Smoke and Lyrics

by Holly Hall

  “Do you know how many chemicals and preservatives are in that shit?”

  “More for me,” I crack, leaning back against the cabinets beside her and taking a long swig, welcoming the burn that comes with it. She doesn’t bother to hide the look of disgust on her face. “Mmm. I needed that. Thanks.”

  “You look it. No offense,” she mocks. Her name was Lindsey, right? I don’t trust myself to say it out loud.

  “None taken.” I saunter around her and peek inside the refrigerator, making note of its meager contents. What we lack in real food we make up for in beer. Carter is the one person from my band that’s given up on trying to convince me there are better ways to handle life’s biggest disappointments, thus, our living situation works. I may be a solo artist, but there’s no shortage of opinions from the peanut gallery. If the others knew he wasn’t trying to beat me over the head with the sober stick, they’d be fucking furious.

  I grunt in disappointment, chalking this up to another day the six-pack abs I once had will be buried by more greasy takeout.

  I’m interrupted by Lindsey pushing past me, effectively muscling her way into the fridge, and pulling out a few things. Eggs, salsa, lunch meat. I don’t know what she plans on doing with them, but I’m willing to sit back and watch her fail miserably.

  “What are you doing?”

  Her look of unimpressed disdain is almost enough to shut me up for the rest of the morning. Almost. “I assume you can use your context clues. Although, inviting a stranger into your home? I’m doubting your intelligence.”

  I shrug carelessly. “You asked.”

  “You said yes.”

  Digging a frying pan from one of the cabinets, she fires up the stove. I recline back on the counter top, crossing my arms over my bare chest. I’m a nightmare in the kitchen. Once she’s buttered the pan and cracked a few eggs, she steals a shy glance at me over her shoulder.

  “So, why do you do it?” she asks, blowing an escaped tendril of hair out of her face.

  “What?”

  “You know, hanging out in hole-in-the-wall bars, drinking yourself to sleep. Aren’t you supposed to be ‘changing’ or something?”

  My eyes narrow into slits. If she knew who I was last night, she did a damn good job hiding it. “You don’t know anything about me.”

  Her answering scoff has me taken aback. “Everyone knows everything about you.”

  So she does know me. That’s grand. Living up to people’s expectations and stooping to their disappointment isn’t easy. “Not everything. Maybe if you did, you’d slow down the bus to Guilt City.”

  For once, she doesn’t have a spiky look to send my way. She keeps her eyes trained on whatever she’s making, shredding the lunch meat with her fingers and sprinkling it into the eggs. “That’s not what I’m doing. I think the last thing you need from anyone is more shame. I was only wondering what your reasons were.”

  “My reasons?”

  “Sure. You must have reasons, or else why would you throw it all away?”

  My glare is withering, but she ignores it. I’d worry more about getting her out of this house if my stomach wasn’t about to implode in hunger. Unfortunately, the smells emanating from the stove are almost enough to bring me to my knees, and I’m too curious about her to ask her to leave.

  I take another gulp of coffee and allow my eyes to meander up her body. “What’s your tattoo?”

  Her head snaps around. “How do you know about that?”

  “Relax, kid, I noticed it last night. Above your shirt.”

  She avoids my gaze, sliding the omelet onto a plate, and she doesn’t answer.

  Sipping my coffee, simmering in her evasiveness, I appraise her. Who is this girl? Making attempts to impress me, I’m used to. Resorting to seduction when I lose interest in a conversation totally revolving around them, sure. But making themselves at home in my house, making breakfast and saying next to nothing about themselves, then deflecting my attempts to learn more about them is unheard of.

  Trying another tactic, I say, “You could’ve robbed me.” My tone is too casual for the reality of the situation, but I can’t find it in myself to care. At this point, stealing my worldly possessions would only be a toothpick on my tower of issues.

  “You should be more careful.” Lindsey sets a plate of food on the bistro table. It’s then I realize she’s only made one. She rests her mug beside the sink, looks down at her phone. “Be right back.”

