Down to one cigarette. I shook the packet hopefully but it didn’t change anything. Talk about torture. A deadline looming five hours ahead, and almost no more cigarettes.
After ransacking the house in search of an emergency stash I usually kept hidden about the place, I gave into the fact that I was either going to have to bite the bullet and go without until tomorrow, or head out in search of a stray packet at eleven thirty on a Monday night. Given the stress associated with the job I had to do – a campaign for my most disagreeable and impossible to satisfy, not to mention my biggest client, cigarettes were essential to my continued survival, so I grabbed my car keys and headed out the door. At least the girls were sleeping over at friends’ houses tonight, so I was actually able to go out, I thought, trying to look on the bright side.
As I drove from service station to bar to late night convenience store, cursing the anti-smoking ordinances that made it so difficult to find a packet of cigarettes for sale these days, I thought about my client. More than seventy percent of my billing came in through that one client, which was a lot of eggs to have in one capricious basket. Certainly, I hadn’t planned things this way. It was just that I was so grateful for the work to be coming in that I didn’t notice when it started to take over everything else. Not unlike the cigarettes, I thought wryly. Just the odd one to get me through the stress of the breakup and now I couldn’t go a night without the damn things.
Finally I pulled up outside my last resort, a French-style bistro known for its bad food and cool reputation. I parked the car and walked in, feeling terribly out of place in my ancient jeans, old cardigan and definitely the worse for wear fluffy sheepskin boots, the ones my daughters called my “comfort food boots”. It wasn’t just middle aged paranoia that made me think everyone was staring at me – practically every person in the place was under twenty-five, and the last word in cool. It was abundantly clear that I was well over twenty-five and not even the slightest bit cool.
The girls were all beautiful in that most-popular chick in school way, with long blond or brunette hair, lithesome bodies and pretty faces enhanced with cleverly applied makeup. I watched them writhing to the rhythm like flowers on stems in a breeze, then turned my attention to the guys. Buff, bronzed, almost all decked in the unspoken uniform of stylish jeans, variations on white shirts and sexy Italian loafers. They danced with the girls, confident of their attractiveness and attraction to each other, safe in the knowledge that they’d always be adored. If only they knew what lay ahead.
As I stood at the bar, invisible to the bar staff and feeling persecuted by the clientele, a wave of bitterness hit me. Youth was wasted on the young. God knows, it had been wasted on me. Why didn’t I realize how lucky I was, way back then, when I was gorgeous and confident and sexy? Once upon a time, I would never have had to stand at a bar, waiting to be served, while the bar staff looked right through me. Hell, there would have been men lining up to buy me a drink. I looked at my watch and saw that more than hour had passed since I left home on my quest for nicotine. Only four hours remaining to finish up three days work and deliver it to the printer.
Suddenly, a light came on over on the stage, and everyone moved over to get closer to the guy sitting on a stool, nursing a black guitar. He looked up and smiled directly at me.
“Hi folks. I’m Chris Gabriel.”
I checked behind me to see if he was staring at some nubile young blonde and then turned back as I heard him say, “This is for the lady out there with the sheepskin boots.”
I looked down, and then around to find everyone staring at my feet. Somehow, I doubted that anyone else in the room was wearing sheepskin boots.
“It’s called ‘The Girl You Want to Be’ and I wrote it just for you.”
He winked at me, then struck a chord and started singing, his velvet tone wrapping itself around the lyrics as his fingers danced over the strings. The girl next to me sighed and said, “He’s got the face of an angel.”
Angel. Gabriel. The angel Gabriel, singing a song to me. Of course.
You came upon the scene
Like the warmest summer dream.
Eyes so bright in the deepest night
You touched me right
Down in my heart,
Where I hope you’ll always stay.
But the fear inside of you
Takes you so very far away
From where you want to be.
Why can’t you see
What you are is free
To be the girl you want to be?
You look around the room
And all you can see is doom
As if you’re not good enough
To live the life that you’re dreaming of
And yet you’ve got everything you could ever need
To reach out and touch the stars.
Cause you’re the angel of my nights
And the sweetheart of my days.
Want you near to me
Where you’ll always be
The girl you want to be
The girl you are to me.”
The crowd roared its approval and he raised a hand in thanks and then moved onto another song. I slipped away to the bar, which was finally clear of gilded youth, and called the server over.
“A packet of Marlborough Lights, please.”
