After, Ella moved us back to the get-ready room, which had been freshened. Tables with champagne and vodka, coke on a plate, doll-size spoons around it in a fan. We all rushed first to our phones. I went next to the drug, but Ella called me back to a line she’d assembled. “Hair and makeup check,” she said and bodies milled around, fixing. Fingers grazed my face, gentle with my skin the way I never was. The silk feathers of a contouring brush felt like my mom’s touch, how she’d pet my cheeks to wake me when I fell asleep on the couch watching Housewives, or in the car on the ride home from Galveston, the beach, endless afternoons in the water with Leah. “Honey, put your shoes on,” she would say, “we’re home.”

The door opened and brought new music, men’s voices. It closed behind Jake, @Chrisss, a white-sneakered entourage, and Blaze, who yelled, “Heyo, hot girls.” His voice was high, squeaky. He was short, but walked the line of us like a shadow, stretched tall by changing light. He had a bag of powder on him and offered it to some girls he passed. I thought of nightmares, how if this were one of mine, Blaze would stop at me, and I would know to fear him, I would know to scream.

I counted girls, three before he reached me, then two, then one. Sweat stung my pits where the wax had ripped. I felt my heart pick up. Blaze stopped where I waited. He held up the baggie and spoon. My fingers shook when I touched his hand to lift the spoon closer. He flinched. I hesitated. He moved the spoon, the hand that held it, down to his crotch.

“On your knees,” he said and looked over his shoulder at the men. I froze, glanced at Jake, whose face was blank.

“Just kidding,” Blaze said and lifted the spoon. I smiled, in on the joke. Inside, my heart was too fast. I snorted and the beat sped up. Blaze yelled, “Make it a good time, ladies.” The line broke apart, and I thought to go to Jake, receive a kiss, some affirmation. But the men quickly left and I went to the cocaine instead, took my turn, my line, which made my heart fast, faster, happy. All around me, girls checked themselves in mirrors; girls went to their phones and checked themselves there. They made dead faces, glossed mouths open, eyes pointed elsewhere, like they’d been murdered and left. I tried the same look, flipped to see. I looked dead in an ugly way. But it didn’t matter, I could practice the pose later.