“The card you gave me. The metal one, with the firework on it. I know what it is. Look, can you meet me at quarter to seven? So—in about an hour? The Palais Royal Metro station; we can walk from there. Oh, and try and look as smart as possible.”
“I don’t—”
But he’s already hung up.
Mimi
Fourth floor
I put the stuff in her drink last night. It was so easy. There was ketamine going around and I got hold of some, shook the powder into her glass until it dissolved and asked one of Camille’s friends to give it to the British girl with the red hair. He seemed only too pleased to do it: she’s quite pretty, I suppose.
I had to do it. I couldn’t have her there. But that doesn’t mean I don’t feel bad about it . . . I’ve been so careful my whole life about drugs—apart from that night in the park. And then to inflict them on someone else without them even knowing. That wasn’t cool. It’s not her fault she made the mistake of coming to this place. That’s the worst part. She’s probably not even a bad person.
But I know I am.
Camille comes out of her room wearing a silk slip, black rings of smudged makeup around her eyes. This is the first time she’s surfaced all day.
“Hey. Last night was craaaazy. People really enjoyed it, don’t you think?” She looks at me closely. “Putain, Mimi, you look like shit. What happened to your knees?” They still hurt from where I hit the tarmac in front of that van; the concierge insisted on dabbing some antiseptic onto the grazes. She grins. “Someone had a good night, non?”
I shrug. “Oui. I suppose so.” Actually it was probably one of the worst nights of my life. “But I didn’t . . . sleep well.” I didn’t sleep at all.
She looks at me more closely. “Ohhh. Was it that kind of no sleep?”
“What do you mean?” I wish she’d stop looking at me so intently.
“You know what I mean! Your mystery guy?”
My heart’s suddenly beating too fast in my chest. “Oh. No. It wasn’t anything like that.”
“Wait,” she grins at me. “You never told me. Did it work?”
“What do you mean, did it work?” I feel like she’s crowding me, the smell of Miss Dior and stale cigarette smoke suddenly overpowering. I need her out of my space.
“The stuff we picked out. Mimi!” She raises her eyebrows. “You can’t have forgotten? It was only, like, two weeks ago!”
Already it feels like it happened to someone else. I see myself like a character in a film, knocking on the door to Camille’s room. Camille sitting on the bed painting her toenails, the room stinking of nail polish and weed.
“I want to buy some lingerie,” I told her.
Maman always bought all my underwear. We went together, every season, to Eres and she would buy me three simple sets: black, white, nude. But I wanted something different. Something I had picked myself. Only I didn’t have any idea where to go. I knew Camille would.
Camille’s eyebrows shot up. “Mimi! What’s happened to you? That new look and now . . . lingerie? Who is he?” She smiled slyly. “Or she? Merde, you’re so mysterious I don’t even know if you actually prefer girls.” A smirk. “Or maybe you’re like me and it depends what mood you’re in?”
Could she really not know who it was? To me it seemed so obvious. Not just that I was into him, but that he and I had a special connection. It felt like it was obvious to the outside world, to everyone who saw us.
“Come,” she said, jumping up, throwing her foam toe dividers to one side. “We’re going now.”
She dragged me into Passage du Desir in Chatelet. It’s a sex shop—one of a chain—on a big busy shopping street alongside shoe and clothes shops because, I guess, this is France and screwing is, like, a thing of national pride. You see couples coming out carrying bags over their arms, smiling secret smiles at each other, women striding in there on their lunch breaks to buy vibrators. I’d never gone into one before. In fact every time I’d passed one of their stores I’d blushed at the window displays and looked away.
I felt like everyone in there was looking at me, wondering what this blushing loser virgin was doing among all that latex fetish wear and lube. I lowered my head, trying to hide behind my new fringe. I had horrific images of Papa walking past and somehow spotting me inside, dragging me out by my hair: calling me une petite salope in front of the whole street.
Camille dug out boxes with things called “love kits” in: whole lingerie and suspender sets for ten euros. But I shook my head; they weren’t sophisticated enough. She grabbed a huge, bright pink dildo with obscene protruding veins, waved it in front of me. “Maybe you should get one of these while we’re here.”