Chapter One
The Crack Cocaine Diet
I had just broken up with Brandon and Molly had just
broken up with Keith, so we needed new dresses to go to
this party where we knew they were both going to be. But
before we could buy the dresses, we needed to lose
weight because we had to look fabulous,
kiss-my-ass-fuck-you fabulous.
Kiss-my-ass-fuck-you-and-your-dick-is-really-tiny
fabulous. Because, after all, Brandon and Keith were
going to be at this party, and if we couldn’t get new
boyfriends in less than eight days, we could at least go
down a dress size and look so good that Brandon and
Keith and everybody else in the immediate vicinity would
wonder how they ever let us go. I mean, yes,
technically, they broke up with us, but we had been
thinking about it, weighing the pros and cons. (Pro:
they spent money on us. Con: they were childish. Pro: we
had them. Con: tiny dicks, see above.) See, we were
being methodical and they were just all impulsive, the
way guys are. That would be another con-poor impulse
control. Me, I never do anything without thinking it
through very carefully. Anyway, I’m not sure what went
down with Molly and Keith, but Brandon said if he wanted
to be nagged all the time, he’d move back in with his
mother, and I said, “Well, given that she still does
your laundry and makes you food, it’s not as if you
really moved out,” and that was that. No big loss.
Still, we had to look so great that other guys would be
punching our exes in the arms and saying, “What, are you
crazy?” Everything is about spin, even dating. It’s
always better to be the dumper instead of the dumpee,
and if you have to be the loser, then you need to find a
way of being superior. And that was going to take about
seven pounds for me, as many as ten for Molly, who
doesn’t have my discipline and had been doing some
serious breakup eating for the past three weeks. She
went facedown in the Ding Dongs, danced with the Devil
Dogs, became a Ho Ho ho. As for myself, I’m a salty
girl, and I admit I had the Pringles Light can upended
in my mouth for a couple of days.
So, anyway, Molly said Atkins, and I said not fast
enough, and then I said a fast-fast, and Molly said she
saw little lights in front of her eyes the last time she
tried to go no food, and she said cabbage soup and I
said it gives me gas, and then she said pills, and I
said all the doctors we knew were too tight with their
scrips, even her dentist boss since she stopped blowing
him. And, finally, Molly had a good idea and said:
“Cocaine!”
This merited consideration. Molly and I had never done
more than a little recreational coke, always provided by
boyfriends who were trying to impress us, but even my
short-term experience indicated it would probably do the
trick. The tiniest bit revved you up for hours and you
raced around and around, and it wasn’t that you weren’t
hungry, more like you had never even heard of food, it
was just some quaint custom from the olden days, like
square dancing. I mean, you could do it in theory, but
why would you?
“Okay,” I said. “Only where do we get it?” After all,
we’re girls, girly girls. I had been drinking and
smoking pot since I was sixteen, but I certainly didn’t
buy it. That’s what boyfriends were for. Pro: Brandon
bought my drinks, and if you don’t have to lay out cash
for alcohol, you can buy a lot more shoes.
Molly thought hard, and Molly thinking was like a fat
guy running-there was a lot of visible effort.
“Well, like, the city.”
“But where in the city?”
“On, like, a corner.”
“Right, Molly. I watch HBO, too. But I mean, what
corner? It’s 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.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from Hardly Knew Her
by Laura Lippman
Copyright © 2008 by Laura Lippman.
Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
William Morrow
Copyright © 2008
Laura Lippman
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-06-158499-2
