Jayne continued. “Anyway, the guy took me to this rent-controlled palace on the Upper West Side. He’d grown up in New York, so he inherited it. That’s how those people get trapped. Same with the folks who live in The Breviary. They inherit, and then they never have to work real jobs, so they forget how. They don’t even have any kids. They’re the last of their lines. We ought to get in good with them. We could inherit the whole building! Anyway, he gave me a few drinks—screwdrivers, maybe? After that, he showed me how to blow coke up his ass, and then he did it for me. Best high of my life.”
Audrey shook her head back and forth. “That’s really gross.”
Jayne nodded. “Especially when you’re allergic, because your colon spazzes. I pooped his bed. Then I was so embarrassed I ran out. Never even gave him my number. Maybe he’s my soul mate, but I had to leave because I pooped the bed. Fancy slate gray sheets, I’ll never forget.”
The seconds passed. Audrey didn’t know what to say. Was she supposed to console Jayne? Was this some kind of test? What a terrible story! Worse, it was rehearsed. She’d told it before! Finally, Audrey couldn’t help it. Laughter burst, then roared from her chest. “No…no way,” she said between breaths.
“Way,” Jayne said, laughing, too.
“Couldn’t you have made it to the toilet?” tears came to the corners of her eyes.
“No,” Jayne said. Now she was laughing really hard. “Huuh. Huuuh. I thought I was all sexy, and then…” Her face got splotchy, apple red. “It fell right out! Too late to do anything but run.”
“Oh shit!” Audrey cried.
“Exactly!” Jayne screamed.
Audrey was laughing so hard that her stomach hurt. “I’m embarrassed for you right now, just thinking about that,” Audrey said. “You just made me vicariously embarrassed.”
“Yeah. I’m embarrassed, too. Good thing it wasn’t my nose or it could have been a lot worse. I don’t know if I was allergic to the coke or something it was cut with, but I bled for a while. Everybody tells you that can’t happen the first time. But it did happen to someone. It happened to me.”
Audrey flinched. This part wasn’t so funny. “Oh…That sucks.”
“So did his dry-cleaning bill.”
“He deserved it. You were too young. I hope he got E. coli poisoning and wound up in a hospital.”
Jayne snickered. “Fifteen isn’t that young.”
Audrey shook her head. “No Jayne, it’s too young. You were a girl.”
Jayne inspected her wounded knee, basking in Audrey’s concern. Then she clapped her hands together. “What’s your most embarrassing thing?”
Audrey shook her head to both sides, fast. Once, twice, three times, four. “I think I repressed it. I can’t remember.”
Jayne kicked up her good foot. “Come on! Don’t be a sissy. You’ve got one.”
Audrey sighed. Her smile faltered.
“Come on!” Jayne whined.
Audrey looked out the window. The collateral damage to the lit-up buildings on either side of the Parkside Plaza had been repaired after the explosion, but if you looked closely, you could see the difference between the old concrete seams and the new ones. She felt her neck. Smooth, unblemished skin. No one would ever guess she’d once been cut. “Okay. I’ve got something, but I’m not good at stories, like you. It’s not a story. And it’s not funny, either.”
Jayne’s smiled stretched ear to ear at the compliment. “Of course not! I’m a professional. Tell me!”
Audrey’s voice echoed in the apartment, and she had the feeling that something in the walls was listening. “I was thinking about how young you were, and I remembered, I was pretty young, once, too. You ever go hungry?”
“All the time,” Jayne answered.
Audrey sipped her wine. Absurdly sweet stuff. The sugar alone would induce a hangover. “Yeah. It’s worse when it’s not by choice. It’s not like how they say, you know? You don’t get fuzzy when you’re starving.”
“Really?” Jayne asked.
“First it’s fuzzy, but then things clarify. Everything distills. You ache. Your fingernails hurt. You want calories so bad that even the air tastes like sugar. But it feels good, too. It feels like flying.”
“Like you’re high?” Jayne asked.
“Better, I think. Little instants of better when you’re not trapped in your body like everybody else. You’re free from it, and numb. Things you’d normally be sad about don’t matter. The rest of the time, it hurts. Like there’s this hole in you, that keeps growing…My mom left once, for six weeks. And I was starving like that.