Scars from a Memoir (5 page)

“What's with the red one?” I asked, blurting out the first thing that came to me. “It looks a little lonely surrounded by all black.”

He traced his lips with his pointer finger. “It's the eye. It allows me to see
everything
.”

Asher did have an intense stare. It was as though he could see my hard nipples through the padding of my bra. I suddenly felt like I wasn't wearing any clothes.

“Has it ever let you down?”

He shook his head. “Never.” His lips parted, and he bit the end of his tongue. He stayed like that with his eyes focused on mine.

I was the first to blink. “Do you mind if I use your bathroom?”

His face didn't move, but his hand pointed to the hallway.

I stood from the couch and headed for the hallway. I knew if I turned around, I'd see him still looking at me. His eyes bored through my clothes.

There were four doors, all of them closed. The first one was locked, so I tried the second and got it halfway open before I realized it was a bedroom. Sada and Nadal were sitting on the bed. There was a mirror between them.

“I'm sorry,” I said. “I… I should have knocked.”

“No, love, you're fine.” Her jaw was swinging. “Is everything OK?”

There was white powder on the mirror, chopped and separated into lines.

“I thought…” I stopped, trying to remember why I'd left the living room. “I thought this was the bathroom.”

She wiped her nose. “It's across the hall.”

I could feel the burst of energy that ran through her veins the second the coke hit her brain. The urge to never stop talking. The drip, from her nose to the back of her throat, that filled her mouth with a bitter taste. I hadn't done coke in years. It felt like I'd done it moments ago.

Sada was never on coke at work. I would have known; no one could hide their high from me. She had to be a recreational user—
a term thrown around by the addicts in rehab. Some believed recreational use was possible. The term never existed in my life, even before I'd turned into a junkie. And now it never could, regardless of how long I was clean.

How many days was that? There was a coin in my pocket, but I couldn't remember the number that was engraved on it. I would have known that answer before I saw the lines on the mirror. I didn't have to go to the bathroom anymore. I didn't care that Sada thought I was a straightey, which was probably why she wasn't offering me any. I didn't care that I would be drug tested by Tiffany as soon as I got home.

Or did I?

I'd be kicked out of the apartment tonight, and I'd have to rent a hotel room. I'd be craving more coke as soon as the high wore off. I'd go through my entire savings account to re-up, and Al would fire me because he knew all the signs. Blow would lead to heroin.

I had to get the hell out of here.

Sada was rubbing powder on her gums, and Nadal was bending over the mirror with a straw up his nose. I shut the door quietly and walked to the living room. No one looked at me when I left.

The outside air wasn't much of a relief. There wasn't a breeze, and the humidity was thick, as though it had just rained, but the ground was dry. There was a train station just a few blocks away. The token I'd purchased for the return trip was in my pocket. I could get on the train and go straight to the North End. But would I? The same train would take me to the streets of Roxbury, where dope pushers were selling packets of junk.

“Where are you going?” Asher asked.

Without turning around, I knew he was on the front steps of his building. I was a few feet away but could almost feel his breath on my back.

“The eye saw me leave?”

“No, I saw you leave,” he said. “Now why don't you come back in?”

There was no way I could go back inside. If Sada used, even recreationally, I didn't know if I could hang out with her again. If I did, I'd have to tell her about my addiction.

“I—”

Asher came closer. His hands touched my shoulders and swung me around. The movement filled my nose with his scent. It wasn't cologne or alcohol, laundry detergent or smoke. It was the scent of sun baking the sand on a beach.

“You were bothered by what you saw, weren't you?”

The ruby really did see
everything
.

I didn't know whether a straightedge just didn't use any substances or was scared and bothered to be around them, too. It didn't matter.

I nodded.

“You feel like going for a walk?”

I knew nothing about him, but I didn't get the impression he would disappear during our walk. If he did, I knew these streets well. I also didn't think he'd try to hook up with me.

I looked at my phone; it was a little past ten. “I have to be home by midnight.”

A wrinkle formed between his eyebrows.

