Smoke

by Meili Cady

  I spent the next few days staying away from our apartment as much as I could. I’d been uncomfortable since Mike’s confession, and I wanted to give him some space to rethink his affection for me. On the third evening of trying to avoid him, I came home from a long day of working on the show to find Mike standing in our kitchen holding a bottle of vodka. He was obviously drunk and seemed to be in high spirits. He greeted me as I came in the door. “Welcome home, roomie! Do a shot with me!”

  I laughed and said, “Okay, let me just get my shoes off.” He handed me a shot and we threw them back in unison after a “one, two, three” count.

  “More!” he said. We did another.

  I made a sour face and set the glass down, choking, “Water, water.”

  He got me a glass of water. “Pussy.” He did another shot by himself and made a yelping sound. “Woo! We need Sinatra!” I began to wonder how much he’d had to drink before I’d come home. His face was flushed and trickled with sweat.

  Mike turned on his computer speakers to blast a Frank Sinatra song so loud that it felt like an assault. Before I could ask him to please turn it down a little, he rushed over and grabbed me by the waist, facing me head-on. “Dance with me,” he said. I tried to be playful with him, but I could see that he liked to play rougher than I did. As we danced, moving in awkward circles around our living room, I could see that his eyes were severely bloodshot. He stared into my eyes with an intensity that made me break eye contact. I noticed a reddish bruise under his eye and a scratch above his eyebrow.

  “What happened?” I asked him as he drunkenly tried to sway us around to the music. I felt like I was shouting over the sound.

  “I got in a fight at the bar last night,” he said. “Total assholes.” He gave a silly grin.

  I’d had enough of this weird, aggressive dance routine that he’d pulled me into. I backed away from him and walked into the kitchen to pour myself another glass of water. I told him I was tired and wanted to go to bed. I knew I’d have to sleep in my bedroom on the floor tonight. There was no chance that he’d leave me alone if I tried to sleep in the living room, as I would usually do.

  Without saying a word, Mike turned off the music. Silence. Standing at his computer, he took his shirt off and tossed it on the carpet. He paused for a moment, suddenly appearing to be consumed by something. When he turned around, I could see through the dim light in our apartment that he had tears in his eyes. “Meili,” he said, his voice strangled by emotion, “I love you.” I felt uneasy and even a little afraid as he once again confessed his affection for me. He seemed to have come unhinged from all rational behavior. I reminded him that it was best that we stay only friends because we were living together as roommates. I didn’t know how to say, “I don’t like you like that,” without damaging his already fragile self-image.

  Mike pounded two more shots of vodka in quick succession. I sat on the floor next to our coffee table. It was almost three in the morning. I was exhausted and wanted nothing more than to go to bed. I thought that if I gave a few more minutes of trying to comfort him that the situation would dissolve and we could end the evening in peace. I was wrong. Seeing that I was getting nowhere with calming him down, I gave up and stretched out on the carpet. I closed my eyes. In a matter of seconds, Mike was on the floor beside me, turned on his side, with his naked, muscular chest moving toward me where I lay on my back. I opened my eyes, becoming more alert.

  “What are you doing?” I asked him. He stared at me, and I saw something wild in him, something threatening.

  “Can I take you?” he whispered as he moved his body closer and began to press his weight on top of me. I quickly darted out from under him.

  “You’re scaring me,” I said. “You’re drunk. I’m going to bed.”

  I closed my bedroom door and locked it. I realized that my hands were shaking as I turned the lock and checked it. Mike was on the other side of the door a second later, so obliterated he couldn’t put a sentence together. He banged on the wood and muttered something to the effect that I needed to be “outta here” in the morning. Finally, he left me alone. I pulled my single blanket over my face to try to hide from the first glow of sunrise that was already spreading across my room.

  At five o’clock in the morning, I heard a loud crashing sound that I’d later learn my neighbors had mistaken for an earthquake. The crash was startling and broke the quiet of the morning for our entire neighborhood. I awoke only for a moment. Though I was barely conscious, I knew somewhere in my gut that this sound had to do with me and with Mike. I rolled over and fell back to sleep.

