Coda Smoke

[Macha*]

It was two-thirty in the morning by the time Genevieve finally got back to the apartment building. She had stumbled out of the Waffle House just after midnight and had spent the next two and a half hours sobering herself up on the walk home. Despite the bitter winter chill in the stagnant air, Genevieve was feeling noticeably better for the long walk. The edges of her vision were still blurry and her head was still spinning, but she no longer felt like she was going to throw up and she made it to her building without tripping over herself. Genevieve buzzed herself into the building shivering, rubbing her hands together in a desperate attempt to warm herself up.

Genevieve ascended the concrete staircase without falling over and finally reached the door of the Haywards' apartment. She lightly put her hand to the door knob and pushed against it and was unsurprised when the door remained shut. The Haywards had locked the place up for the night, as always. Genevieve fumbled through her purse and the pockets of her jacket for her keys but came up empty. She hung her head and cursed under her breath. No keys meant that she was locked out until morning. Banging on the door and shouting would only serve to annoy her neighbors; the Haywards were legendarily heavy sleepers. Which left her options for help incredibly limited. Aimee and Zara, Genevieve decided, were the most likely to let her crash on their couch, but it was late enough that they were probably asleep and Genevieve always felt bad when she asked them for things. She was out of luck, as far as that went.

So Genevieve ran up the stairs to the roof and walked over to the edge, placed her hands on the concrete wall that encircled the roof and stared out over the Albuquerque skyline. During the day it was the picture of urban rot, all gray concrete and cracked, yellowing stucco walls. At night, those same buildings became dark silhouettes illuminated by hundreds of thousands of lights. It almost looked beautiful at night. The wind rushed past her ears and Genevieve soaked in the ambience as she breathed the stagnant air. She was glad to be home.

“Hey Dickbutt!” Genevieve heard a woman shouting a few meters away. It took a second for her to register that it was one of her closest friends. “You're out late.”

“Hey Aimee,” Genevieve said, with scowl. She rarely appreciated Aimee's nicknames. Aimee was two years older than her, the disappointing daughter of an affluent couple from New York who were friends of Genevieve's birth parents. They were one of the families Genevieve's birth parents dumped her on when she was a child. When Aimee had been kicked out of her house by her parents a few months beforehand, Genevieve had given her the number of the Hayward's landlord. She was ecstatic to live next door to her best friend. “You too. I thought you'd be asleep by now.”

“No such luck,” Aimee replied, taking a Marlsborough Light and a disposable lighter from the pockets of her sweatpants. “Mind if I light up? Zara hates it when I smoke in the apartment.”

“No, go ahead.” Genevieve said. Practically everyone she knew outside of school was a heavy smoker. Genevieve was used to the smell of smoke. “I don't mind at all.”

“So what's up with you?” Aimee asked, taking a long drag of the cigarette.

“I got drunk and went to Waffle House.” Genevieve said, nonchalantly.

“You mean the one that's like thirty minutes away by car? Jesus, Genni. You don't do thinks by half, do you?” Aimee said. Genevieve watched the white-gray smoke curl from the end of her cigarette. “You get thrown out?”

“Not this time,” Genevieve replied. “For once. I think you might just be a bad influence on me. Remember when we got banned from McDonalds?”

“With the straws and the mexican manager?”

“Yeah and he was all like “DIOS MIO!” and oh my god his face was like-”

They burst into laughter before Genevieve could finish the sentence.

“So where's those guys you live with in all this?” Aimee asked.

“They were at an art thing.” Genevieve said, leaning against the wall with her arms folded. “A book signing, I think. I can't remember. It's not my kind of thing so I stayed home.”

Genevieve paused.

“I got bored. Went to some weird kid's house for a party. Ended up sitting on her porch bitching about her.” Genevieve rubbed her eyes.

“Bet she was happy about that.” Aimee said dryly. Genevieve sighed.

“I never actually saw her!” Genevieve realised, holding her head in her hands. “God, I'm a terrible person. Anyway, I got... really drunk. With a guy from class. Matt, I think? It's kind of a blur. We went to a Waffle House. All I remember is he spent the whole time hitting on me.”

“Yeah? How'd that one go for ya?” Aimee was one of the few people Genevieve had come out to. Genevieve had never been ashamed of her sexuality but she tried not to make a big deal out of it. Largely because of that little doubt in the back of her mind that people would act weird around her if they knew she liked girls. The Haywards knew about it as well, but Genevieve got the feeling that it never sunk in for them. She told them once, they acted like they already knew, and then dropped the subject.

“God, about as well as you'd expect.” Genevieve said, yawning and rubbing her eyes with her palms. “He threw up on some Eastern European looking guy and split.”

“Sounds like a fun night.” Aimee said, breaking into laughter. Genevieve looked at the ground with her arms folded. She was exhausted. It had been a long and completely ridiculous night.

“Hey, uh, Genni. Dumb question and totally off-topic.” Aimee said, after a pause. “What do you want to do with your life?”

Genevieve thought about that for a while.

“I dunno.” Genevieve said, finally. “Go to college, maybe. I was thinking Film School for a while but... that's not going too well. I might just study sociology. I like people. That makes sense to me.”

“No idea what comes after that.” Genevieve pursed her lips, thinking. “Why'd you ask?”

“Just goin' through some stuff with work.” Aimee exhaled sharply. She rushed to change the subject. “Why are you still out here, anyway?”

“I left my keys in the bathroom of the Waffle House.” Genevieve said with an exhausted sigh. “Don't ask.”

Aimee flicked her cigarette butt off the side of the building and laughed for a solid minute. Genevieve stared at the ground with her arms folded. Embarrassed as all hell.

“C'mon,” Aimee said. “You can crash on our couch.”

[Genevieve Cordova, continued in We Are Not Your Kind of People]