gin, I know the last thing I need to do is pound a third drink in a span of fifteen minutes. I’m sort of a lightweight these days, since I haven’t been drinking as much and I’ve lost a lot of weight and have been working out so much.
Fifteen minutes later, I feel fucking wasted.
I’m slurring and my head is spinning. Sometimes booze hits harder than other times, but this is worse than usual.
“I’ll be right back,” I say, patting Arabella on the shoulder and starting to make my way to the bathroom.
“I’ll go with you,” she says. “We can’t be splitting up!”
Something feels really off.
My eyes feel like they’re crossing.
I hear my name faintly, mixed in with all the other loud voices. Then it comes in clearer.
“Jocelyn? Jocelyn!”
I turn and see Jane. Right beside her is Artie.
Oh god, please let that mean Jordan is here.
I suddenly feel like I need help.
I wave at them, trying to breathe normally. I stumble and they both reach out.
“Babe—oh my god, are you okay?” asks Jane.
Artie holds me up by the arm. “What’s wrong with her?” he asks Arabella.
“Nothing, we just took a shot,” she says, laughing. “Just a ballerina who can’t hold her liquor. Nice seeing you again!”
She guides me away from them and I can’t find my tongue enough to say that I don’t want her to.
There’s a long line for the bathroom and she says, “How bad do you have to pee?”
I shake my head.
“Do you have to puke?”
I shake my head again. I guess I just wanted to go to the bathroom to regroup. To figure out what’s wrong. Why I’m so trashed.
“Do you want to go home?” she asks.
My body relaxes a little. Okay. She’s not a terrible friend.
I nod. “Please.”
“Okay, let’s go home,” she says.
Somehow, she gets me outside. I keep my whirling eyes out for Jane and Artie but don’t see them again.
We get in the car and I say, “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry,” over and over again.
“It’s okay, baby! What are friends for?” Then to the driver, “Take us to Ivory Towers, please.”
She gives the cross streets and as she does, I feel my eyebrows furrow in confusion. How did she know that’s where the apartment was?
I start to ask but can’t muster the energy.
I feel my eyes shut. I struggle to keep them open and feel them cross.
This feels fucking awful. So, so, so fucking awful.
It may be an hour later, it may be five minutes, but the car comes to a halt and I feel myself jerk forward and my eyes shoot open like a baby doll’s.
We get out of the car and the cold air hits me and makes me feel briefly better.
“Wait, my phone, my—I don’t know where my phone is,” I say, looking around me.
“I have it, come on, it’s okay, come on.”
She pulls me in toward the front door, and I say again, “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” she says, but I sense a hint of irritation that only makes me feel guiltier.
When the door opens, the gust of hot air that usually makes me feel welcome and soothed from the cold makes me suddenly sweaty and nauseous.
“Penthouse?” she asks.
I nod, and then wonder again how she knew where the apartment was. “How did you know—” I start.
“I just assumed; it’s the Cavendishes, after all,” she says.
“No, no. I mean how did you know where the apartment was?”
“I didn’t, you told the driver where to go.”
“No, I didn’t,” I say, confused.
“Yes, you did, come on, you’re sick, let’s just get you upstairs.”
We get in the elevator, and the movement makes me feel even sicker.
“I’m gonna throw up,” I say.
“Just try to wait until we’re up there, we’re so close.”
I breathe through it, eyes shut.
The elevator shudders to a halt and a wave of sick comes over me. The doors, blessedly, open at that moment, and I burst through them as soon as I can fit through. I then run straight to one of the bathrooms and puke.
I throw up for five straight minutes, my body undulating and aching already as I throw everything up.
I never get sick like this from drinking. Everyone’s made a mistake here and there, but this is not like me. Not like my body.
Is there a chance I was drugged?
No, there can’t be. I only had the champagne with Arabella in the car, then the drinks from the bartender. I watched her get them from him.
Unless…
Another wave of vomit.
I flush the toilet after that, and then fall to the freezing-cold tile, my hair swept over my face. I feel like I’m dying.
I become vaguely aware of a figure above me and blink a few times to see that it’s Arabella. She’s holding a phone above me. At first it doesn’t make sense, and then I try to ask, “Are you taking a picture of me?”
But it comes out as a terrible garble, one long syllable.
My eyes shut, and darkness falls over me again.
The next time I hear movement, I blink again to see another figure.
Then I feel myself being lifted up.
“Jocelyn. Jocelyn, can you hear me?”
I groan. I don’t know who it is. I can only tell that it’s a man.
“Jocelyn. Arabella, what the fuck did you do to her?”
Through the fog of my mind, I hear his question and register that he thinks she did this to me.
“No, no,” I start to say. But then I start to wonder if maybe…maybe she did.
My thoughts aren’t coming in clearly enough to firmly doubt or accuse. I feel my head flop backward again, and then I feel a hand on it, holding me like a baby.
“What the fuck did you give her?”
“I didn’t give her anything!” she says. “She just can’t take her liquor, that’s it!”
“Bullshit. She doesn’t drink like this.”
“What…what is this?”
A woman’s voice.
I blink slowly, over and over again, trying to get my eyes to roll back to where they’re supposed to be. I can’t see anything. I can only feel the solidity of the man who holds me and the icy, freezing floor beneath my bare skin. Am I naked?
Oh god. Please don’t let me be naked.
“Fuck,” says the man’s voice.
“What the hell is this place?” the woman asks.
My head lolls and I see sparkling high heels on the bathroom floor a few feet away, then the slender legs of the woman wearing them.
“Can we not do this right now? We need to get her to a hospital.”
“A hospital? What’s wrong with her?”
“She’s what’s wrong with her.”
“It’s not my fault,” says Arabella. “She was like this when I found her.”
“I don’t understand, I thought this girl didn’t have any money. Explain what the fuck is going on!”
“Not now , we don’t have time for this. Go call nine-nine-nine, now !”
I try to sit up, but my body feels like it’s been hit by a train.
“Deal with your whore yourself,” says the woman.
I see her shoes turn and go the other way.
“Dammit.”
The man lets go of me, and I feel my body fall onto the ground as he leaves the room.
Then I hear laughter.