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| Chain Smoker | |
| By robokent | ||||||||||||||
| 27 March 2007 | ||||||||||||||
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She was too tired to wonder why he hadn’t called on the cell phone. He never used the home phone. If she had thought about it, she might have asked herself when exactly she had even given him the number. Truth be told, she only had a landline for her modem. She kept the clunky, black telephone more out of kitschy sentimentalism than anything else. “Wait… what?” she asked groggily into the receiver. “I know why.” Nicole sat up, the soft cotton sheet falling down to her waist. It was chilly. She bent up her knees and pulled the sheet back up over her breasts. “‘Know why’? What are you talking about, Ben?” But he had already clicked off. She held the receiver in her hand, staring through bleary eyes at the mirror above her dresser. She looked at her reflection, still hardly recognizing the person she saw. When had her hair ever looked so good? Lush, red curls fell softly down her shoulders. Her skin, once sallow and leathery, was a creamy pink. She watched as the image in the mirror licked its lips, surprised that that was her tongue, and those were her full lips. She was beautiful. How did that happen? Nicole had met Ben at the clinic a few months back, after they both answered the same ad. She had just lost her job at the animal hospital where Dr. Guedj had grown tired of her frequent smoke breaks. Nicole hadn’t really minded losing the job, anyway. Being paid eight bucks an hour to shave pets before they underwent surgery was not something she saw herself doing long-term. Her hands had come to resemble a street map of tiny, red, criss-crossed scars from all the times she had been bitten and scratched by cats, dogs, even rabbits, as she moved them from their cages to the examination table. When she saw the ad offering $1,500 to participate in a scientific study of chain smokers, it sounded perfect to her. She could get paid to smoke. No Dr. Guedj bothering her, no sick, little animals drawing her blood. Meeting Ben had been an added bonus she hadn’t counted on. They had met in the waiting room on the second floor of an ugly office building on the corner of Santa Monica and Fairfax. A pawn shop and a Russian grocery store took up the street level space, but Nextradyne had the second, third and fourth floors. The dingy waiting room walls were covered with a yellowish brown, peeling wallpaper smelling of nicotine and tar. Nicole had wondered if that was what the inside of her lungs looked like. A half-dozen plastic chairs had lain empty, another half dozen occupied with sad-looking types like her, all but one of them with a lit cigarette dangling from their mouths. Nicole had surveyed the depressing scene and immediately decided to grab a seat next to the only one not smoking. Ben. He had spoken to her first. “Posers,” he had whispered conspiratorially, leaning in close, nearly touching shoulders, not bothering to look at her. “I’m sorry, what did you say?” “They’re all posers,” he whispered again, facing her. “They come in to take part in a research study asking for chain smokers. You know, I bet everyone else in this room here is an out of work actor. They’re only lighting up because they’re playing the part.” She smiled at him, took out her pack of Marlboro reds, tapped the pack a couple times, and slid one out. With the skill of a seasoned smoker, in one fluid motion, she placed the cigarette between her lips with one hand, as the other flipped a 39-cent Bic and lit. She took a long drag in, let the smoke fill up her lungs, held it just shy of an eternity, then released her breath in one long, even blow. “And me?” she had asked him. “Am I just posing?” He winked at her. “No, no. You’re the real deal.” Both of them had been accepted to the program. They never saw any of the others in the room again. The study seemed straightforward enough. For the first two weeks, they lived on the fourth floor, each receiving a private room and as many cigarettes as they wanted. They ate, they watched TV. There was an exercise room, but from the looks of it, it never got much use. Nicole spent most of her free time on the roof, where there was a small pool, the kind found on the average Los Angeles rooftop, six feet to the floor of the deep end, steps descending into the shallow end, a metal handrail stretching down to the bottom, three feet in. She would lay out in the one good chaise lounge, soaking up rays for hours, her skin turning a roasted brown after a week. Ben would sit in a deck chair, reading the newspaper from cover to cover, pausing frequently to comment on the stories to Nicole, who didn’t mind the company. She had found him different from most other men she had dated. For one thing, he seemed a whole lot smarter. One day, after he had railed on about some Washington guy named Scooter Libby for fifteen minutes, she asked him what an intelligent guy like him was doing wasting his days away taking part in a cigarette study. “I’m just here to meet a beautiful woman, fall in love, and live happily ever after,” he had answered. Nicole propped herself up on her elbows and arched an eyebrow toward Ben. “And you think you’ll find her here?” “Oh, yeah,” was his only reply. “Oh, yeah.” After the first two weeks of monitoring, they were sent home, but each day they were brought back in for testing. The Nextradyne clinicians were always making them put on a new cream or pop some pills. Nicole didn’t care, though. She trusted that whatever they were giving her wasn’t going to hurt her. And after a few more weeks, when she noticed her skin toning up and her hair becoming fuller, her whole body taking on a healthy glow she had never known before, well, she wasn’t about to stop. They could give her whatever they wanted, as long as she looked like she was looking now. “See, I told you I’d find her,” Ben said, standing her in front of her dresser mirror one morning. It had been a few weeks into their courtship. “I told you I’d find a beautiful woman and fall in love. Now, about the ‘happily ever after...’” Nicole hardly heard what Ben had said, mesmerized at the image she saw in the mirror. “It’s… it’s like a miracle! But what is it? How are they…?” “That’s what I’d like to know. Because whatever they’re giving to you, it’s not working for me.” It was true. Ben, who had appeared healthy and strong before the study, had lost at least twenty pounds. His hair was noticeably thinner, and wrinkles were forming around his eyes. He had aged considerably. When he told her he was going to try and find out the reason for his own debilitation, Nicole begged him not to. “Look, please, don’t mess this up for me. Just stop taking the medications. Quit the study! If you’re worried about not getting paid, I’ll give you my check. I just…” “It’s not about the money, Nicole. I have to know what they’re doing in there.” “Ben, don’t… Leave it alone, okay? You’re not some investigative journalist trying to break a case. You’re going to get in trouble.” Nicole remembered the chill she had gotten when he just shook his head slowly and replied, “I have to know. I’m sorry.” That had been four weeks ago. He had vanished, his apartment empty, his cell phone disconnected. When she asked people at the clinic where he had gone, they simply said he had left the study. She had not heard from Ben again, until his phone call. Never taking her eyes off the mirror, she got out of bed and examined her perfect, naked body. She felt guilty, looking so good, and she thought about somehow trying to track him down. She ran her slender right hand smoothly down the length of her left arm. She shook her head, watching the red curls of her hair bounce around her neck. And she felt happy. She was sorry for Ben, wherever he was, whatever had happened to him, but she told herself he’d be okay, and that she’d find someone else. She glanced at the digital clock on her night stand. It was already well after ten. She looked at herself one last time in the mirror and headed for the shower. She couldn’t be late. She had an appointment at the clinic at eleven.
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