You in Five Acts(39)

But that kind of customer service didn’t last. I’d texted him that morning and he’d said he was busy, that if I needed it so bad I could come to him, or else he’d hook me up Monday night. I ran down the subway steps two at a time. I could hear the train coming, and if I moved fast enough, I thought I could make it on before the doors closed. Maybe. Maybe.

? ? ?


He met me on 110th, at the top of the park, wearing a big puffy jacket over a hoodie and carrying a heart-shaped Russell Stover box, which was conspicuously missing its cellophane wrapper. When he saw me, he held out his arms and broke into a big grin.

“Got you something, honey,” he said with a wink, holding out the box. “Sorry I’m a little late.” An older couple passing by smiled at us, thinking they were witnessing a sweet moment. They didn’t know he was giving me a different kind of candy.

“Clever,” I said.

“Right?” Dante looked proud of himself. “Did you bring something for me?”

“Yeah, but I didn’t put it in anything.” I started to reach into my purse, but he stopped me.

“Yo, be discreet, please.” His smile disappeared. “We’re not at your house anymore. We’re gonna sit on a bench and talk, and then I’m gonna hug you goodbye, and you slip it into my pocket.”

I followed him to a nearby bench, where we sat side by side. He draped an arm over my shoulders. I figured it was just for show, like the candy box, but I couldn’t tell, and I couldn’t shove him off like I did with Ethan.

“So listen, this stuff is a little different from what I gave you last time,” Dante said, squinting at a traffic cop writing a ticket across the street. “It’s better, though.”

“What is it?” I asked. The pills he gave me at the party had been big and white and unmarked, probably homemade. They’d felt like a mixture of molly and Percocet, turning my heart into a DJ and my brain into a swimming pool.

“Nuvigil,” Dante said. “It’s like a souped-up Adderall. It’s for narcolepsy or some shit. It’ll get you nice and buzzed, but you can get work done, too. I tried some yesterday and was mad productive. I even fixed the copy machine.”

“You work? Like, in an office?”

“No, I just stand on a random corner all day whispering and handing out baggies.” He rolled his eyes. “Yes, I work.”

“Sorry,” I mumbled.

“Anyway, it’s basically a pharmaceutical-grade amphetamine. But listen, that means it’s potent. You shouldn’t be taking more than one a day.”

“OK, doctor.” I jiggled my knees, feeling the candy box rattle in my lap. It would be so easy to slip my hand inside and open the bottle, palm one pill, and pop it onto my tongue without anyone seeing. It would mean I wouldn’t have to wait a single second longer to stop feeling so shitty and sad. It might even take the image of your face out of my head, when you were standing by the doorway looking at me like you could see right through me and were disgusted by what you saw.

“I’m serious, though,” Dante said. “I could only get you ten, so that’s got to last. The doctor out in Bayonne who hooked me up is a little jumpy about our arrangement, so until I prove I can sell it, he’s squeezing them out one by one like a human Pez dispenser. Don’t pop this shit like it’s Advil.”

“I won’t,” I groaned. I reached into my bag for my Tic Tacs, hoping maybe I could get a little placebo effect going. While I was in there I counted out ten twenties from my wallet and folded them into my hand. My savings account, courtesy of one commercial voice-over I’d booked junior year, was getting dangerously low. If I didn’t get some means of income soon, I’d have to resort to “borrowing” mom’s ATM card again.

“There are some side effects, but they’re not bad,” he said. “Dry mouth, nausea, dizziness . . .”

“Imminent death?” I asked with a smirk.

I was kidding, I was kidding, Jesus Christ, I was kidding.

“Stop,” he said. “You’ll be fine if you space them out. Now, you ready?”

I nodded.

“OK, well, see you later gorgeous,” he said loudly, pulling me up and wrapping me in a bear hug that felt better than I wanted to admit. I dropped the bills into the pocket of his hoodie and slipped the fake heart into my bag.

I was only about seven blocks from Joy’s place. We’d barely hung out lately—things had been tense already, and then rehearsals had consumed our lives—but I knew that if I texted her, right then, we could meet up for coffee or a movie, or sit barefoot on her couch watching some terrible rom-com on cable, eating an Entenmann’s cake out of the box with plastic forks and talking shit about anyone who seemed happier than us. I needed that. But in the Joy version of my afternoon, I couldn’t take the pill, and I needed that more. I just wished I didn’t have to be alone.

Which made me realize, maybe I didn’t have to be.

Looking back I see myself slipping, sliding, clawing at a fire escape ladder. That split-second decision was when I started to fall.

“What are you doing now?” I asked Dante. I smiled at him expectantly, trying to pretend that I liked him more. He wasn’t nearly as cute as Diego, but he had a kind of gruff charm when he wasn’t trying too hard.