Experiment in Terror 04 Lying Season (29 page)

“
Go put on something sexy, Perry,” she said throatily, her voice going all Scarlett Johansson again. She hadn’t forgotten about the whole clubbing thing.

I paused in the door, held my stance and looked at Dex fearfully. Not only did I not want to go clubbing, but I especially did not want to leave Dex alone in the apartment with Abby on the prowl.

But to my amazement, Dex said, “Just go, Perry, you’ll have fun.”

My mouth dropped. “Dex. I am not leaving you here!”

I froze when I realized what I’d said.

“
Leave him here? What are you talking about?” Jenn asked, her voice building with each word.

I quickly looked at Dex. He gave me a very quick, poignant look that said “please don’t say anything.”

I took in a deep breath and somehow found the strength to smile at Jenn. “I mean, it’s not really fair to leave him here while we go out and have fun.”

“
Phhfff,” Jenn said, waving her hand at him. She walked over to me and pushed me into my room. “You know he’d hate it. Now quickly get dressed.”

She shut the door. I was quickly enveloped in the dark but switched on the light before the terror seized me. Part of me could not leave Dex here,
would not
leave him. But the other part told me I just might have to. He was trying to save face and act like nothing was wrong.

Well, as long as I had time to myself in the room, I had time to switch his pills all back. Even though I was tempted to continue on with the experiment, I didn’t want to put him through any more terror or pain. Whatever his pills were for, the fact that I just switched some of them, the pills that had to do with delusions, it couldn’t have just been a coincidence. Whether it could be proved or not, I felt partly, if not fully, responsible for what happened in the alley.

I brought out my duffel bag from beside the bed and brought out all of my clothes, strewing them across the pistachio bed. I reached into the bottom of the bag. And found nothing but powder.

I opened the bag wider against the light and peeked in, my chest heaving. All the pills were crushed. There was nothing but a white and yellow powder lining the bottom of the bag. What the fuck?

My hands flew up to my mouth in horror. What happened? How did the pills get crushed? I thought about earlier when I was shoving clothes in my bag. I was rough, but not enough to crush a handful of pills. What the hell could have done that?

Then I looked at the bag again. The outside was covered with a lot of fine white hair. Dog hair. Could Fat Rabbit have stomped all over the bag? He didn’t seem big enough to do enough damage, but then again, his name started with the word “Fat” and he was known for pissing people off.

And that was the end of that idea. I couldn’t replace Dex’s pills with dust. I couldn’t do anything now but watch him unravel, watch his nerves fry as Abby came and did her worst.

But that couldn’t be it. It couldn’t be. It had to be a coincidence. How could pills prevent you from seeing ghosts? If that were true, wouldn’t I have been on something similar in high school…

I pushed that thought out of my head. I didn’t want to conjure up Jacob at a time like this. There were far more important things to worry about. Like Dex. And going clubbing with Jenn.

I sighed and quickly shoved on the skinny jeans I had, the raspberry heels and a plain white tank top. I didn’t bother with my face or my hair. I honestly did not care. In fact, if I could have covered myself with ghoulish makeup, I would have done so.

I opened the door (after shoving the duffel bag and its powdery evidence underneath the bed) and stepped out into the living room. Dex was gone, the door to the bedroom closed. Just Jenn stood in the living room, flipping through the TV stations.

At the sound of me, she turned around and gave me the once over. “Is that what you’re wearing?”

I looked down at myself. Suddenly the tune of “Makeover, Makeover” from
Clone High
rang through my head but luckily Jenn wasn’t on the same plane. She just nodded and said, “Whatever, it works.”

“
Where’s Dex?” I asked, eyeing their door.

“
Sleeping, reading, I don’t know,” she said and gestured for me to come forward. “Come on, let’s get going.”

I eyed the clock in the kitchen as I walked over to her. “It’s only ten. Are we in a rush?”

“
No, no,” she said breezily, smiling at me. “Just getting a head start on the fun.”

She turned and walked to the door. I followed, suspicious of everything and everyone. I wanted nothing more than to go into Dex’s room and make sure he was OK, but I knew that would only get him in trouble. So I steadied my nerves and followed Jenn out the door.

We took a cab to the venue, since Jenn planned to get quite drunk. Those were her actual words on the elevator down: “I hope you know I’m going to get quite drunk, Perry.”

That was fine with me. I was curious to see how drunk Jenn would compare to sober Jenn. Maybe she was less bitchy, less selfish and more vulnerable.

Well, 20 minutes into our arrival at the douchiest nightclub in the Pacific Northwest, I found out that drunk Jenn was the same as sober Jenn. Just…amplified.

“
I need another drink,” she said, trying to wave down the bartender who was doing quite a good job of ignoring us the whole time. The music was on a continuous suck cycle except for the occasional addition of Kylie Minogue or Lady Gaga. We were occasionally getting sized up by guys but neither of us had been hit on at this point.

I wasn’t surprised by this when it came to myself (I definitely wasn’t slutty enough) but I thought Jenn would have been approached at least a few times already. She was a Wine Babe after all, and she did get recognized quite often. Here, though, that wasn’t the case. And the drunker she got, the more she picked up on it.

“
You’re so lucky, Perry,” she said, bringing my head out of another worrying daydream about Dex.

