Smoke

by Meili Cady

  For four years Lisette had been a rock in my life, someone I went to for comfort when times were tough, and someone I wanted to celebrate with when they were good. I knew that she looked at me in the same way. She’d always said that I was like her wife, and she was my badass husband. Right now, we were both happier than we’d been in a long time. It felt right that we should experience that happiness together.

  One night, Lisette asked me to stop by to see her before she had to leave her condo for a dinner meeting. She texted me to wait for her in the lobby of her building. I sat down on a couch surrounded by marble floor and potted tropical plants. Classical music played quietly throughout the lobby. A gentleman working in the valet stood at the front desk. “Welcome. May I help you?” he asked. He’d seen me here before, visiting Lisette.

  “No thanks, she’s coming down,” I said. The valet nodded.

  An elevator dinged open and Lisette appeared. Under the ambient lighting in the lobby, she looked as though she’d just stepped off a page in a fashion magazine. Her dark hair waterfalled down over a high-collared designer coat. She wore black Paige skinny jeans and stiletto heels.

  “Wow,” I said. “You look gorgeous.” We threw our arms around each other in a hug. She pulled back and flashed a mischievous grin.

  “Hold out your hand,” she said.

  “Why?”

  “None of your beeswax,” she said playfully. “Just do it.”

  “Okay.”

  “And close your eyes!”

  “Okay, okay.” I closed my eyes and held my hand out in front of me. I felt Lisette’s hands on mine as she pushed something tiny into my palm.

  “Open your eyes,” she said.

  I opened my eyes to see what appeared to be an emerald-cut diamond ring in the center of my palm. The diamond was huge, as big as some of the ones I’d seen Lisette wear. There was a thin platinum band around it, emphasizing the size of the stone. “Oh my God,” I said. I looked up at Lisette. She smiled, taking in my reaction.

  “It’s two and a half carats,” she said. “I thought it was time for you to have a diamond. I’m giving this to you as a symbol of our friendship.” I felt my eyes start to tear up. “Oh God, don’t cry, you wa-wa crazy actress,” she said. “I want you to know how proud I am of you. I know how much you’re trying, and you’re doing a good job.”

  “Thank you so much,” I said. I’d been waiting to hear those words from her. Perhaps I’d been waiting to hear them from anyone, for a long time.

  “Let’s see it on,” Lisette said with excitement. I tried to put it on the middle finger of my right hand.

  “Oh no,” I said, “I’m not sure it’s going to fit.”

  “Try the other finger,” she said. I slid it onto the ring finger of my left hand. It fit perfectly. “It looks beautiful on you,” she said. “Do you like it?”

  “Are you kidding? I love it.” We both admired it on my finger. I laughed a bit. “If I wear it on this finger, people are going to think I’m engaged.”

  “Oh, who cares?” Lisette said, rolling her eyes. “I wear rings there all the time. Besides, we’re practically married anyway, so it’s not far from the truth.”

  As I linked arms with Lisette to go say good-bye at the elevator, I noticed that the valet at the lobby desk was staring in our direction with wide eyes. When I turned toward him, he immediately looked away and pretended to be suddenly interested in a nearby wall. Lisette saw this too. “He must think we’re total dykes,” she whispered to me, giggling.

  Lisette told me that she wasn’t sure when our next trip to Ohio would be. “Soon,” she said. We were already well into November, and Christmas was right around the corner. My parents had bought me a plane ticket to go home to Washington on December 18 to spend the holiday with them. In the meantime, I found myself with no work to tend to for Lisette and an unexpected open schedule.

  IT WAS ALMOST ONE IN the morning when I got a text from a friend, asking me to meet her at a nightclub. She was with a group of people at a small but trendy venue on Hollywood Boulevard, walking distance from my apartment. I didn’t usually go to clubs, but when she texted me, I was on my way back from the Valley, where I’d been sitting in on a late-night acting class at my old studio. I agreed to meet her, knowing that the club would close soon anyway, so I wouldn’t be sequestered in a boxy room and forced to listen to house music for very long. I’d gotten to know quite a few promoters when I worked for a place on Sunset a while back, so it was likely I’d be familiar with whomever she was with tonight.

