the first hint that something was off—Dev’s blotter was normally tasteless, or even slightly sweet. This stuff made her face crinkle, and she had to struggle not to spit it out, but Marjorie seemed fine, so Bethie let the tab dissolve and waited for the drugs and the music to take her somewhere wonderful.
Time passed. Bethie could not have said how much. Instead of feeling the familiar upswelling of bliss, she felt a rising unease, the sourness in her mouth gathering into a sensation of foreboding in her belly. When she felt hands grabbing at her from behind, she turned around. “Hey!” The man who’d touched her raised his hands, grinning at her, palms out in the universal gesture of apology. He had bare feet, crusted with dirt, and blue jeans, but on top of them he wore a white lab coat, and above that Bethie saw her Uncle Mel’s face, floating in the twilight. Her mouth dropped open. Uncle Mel reached out and squeezed her breast, hard enough to hurt.
Not real, Bethie thought. Dev had told her what to do if she ever ended up on a bad trip. Breathe. Keep calm. Go somewhere safe. Hold still and wait. I’ll find you, and I’ll take care of you. Remember that nothing you are seeing is real. Bethie breathed in and out slowly, once, twice, three times, before turning to her right, looking for Marjorie. But Marjorie wasn’t there. In her place was Cheryl Goldfarb, wearing Queen Esther’s crown. “I was better than you were,” Cheryl said, through her red-lipsticked mouth. “They only gave you the part because everyone felt so sorry for you because your dad was dead.” Of course, that didn’t make sense—Bethie’s father hadn’t been dead when she’d been Queen Esther; he’d been at the performance, cheering for her. Bethie turned away, pushing through the crowd, as someone whispered slut and someone else whispered fat-ass.
Bethie kept moving, eyes down, ignoring the voices that called her names, who said that she was a whore and a liar and not as talented as Cheryl Goldfarb. The air felt thick and clinging and hard to breathe. A black cat with green eyes and white socks on its forepaws began to follow her, padding along at her side. A gray-and-black calico cat joined in behind the black cat, and an orange tabby fell in line. Next came a sleek gray cat with a white shield on its chest, and a fluffy brown cat with its fur wild and tangled. Bethie stopped, turned around, and looked at the cats, blinking. The cats sat down in a row and blinked back.
Not real, she thought, walking more quickly, until she was jogging, then running, and every time she turned there were more cats, dozens of them, an army of cats following her on their little feet, which so cunningly hid their claws. Queen of the cats, she thought, and remembered the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland. He told Alice he would see her again when she played croquet with the Queen.
Bethie stopped to catch her breath and looked around, trying to remember where the van had been. Somehow, she finally found a tree that looked familiar, and a car she recognized, a little VW Bug painted cheery blue. Three rows past the Bug was the Vanagon, with Sky standing guard by the driver’s seat. He was naked again, his white T-shirt puddled at his feet, and he stared at her with his dirty fingers plugged into his mouth. Bethie pressed her hand against the stitch in her side, trying to catch her breath. “Hi, honey,” she said, when she could speak again. The little boy stared at her blankly. Or maybe he was looking behind her. Bethie was afraid to turn around to see if the cats were still there. “You took off your dress.”
“It’s a shirt,” said the boy, lifting his nose disdainfully into the air.
“Do you know where Devon is?” She realized, as soon as she’d spoken, that the boy was unlikely to even know who Devon was, let alone where. Sky gave an indifferent shrug. Bethie reached for the van’s door.
The metal handle was feverishly hot against her palm as she gripped it. Bethie dragged the door open, feeling it grind on its tracks. A cloud of smoke came billowing out into the open air, along with the scent of pot and sweat, but when Bethie peered into the van’s dim interior, no one was there. Bethie turned, looking left,