Femme Fatale and other stories

shoes back even after you wore them once. You stuck your wet finger in it.”
    “We were ripped off. They think just because we’re white suburban girls they can sell us this weak-ass shit.” She was beginning to sound more and more like someone on HBO, although I’d have to say the effect was closer to
Ali G
than
Sopranos.
“I’m going to demand a refund.”
    This was my first inkling that things might go a little wrong.
    So Molly went storming back to the parking lot and finds our guy, and she began bitching and moaning, but he didn’t seem that upset. He seemed kind of, I don’t know, amused by her. He let her rant and rave, just nodding his head, and when she finally ran out of steam, he says:
    “Honey, darling, you bought heroin. Not cocaine. That’s why you didn’t get a jolt. It’s not supposed to jolt you. It’s supposed to slow you down, not that it seems to be doing that, either.”
    Molly had worked up so much outrage that she still saw herself as the wronged party. “Well how was I supposed to know that?”
    “Because we sell cocaine by vial color. Red tops, blue tops, yellow tops. I just had you figured for heroin girls. You looked like you knew your way around, got tired of OxyContin, wanted the real thing.”
    Molly preened a little, as if she had been complimented. It’s interesting about Molly. Objectively, I’m prettier, but she has always done better with guys. I think it’s because she has this kind of sexy vibe, by which I mean she manages to communicate that she’ll pretty much do anyone.
    “Two pretty girls like you, just this once, I’ll make an exception. You go hand that package back to my man Gordy, and he’ll give you some nice blue tops.”
    We did, and he did, but this time Molly made a big show of driving only a few feet away and inspecting our purchase, holding the blue-capped vial up to the light.
    “It’s, like, rock candy.”
    It did look like a piece of rock candy, which made me think of the divinity my grandmother used to make, which made me think of all the other treats from childhood that I couldn’t imagine eating now—Pixy Stix and Now and Laters and Mary Janes and Dots and Black Crows and Necco Wafers and those pastel buttons that came on sheets of wax paper. Chocolate never did it for me, but I loved sugary treats when I was young.
    And now Molly was out of the car and on her feet, steaming toward our guy, who looked around, very nervous, as if this five-foot-five, size 10 dental hygienist—size 8 when she’s being good—could do some serious damage. And I wanted to say, “Dude, don’t worry! All she can do is scrape your gums until they bleed.” (I go to Molly’s dentist and Molly cleans my teeth and she is seriously rough. I think she gets a little kick out of it, truthfully.)
    “What the fuck is this?” she yelled, getting all gangster on his ass—I think I’m saying that right—holding the vial up to the guy’s face, while he looked around nervously. Finally he grabbed her wrist and said: “Look, just shut up or you’re going to bring some serious trouble to bear. You smoke it, I’ll show you how, don’t you know anything? Trust me, you’ll like it.”
    Molly motioned to me and I got out of the car, although a little reluctantly. It was, like, you know that scene in
Star Wars
where the little red eyes are watching from the caves and suddenly those weird sand people just up and attack? I’m not being racist, just saying we were outsiders and I definitely had a feeling all sorts of eyes were on us, taking note.
    “We’ll go to my place,” the guy said, all super suave, like he was some international man of mystery inviting us to see his etchings.
    “A shooting gallery?” Molly squealed, all excited. “Ohmigod!”
    He seemed a little offended. “I don’t let dope fiends in my house.”
    He led us to one of the townhouses and I don’t know what I expected, but it certainly wasn’t someplace with doilies and old overstuffed furniture and pictures of Jesus and some black guy on the wall. (Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., I figured out later, but I was really distracted at the time and thought it was the guy’s dad or something.) But the most surprising thing was this little old lady sitting in the middle of the sofa, hands folded in her lap. She had a short, all-white Afro and wore a pink T-shirt and flowery ski pants, which bagged on her stick-thin legs. Ski pants. I hadn’t seen them in, like, forever.
    “Antone?” she