“I've got to get up early for work.”

His hands dropped from my shoulders, and he moved past me. When he got to the neighbor's steps, he stopped and turned around. “Are you going to make me walk alone?”

-4-

WHEN I GOT HOME, TIFFANY WAS SITTING at the table with a breathalyzer and pee test in front of her. Without saying a word, I stuck the breathalyzer in my mouth and blew. When it read zero, she followed me to the bathroom and watched me pee in a cup. I didn't bother to wait for the result; I went to my room and got in bed.

I heard the floor creak beneath Tiffany's feet and then the flush of the toilet. The next noise was her bedroom door closing. I'd proved them all wrong, but it was close. Too close. If Sada had been doing heroin, or if Asher hadn't come outside, I might have used. I was still powerless.

Asher hadn't asked a lot of questions, but he made me forget about how much I wanted a line of Sada's coke. Not just one line. I wanted a whole bag. When I commented on something he talked about, like the classes I'd taken at UMaine or my hometown, he didn't push for more. He was open with me, telling me how he'd traveled in Europe for a year after high school. When he was ready to go to college, his father wanted him to go to Dartmouth, so he'd applied to Northeastern for early enrollment. He was getting a degree in English literature and recently had a collection of short stories published.

While we walked, he'd looked at me instead of at the pavement. And he looked me in the eyes. He didn't try to keep me out when I told him it was time for me to go home, and he didn't ask for my phone number. He hailed me a cab and closed the door behind me. Before the driver took off, he knocked on the window.

I rolled it down.

“If you ever want to go for a walk again, call me,” he said, and he gave me his number.

Asher didn't rip my clothes off, promise to take care of me, and shoot me up with heroin like the guys from my past had. I didn't need him to. The hunger inside me that those men had once satisfied was gone.

Asher must have told Sada we'd gone for a walk, because for the next few days at work, she constantly brought his name up. She tried to tell me everything he was into and the girls he'd been with. I told her to stop. It wasn't her place to air his business.

According to Tiffany, if I was committed to staying clean, my main priority shouldn't be what I wanted. The question I had to ask myself was who was good for my sobriety. It wasn't that I didn't have time to call Asher. As with Sada, I just didn't know if he could have a place in my life. But the only way I'd know would be to spend more time with him. It took me a week to give him that chance. I was hoping he wouldn't answer so I could leave a message, but he did.

“It's Nicole.”

After a brief pause, he said, “It's nice to hear your voice.”

“I was thinking maybe we could go for that walk.”

“How's tonight?”

Sada watched me from inside the café. She mouthed “Asher” and waved her hand for me to come closer.

I turned my back to her. “Tonight?” I asked Asher.

“Do you already have plans?”

I should have sent him a text instead so that I could have more time to think before answering. “I get off work at seven.”

“I'll pick you up; where do you live?” he asked.

“Why don't you come to the café? Do you need the address?”

“I'll see you there at seven,” he said, and we both hung up.

That was only two hours away. I had no idea how much I was going to tell him about my past—if anything at all—but I knew that if he was going to be my friend, I had to be honest with him.

*   *   *

The clock showed it was ten minutes to seven, and everything on our list of closing duties was checked off except taking out the trash. I went to the backroom; six bags were waiting by the door. I propped the door open with a brick and carried the first three into the alley. The dumpster was in the narrow path between the buildings. The last three were much heavier—liquid sloshed and banged against the metal inside—and I was winded by the time I got to the dumpster. Just as I got the bags in, I heard someone behind me. Asher must have seen me when he'd passed the alley on his way to the front entrance.

“I just have to punch out,” I said, closing the lid. I turned around. “Then I—”

A man was standing only inches away.

“I have a message for you,” he said.

“Who are you?”

He moved closer.

I tried to sneak to the right, but he shifted his stance.

“Who are—?”

He cornered me; my back was against the dumpster. “Don't scream, I'm not going to hurt you.”

He was so close that I could feel the air that he exhaled through his nose.

