[lj idol] week twenty three | "imagine none of this is real..."
[always falling short of help]
*
She dumps a fistful of ice cubes into the not-quite-as-shallow-as-she’d-intended vodka already poured into her crystal cut tumbler, briefly contemplates the orange juice in the refrigerator door before shaking the idea off and using her heel to push it closed. The iridescent green of the microwave clock announces seven thirty three pm. Well and truly giving up the notion of being on time, she drags the elastic from her office day up-do and steps out of her heels with a satisfied sigh.
The heat from the shower, alongside the the three fingers of vodka now snaking lazily through her bloodstream, have combined effortlessly to raise her enthusiasm towards the party she’s already half an hour late for.
She’s spent most of the afternoon coming to terms with the fact that Jake is probably going to be there. But now, and with the sharp rise in blood alcohol content, she’s finally shifting towards a much more pragmatic stance.
Who is she kidding, after all? Jake is definitely going to be there.
She’s uncurling from the back of the cab when she remembers the sliver of silver foil she’d tucked into her bra prior to leaving her apartment. A little somethin’ somethin’ she’d organised for herself the day before. Just enough to get the party properly started.
She climbs an extra flight of stairs in a last ditch attempt to avoid detection. Unfolds the foil under the watchful eye of a skinny tabby cat, and taps just over half the coke out onto her credit card, ever the cliché as she drags a dollar bill from her purse and rolls it with barely a second thought.
The familiar burn has barely faded before she’s tripping her way back down the stairs, pulling herself up deliberately just shy of the door, dragging in a solidifying breath before, wide smile firmly in place, knocking twice.
Half-way through yet another glass of ridiculously expensive sparkling, she comes to the sudden realisation that she’s knee deep in a thoroughly earnest conversation about the merits of clear umbrellas; those ones that you can pull down in front of your face but still see through.
It is, quite possibly, the best conversation she’s ever had. And the last half of the coke safely tucked back in her bra is starting to tap, tap, tap at her resolve; imagines, with a heady slip and slide of her heartbeat, adding it into the mix she already has going. The vodka and the champagne and the line she did in the stairwell.
Jake is yet to arrive but party chatter she’s not supposed to have heard states that he’s barely ten minutes out.
And she wonders, absently, still carrying the umbrella, ella, ella conversation with an ease that should be impossible, at what point being in the same room as your ex-fiancé becomes tolerable. Becomes an occurrence that doesn’t first require a small fortune in illicit narcotics and three quarters of a bottle of Veuve Clicquot.
Because it’s been seventeen months next Tuesday. Seventeen months and she’s still nowhere near.
She calculates she’s doing the second line at the same time he’s knocking on the door. At the same time he’s standing exactly where she’d stood earlier, rapping his knuckles just a little higher and a little harder on the wood than she’d managed.
She presses the back of her hand to her nose in an attempt to cut short the familiar flare of agony.
And she’s already dreading tomorrow’s inevitable Earth-bound crash.
But it doesn’t last long, and there are syllables and whole sentences tripping over each other desperately on the tip of her tongue. Stories and answers and hellos and goodbyes and all the words she’d otherwise never speak.
“Hi Jake!” she says easily, re-entering the room. “So good to see you…”
*
previously on...
introduction | jayus | the missing stair | in another castle | nobody can ride your back if your back's not bent | build a better mouse-trap | step on a crack, break your mother's back | yes, and... | the recency effect | barrel of monkeys | open topic | confession from the chair | chekhov's gun | a terrible beauty has been born | scare quotes | disinformation | kindling | intersection | the music made me do it | sweep the leg
*
She dumps a fistful of ice cubes into the not-quite-as-shallow-as-she’d-intended vodka already poured into her crystal cut tumbler, briefly contemplates the orange juice in the refrigerator door before shaking the idea off and using her heel to push it closed. The iridescent green of the microwave clock announces seven thirty three pm. Well and truly giving up the notion of being on time, she drags the elastic from her office day up-do and steps out of her heels with a satisfied sigh.
The heat from the shower, alongside the the three fingers of vodka now snaking lazily through her bloodstream, have combined effortlessly to raise her enthusiasm towards the party she’s already half an hour late for.
She’s spent most of the afternoon coming to terms with the fact that Jake is probably going to be there. But now, and with the sharp rise in blood alcohol content, she’s finally shifting towards a much more pragmatic stance.
Who is she kidding, after all? Jake is definitely going to be there.
She’s uncurling from the back of the cab when she remembers the sliver of silver foil she’d tucked into her bra prior to leaving her apartment. A little somethin’ somethin’ she’d organised for herself the day before. Just enough to get the party properly started.
She climbs an extra flight of stairs in a last ditch attempt to avoid detection. Unfolds the foil under the watchful eye of a skinny tabby cat, and taps just over half the coke out onto her credit card, ever the cliché as she drags a dollar bill from her purse and rolls it with barely a second thought.
The familiar burn has barely faded before she’s tripping her way back down the stairs, pulling herself up deliberately just shy of the door, dragging in a solidifying breath before, wide smile firmly in place, knocking twice.
Half-way through yet another glass of ridiculously expensive sparkling, she comes to the sudden realisation that she’s knee deep in a thoroughly earnest conversation about the merits of clear umbrellas; those ones that you can pull down in front of your face but still see through.
It is, quite possibly, the best conversation she’s ever had. And the last half of the coke safely tucked back in her bra is starting to tap, tap, tap at her resolve; imagines, with a heady slip and slide of her heartbeat, adding it into the mix she already has going. The vodka and the champagne and the line she did in the stairwell.
Jake is yet to arrive but party chatter she’s not supposed to have heard states that he’s barely ten minutes out.
And she wonders, absently, still carrying the umbrella, ella, ella conversation with an ease that should be impossible, at what point being in the same room as your ex-fiancé becomes tolerable. Becomes an occurrence that doesn’t first require a small fortune in illicit narcotics and three quarters of a bottle of Veuve Clicquot.
Because it’s been seventeen months next Tuesday. Seventeen months and she’s still nowhere near.
She calculates she’s doing the second line at the same time he’s knocking on the door. At the same time he’s standing exactly where she’d stood earlier, rapping his knuckles just a little higher and a little harder on the wood than she’d managed.
She presses the back of her hand to her nose in an attempt to cut short the familiar flare of agony.
And she’s already dreading tomorrow’s inevitable Earth-bound crash.
But it doesn’t last long, and there are syllables and whole sentences tripping over each other desperately on the tip of her tongue. Stories and answers and hellos and goodbyes and all the words she’d otherwise never speak.
“Hi Jake!” she says easily, re-entering the room. “So good to see you…”
*
previously on...
introduction | jayus | the missing stair | in another castle | nobody can ride your back if your back's not bent | build a better mouse-trap | step on a crack, break your mother's back | yes, and... | the recency effect | barrel of monkeys | open topic | confession from the chair | chekhov's gun | a terrible beauty has been born | scare quotes | disinformation | kindling | intersection | the music made me do it | sweep the leg