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high and gigs where I wasn’t and gigs where I had to pee the whole time. Even when I was playing the music on the stage, I was still chasing something — some idea of life and fame that I’d imagined for myself when I was sixteen — but I was losing interest in actually finding it.
    While I was carrying in my keyboard, some girl who called herself Jackie gave us some pills I’d never seen before.
    â€œCole,” she whispered in my ear, as if she knew me instead of just my name. “Cole, this will take you places you haven’t been.”
    â€œBaby,” I said, shifting my duffle so that I wouldn’t hit it on the rat’s maze of walls beneath the dance floor, “it takes a lot to do that these days.”
    She smiled wide, teeth tinted yellow in the dull light, like she knew a secret. She smelled like lemons. “Don’t worry — I know what you need.”
    I almost laughed, but instead I turned away, shouldering my way through a half-closed door. I looked over Jackie’s highlighted hair to shout, “Vic, c’mon!” I dropped my gaze back to her. “Are you on it?”
    Jackie ran a finger up my arm, tracing around the tight sleeve of my T-shirt. “I’d be doing more than just smiling at you if I was.”
    I reached down and touched her hand, tapping it until she understood what I meant and opened her palm. It was empty, but she reached into the pocket of her jeans to pull out a wad of plastic wrap. Inside, I saw a collection of electric-green pills, each stamped with two T s. They got an A-plus for pretty factor, but who knew what they were.
    In my pocket, my phone buzzed. Normally I would’ve let it go to voicemail, but Jackie, standing two inches away from me, breathing my air, gave me an incentive to interrupt the conversation. I fished the phone out and put it against my ear. “Da.”
    â€œCole, I’m glad I got you.” It was Berlin, my agent. His voice was gritty and fast as always. “Listen to this: ‘NARKOTIKA takes the scene by force with their latest album, 13all . Brilliant but frenetic front man Cole St. Clair, thought by many to be losing his edge’ — sorry, man, that’s just what they said — ‘comes back stronger than ever with this release, proving that his first release, at sixteen, was no fluke. The three —’ are you listening, Cole?”
    â€œNo,” I said.
    â€œWell, you should. This is Elliot Fry saying this,” Berlin said. When I didn’t reply, he said, “Remember, Elliot Fry, who called you a surly, overactive toddler with a keyboard? That Elliot Fry. Now you guys are golden. Total turnaround. You’ve arrived, man.”
    â€œBrilliant,” I said, and hung up on him. I turned to Jackie. “I’ll take the whole bag. Tell Victor. He’s my purse.”
    So Victor paid for them. But I’d asked for them, so I guess it was still my fault.
    Or maybe it was Jackie’s, for not telling us what they were, but that was Club Josephine for you. The place to find the new high before anyone knew how high it took you. Unnamed pills, brand-new powders, shining mysterious nectar in vials. It wasn’t the worst thing I’d made Victor do.
    Back in the dim lounge, waiting to go on, Victor swallowed one of the green pills with a beer while Jeremy-my-body-is-a-temple watched him and drank green tea. I took a few of them with a Pepsi. I don’t know how many. I was feeling pretty bitter about the transaction by the time we got onto the stage. Jackie’s stuff was letting me down — I was feeling absolutely nothing. We started our set, and the crowd was wild, pressed up against the stage, arms outstretched, screaming our name.
    Behind his drums, Victor screamed back at them. He was high as a kite, so whatever Jackie had sold us had done it for him. But then it never took as much to get Victor high. The strobes lit up bits and