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Bracing myself for a tussle with eight mental stage-school kids, I’d been somewhat surprised to find that they’d been moved to a different room, and that there, in their place, was Fiona with a pile of white powder. I was dumbfounded.
    ‘And this is the CHILDREN’S DRESSING ROOM!’ I continued in a panicked hiss.
    ‘Oh, babes, stop being silly.’ Fiona, who was regaining her composure, dismissed me as if I’d caught her cheating at bridge. Without warning, she leaned down and snorted up half of the line. Her lovely freckled face looked pinched and nasty as she inhaled; it strangled my heart.
    ‘Stop, Freckle!’ I whispered desperately.
    ‘Sssh!’ she said, with a little laugh. A laugh that someone had scooped the insides out of. ‘It’s just coke! Coke isn’t serious, babe.’ She sniffed the last few bits of powder up into her nostril. ‘Everyone does it,’ she added conversationally. ‘You’re probably the only person I know who doesn’t.’
    I baulked, uncertain. Really?
    Fiona started tidying up the other half of the line ready for action, a delicate blush spreading over her bony shoulders. As a result of her recent diet she was gaunter than ever. From behind she looked like a child: skinny, underdeveloped, soft downy hair on the nape of her neck like gossamer threads.
    I couldn’t stand it. ‘Freckle …’ I whimpered, tuggingon her ponytail like I’d done since we were tiny. ‘
Please
stop.’
    She took the rest of the line. ‘You should live a little, Sally,’ she said lightly, ‘before you start judging everyone else.’ She licked her finger and ran it round the dressing-table, then rubbed the remaining powder into her gums. ‘Your twenties are for pushing boundaries,
enjoying
yourself.’ She turned round, now smiling brightly, although the smile was cruel. An accusation that
I
had comprehensively failed at being a twenty-something. ‘I’m just doing what
everyone else
does, silly Sally!’
    Really? Was she?
    I wasn’t sure. None of the other dancers were like Fiona. They seemed to have lots of fun but they also looked after themselves with such incredible care, wrapping their legs up until they went onstage and hanging out only in the heated parts of the building so they never got cold. They even
walked
in a special way. They ate tubs of chicken and had special massages and stretched all the time. Surely, when they went to such lengths to look after their bodies, they wouldn’t be taking drugs.
    Fiona was forever freezing cold and stomping around. She drank a lot, she was noisy and sometimes she didn’t even bother to warm up properly. She was a beautiful dancer but I couldn’t help wondering if she’d failed to get promoted because she looked such a mess.
    No! I didn’t believe her! There was no way the others were taking drugs. Fiona was on her own. I felt my hands tremble as if my blood were fizzing.
    ‘Look, I can take or leave this stuff,’ she told me, head cocked to one side. ‘Coke isn’t serious. If I was on crackor scag or something, fair enough, but, Sally, this is just a bit of fun! No side-effects, no hangovers.’
    ‘But it’s still a drug,’ I whispered.
    Fiona did that hollow laugh again and pulled her big dancer’s holdall over her shoulder. ‘You’re not dead yet, Sally. You and your middle-aged outfits could still have a good time. I’m off out. Laters, babes.’ Any warmth in her farewell was as synthetic as a Primark sock.
    I watched the door close behind her and uneasy silence opened up around me.
You’re not dead yet
. I stared at the mirror. Did she think I looked middle-aged? Did other people think I looked middle-aged? But I’d just said yes to New York! I’d …
    A ball of salt water wobbled uncertainly down my face and I realized I was crying.
    In truth, I probably had failed on the wild front. Since moving to London seven years ago I had mostly just explored the gastropub scene; I’d travelled a bit but only really to European cities