  I spotted my friend right away when I walked into the club. She was dressed in full hipster attire, with high-waisted pants and a crop top. She was swaying around to house music. “Meili!” she screamed when she saw me. “You made it!” We greeted each other and walked to the bar to catch up. Someone brought her a drink from nearby table service, and she immediately passed it to me. “Take it,” she said. “I’m already too drunk.” We had to practically yell over the music, and after a minute or so we gave up trying to talk. She headed back to the dance floor and melded into a group there. I stayed at the bar. I’d never been much for dancing.

  My attention was grabbed when I noticed a familiar face walking through the crowd. I was sure I knew this person, but I couldn’t place him. He stared back at me as he walked by, as though he knew me too. He must be one of the promoters. He was classically handsome, tall, with blue eyes and light brown hair that curled slightly. He wore a simple black T-shirt and jeans. Who is that? I racked my brain. I would have thought I’d remember such an attractive face, but then again pretty faces were common in Los Angeles. Our eyes stayed locked until he passed me. I saw him walk up to a girl standing near my friend on the dance floor. He joined the group, then glanced back at me.

  The DJ began to play the usual send-off mash-up of old-school hip-hop blended with a few current hits. Then, as was tradition at every club I’d been to, the DJ played Oasis’s “Wonderwall.” I went to stand with my friend in her group on the dance floor. All around the tiny venue people were throwing their hands up and singing along to the music, with some of the more inebriated clubgoers practically shouting the words. “Maybe you’re gonna be the one that saves me / And after all / You’re my wonderwall . . .”

  The lights came up in the club. We shuffled out with the crowd and walked to an after-party at the Roosevelt Hotel a few blocks away. There were about ten of us, only a few whom I’d met before. The guy I noticed in the club came with us. I still hadn’t figured out how I knew him. On our way to the after-party he came up to walk beside me.

  “Hey,” he said. “Do I know you? You look familiar.”

  “What’s your name?” I asked. “You’re a promoter, right?”

  He laughed and said, “My name is Ben and, no, I’m not a promoter. I don’t even like going to clubs. I’m just here with some friends from UCLA. You ever go to SC? I know I’ve seen you somewhere.”

  “No,” I said. “I’ve never even been on the campus. Have you ever been to an acting class? Maybe I met you at one.”

  “Not even close. I grew up in L.A. and I have zero interest in acting. Okay, so you’re an actress. What else do you do? There’s always something else.”

  “I work for my best friend as an assistant,” I said.

  He nodded. “I’ve known a lot of girls who do assistant work. Is your friend famous or something?”

  “She’s an heiress.”

  “To what?” he asked.

  “Samsung.”

  He noticed the ring on my finger. “Are you engaged?”

  “No,” I said. “That’s from my best friend.”

  “Wow,” he said. “That’s a nice friend. Well, since you’re not engaged, you should have dinner with me this week.”

  BEN AND I WENT OUT two days later. I passed Brie in the living room as I left to meet him downstairs. “Have fun!” she said as she sat on the couch behind her sketch pad.

  A gray BMW idled on the street outside of our apar
tment. Ben got out of the driver’s side and walked around to open the car door for me. “You look beautiful,” he said.

  “Thanks.” I was wearing new clip-in hair extensions to give my hair more volume; they were a recent, impulsive purchase. I thought I’d done a fair job of concealing the clips to make it look natural. Lisette had given me a spare set of fake eyelashes to try on a while back. They always looked so glamorous on her, so I thought I’d use them tonight. It took some doing to get them glued onto my eyelids, but with Brie’s assistance I was able to make them stay. I had fun getting ready for tonight. I felt like I was playing dress-up.