  With nothing else standing between me and the food, I grab a fork and take a seat. Maybe she isn’t a breakfast person. Maybe I’ll ask her about it when she comes back. But damn is this omelet good. It takes only a few minutes to all but lick my plate clean. Then my phone vibrates noisily beside me, shattering my rare moment of peace, and I don’t have to look to know who it is. I silence it and ignore the glare of my manager’s name across the screen. He’s a results man. If you’re out of the game, he wants to know what your plan is to get back in it. He wants answers, and right now, I have none. I’m debatably more lost than I was before rehab.

  I settle back and drain the rest of the coffee, listening for any sign of Lindsey or Carter. I’ve yet to hear a peep out of them since I started eating. For all of his popularity, Carter prefers to keep to himself, so I was surprised when he extended the offer to room with him. His basement was sitting unused, and he gets almost an extra grand a month from me for rent, so it works between us. We stay out of each other’s hair, and we know when to put in the headphones when one of us brings a girl home. One day I’ll have to move on, but for now, I don’t have to be completely alone.

  I go to the sink to rinse my plate, noticing the mug Lindsey left behind. It’s half full, the coffee black. Without a glance to check if she’s looking, I taste it. Not even a drop of sugar.

  She’s still missing, doing God knows what downstairs—the basement is a treasure trove of stuff someone could make money off if it was associated to me—so I leisurely make my way back down to my cave, thinking of all the ways I risked everything again just this weekend. I’m playing a game of chicken with fate, hoping it doesn’t strike me down while at the same time daring it to. When I make it to the base of the stairs, though, I don’t see her. The bathroom door’s open, my discarded towel now picked up and hanging over the curtain rod, but other than that, there’s no trace she was even here. I peruse the room, noticing nothing out of place, not even a scrap of paper with her number on it. They usually find a way to wedge those in somewhere they know I’ll find it.

  But there’s nothing. She’s gone.

  I make for my bedside bottle of Maker’s, kicking my clothes from last night out of the way while I’m at it, and my wallet tumbles from the pocket of my jeans. I should keep better track of my shit. When I pick it up, it flops open and something flutters to the ground. Something tattered and worn from age and my fingers, from all the times I’ve unfolded and re-folded and smoothed the edges. That photo lying face down, that fragment of my past life, takes the air out of me quicker than a punch to the gut would.

  It’s a sonogram picture. A black-and-white rendering of what my world looked like at sixteen weeks, just a month before we’d find out her heart somehow stopped beating and all the promise in my life seemed to shut off like a light switch.

  I pick it up with shaky fingers, forgetting, for once, about the whiskey. I know what I’ll feel when I look at it, but I do it anyway. She deserves recognition, adoration. She deserves my pain.

  I can make out her nose; slightly turned up, like Raven’s. Her little hands cradling her face. Her legs tucked in close, safe and sound in Raven’s belly. But it’s what I don’t see in the picture that hurts the most. The future that Raven and I dreamed up for our Emberly. The nursery we painstakingly designed together and had already begun to paint. The family traditions and holidays we planned.

  All gone, with just a few solemn words from the doctor.

  Everywhere seems to ache. I can remember with painful clarity every aspect
of that day: the frigid examination room, the crinkle of the paper on the table as Raven sobbed, the wooden quality of my movements as I cradled her and did what I thought I should do. We had the opportunity to become stronger after that moment. But I failed her, as I always did.

  She shrunk into herself, and instead of becoming bigger, stepping up to fill all the cavities grief left, I became smaller, too. I left too much room for all the darkness to creep into our marriage like rot and crack it wide open.

  I barely register tucking the photo away in my wallet, and glass clinks against glass as I pour generously, all the while cursing the amber liquid that fills the tumbler and soothes the roar in my head. Anxiety and guilt are crawling beneath my skin, and now a moroseness I only feel when I think of my daughter hollows out a rift in my chest. Whiskey isn’t an end-all be-all, but it helps muffle the cries of my indiscretions.

