Dancing with Molly - Lena Horowitz Page 0,2

at Jess’s last night. I guess I should write the details, too. I’m still amazed that it happened. It all feels like a weird dream. AND, MOM AND DAD, IF YOU’RE READING THIS: THAT’S JUST WHAT IT WAS. A WEIRD DREAM. I DREAMED ALL OF THIS.

One tab of ecstasy and suddenly I’m a journaling psycho.

So, the details:

Got to Jess’s house on Friday night and I saw Brandon’s Volkswagen out front. How a burner is allowed to drive a Jetta, I’ll never know. Brandon was there with this guy Pete who transferred in last semester. Jess said her parents weren’t there because her dad had a big work meeting in Texas and decided to take her mom along. I’m not sure who in the hell wants to spend a romantic weekend in Houston. I guess Mr. and Mrs. Watson.

We were all downstairs on the big sectional in Jess’s den, where her dad’s enormous TV hangs in the middle of this giant entertainment center that’s surrounded by books and pictures. Across the room is a big slider that opens onto the back patio, where there’s a hot tub and a lawn that her mom is crazy about. I have literally seen her trim parts of the grass with scissors. No lie. Hands and knees. Scissors. She claims that new growth is too delicate for a lawn mower.

The guys were passing a pipe back and forth and smoking a bowl. Pete is supertall and superskinny with a buzzed head. His eyes were really bloodshot and I could tell they’d been there smoking since school got out. He had this dopey grin on his face and passed me the pipe. I was like THANK. GOD. And took a big hit. Jess just started giggling. She asked me if Queen Ashley had struck again, and I told them the whole story about how my gorgeous little sister, who is the exact opposite of me body wise (big rack, tiny hips, straight blond hair), is going to prom as a sophomore.

Jess knows this whole routine. She’s practically been part of my family drama since we were kids. After my story, she decided that we needed drinks and jumped up to make them, but Brandon stopped her by saying, Hey, I’ve got something better than booze. Pete’s dopey grin got even bigger and Brandon pulled a baggie out of his pocket and tossed it onto the table. Jess stopped and came back and was like, Holy. Shit. Is that X?

Jess immediately called her friend Kelly, this little Asian chick who goes to St. Theresa’s. They met at this restaurant where they were both hostesses last summer, and we’ve hung out a couple times. Kelly looks like an anime character when she’s wearing her little Catholic schoolgirl uniform. She hates the comparison, so she’s got a big pink streak in her jet-black hair and most of the time when I see her she’s wearing crazy clothes—like cutoff camo cargo pants and itty-bitty tank tops with sequins all over them and combat boots.

While Jess was on the phone, I picked up the baggie. My heart started racing and I felt a little nervous just holding it. There were six pills inside, each one about the size of an Altoid. They were a light green color and had little aces—like the symbol on a playing card—stamped onto them. Pete asked me if I’d ever done E and I said no and that I wasn’t about to start. He just frowned in this kind of cute way and said, Aw, why not?

I shrugged and said, Oh, I dunno. Maybe the long, long line of cops that have visited our school every year since I was in fourth grade and talked about the Dangers of Drugs?

Brandon snorted. He said, Oh please. What they don’t tell you is that this shit was legal until the eighties. Pete confirmed that this was true and said that shrinks used to use MDMA with their patients in therapy to help them get past traumatic events and feel better about things. Brandon said, You know those cops also showed us pictures of terrible car wrecks and talked about the dangers of drinking alcohol and you seem to have successfully navigated that danger. It’s just about being responsible, like not drinking too much and jumping into a car, right?

I don’t usually take advice from potheads, but I had to admit that they were both right. I could handle a few drinks. Every adult in my life had always