Someone to Love

2

When Jasmine turned in for the night, Bill helped her close the vents to the AC unit and hoist open the windows. If she would soon join Peace Corps in some hot corner of the Third World, she could not get used to the luxury of Charleston's finest.

After an hour of waiting for an evening breeze to appear, however, she tossed off the sheet and sat up in her four-poster bed. She rubbed her hair, which was moldable thanks to a profusion of sweat, and created spikes, which normally required gel. Perhaps some weed would help her forget the heat (as if she hadn't been looking forward to a smoke all day!).

The wood floor complained as she made her way to the dresser drawer that held the baggie. No way could she smoke there, just down the hall from Bill's bedroom; she planned to venture downstairs, to the tiny powder room beside the kitchen. It had a vent and a small window.

Her bedroom door opened to the lofty hall and Jasmine tiptoed past her father's room, remembering how he, not her mother, had come to the rescue when a bad dream freaked her out as a child.

With the same excited trepidation she once experienced playing hide-and-seek, she descended the gentle swirl of stairs, yelping when one of them let out a moan. The house was so old. The thought of historic people roaming these corridors in frilly gowns and vested three-piece suits gave her a chill—she'd always been good at spooking herself.

At the bottom of the stair, she detected an unexpected whiff of ... fire. No, not fire, but smoke. Cigarettes? But that was impossible. No one in the house smoked cigarettes, as they were rude and disgusting, and rampant with carcinogens. And yet, the scent proved undeniable—her father, that sneak, was about to be busted in a huge way.

Proceeding with an air of self-consciousness (she was, after all, braless in a white tee and also hiding a joint and matches in the elastic band of her underwear), she followed the scent past the dining room and into what Dad had earlier called "the smoking lounge." She turned the knob and expected to be greeted by some semblance of light, but instead met with utter darkness.

"Hello?" she said. An onslaught of fumes, undeniably cigarette, came at her as if launched through an exhaust pipe, and in response a gag reflex occurred in her throat. She doubled over and hacked to the bottom of her lungs. When she finally managed to inhale again, she stepped back and groped the wall in search of a light switch. A colossal shiver came over her, though she felt no difference in temperature—it was something else, something electric that tugged her spikey hair even further from her scalp. As a matter of fact, she wondered if someone hadn't pulled her hair.

She stumbled backward, into the hall, and slammed the door. Shoulders to the wall now, shaking violently, she stammered, "D-D-Dad ... Is that you?"

When he didn't reply, she ran to the staircase and tripped up the first couple of steps then regained her balance and leapt two by two. Finally, gasping for air, she made it to the second floor and ran to her room. She threw on the light switch and dove onto the bed, huffing and puffing and wrapping her arms around her bent knees like someone who's been violated. What just happened? What just happened?!

As soon as she caught her breath and stopped shaking, she would stick her head out the open window and smoke herself into calm.

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