  I grab a pack of cigarettes and a lighter, carrying them out to the pair of lawn chairs outside, where my memories aren’t so stifling. If I’d continued my sessions with the therapist my manager set me up with, maybe I could fight all my demons instead of trying desperately to evade them. But there’s something about a dude who gets paid to spread your thoughts so thinly he can slice and dissect each individual facet until he’s satisfied that creeps me out. They might know brains and how they work, but they don’t know me. They don’t know how it feels to be left by nearly everyone in my life. They paid for their degrees, but money can’t buy the kind of experience it takes to know my kind of pain. No healthy habit in the world can erase what I’ve done.

  I finish my cigarette and crush it on the concrete until it’s no more than a smear of ash. I was supposed to quit that too, years ago. But the thing about me and vices is, I usually trade in one for the other. I gave up smoking for Raven. Then I gave up alcohol and picked up cigarettes. When I started drinking again, I lost Raven. Like clockwork. The only thing that’s uncertain is what my next vice will be.

  Unbidden, an image of Lindsey comes to mind.

  Chapter 4

  Jenson

  During the times when I feel most haunted by self-doubt and disappointment, I call up the one person in the world whom I’ve done right by. Our conversations mostly occur during my weakest moments, which probably isn’t the fairest of arrangements when I think too hard about it. Then again, I try not to.

  She picks up on the third ring, her familiar voice like dropping into a vat of warm honey.

  “Hey, baby.”

  Her relief, such a simple thing, brings an automatic smile to my face. “Hey, Ma. How’ve you been?”

  “Good, good, no complaints. Just on my lunch break at the diner. Slow today.”

  “Yeah? How’s your car doing, you get it fixed?”

  “It’s still at the shop. They tell me every few days it’ll take a few more days. Same thing over and over again. You know how that goes.”

  I scratch my head with my thumb, take a long drag of another cigarette. One of my first big purchases was an SUV for my mom, and some asshole ran a stoplight and T-boned her. “I’ll call Pete and see what the deal is. He told me he’d take care of it.”

  I hear her chuckle in the background, the same one she always used when I’d do something silly as a kid. “Don’t worry about me, I’m just fine. What about you? Tell me what’s going on in your neck of the woods.”

  It’s a question I know to expect yet am never prepared for. “Same ol’, same ol’.” She won’t be satisfied with that answer, but it’s the best I’ve got.

  “Mhmm. Carter keeping an eye on you?”

  “Yeah. You know how he is.”

  “Well, he did promise me he would, last time I saw you two. You think any more about getting your own place?”

  I swallow hard, flick the ash off the end of my cig. “Nah. I’m in no hurry.” I play it casual, but the truth is, I fear what’ll happen if I’m alone. I basically do what I want here, but at least I have an added layer of accountability with Carter living right above me.

  “Well, don’t rush it. Stay as long as he’ll have you.” I hear the layer of concern in her voice, but she won’t prod me—she knows it won’t help. Somehow, she’s learned to tread the line between uncaring and overbearing. I’m ashamed she ever had to learn. “I hope you’re helping him out some around the house.”

  “Thanks, mom.” My sigh ends in a short laugh. Always mothering. Always.

  “Any news with the band? Shows booked?”

  “No.” I hold the phone away from my face and take a long pull of liquor. I’ll have to face the music one of these days, literally. The longer I wait, the more rabid my fans get. At first, it was more of a supply-and-demand thing, my canceled shows immediately putting me on the radars of thousands of fans. Now it’s just getting old. People are getting angry, claiming my “issues” are all a publicity stunt. Like I’d purposely set my own goddamn house on fire and risk killing myself all in the name of staying relevant.

  “You listen to me, Jens. You take all the time you need, all right? You come first. Not money, not albums, not taking care of your old mother. You.”

  “I will, Ma. I just need some inspiration and I’ll be back in the saddle.”

  “You know how you get inspiration, right?” she asks, pausing for effect. “By living. You won’t be inspired by the four walls of a house, or even inside a studio. Experience life, and love, and food. Try all the food.”

  For someone who’s worked at a diner for almost thirty years, she’s pretty damn wise. “I know. I’ll do that.”

