When I think about Evelyn I think about her red rubber flip-flops. When I think about Avery I try to stop thinking. And when I think about Eden I think about that otherworldly glow on her face, heaven filling her eyes right before she overdosed.
It all happened, fast. One minute I was just one in the million of teenage girls parading around in bombshell bras and bandage dresses and heels high enough to cause a bouncer to turn a blind eye to the fact that a herd of sixteen-year-olds, going on thirty-six, were falling all over themselves to get into his club. The next I was part of Evelyn’s entourage, the gates of the holy kingdom parting before me with the lift of a red velvet rope.
I was seventeen and besides the occasional basement party, complete with beer bongs and messy boys who didn’t know how to do anything but shove shoulders down for head, I had never been out, not really. But that night I found myself in the city, wearing a gold lamé dress and two shots of Tito’s to ward off the winter cold, thanks to my high school frenemy who had offered me a sacred seat at the promoter dinner table; a strange last supper of sorts, with tristate teenage apostles and a thirty-three-year-old scumbag passing judgment upon them. Her other friend had pulled out, last minute, and I was the consolation invite, shivering in the cold and wishing we had stolen more from her parents’ abundant liquor supply; but Old Lad, the promoter who was getting us into dinner at Tao before hitting Up & Down for the night, promised that there would be flowing fountains of free alcohol everywhere—complete with champagne showers, Don Julio kisses, and enough lemon drops to make lemonade.
It was amidst the sea of candy-colored girls crammed like sardines in a can that Evelyn and her red rubber flip-flops appeared, glowing, blowing kisses, talking to Old Lad but calling him Derek, as in, “Of course I came, Derek! Anything for you,” those red rubber flip-flops still on her feet, the kind of flip-flops you would carelessly throw on to get a pedicure, or go to the beach; nothing special, except for the fact that they were the exact same shade as her red-polished toes, and that they were being worn inside of Tao. Heels (and looking as slutty as possible) were the ultimate requirement to get invited to a promoter dinner; but clearly not for her.
A tap on my left shoulder: It was her. “Hi,” she smiled at me, full teeth, they were even a little crooked, a small gap between the two front; but it looked irresistible, intelligent, incandescent—everything a girl of seventeen dreamed of being. “I’m Evelyn.” She stuck her hand out for a shake and I swiped Red Bull vodka-scented sweat from my palm.
“Hi,” I said, mustering my liquid courage to firm my fingers around hers, “I’m Gabrielle.”
“Gabrielle.” She seemed to consider it, placing elbow on table and head in hand, looking at me sideways with a secret smile that almost made me blush. “Gabrielle,” she said again, “you’re like a fish out of water here, Gabrielle.”
I wanted to cry, she had found out my secret, that I was the runt in a litter of killer wolves rabid in heat, but then she broke out into that beguiling smile of hers and said, “Thank God.” I smiled, embarrassed but suddenly pleased. And then, spoken like a blessing, an answer to all of my prayers: “Do you wanna do something fun, Gabrielle?” I nodded, afraid that if I opened pagan lips the holy offering would be rescinded. “I knew I liked you,” Evelyn said, and I swelled with saintly pride, “come on, let’s get out of here.” And we went.
We left one spectacle only to enter into another, the second circus even more dazzling and dizzying than the first; fireworks exploded across my eyelids as bottle girls belly-danced before us, swaying sparklers and hoisting vodka votives high above head; crystal cups pushed into sweating supplicating palms, cranberry juice spilling over lips like lines of blood. It was paradise. I looked up and saw Evelyn, reclining queenlike on the leather divan of the VIP section, nestled between Avery, her personal promoter primed with anything a party girl could possibly need, and another girl, Eden—Evelyn had introduced me to her in an adrenaline high when we first arrived at 1 OAK, face flushed, beaming, screaming: “Gabrielle, this is my best friend in the whole world, no, we’re practically sisters, this is Eden”—and Eden, for her part, maintaining composure in the face of such compliment, reaching out a hand for a shake, a cool, “Hi,” drifting from her to me over the bass-shaking air waves and flashing strobe lights. There they were, the three of them, Avery with his designer shades and deigning looks, Eden with that faraway flutter in her eye, and Evelyn, with those red rubber flip-flops dangling precariously off red-polished toes, threatening to fall off with every twist of her body, turn of her head, yet somehow always managing to hang on by a thread.
Everything looked beautiful, surreal. I held out my hands and they glowed. Evelyn grabbed one and pulled me up beside her.
“Hey Gabrielle,” she screamed over the pulsing music, pushing lips so close to my ear it felt like a caress, “wanna come with us to the bathroom?”
