Femme Fatale and other stories

not like they list them in that crap Weekender Guide in the paper—movies, music, clubs, where to buy drugs.”
    So Molly asked a guy who asked a guy who talked to a guy, and it turned out there was a place just inside the city line, not too far from the interstate. Easy on, easy off, then easy off again. Get it? After a quick consultation on what to wear—jeans and T-shirts and sandals, although I changed into running shoes after I saw the condition of my pedicure—we were off. Very hush-hush because, as I explained to Molly, that was part of the adventure. I phoned my mom and said I was going for a run. Molly told her mom she was going into the city to shop for a dress, and we were off.
    The friend of Molly’s friend’s friend had given us directions to what turned out to be an apartment complex, which was kind of disappointing. I mean, we were expecting rowhouses, slumping picturesquely next to each other, but this was just a dirtier, more run-down version of where we lived, little clusters of two-story townhouses built around a courtyard. We drove around and around and around, trying to seem very savvy and willing, and it looked like any apartment complex on a hot July afternoon. Finally, on our third turn around the complex, a guy ambled over to the car.
    “What you want?”
    “What you got?” I asked, which I thought was pretty good. I mean, I sounded casual but kind of hip, and if he turned out to be a cop, I hadn’t implicated myself. See, I was always thinking, unlike some people I could name.
    “Got American Idol and Survivor. The first one will make you sing so pretty that Simon will be speechless. The second one will make you feel as if you’ve got immunity for life.”
    “O-kay.” Molly reached over me with a fistful of bills, but the guy backed away from the car.
    “Pay the guy up there. Then someone will bring you your package.”
    “Shouldn’t you give us the, um, stuff first and then get paid?”
    The guy gave Molly the kind of look that a schoolteacher gives you when you say something exceptionally stupid. We drove up to the next guy, gave him $40, then drove to a spot he pointed out to wait.
    “It’s like McDonald’s!” Molly said. “Drive-through!”
    “Shit, don’t say McDonald’s. I haven’t eaten all day. I would kill for a Big Mac.”
    “Have you ever had the Big N’ Tasty? It totally rocks.”
    “What is it?”
    “It’s a cheeseburger, but with like a special sauce.”
    “Like a Big Mac.”
    “Only the sauce is different.”
    “I liked the fries better when they made them in beef fat.”
    A third boy—it’s okay to say “boy,” because he was, like, thirteen, so I’m not being racist or anything—handed us a package and we drove away. But Molly immediately pulled into a convenience store parking lot. It wasn’t a real convenience store, though, not a 7-Eleven or a Royal Farms.
    “What are you doing?”
    “Pre-diet binge,” Molly said. “If I’m not going to eat for the next week, I want to enjoy myself now.”
    I had planned to be pure starting that morning, but it sounded like a good idea. I did a little math. An ounce of Pringles has, like, 120 calories, so I could eat an entire can and not gain even half a pound, and a half pound doesn’t even register on a scale, so it wouldn’t count. Molly bought a pound of Peanut M&M’s, and let me tell you, the girl was not overachieving. I’d seen her eat that much on many an occasion. Molly has big appetites. We had a picnic, right there in the parking lot, washing down our food with diet cream soda. Then Molly began to open our “package.”
    “Not here!” I warned her, looking around.
    “What if it’s no good? What if they cut it with, like, something, so it’s weak?”
    Molly was beginning to piss me off a little, but maybe it was just all the salt, which was making my fingers swell and my head pound a little. “So how are you going to know if it’s any good?”
    “You put it on your gums.” She opened up the package. It didn’t look quite right. It was more off-white than I remembered, not as finely cut. But Molly dove right in, licking her finger, sticking it in, and then spreading it around her gum line.
    “Shit,” she said. “I don’t feel a thing.”
    “Well, you don’t feel it right away.”
    “No, they like totally robbed us. It’s bullshit. I’m going back.”
    “Molly, I don’t think they do exchanges. It’s not like Nordstrom, where you can con them into taking the