“Dustin says he misses you.”

Dustin? My ex-boyfriend? How did this guy know him?

I thought Dustin hated me. When I'd ratted him out to the DA after we'd been arrested with a van full of dope, he'd received a twenty-five-year sentence. Melissa, my attorney, had notified me while I was in jail that he was appealing his case. If I was called into court for the appeal, I'd have to give my testimony again.

His eyes devoured my body, as though he were choosing which dessert he wanted to taste first. His stare settled on my chest; he bit the corner of his lower lip.

“I can see why Dustin says you're so beautiful, why he misses you so much. He wishes he had made different choices so that you wouldn't be on these streets alone. He's always telling me how he craves you, that you were the best part of his life.”

There wasn't any part of me that belonged to Dustin anymore. He was in jail, and that was where he belonged.

“You know Dustin always gets what he wants, don't you? And what will happen to you if you mess up his appeal?”

Didn't he know that if I didn't cooperate with the court and district attorney I would be put back in jail? Of course he did; he just didn't care.

“Why don't you be a good girl and nod your head so I can tell Dustin—”

“Get away from her. Now,” Asher said.

I hadn't heard Asher come into the alley. I hadn't heard anything except the messenger's voice. I couldn't smell anything except the weed on his breath.

“If you know what's good for you, you'll get the hell out of here,” the guy said, looking over his shoulder.

Asher appeared at my side.

The last time someone had tried to save me, he was shot and killed. I knew my eyes were failing me, but Asher's face looked so much like Michael's.

I shook my head, trying to signal him to leave.

“I don't think you heard me,” Asher said through gritted teeth. “I said get away from her.”

Everything happened so quickly. There was a swish of clothes and arms before the man was on the ground. Asher stood over him, his foot on the guy's throat. “I'll kill you if you come near her again. Understood?”

“Yes,” the guy said. “But Dustin's got more friends.”

“Let them try to come near her.” Asher pulled his foot away. “Nothing is going to happen to her.”

The guy stood. “After Dustin hears this, his other friends won't be as nice as I was.” He took a long look at Asher before he ran toward the main street.

Asher reached for my hand and intertwined his fingers through mine. “Are you OK?”

I nodded.

“Let me get you out of here.”

I nodded again.

His arm went around my waist and he brought me to the curb. When a cab pulled over, he picked me up and placed me in the backseat. He climbed in next to me and closed the door. “Back Bay, between Tremont and—”

“No, not your apartment,” I said.

“Then tell me where.”

His place wasn't safe. Not if Nadal was there with coke in his bedroom. And we weren't allowed to bring men to our apartment. There was only one place to go.

-5-

ASHER DIDN'T SAY ANYTHING when I told the cab driver to take us to the corner of Boylston and Arlington. When I walked through the entrance of the park and to my favorite spot, the bench right in front of the duck pond, he didn't question why we had to sit here.

This bench had been in my life for as long as heroin had. Maybe longer. I came here when I needed air. I came here to escape the cops. I'd even slept here. There was something about being under a sky full of stars, having the trees whistle as the wind rustled through their leaves, and the twinkling lights from the surrounding buildings that made me feel at ease.

I took a deep breath. “Do you want to know what that was about?”

“Only if you feel comfortable telling me.”

He kept his hands on his lap, but his eyes were focused on my profile. Mine were on the pond. The water was still; not even a ripple broke the surface. “I'm a heroin addict.”

I focused on the water. I didn't want to see an expression full of disgust and judgment in his eyes or repulsion on his lips.

“I know,” he said.

“What?” I turned my head toward him. “How?” And then I remembered the outfit I'd worn to his apartment that night. I just couldn't remember if I had rolled up the sleeves of my cardigan. “Because you saw the scars on my arms?”

“There's that, yeah, but—”

“I was on dope for five years, Asher, and…”

The grass was easier to look at than his face. It just stood there, waiting to be stepped on and mowed. It turned greener in the summer
and got covered with snow in the winter. Why couldn't I be a blade of grass?