She smirked at me and said, “Sorry. We only sell cigarettes if you’re a customer.”
I grabbled in my purse for twenty dollars.
“OK, fine. A shot of tequila and a packet of Marlborough Lights. Please.”
Just as she was placing the drink and the cigarettes on the bar, I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around and there was my angel Gabriel, holding out a light.
“Those things will kill you, you know.”
He smiled at me, and I realized that he was a lot older than he looked onstage. Not old, just older. Maybe my age. Suddenly I regretted my tragic clothing.
He lit my cigarette, called for a beer, and then leaned back and looked me over.
“Thank you for dressing like that.”
I searched his face for signs of sarcasm but he seemed to be sincere.
“You are kidding, right?”
I gestured at the fabulously dressed girls around me.
He leaned in and said confidentially, “Well, if you’d been dressed like them, I wouldn’t have noticed you and then we would never have met.”
He paused and passed me an ashtray.
“Although we haven’t, yet. Chris Gabriel,” he said, holding out his hand. I took it and temporarily lost the power of speech as a surge of something, part lust, part emotion, raced through me. He started to speak and then shook his head and clearly thought better of it.
When I could line up two words again, we talked for about fifteen minutes, exchanging the basic data two adults who fancy each other do, until he excused himself to go and perform another set.
“Will you wait for me? We could maybe go and have a drink somewhere quieter afterwards?”
I was dying to say yes but the reality of my deadline hit me. I looked at the clock over the bar. Only three hours and a bit to go.
“I’m so so sorry. Really. But I have this major deadline tonight and I really have to go. I only came out for cigarettes, obviously,” indicating my awful clothing. “But maybe we can swap numbers and continue the conversation another time?”
He smiled his laid-back smile at me, and reached into his guitar case, pulling out a sheet of music paper. He grabbed a pen from behind the bar and quickly scrawled on it, then folded it up and handed it to me.
“This is for you. I’m so glad you came tonight. I was waiting for you.”
He gave me a soft kiss on the cheek and disappeared into the crowd.
At the first set of traffic lights, I unfolded the paper and held it up to the light. It was the lyrics to the first song he’d played, when he’d noticed me. I searched the page for a phone number, but there wasn’t one, only a note at the top that said exactly what he’d said in th
e bar.
“I was waiting for you.”
I banged my head on the steering wheel in frustration. What was this? Some kind of psychic joke the universe was playing on me? Why was everyone waiting for me?
Echoing in my head, I heard the old tattoo guy.
“Look for the signs.”
I slammed the car into gear and pulled out onto the road, feeling like I was fighting a losing fight. Hours wasted, the only cute man I’d met since I divorced lost to a bar full of lush teenagers, and the manic voice of an old man with needles belting around in my head.
When I finally got home, I raced to the computer and tried to get back into work, but it seemed that the joke was continuing. My screen froze, the printer blocked, a file mysteriously went missing. I burned myself making coffee, and there wasn’t a lighter or a match to be had in the house, which was beyond ridiculous because I always, always had spare lighters floating around. Not even a safety match!
I battled away until I’d done as much as was humanly possible, and then changed my furry boots for proper shoes and rushed out the door to get to the printers. The job was finished. It wasn’t my best work, but it was pretty damn good, considering the insane deadline and the lousy money I was earning. I dropped it off at the printers, did one last proof read and then dragged myself home for a quick nap before the girls arrived back.
I woke a few hours later, slumped wearily on the couch, I noticed the red light flashing on my answering machine. Tempting though it was to ignore it, I reached over and pressed Play.
“Well, I’m sorry not to find you at your desk. I did expect that you’d be working, however perhaps it’s just as well that you’re not.”
I sat up. The pompous tones issuing forth from the machine belonged to the client who’d kept me up all night, and he did not sound happy.
“After some discussion within the group, we have decided to let you go. While you work is quite up to standard, we feel that it is important to develop relationships with fresh, new collaborators. Bring a bit of fresh air to the campaign. I’m sure you understand. Please send us the invoice for any outstanding work, and good luck in the future.”
Just then, the doorbell rang and I knew it was the girls, back from their sleepover. I hurriedly rubbed the sleep and tears out of my eyes and tried to pull myself together. The last thing in the world I needed to do was worry the girls – they’d had more than enough adult problems over the last year. It was my job to take care of them, and one way or another, I would.
7
Falling to pieces