Roux grinned, the happiest drunk on the block. “I told this one tenant that he should—how can I put this?—have sexual relations with himself. And that did not go over well.”
“Wow,” Jesse said. “This might be a New York first.”
“So now I’m working on being a better person, which means I don’t get to drop f-bombs anymore. And I’m putting Harold’s grandkids through college!”
Harold just tucked the glass jar back under the desk, muttering something about rich kids. I’m not sure what he said, though. It was hard to hear over Roux yelling, “Bye, Harold!”
I dug through Roux’s purse and found her keys while Jesse propped her up against the elevator wall, using his arm and hip to keep her upright. “Ow,” she kept saying, but she didn’t move, so we ignored her. The front door lock looked pretty basic—just a normal deadbolt—but Jesse and Roux were right there and there was no way I could open the lock without them noticing. Or Jesse noticing, at least. I was pretty sure that Roux couldn’t focus her eyes.
I finally found the keys and opened the front door while Jesse moved Roux inside. Everything was dark and drawn. It was sort of creepy to enter this huge apartment and not see a single adult, but Roux didn’t seem too put off by it, so I guessed it was normal for her.
“Okay, kid,” Jesse said to her as he steered her toward the stairs. “Here’s the plan. You’re going to drink some water and sleep it off and start fresh tomorrow.”
“I love water.” She sighed. “I love Maggie, too. Jesse!”
“Yeah, Roux?” His voice was muffled as Roux flung her arm around his neck, whacking him with her oversized coat sleeve.
“You like Maggie, too, right? She’s hot. Don’t you think Maggie’s hot?”
“Roux, I will murder you,” I muttered. “Well, I won’t, but I know people. They can do it without making a mess.”
“Hot like burning,” Roux continued, ignoring my death threats as she put one foot on the stairs. Then she stopped. “Whoa, spinning stairs. Terrible idea.”
Jesse looked at me over Roux’s head. “She’s so trashed,” he whispered.
“So trashed,” I said.
“You’d think she’d build up a tolerance at some point.”
“Hey, I have tolerance,” Roux said before lurching violently and nearly knocking Jesse and I back down the stairs. “I don’t hate anyone.”
“Of course you don’t,” Jesse said as I caught Roux by the shoulders and pushed her forward.
“People hate me,” she replied as we kept nudging her up the stairs. “But I have only love in my heart for those assholes. Ugh, swear jar! I owe Harold five more dollars now. Remind me tomorrow! Where’s my room? I need to puke.”
I looked at Jesse. Jesse looked at me. Roux’s suite seemed to be a very long hallway away, and she looked six shades of queasy. “Can I puke here?” Roux asked as she neared a potted plant that sat at the top of the stairs. “How about this? It’s a plant. Hi, plant!”
“Oh, boy,” Jesse said under his breath.
“Okay, Operation: Save the Plant and Move Faster is now in effect,” I announced, and the two of us got Roux down the hall in record time.
“Hold it for about thirty seconds, okay, buddy?” Jesse said. “Or I’ll never forgive you.”
“Yeah, you’re my buddy, Jesse.” Roux grinned. “My good buddy. You were and then you weren’t but now you are.” She shifted her glazed eyes to me. “It’s because you’re hot, Maggie,” she whispered conspiratorially.
“Oh my God, shut up,” I hissed at her. “If you have even a molecule of sobriety in your body right now, you will stop talking.”
Roux just laughed and stumbled through her doorway. She would have fallen right into a pile of shoes if Jesse and I didn’t catch her. “You’re turning an interesting shade of green, Roux, you know that?” Jesse grimaced as he turned her around.
We steered Roux into her massive bathroom. Bottles and beauty products littered the granite countertop, and a hair dryer dangled precariously from an outlet. “Okay,” I told her. “Anchors away.”
And right on cue, Roux pitched toward the toilet and puked up Jesse’s parents’ very expensive French wine.
Chapter 12
I took care of things after that, since although guys like to gross each other out, when girls do gross things, guys apparently turn into delicate Puritans. Whatever.
Anyway, I cleaned Roux up, gave her water and an aspirin, and Jesse and I got her facedown on her bed before tiptoeing out of the room. “Do you think we should stay?” I whispered.
“No, she’s fine,” he replied. “She’s been way more trashed before. This was like middle-school drunk.”
“See,” I said, “that doesn’t make me feel any better.”
“Trust me,” he said. “It’s not dangerous until she starts speaking with a Russian accent.”
“A Russian accent?” I wondered if Roux could teach me how to do that.
“Yeah, it’s bizarre. No one gets it.”
We went through several more gilded rooms in Roux’s house, sneaking past floor-length windows as we crept toward the massive mahogany front door. “This apartment,” I murmured, “is ri-donk-ulous.”
“I didn’t know people actually said the word ‘ri-donk-ulous,’” Jesse replied.