“One moment please,” she says, and with the press of a button she is alone again.
She listens to several messages accumulated over lunch from people she doesn’t know who leave phone numbers but no area codes, or give only first names. Wrongly assumed familiarity is rampant today. Her boss calls at one point and asks her to find a post-it note on his desk with a series of numbers scrawled on it in pencil. No, not that one. The one next to it. What color is it? No, the green one. She finds the right one and reads the numbers off to him. He thanks her and hangs up quickly.
She spends the rest of the afternoon going through the files on her computer, making sure they are still organized in a way that she understands. Click, save, yes, okay. Then, toward four o’clock, when the air conditioning starts to make her feel rheumy and the recycled air starts to dry out her skin, she becomes suspicious, and then absolutely certain that she smells cigar smoke.
She has always liked the idea of cigars, that warmth of poker games and whiskey, but the smell— it is only good in theory. It is thicker, denser, more pungent than cigarette smoke, but she still feels like a hypocrite, a year-old, half-empty pack of Marlboro Lights in her purse that she dips into every once in a long while.
The stale, musky odor of it is filling the reception area. Her eyes are beginning to water. She leans over her desk and is startled to see the smoke coming in thickly under the door, an amorphous white cloud of it, expanding lugubriously through her space. For a second she feels that something magical must be happening, and she is unprepared for magic. Her throat is burning now and she doesn’t know what to do. Soon the smoke alarm will go off, or the sprinklers, they have those right? They must? What does a person do? She searches the ceiling.
And then she becomes aware of music playing, slowly increasing in volume. It starts out as a drum beat, so quiet it might be her heart. It gets ever so slightly louder, louder, until the sound falls into a familiar pattern, the sharply dated sound of a saxophone, and keyboards filling the air with electric dots. She feels a thrumming vibration in her veins. A little louder, and it drowns out her thoughts. She is trapped in the sound now, the smoke still creeping in and she starts to panic. Finally, she gets up from her desk and steps out into the hallway.
The smoke is billowing out from underneath the door of suite 2B, the office that meets 2A at a corner, the restrooms separating them from the suites at the other end of the second floor. There is no sign on the door, no name.
The music grows louder still, the wild festiveness of the saxophone belying the accompanying murk as the smoke forms a hazy wall in front of the door. She steps forward and knocks, her eyes filling with dry, stinging tears.
The music fades slightly, and a crackling, youthful-sounding male voice answers.
“Yeah?”
She clears her throat.
“I’m sorry, but, are you smoking a cigar? Or, uh, cigars?”
After a long pause, the reedy voice behind the door begins to mumble something unintelligible.
“No,” he finally says clearly, “it must be somebody else.”
“I’m sorry. But… it’s just, the smoke looks like it’s coming from your office, and it’s probably going to set off— ”
“Do you want me to turn down the music?”
“No, that’s okay, it’s just— ”
The music abruptly switches over to a somber piano concerto, the volume slowly decreasing until it is barely audible. She stands there for a moment, trying to think of a proper response, and finding none, says thank you, returns to her office and gathers her things. It is a full hour before the usual closing time, but she feels that her excuse is valid. Plus, it’s more than likely that no one will ever notice.
In the parking lot, she starts her car and idles in her spot for a moment. A strange giddiness washes over her as she smells the smoke on her clothes, proof that she hasn’t imagined any of this. Her phone rings suddenly, pulling her out of the moment. It’s Mallory, the screen says, Iris’s college roommate. For whatever reason, Mallory continues to seek out her company, whether out of curiosity, pity, or genuine affection Iris is never sure. She decides to answer.
“Hey!” Mallory says, “Are you doing anything tonight? I’m all moved into my new place and it’s cute as hell. Come by for drinks?
“Um…”
“Oh shut up, you know you’re coming. Nine o’clock?”
“Uh… I…” She can’t bear the cigar smell any longer, and rolls down the window. She takes a deep breath. “Okay.”
“Perfect,” Mallory says, and hangs up.
Iris tosses her phone on the seat. She starts the car and eases out of the spot, the sun hovering above her, contemplating its slow creep downward, as if it has a choice.
HOUSEWARMING
When Iris arrives at Mallory’s door, she realizes too late that she’s been tricked. The music is loud, the kitchen and living room packed with people: a party. Iris drops her jacket on a pile by the front door, folds her arms, and makes her way to the refreshment table, which is appointed with a full bar and a striking array of hors d’oeuvres, from thin baguette slices artfully arranged around a pool of olive oil to a plate of tiny crab cakes speared with toothpicks. The guests are drinking out of glasses— not red plastic cups or chipped mugs, the way parties used to be, senior year, in houses that should have been condemned, scavenged furniture and cigarettes ground out in the kitchen sink.
She pours herself a glass of wine and makes her way through the crowd, avoiding eye contact with the few people she recognizes and the many she doesn’t. It’s easy to do when everyone is already locked into groups, laughing, chatting madly, spilling drinks and digging around in the kitchen for club soda. The various noises are fighting with each other for her attention.
She steps out the sliding glass door to the balcony where she finds Mallory leaning over the railing, smoking a cigarette. Iris lights up one of her own and leans beside her.
“Why didn’t you tell me this was a party? I would’ve changed clothes, or something.”
“No, you would’ve stayed home.” Mallory squints. “But now you’re here and it’s not so bad, is it?”
Mallory stands up straight now, her green velvet minidress swinging in the breeze. Her dirty blond hair is pulled into a tight ponytail, which she pulls tighter, the end of her cigarette protruding perilously close to the tips of her heavy bangs. Iris does feel underdressed in her wilted work clothes.
“Yeah, I guess, maybe.”
Mallory leans in secretively, switching gears without warning. “Did you see a girl holding this cat under her arm like a football.”
“A cat? Really? I didn’t see that…”
“I like cats as much as anybody, but I don’t even know that girl. Who brings a cat to a party? Who even brought her?”
“I think I would have noticed that. Maybe she left.”
“Maybe. I’ve been out here for like twenty minutes.”
“Why?” Iris laughs.
Mallory shrugs. “I can’t relax anyway. I have to work tomorrow. They sprung it on me yesterday and now I can’t have any fun at my own goddamn party.”
“You have to work on Saturday?”
“I don’t even want to talk about it. They’d go bankrupt without me, I swear.”
Mallory turns around to face the sliding glass door and rests her elbows on the railing. She scans the room inside as though appraising the party, calculating the level of fun. Iris looks down at the busy street six floors below. They smoke in silence for a minute, then put out their cigarettes in a ceramic ashtray shaped like a frog. The mouth is filled with sand.