Beautiful by Amy Reed Page B

coffee table. The music from the living room is still loud enough to hear, but the mellow R&B playing from a stereo in the corner drowns most of it out. The people sitting seem like they are closer to our ages. The girls look at us and smile and the guys say, “What’s up?” and I hope we stay in here for the rest of the night.
    A beautiful girl with big green eyes scoots over on the bed and I sit down. Wes and Alex sit on the floor and everyone introduces themselves. I am not so scared in this room with the party muted, but I still feel white.
    â€œDid you get it?” Wes says to Alex.
    â€œOf course I did,” Alex says.
    â€œThat’s my girl,” Wes says as she dumps out a pile of white powder on the glass table. The boy named Jarvis takes out his school ID card and starts chopping it up. Wes and another guy do the same, and the rest of us sit and watch and listen to the
tap, tap, tap
of white powder becoming finer. Wes makes lines for all of us and they seem enormous, bigger than the ones I’ve seen in movies. I wonder if he knows what he’s doing, if he’s just guessing how much is the right amount, if anyone knows what’s the right amount, if we’re all going to overdose and die.
    Jarvis rolls up a dollar bill, snorts a line, and doesn’t die. He runs his finger across the glass and rubs his teeth. He closes his eyes and says, “Come on, baby.” He passes the dollar bill and everyone takes their turn. By the time it gets to me, I imagine the bill covered with snot, but I do like everyone else did—put my finger on one nostril, put the dollar bill in the other, lean over, and breathe in as hard as I can.
    It feels like little thin needles in my nose for two seconds, then nothing. Then a terrible taste in my throat like liquid chemicals dripping. I pull a cigarette out of Alex’s purse, light it, take a drag, and wait for something to happen.
    One of the guys says, “Uh-huh.”
    Another guy whoops like he’s rooting for a sports team.
    One of the girls has her eyes closed and is moaning softly like she’s just eaten something delicious.
    I hear Alex whisper into Wes’s ear, “Cocaine makes me horny,” and that’s when it hits me, when the lights suddenly seem brighter and the bed is softer and everyone’s more beautiful, and my body is lighter and stronger and sexier and more awake, and the hangover’s gone and the music is beautiful and everything is perfect.
    Wes and Alex are making out on the floor. Jarvis and another guy are talking about how one of their teachers at school is a child molester. The green-eyed girl is explaining to another how she made the blouse she’s wearing.
    â€œIt’s beautiful,” I tell her.
    â€œThank you,” she says, surprised at my voice, like she didn’t even know I was there.
    â€œHow’d you get all those sequins on there?” I ask. It is a masterpiece. It is something that belongs in a museum.
    â€œOh, I had to hand-sew all that,” she says. “It took forever.”
    â€œYou’re really talented,” I say, and I love her.
    â€œThanks,” she says, and she starts talking to the other girl again.
    There is a buzzing inside me as I look around the room.I am surrounded by beautiful people and white light, sparkling, the texture of cellophane. It cuts through the mattress, the floor, the table, Alex, Wes, and all these people I don’t know. But it is soft. It is like dewdrops, like a ball of liquid mirrors, reflecting all the light on me. I am shining, squeaky clean, sparkling.
    I gulp down my cheap, warm beer and it is the most wonderful thing I have ever tasted. I take a drag from my cigarette and feel the smoke lift me. I stand up, float out of the room, and enter the noise outside. The bass from the music changes my heartbeat. It grabs me and squeezes my throat, my chest, my heart, pulsing, like all my life is centered