  Ben drove us away from my street. “So where are we going?” I asked him. “You’ll see,” he said. “It’s a surprise.” Not another surprise. I shuddered remembering how Aiden Cohen “surprised” me with the worst date of my life a few years back.

  We drove toward the Hollywood Hills and turned to go up a road. Along the way, we passed the Magic Castle, the clubhouse for the Academy of Magical Arts. At the top of a hill, we arrived at a sushi restaurant that overlooked the city, surrounded by elaborate Japanese gardens and pagodas. We sat at a table next to a window with a view of the hills.

  Over dinner we exchanged polite and limited life stories, as with most first dates. Ben grew up in Calabasas, was twenty-seven years old and a senior studying communications at UCLA. Though his family had money, he’d paid his own tuition by working a high-paying job after high school in lieu of going to college right away. He admitted that since he’d left the job and gone back to school, he’d been a little insecure about being much older than most of the students. I admired his decision to go back and told him that he shouldn’t be embarrassed. His humility was endearing.

  Ben and I tried again to think of how we might know each other, but finally conceded that we’d never actually met, despite our initial feelings otherwise. “It must have been in a past life,” Ben joked. After dinner he suggested that we buy Christmas decorations and take them back to my apartment. I found his request oddly charming.

  We stopped by a drugstore and wandered through the aisles of holiday decorations to buy the gaudiest selections we could find. Ben grabbed two boxes of colorful lights. “We’ll need these,” he said, dropping them into a shopping basket. He chose a bottle of chardonnay, and we headed to the register to check out. When he pulled out his wallet to pay, I stopped him and put my credit card down. He looked stunned. “Are you sure you live in L.A.?” he asked. I shrugged and said, “You got dinner.” It felt good to be able to pay for things.

  Brie was surprised when Ben and I came barreling into the apartment with armfuls of decorations. After introducing her, Ben and I took the decorations into my room. We drank wine and played Christmas music while we twisted a string of lights around the headboard of my bed. Ben found an outlet and plugged it into the wall. “And now, for the full effect,” he said. He got up and hit a switch to turn off my overhead light. He came back to the bed and we lay side by side under the glow of my new Christmas lights, listening to “Jingle Bell Rock” on Pandora. “I love it,” I said. “This was a great idea.” Ben turned on his side toward me and looked into my eyes. He leaned in and reached his hand out to my face. I began to close my eyes, ready for a kiss. “I’m not judging you,” he said, “but this is falling off.” He lifted an already detached fake eyelash from my face. I was mortified. “I seriously don’t care,” he said. “But just so you know, you don’t need these.” He kissed me and put his hand behind my head, running his fingers through my hair. I was lost in the moment when suddenly he stopped. I cringed as I felt his fingers examining one of the clips of fake hair I’d fastened to my scalp. “What the . . . ?” he said. “Okay, what else do I need to know?”

  I OPTED OUT OF WEARING my hair extensions and any fake eyelashes for our second date. I’d told Lisette about Ben and asked her to meet him. I’d never asked her to meet anyone I’d dated, so she took the request seriously and made herself available on short notice. “I’m bringing David,” she said. “We’ll make it a double date. But, sweetie, don’t use David’s real name. Tonight, just call him Freddy.” She told me that it was okay for Ben to know that I worked for her, but that it was best if he didn’t realize that he was meeting her business partner as well. “What did you tell him about me?” she asked.

  “A lot,” I said. “I told him that you’re my best friend and I work for you. All good things. He thought the ring was pretty crazy.”

  “Ha,” she said. “Good. Let him feel a little threatened.”

  Before we met Lisette and David, Ben took me to a basketball game at UCLA. We left at halftime to meet them downtown at a beer and wine bar called Bottle Rock. I was anxious as we walked into the bar to find them waiting for us at a high-top table. Lisette’s approval meant so much to me that if she didn’t like Ben, I might choose to never see him again. I’d know after tonight.

