“Do you mind if I smoke?”
“I do.”
“Seriously?” she said.
“Seriously,” I said.
“Please?”
“No.”
“Pretty please?”
“Okay.”
“Really?”
“No.”
“You’re mean.”
“You have no idea. Now talk.”
She took out her packet of cigarettes anyway, opened it, removed a slightly bent one, stuck it between her teeth, and said, “Then let me at least pretend.”
“Pretend all you want.”
She did just that, sucking on the end of it like a real pro. She even exhaled. She did this again and I tried not to laugh.
“It’s not funny,” she said.
“I tried not to laugh.”
“Well, you didn’t do a very good job of it.”
I waited as she inhaled again on her unlit cigarette, exhaled some nonexistent smoke. Her foot bounced at the end of her ankle like a fish dangling from a line. Then, she actually asked for an ashtray.
“There are no ashes,” I pointed out reasonably.
“Please,” she said. “It helps.”
I sighed and rooted around a bottom drawer and found something Anthony had made back in arts and crafts when he was in first grade. I use the words “arts and crafts” liberally. Whatever it was—a hand or a butt cheek—I set it in front of her. She shrugged and proceeded to tap off some invisible ashes.
Our last encounter was a memorable one. Sugar had tried to stop me as I approached my then-husband’s office. Tried being the operative word. I might have hit her hard enough to break her nose. And I might have enjoyed it way too much.
“I said sorry about that,” said Sugar. She had picked up on my thoughts and assumed, like most people did, that I had spoken. I had not. And, yes, earlier on the phone, she had apologized again about sleeping with Danny.
“So you said.”
“I mean, you aren’t still mad about that, are you? That was, like, years ago.”
“Two and a half years ago. And, yes, I’m still mad.”
“Well, I’m sorry. If it wasn’t me, it would have been any of the other girls. Your husband was, like, into all of us.”
“Good to know.”
“Besides, I haven’t seen him in, like, over a year. Have you?”