And there she was, leaning up against the sink with her forehead touching the mirror. She was rolling her head against the glass. I couldn’t tell if she was having trouble pulling her head up or if she just liked the feeling of a scratched and lipstick-smeared bathroom mirror against her skin.
“Kara,” I said. “What’s going on?”
She didn’t answer. Some of the other women in the bathroom were staring, watching us like we were putting on a one-act play.
“Goddamn it!” I screamed. “Did anyone call an ambulance?”
They all looked away. I put both hands on her shoulders and tried to pull her up. She fell back against me and for a moment I thought I’d drop her.
I felt her body start to jerk, and I lowered her down to the floor. Her eyes were open but I wasn’t sure she was still with me.
“Kara,” I said. “What happened?”
She didn’t respond.
“Kara… I love you. Please…”
I fumbled with my cell phone, eventually fingering the numbers to 911, and as I waited for an operator Kara closed her eyes.
I knew she wasn’t going to make it.
“I’m so sorry,” I said. I looked around the women’s washroom, hoping that someone would know what to do, but by that point we were alone. I don’t think anyone bothered to tell the bouncers. And I guess no one wanted to be there when she died.
I told the operator who finally answered what I thought had happened, that we needed an ambulance, that I was pretty sure I was losing her.
I can’t describe how it felt, seeing her like that, knowing that she’d finally gone too far, that she’d put in too much junk for her body to take.
I stared into her eyes, hoping she’d come out of it.
But she wasn’t there. Kara was gone.
I felt a tickle of heat on her skin and I thought it was just some part of me trying to keep the warmth from leaving her. But then the skin started to smoke and then to burn, and I had to pull myself back from the heat.
I laid down a few feet away, watching as the fire grew, orange and white flames swallowing Kara and nothing else in that bathroom, the heat nearly searing my skin. The fire roared and then it stopped.
The smoke began to clear.
And Kara was still there, unburnt and completely bare, her clothes burned to nothing, but her beautiful eyes and her beautiful freckles were there, and her dark brown hair, looking soft and shiny, missing its purple streak.
And then she opened her eyes and looked at me.
“I’m okay, Lanny,” she said, reaching out to me with her hand. “But you look like shit.”
Nothing had happened to me but I could barely move.
She pulled off my shirt and dressed herself in it, trying to pull it down far enough to reach to her thighs.
Kara helped me back to the parking garage, my arm draped over her shoulder; my knees felt like they’d been shattered.
And then she drove us home. And as she steered the car down Hastings Street, she told me what she was.
She was like a phoenix, she said, only one of her in the entire world, born and reborn and never dying. I figured she’d feel like a god, but all she kept telling me was how the loneliness settles in for forever.
“I’ve been left behind more times than I can count,” she said. “Falling in love and always losing it. It leaves a mark.” She looked down at the floor. “So I guess it’s no wonder… I’ve shot up… I’ve filled up on gin and turpentine… I’ve mixed nightshade into my wine and spent the day seeing visions of Saint Jerome. I can never die, Lanny… do you know how terrible that is?”
“I can’t know… and I think it’ll be a while before they figure out a way for the rest of us to live forever,” I said. “I doubt I’ll be around long enough for that. Maybe that makes me lucky.”
“You are lucky,” she said, tears running down her face.
Kara and I stayed together after that night. Everything seemed different then, with no more heroin and no more clients dropping by. I used up the rest of my vacation time and we spent eight days straight just laying together in bed like John and Yoko. She told me more about her past lives and the people she’d lost; for my end of the conversation I mostly talked about movies I’d seen.
We decided after a while that Kara should go back to her writing. I joked that to make some quick cash she should dig out her old manuscripts and just add a shitload of zombies. She decided on writing something new about sparkly vampires and I chose to bite my tongue.
I was happy, but I could see that Kara wasn’t. I could see that for her, nothing had changed.
By the time my vacation was over, Kara hadn’t done anything, no writing, no drugs. She was just there, like she was waiting until I left for work so she could crawl under the blankets and weep.
“Is it withdrawal?” I asked her.
“I love that you’re stupid,” she said. “My old body was hooked on heroin. My new body’s free and clear.”
“It’s not your body I’m talking about.”
“I’ll snap out of it.” She stared at me for a moment; she knew I didn’t believe her. “Really… I promise.”
I wasn’t surprised to see that she wasn’t there when I came home from work. She’d left all of her things behind, including her cat, but that was no guarantee that she’d come back.
I sat on the wall of the bathtub with my iPad and waited for Kara to come home.
She returned with a nervous energy, giving me half of a hug before she went into the kitchen and started pulling food out of the refrigerator.
“What are you making?” I asked at the combination of ketchup, lettuce and expired eggnog on the kitchen counter.
“I’m cleaning the fridge.”
“Don’t clean the fridge. Come and talk to me.”
She left her cleaning behind and threw herself onto the couch. “This place is boring,” she said. “You’re boring.”
“I don’t get this… I’ve never seen you like this.” I wanted to know what she’d taken, what she was on, but I was too scared to ask.
“I’m not a junkie,” she said from her place on the couch. “That’s what’s important to you, isn’t it? I’m just like any other girl. Bored to death by this squalish little apartment.”
“Squalish?”
“It’s a word. Look it up, asshole.” She pulled a crooked cigarette out from her pocket and waved it at me. “Light it,” she said, kicking her legs on the cushion.
“You don’t smoke.”
“Come on.”
I took the cigarette from her. The rolling paper was crinkled and wet, stained in brownish yellow. “What is this crap? Some kind of drug?”
“It’s all legal,” she said.
“That doesn’t mean it’s safe. Please, Kara, tell me what this is.”
She started to laugh. “It’s embalming fluid. I wanted to see what all the fuss was about, seeing as almost everyone I’ve ever loved had the chance to try it years ago.”
“You smoked one already?”
“It’s wearing off.”
“You can’t keep doing this,” I said. “Please…” I lowered myself beside her on the couch as best I could and wrapped my arms around her. Her whole body was shivering and I could feel her heart pounding. I was overwhelmed and I began to cry.
“Don’t,” she said. She planted a sloppy kiss on my cheek.
“I’m sorry… I’m just worried about you.”
She sighed. “I’m sorry, too.” She started to climb off the couch so I got out of her way.