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your day when a couple of vampires have taken over your apartment. At the door I hear these weird Oriental voices coming from inside. It sounds like group therapy for giant insects.
    I almost gag on the cigarette smoke and cocaine sweat when I open the door. When my eyes adjust to the dark I see them huddled on the couch, Rebecca in her leopard body stocking and Didi in the same leggings and sweatshirt she’s been sporting for the last couple of weeks.
    You scared the shit out of us, Little Sis, Rebecca goes.
    Did you bring any beer? Didi asks.
    How about cigarettes? says Rebecca. We
need
cigarettes.
    You need professional help, I go.
    Didi goes, you bring any blow?
    There’s still about a gram here, Rebecca says to Didi.
    And Didi goes, that’s good. Are you sure?
    So Rebecca says, I think so. I don’t know. Maybe it’s only about seven-eighths of a gram. Or three-quarters. I don’t know.
    God, that’s not very much, Didi goes.
    And Becca goes, well, maybe nine-tenths.
    And I’m like, fun with fractions. Actually, Becca was really good in school, not that she ever went, but one time they tied her down long enough to give her an IQ test and then told Mom and Dad she was a genius. Becca never let us forget it. She decided it meant that she didn’t have to bother going to school or do anything that required any effort at all, ever again.
    We have to call Emile and get more, says Didi, suddenly panicked.
    I love coke conversations. They’re so enlightening. I mean, do I sound like that? It’s almost enough to make you swear off drugs forever.
    The place is a real sty, beer and wine bottles all over the place, and for some reason about half of Jeannie’s wardrobe is scattered around the room, plus there’s like this residue of cigarette ash and cocaine on everything. The air reminds me of Mexico City, totally unbreathable. I go into my room to change.
    Tell us about your new stud, Rebecca shouts from the living room.
    We want details, Didi says. Length and width.
    The next minute, Rebecca says, Alison, do you have any Valium? That’s the good part about dealing with coke monsters. If you don’t like the topic of conversation, just wait a minute and you’ll get a new one. On the other hand, it never really changes at all. It’s like a perpetual motion thing. The topic is always drugs.
    When I leave they’re calling the deli to order beer and cigarettes, Becca holding the receiver between her shoulder and her cheek while she goes down on the mirror.
    Do they sell Valium? Didi goes.
    Does who sell Valium? says Becca and then she goes, hello, who is this?
    And Didi goes, who are you talking to? Then she seems to realize that I’m leaving. She gets real indignant. Sit down, she says. You have to help us finish this coke. You can’t go anywhere until it’s gone.
    Didi is so bossy when she’s wired. She insists that everybody else get fucked up too, plus she directs the conversation. Usually she gets away with it since she’s the one who paid for the coke, plus everybody has this kind of awe of her, she’s sort of a prodigy, like a crazy person. But I’m not buying it today.
    Alison, she screams. Come back here. You can’t go.
    So then I remember this thing in my purse, it’s like a business card from this drug counseling program, Jeannie gave it to me as a joke one night, actually one morning after we’d been up all night—somebody at work gave it to her and they weren’t kidding. So I open my purse, fish through my wallet,all these scraps of paper, napkins with guys’ phone numbers, and I find this thing, it says, MESSED UP? STRUNG OUT? NEED HELP? DIAL 555– HELP .
    I go, Didi, I got a present for you. And I give her the card.
    And she’s like, Alison, you bitch, come back here, as I’m cruising out the door.
    I’ll visit you in the hospital, I say.
    Didi would make a really good dictator of a Third World country. She absolutely has to be the boss and the center of attention. If someone’s talking