I frowned at her. “How do you mean?”

“
Well look at you,” she said while chewing on her straw and waving at me up and down. “You could become as thin as I am and you’d still have boobs.”

Was that a compliment or…

“
OK,” I said. I raised my glass to my mouth and shot the rest of the drink back in one go.

“
No, I mean it,” she said, slapping me lightly on my arm. I raised my brow at her, feeling the tiniest bit of instinct to fight her. Which was not usual, I swear.

“
Sure you could stand to lose a few pounds but your boobs are huge so even if you got skinny, you’d still have them. When I lose weight, mine are the first to go.”

She stood there, poking at her boobs through her top. I bit my lip and clenched my fist around my drink, trying to push down the angry swell that I felt rising through me.

“
Well, just be glad I am the way I am,” I managed to answer. “Otherwise, I’d be taking over your job. And that would just be the beginning.”

And I smiled at her, big and bright.

Jenn looked shocked. Then she laughed, nervously at first, then just drunk and stupid. “You’re pretty funny, Perry. I can see why Dex likes you. He likes to laugh at things.”

My smile tightened. My grip froze. There were so many things I wanted to say, but Jenn’s head flew around in a whirlwind when the next song came on. It was actually a dance song I didn’t mind, LCD Soundsystem’s “North American Scum.”

She grabbed my arm and said, “Oh we must dance to this.”

Oh crap. I put my empty drink on the bar and let her lead me to the floor.

I’m not a good dancer. I know this. I like to either groove slowly or just go all out. I only did the latter with people I knew and trusted. In this case, I was doing the slow, timid white girl bump and grind. But Jenn, she was going all out. First she started by rubbing up all over me like I was the dude, then she started making eyes at me. It was fucking weird, like a total nightmare. I’m not kidding. If I foresaw this scene a month ago, I would have shit myself.

Of course it wasn’t for me. It wasn’t about having fun with me or making me feel comfortable. It was about teasing the men who were watching, making us look like we were about to make out. No wonder Rebecca hated her so much.

Jenn continued to do this for the entire song (let’s add “North American Scum” to “Maxwell Silver Hammer” in the “songs I used to like until Dex and Jenn ruined them for me” pile) but after not being approached by any guys, she slinked off the dance floor, all downtrodden. She took me by the hand and back to the bar, where she tried to get the bartenders attention again.

“
I don’t get it,” she said, looking absolutely defeated. Her eyes were welling up with tears. It scared me. It meant I was going to have to make her feel better and I did not want to do that. She did not deserve it.

“
It’s cuz I’m old,” she sniffed and delicately rubbed the corners of her exotic eyes.

“
Um, you’re thirty one Jenn. That’s nothing.”

“
Easy for you to say. You’re twenty two...”

“
Twenty three, actually.”

“
Whatever,” she said and took a bar napkin to her nose. “You’re like almost ten years younger than me. You have your whole future ahead of you. All this promise and possibility. What do I have? Nothing. Just a few more years and everyone will move onto someone younger.”

She sniffled again. With her curly, sienna hair falling across her face, she looked younger than her age. Her attitude helped bring her down a few pegs too. She was a gorgeous, stunning girl. At least, she was to anyone who didn’t know her. She probably wasn’t getting approached or hit on because she seemed either too desperate or the opposite, too secure. And the fact was, she
had
a boyfriend. And he was at home, in their room, scared to death and feeling alone. And she was here, with me, complaining about how unattractive she was. I was torn between feeling sorry for her and sympathizing with her, and wanting to punch her lights out for being a stupid, selfish bitch.

Of course, I didn’t punch her lights out. I sucked in my pride. “Look, I’ll buy you a drink.”

I waved at the bartender and for some reason, I was able to get his attention and not her. I ordered us both shots of Jaeger and more vodka sevens.

When the shots came and Jenn gave the bartender the bitchiest look, I raised my glass to her, trying to find hidden reserves of strength deep inside myself. I was cheering my enemy in an attempt to make her feel better. What was wrong with me?

Jenn clinked the shot glass, smiled and downed it. Half of it almost came back up again, but she buried that with the seven. Then her phone beeped.

She fished it out of her bag excitedly. My first thought was that it was Dex, but judging from the subtle way she grinned to herself, I knew it wasn’t.

I watched her text back and then put the phone away. She kept smiling and noticed me watching her.

“
Oh, that was Bradley,” she said. Uh huh. That figured.

“
Yeah?”

“
He was in the area and he’s going to stop by.”

I remembered what Rebecca said. They were a pair of fucks. She had a theory. Suddenly, I had that same theory.

“
So I finally get to meet this Bradley?” I asked, wondering how to phrase my next sentence. “Wasn’t he the guy Rebecca wanted to set me up with?”

“
You don’t get everyone,” Jenn sneered, slamming her drink hard on the counter. It made me jump. It made the people next to us jump. The Latino in Jenn was coming out.

I raised my hands in surrender. “I never said I wanted Bradley. I’ve got a boyfriend back in Portland anyway.”

“
Oh?” She seemed floored. “You do? Oh. Well…who is he? Dex never mentioned him.”

“
His name is Brock. I just started dating him. I don’t tell Dex everything,” I lied.