  “Do it for me, I don’t need all the calories.” She laughs. “It’s all I want for you. Then plan your epic comeback.”

  This time, my laugh rolls through my belly, surprising even me with its vigor. Ever since she caught on to the word epic, she hasn’t stopped using it. “I will. I promise.”

  Lindsey

  “Are you done yet? I have to shower before work!” My palm slaps against the bathroom door as loudly as my desperation. One thing I’ve learned living with five other roommates is there’s never enough hot water or refrigerator space. Luckily, I’ve learned to take record-breaking showers, and I can’t afford enough food to run into trouble with the refrigerator situation.

  “I just got in here!” Isaac. The answer is as disappointing as I assumed it would be.

  “Yeah fucking right!” I pound the door again for good measure, but he’s drowning me out with his shower radio. He takes longer than anyone I know to bathe. “Just please hurry,” I groan back.

  I dart to the tiny shoebox bedroom I share with one other person, Anika, to grab a change of clothes—a barely-clean set of Rhythm and Beans’ finest. I didn’t remember to take off Jenson’s shirt when I covertly called an Uber to pick me up. All I was focused on, more so than the cost of a ride, was avoiding more unnerving questions and an awkward good bye.

  Adding to my haste, Jenson’s situation is sadder than I expected. I stumbled across him purely on accident while I was hiding out at Tripp’s, but the surprise I felt upon seeing such a notable face just two stools to my left was erased by the sight of the glass in front of him. This is my world, the industry I’m trying to break into, so while I’m not one of his adoring fangirls, it’d be hard for me to ignore the buzz surrounding Jenson King. He did go to rehab for “undisclosed health reasons,” but I assume alcohol isn’t on the list of recommended treatments for any of the main offenses—drugs, depression, alcoholism, affinity for prostitutes. While I think my bubbly, somewhat cynical, demeanor is something he could use a lot more of, I’m not sure that’s even enough. I feel shitty just admitting he’s hopeless to myself.

  I sniff myself and cringe. Beneath the faint laundry scent of Jenson’s shirt, I still smell like stale coffee and paninis from my shift last night. And I have to go right back in today. Someone called in, and I wasn’t about to turn down the extra hours. Plus, I see it as an advantage when I don’t have to spend more time than necessary in this apartment.

  I gra
b a bag of salt-and-pepper popcorn from the pantry—what’s left of my latest grocery run—and resume my post at the door. If I’m not here, someone will swoop in and take my place in line. All around me are the subdued sounds that have become my normal since I followed a Craigslist ad to this very address a few months ago. Someone is snoring like a chainsaw in the bedroom beside mine and Anika’s—Sebastian, I would assume. He’s a guitar technician and sleeps the day away when he’s not traveling to shows with the band he works with. Isaac bunks with him.

  Adjacent to the bathroom are Yan and Will. I never see either of them unless it’s in passing. I assume they work somewhere for the nocturnal, probably a strip club. Anika and I are the only girls brave enough, or stupid enough, to pay money to live with these slobs. I almost don’t mind it. I’m an only child, and the second I stepped foot in the apartment in the middle of an airsoft war, I was hooked. I love the chaos. I don’t love the suspicious stains that accumulate in the common areas, but I’ve learned to step around them and only sit on surfaces I launder myself. My mom has the address for the odd birthday card, but I warned her never to show up uninvited. I don’t think I have much to worry about. My parents are divorced and busy, my mom dealing with her own setbacks, and there’s the fact I haven’t seen my father in five years. That’s an issue for another time.

  Melancholy sets in when I think of my mom. I need to call her. She doesn’t want to infringe on my life, and learning to balance a successful business on top of her health issues has been an uphill battle. An incurable disease has stolen my mother and replaced her with someone with less hope, less confidence.

  The scrape of the shower curtain rings brings my thoughts back to my mission, and steam pours out the door when Isaac emerges wrapped in a towel. He nearly walks right past me until I toss another handful of popcorn into my mouth. “What are you doing on the floor?”