  My phone started ringing at 7 A.M. It was my dad. He called twice in a row. I immediately put my phone on silent, as if to hit a snooze button. At around 10 A.M. I woke up and scrolled through my missed calls. Dad sure seemed eager to get ahold of me. Before I could call him back my phone rang. It was my brother, Nick. “Are you okay?” he asked me.

  “Yeah, just really tired. Why?”

  Nick said Dad had received a call earlier in the morning from my car insurance company. They told him my Jetta had been totaled. This explained the loud noise from the street at sunrise. Mike must not have made it very far if he managed to destroy my car within a block of the building. I knew that the natural reaction to this information should be anger, but somehow I didn’t feel angry. I knew that I should be, but I wasn’t. I was preoccupied with thinking about how my father and brother had spent the early hours of the morning knowing that my car had been totaled and that I was unable to reach. I felt their joint relief when I spoke with Nick, giving the family proof of life and assuring them that I was perfectly fine and uninvolved in any accident.

  I got up and smelled something burning the moment I opened my door. The stove had been left on, beneath a now blackened and smoking pot full of what looked like scorched macaroni and cheese. My phone rang again, this time with a call from Mike’s father on the East Coast. He asked me what had happened with Mike last night. I didn’t tell him everything, but he read between the lines. After a long pause, he asked me a straightforward yet unnerving question. “Did Mike make any unwanted sexual advances toward you?”

  “Um, yeah,” I told him. “I mean, kind of.” It struck me as a truly bizarre thing for a father to ask about his son. I wondered what behavior in the past could have prompted him to think of such a thing. He told me that Mike had called him from the police station. Mike was being charged with a DUI. As roommates we had shared two tandem parking spaces and I’d given him access to the spare set of keys for my Jetta. It seemed that after he’d stopped pounding on my door last night, he’d taken my car for a ride to a nearby store. When he made it back to our street, he was driving fast and spun out of control. My Jetta flipped into the air about a block from our building and met its untimely end as it smashed onto the pavement and into three other parked cars. No wonder the neighbors mistook the sound for an earthquake. Two of the parked cars were also totaled. Mike had somewhat miraculously come out of the crash unscathed, save for a few minor injuries.

  His father was terribly worried, and I felt some sympathy for both of them. It was clear that Mike had a lot of inner demons, but I’d seen how nice he usually was. All the breakfasts he’d cooked for me, how hard he’d tried to make me feel welcome in the apartment. Anyone who shows that sort of kindness can’t be a monster.

  His father told me that Mike would be home in a couple of hours. I hung up the phone. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to be stuck in a jail cell, hungover and alone with regret. What a terrible feeling, to know that you’ve caused so much damage. I had every right to be pissed if I’d wanted to, but I didn’t have it in me. Getting mad wouldn’t undo anything. I wasn’t the one who had a burden to bear, it was Mike. He must have thought that I would hate him after what he’d done. I didn’t hate him, I just didn’t understand him. I believed that he meant well, and I wished that I could help him. He needed help from someone, and his parents were across the country.

  I
texted Lisette as I walked to the grocery store a few blocks away. I was planning to get some fresh bagels and coffee to have ready for Mike when he came home from the police station. I wanted him to know that I forgave him and everything would be okay. Lisette had told me that she was going to be in meetings all day, but I wanted to let her know what had happened. I sent her a series of long-winded messages, explaining everything in detail. I was surprised when I heard back from her immediately.

  ANGEL WHERE ARE YOU? ARE YOU OKAY?

  I told her that I was at the store getting bagels for Mike. Lisette then called me and said that she was canceling her next meeting and asked me what the cross streets were to the grocery store.

  “YOU DON’T BUY FUCKING BAGELS for someone who just stole your car, totaled it, and practically tried to rape you. I don’t give a shit how good his omelets are!”

  I sat in the passenger seat of her new ivy-green Bentley, listening in silence as she lectured me. I couldn’t argue with anything she was saying. It seemed so obvious hearing it from her. I felt a little embarrassed for having been too naive to see these things on my own. I nodded obediently and said, “Yes, you’re right,” as she went on.