  As we sat down at the table, I realized that I’d forgotten to warn Ben about David’s neck tattoos. I decided it was probably best Ben didn’t know I was working with this person. He probably would have wondered what the hell line of work we were in. Lisette, a wine connoisseur in her own right, ordered wine for the table. Everyone seemed to be in a good mood tonight, and conversation flowed easily among the four of us. David was personable and friendly to Ben. The two men actually appeared to get along well. Lisette excused herself to the restroom. I took the cue to join her. The moment that the bathroom door closed behind us I started in. “So?” I asked her. “What do you think?” She laughed at my eagerness. “Well,” she said, “I mean, I just met the guy. And, sweetie, you barely know him either. But I think he’s cute for you.”

  With the approval I’d been craving from my best friend, I felt free to explore things with Ben. After leaving the wine bar, Ben and I decided to go somewhere else for another drink by ourselves. “I just need to grab a jacket from my place first,” he said as we drove to a residential neighborhood near the UCLA campus. “You can come up if you want, but it will only take a sec.”

  “That’s okay,” I said. “I want to see your place.”

  He lived over the garage of a typical college house. I followed Ben into his bedroom. I stopped short in front of a dresser in his room. It was covered in prescription pill bottles, at least seven of them. I could see tiny capsules of unknown content inside each bottle. I didn’t recognize any of the labels offhand from a glance. Ben walked up holding a black fleece jacket.

  “Yeah,” he said, “these are my crazy pills.”

  “Oh,” I said, unsure of how to respond.

  “I know it looks like a lot,” he said. “Listen, I really like you, and I want to be honest with you if we’re going to date.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Most of this is just for normal stuff like depression and anxiety. The rest is mostly for sleeping. Some nights I don’t sleep at all, and my doctor is experimenting with some different prescriptions.”

  “Oh. Oh, okay,” I said, forcing a supportive smile, though I didn’t know how to process what he’d just told me. I’d never known anyone who took pills like these. Lisette took what she called “crazy pills” too, because she said that she was diagnosed as bipolar. But I’d never seen her with a veritable pharmacy of drugs on her boudoir.

  It wasn’t like I walked in and found a meth lab in his bedroom. I brushed off my initial shock and enjoyed the rest of our evening together. I also enjoyed the night with him, the next morning, and the entire following day. Our second date turned out to be more than thirty hours long. With no sense of time, we bounced from bars to all-night diners, and then to his bed, where we stayed warm and close under his covers for most of the next day. I lost track of how many times we made love. As I lay naked and half asleep in his arms, Ben asked me to be his girlfriend. I turned over and answered him with a deep kiss. It was all happening so fast, but nothing had ever felt so right and so natural to me. When he dropped me off at my apartment, the main reason for our departure
was to shower and get ready to see each other again.

  A WEEK LATER, ON A trip to Ohio, I told Lisette all about my new relationship during an evening alone with her in our hotel room. At first she seemed curious, but when her questions subsided and I continued to talk about him, she became quiet.

  “I really like him,” I gushed.

  “Jesus,” she said, “he sure moved up the ladder quick.”

  “What does that mean?” I asked.

  “It means that you just met this guy and suddenly he’s important,” she said. “You don’t even know him.”

  “But I’m getting to know him,” I told her. Lisette looked deep in thought.

  “You know, it just makes me wonder,” she said.

  “Wonder what?”

  “Let me ask you this,” she said. “And you better be honest. If Ben and I were each standing on the edge of a cliff and you had to choose to push one of us over the edge to our death, who would you push?”

  I stared at her for a moment in stunned silence. “I—that’s not fair,” I said. “That’s terrible. I’m not going to answer that.”

  “Answer it,” she said, her irritation building.

  “But,” I said, “I mean, you’re my best friend and what we have is forever, but what if hypothetically, I have children with Ben someday. Then you’d be asking me to choose between you and my unborn children and my entire hypothetical family.” I could see that Lisette was unwilling to accept this answer. She stared dead into my eyes, waiting. “But,” I said, giving in, “that’s all unknown, and what you and I have is known, so I’d say that I would choose to push Ben.”