Benton looked up at me with sympathy. “How about some food, I buy you a sandwich?”
I shrugged. He motioned to the guy working behind the deli counter, pointed to the top of my head, and yelled with his thick accent, “Make her something to eat, she starving.”
Later that night after smoking ten cigarettes in the comfort of my living room, I still couldn’t understand the act; it’s disgusting and it causes cancer, but I’m not one to judge. My horoscope said that I was in an optimistic phase of my life, I handled pressure well, and I gravitated toward social situations that would help me achieve my goals. What a crock of shit. There was also some other mumbo jumbo in it about relationships; that’s when I decided to burn it in the sink. I went back to my concave spot on the couch to stare at the TV while I drank a combination of vodka, peppermint schnapps, and hot cocoa. Around eleven p.m. the buzzer rang—it was Jenny. I pressed the button, opened the door, plopped back down on the couch, and lit a cigarette.
When she walked in her mouth fell open at the sight of me. She looked around the smoke-filled room. Chasing Amy was playing on the TV, there was an ashtray full of butts, a half-eaten sandwich on the coffee table where I’d haphazardly set it after spilling little slices of lettuce all over the floor, and a coffee mug shaped like a Rubik’s Cube holding my concoction.
She picked up the mug and sniffed it. “Good god, Mia, it’s like the fucking 90s in here. What’s going on with you, Winona Ryder?”
“I think I’m gonna be a lesbian now,” I said.
“Okay.” She walked over and sat next to me on the couch, observing me from the corner of her eye.
Gazing at the TV, I blew a puff of smoke out and mumbled, “Why the long face, Ben?”
Jenny started cracking up. “At least you still have a sense of humor.” She joined me in a mixture of laughing and crying throughout that night. She told me funny stories and tried to get my mind off Will as she continually plucked cigarettes out of my hand. When I asked her why he was still playing at bars around town, she said that’s what he liked to do and left it at that. She told me he was living alone in Brooklyn and getting on with his life. The pain of losing someone is always worse when you know you could have prevented it.
The next morning I woke up to Sheil, Martha, Tyler, and Jenny all hovering over me on the couch. Before I opened my eyes, I decided to listen for a few minutes to the hushed conversation.
Sheil whispered to Martha. “She looks like a sick little baby.”
Tyler’s voice sounded unusually concerned. “I can see her hip bone through her sweats.”
Jenny said, “She’s fine. She’ll snap out of it, but I think we should still stage the intervention.”
That’s when I shot my eyes open at the three of them inspecting me. “Come on, you guys—an intervention? I’m fine. Everybody scram, I have to get ready for work.”
Martha blocked me from moving past her. She motioned to the piano. “I’m having that thing moved to the café. Someone should get some use out of it.”
“You can’t do that; that’s my piano.”
“Well, you don’t play it, and I’m sure your father is turning over in his grave right now with you going about like this,” she said, motioning with her hand up and down my body.
“Going about like what?”
“All mopey and glued to the television.” I looked past Martha to Sheil, who raised her eyebrows in agreement. I glanced at Jenny, who just shrugged and turned toward Tyler, who was staring at the ceiling.
“Fine, move it. I don’t care,” I said and I really didn’t.
Track 20: The Sound of Her Soul
Martha stuck to her word and had my piano moved to the café where practically all the customers pounded a key as they walked by, reminding me why the damn thing was there in the first place. I forced myself to resume some semblance of a normal life and after a while I actually started to feel normal. I thought about Will every day, but I stopped beating myself up over what happened. More than anything, I was just curious, but no one would utter a word to me about him.