  “This guy is fucking crazy. Can you not see that? You’re fucking lucky that it was your car he killed and not you. I honestly don’t know how you live, babe. You’re going to get eaten alive if you don’t wise up. I’m not always going to be available to save you.”

  It was times like this when I was grateful to know that I had at least one person I could trust in Los Angeles.

  I MOVED OUT OF THE apartment the following day. I kept the bagels for myself. With money from Mike’s car insurance and a little extra from his parents, I bought a used Volkswagen Beetle.

  The director of the indie film I’d acted in allowed me to crash at his apartment until I could find something more permanent. One night he invited me to tag along with him to the official after-party for the Screen Actors Guild Awards. I’d never been to an event like this and I jumped at the opportunity to go with him.

  I was impressed that he had access to such an exclusive party. “How did you get tickets?” I asked. “Don’t worry about it,” he told me with a confident smirk as he chain-smoked en route to the event. “I have my ways.” Clearly we weren’t exactly on the guest list for the party. I hoped that I wouldn’t look like an imposter in my dress from Forever 21 next to all the famous leading ladies in couture gowns—my blue dress was basically an oversized silky T-shirt, and I’d wrapped a silver chain around my waist as a belt. I’d thought that might dress it up a little. Light makeup, loosely curled hair. My companion wore a suit and a ball cap for a touch of rogue flare. At least we couldn’t be accused of trying too hard. If we did get kicked out, I’d look slightly less ridiculous being punted out of the party than I would have if I’d shown up in a ball gown.

  He parked the car a few blocks away from the venue and we began to walk. I carried my clutch purse at my side. I felt a little silly and got a bad case of giggles. I was promptly shushed by my coconspirator ahead of me. “I don’t know how you’re going to pull this off,” I told him, trying to keep my voice down. “There is security everywhere. Maybe we should just go.” We were standing around the corner from the auditorium where the award ceremony had taken place. He put his cigarette out on the sidewalk and looked over his shoulder. “You worry too much,” he said. “Follow me.”

  It was just after sunset, and the red carpet entrance was being dismantled by workers. Mere hours before we arrived, the area had been filled with actors, their publicists, and hordes of press and cameras. Two security guards stood idle near the sidewalk. One had his hands in his pockets, and the other was looking off in the opposite direction of us. My heart thumped in my chest as I followed my friend behind the turned backs of the security guards. I hurried to keep up with him in my heels. We didn’t look at the guards as we passed. We kept our eyes straight ahead of us and walked directly through the red carpet as it was being taken down by people who didn’t know or care who we were. “Just look like you belong here,” he said when I caught up to him.

  As we entered the building, I could tell that he was making quick decisions about where to go next, where would be our best chance of sneaking in without being noticed. People with official-looking earpieces passed us with clipboards, engaged in conversations with one another. My adrenaline pumped when my fellow party crasher made a bold decision. He opened a door to the auditorium where the ceremony had ended only half an hour earlier, and where the last of the invited guests had left their reserved seats only minutes prior to our arrival. “This is the best time to get here because everyone’s heads are turned,” he explained. We walked at a brisk pace down the long aisle of the auditorium, up the stairs where the winners went to claim their awards, then onto the massive stage itself. It was the biggest stage I had ever stepped foot on. I stole a glance behind us at the view of the empty theater seats. For a moment I was reminded of my days in community theater in Washington. Though the brief view gave me a rush of happiness, I was sick with nerves by the time we’d made it backstage and down a hallway to a pair of unremarkable double doors. “Ready?” he asked, giving me a satisfied smile. He opened the door to the official after-party for the Screen Actors Guild Awards.