Unlocking the golden gate of girlhood, I smiled shyly: “Sure.”
Giggling, Evelyn grabbed Eden’s hand, Eden grabbed mine, and I followed them like two white rabbits through a wacky wonderland until we arrived at a private ladies’ room.
“Wow, you guys really know your way around this place,” I murmured as Eden locked the door.
“Yeah, unfortunately,” Evelyn was saying as she sauntered into a stall, “hold on one sec, I have to piss first.”
Eden rolled her eyes, but she was smiling. “Sorry, she’s always gross like that,” she said to me, leaning back with her arms crossed and those mysterious eyes slightly lowered, so I couldn’t see a thing. “So,” Eden said, “where are you from?”
I blinked in surprise at the small talk. “You want to know where I’m from?”
“Well, yeah.” She shrugged. I was shocked. I only knew Eden for twenty minutes and she was the only one who asked me anything about myself that night.
Before I could answer, Evelyn came flipping out of the stall.
“Okay, let’s do it,” she smiled slyly, holding up a baggie, “Avery gave me extra. And you know I can’t resist a little temptation.” She winked devilishly; I watched as she carved out an indent with her pinky finger, holding it up so it sparkled in the overhead lighting, and held it out to me in offering. “You want?”
I hesitated. “Um, Eden, do you want–”
“She doesn’t do this shit,” cut in Evelyn, not rudely, but resolutely.
“Oh. I don’t know,” I said, I couldn’t help but be honest with her, with her big open eyes. “I don’t know,” I said again, “I’m kind of scared.”
Evelyn looked at me solemnly, I was sucked into her pretty pupils: “Do you trust me?” I wanted to laugh–“I don’t even know you”–but I did, trust her, at least then. Evelyn smiled, like she knew what I was thinking, and rubbed the magic powder across her gums, on the tip of her tongue. “Come here,” she said, giggling, and then she kissed me. It was my first kiss and my first time doing coke. I stepped back, a little dazed, and fought the urge to lick my lips.
“See?” She laughed, how I imagined God would laugh, and slipped and snorted another bump herself. “Easy.”
My tongue was numb in spots, it was fun to play with. Then I decided to pee, I was in a bathroom after all, mind as well, I figured, sliding into stall and tinkling against porcelain.
I was about to rejoin them on the other side when I heard muted murmurings, quite the contradiction to the maxed-out melee that was taking place outside the bathroom doors. Pressing eye against plastic I looked through the crack in the stall to find Evelyn and Eden in embrace, arms wrapped around the other’s waist, strands of hair intermingling while heads knocked close together, whispering through sealed lips and heavy eyelids. And then Evelyn turned and kissed her, and it wasn’t like how she kissed me, this one meant something; you could tell from the sighs of parted-lip pleasure and the preciousness with which she treated Eden’s open mouth. I blinked and they became one being before my very eyes, fused out of a frenzied necessity, and I realized that one couldn’t survive without the other, the realization coming to me in my pristinely cleaned and coked out psyche, pulsing with neurotic power and superhuman strength; one couldn’t survive without the other, I thought, and Eden fell to the floor.
She was dead.
But before she left this haunted plane in search of the heavenly one, her eyes were opened and I couldn’t help but gasp at the beauty reflected there: White clouds grazing over blue skies; angels flying out of eye sockets, wrapping her in a white light embrace; and the softness of her smile, pure, peaceful, pious. And as Eden ascended into heaven, everything else came crashing back down on Earth: Evelyn’s heartstopping screams, the pulsing music covering all cries for help, my own heart beating twice as fast as it should. I exited the safety of the stall and entered the scene of carnage.
Evelyn sounded like she was the one dying; grunting, sobbing, screaming; throwing herself across Eden’s chest, kissing her countless times as if true love could undo the cocaine’s curse. But this wasn’t a fairy tale, it was a noxious nightmare intent on poisoning everyone in its path. I couldn’t feel anything; I tried to frown, I couldn’t feel my face. Everything was numb, and dark, and changed.
“I’ll go get Avery,” I said. Evelyn looked up at me, not an ounce of recognition in those blackened pupils–they had taken over her entire face, all she was was a pair of looming black eyes; sightless, lightless–and let out a wail that came from a dark depth of which I had no desire to descend.
So I left. I ran out of the bathroom, nearly tripping over a lone red flip-flop, finally fallen off foot. I didn’t get Avery, I didn’t get anyone; I walked right out of the club, calmer than I had come in, and called a cab.
Occasionally I would check in on Evelyn through the safe distance of the social media screen; she was still out there, with Avery, always with Avery, as if through him she could get back to her. But she couldn’t, she had lost Eden, and now her eyes would never turn back from black.