  It was as if I’d stepped through the looking glass and into a page of Vanity Fair magazine. The entire space was decorated top to tails in pure Hollywood glamour. Gold curtains fell beautifully against the walls. There were purple velvet couches set up all around for guests to sit on and sip cocktails from the open bar. I noticed that some of the people on the couches were holding awards from the ceremony. All the men were in suits with black ties, and all the women looked like they’d just drifted off a red carpet—which many of them had. Many of the faces I saw looked familiar. I recognized a few right away. Sally Field was sitting at the bar in deep conversation with a young man who was probably her son. I saw the ginger-haired actor from a new TV show called Dexter standing by himself, holding a drink at his side and gazing around the party. I wondered why no one was talking to him. Don’t they know who he is? I guess everyone was somebody here. Well, maybe not everyone.

  We looked for the smoking section. On our way to the elegantly decorated outside area, an attractive waitress handed us two glasses of champagne from a tray. I bummed a cigarette from my friend. With a drink in one hand and a smoke in the other, I puffed and sipped alternately as I took in my surroundings. Suddenly my companion saw someone and burst out, “Meili! I have someone I’d like you to meet.” He spun me around, and in one slick motion we were facing an actor I recognized the moment I laid eyes on him, a handsome TV star I’d watched on a well-known cable series for years. My friend told me he knew the star from “back in the day,” and based on the actor’s reaction to him, this seemed to be true. My friend gave each of us a hardy pat on our backs and mediated an introduction. “Aiden, I have someone I’d like you to meet. This is the young and talented actress Meili Cady. Meili, this is Aiden.” I blushed at his compliment, though he was just being playful.

  “It’s nice to meet you,” I said. I looked down and realized that I couldn’t shake Aiden’s hand because I was still holding the drink and the cigarette. I felt like Bridget Jones meeting Mark Darcy. I hardly ever smoked, and of course I decided to pick up the habit the moment that I should be shaking hands with Aiden Cohen. He saw my dilemma. He had only a drink in his hand.

  “You’re too pretty to be smoking,” he said. “What if I were to take you on a date and I wanted to kiss you? And then you tasted like an ashtray?” I looked back at him in horror.

  “Um, I don’t usually smoke.”

  “That’s good,” he said, looking me up and down as he sipped his whiskey. “Now why don’t you put that cigarette out, and we can go out to dinner sometime?”

  I snuffed the Marlboro Light out in the nearest ashtray. “I’m cured!”

  When he was putting my number into his BlackBerry contacts, I star
ted to volunteer the spelling of my name, but he waved his hand and said, “It’s not important.” What an odd sense of humor he has. I spelled it aloud for him anyway.

  AIDEN CALLED A FEW DAYS later to ask me to dinner. I dedicated my entire afternoon to getting ready. With old-fashioned curlers in my hair and Jack Johnson playing on Pandora, I tried on every piece of attractive clothing in my closet. I finally decided on a simple black cocktail dress. I rewarded my hard work with a glass of wine while I waited for him to arrive.

  He picked me up in a black Prius that had loose CDs scattered all over the floor. I opened the passenger door and greeted him with an enthusiastic-to-the-point-of-possibly-unattractive “Hi!” I felt my stiletto snap at least one CD in half as I settled into his car. I couldn’t tell if he’d noticed, as his eyes were glued to his BlackBerry. I felt overdressed when I saw that he was wearing jeans and a band T-shirt. “I didn’t have time to change,” he said, still looking at his phone, his fingers texting wildly. “Traffic on Sunset was fucked.” Finally, he asked me, “So where did you want to go?” On the phone, he’d asked me the same question and my answer had been “Surprise me.” He’d said that he would. I supposed this was a surprise that he had planned nothing, just not the kind of surprise I’d been hoping for.

  Aiden took me to Bar Marmont, an extension of the famous Chateau Marmont on Sunset Boulevard. There, we sat at a long table with six of his male friends. I use the term “friends” loosely. One of the men was named Alec and did seem to be a close friend of Aiden’s. The rest of the men, all British and all in suits, had either never met Aiden or met him only once. I sat next to Alec, across from my date. By the end of the first hour, Alec and I had exchanged life stories and developed quite a rapport. My interaction with Aiden had been limited to listening to him talk about acting roles with the other men, though at one point he did address me to ask how many drugs I’d done and what my astrological sign is. He told me that his sign was “known for being great in bed” with a wink.