he called me during his morning commute from Broome to Greenwich CT. Dad had died earlier that year, and my insomnia allowed me to sleep after noon, every 3 days. So Lorenzo's absolutely silent car, and his voice telling me about what he's going to do at work today, helped me ground and sometimes I'd fall asleep on the phone, and he was still there when I choked on my apnea and woke up.
Anyways, he sent me stuff once. He insisted on sending me Brazilian jeans and bikini, bc that's what Brazil is known for. I think he wanted to know that I had really left NY. I again had a private landline, and he called in the mornings occasionally, from London.
Then, I tried cocaine. And he had once said he had tried it, so I called him. That was the last time we spoke. I never had a coke problem, other than coke is a problem if I am in the same building. This is how it went: I'd have a anaphylactic response to one alcoholic bev, pot makes me a normie, so someone would give me coke all night, i'd tell them everything about my family, they disappear, I fiend, I am relieved by McDonald's dollar menu for the next 2 weeks, and neglect Amy extra. I mean let's be honest, cold was a stand-in for McDonald's. I hsrdly found coke, it showed up a lot. Whenever I went in search, I was unsuccessful in the present. Someone might come through weeks later.
I liked hanging out with Paura Stella Heo, bc she so thoroughly knew me. She was absolutely ok with my days of silence and surreptitious eating. And her nastiness was like a dilluted Steph, so her emotions were familiar and I was a pro at convincing her she is perfect.
Paura as well, just showed up. Now I see it was Steph begging Stella's mom to keep me while the rest of the family attended a wedding or something of the sort. Stella was familiar and never mentioned my snoring, she did give me bubble guts, and people who hadn't spoken to me since 7th grade told me to stay away from her.
Anyways, Stella shows up at Derby Court while I'm visiting. I am in UD to visit childhood PCP bc of my persistent sinus infection from coke. Stella says she will stay at the house while I'm at the Dr, can she use the community pool, can she borrow a bathing suit. The last time I owned a bathing suit I was in elementary school. Stella asked if I still had Lorenzo's bikini. I did have Lorenzo's bikini. I'd kept it in the original mailer bc I thought it smelled ever so faintly of his cologne. Not like he sprayed the package, more his scent imbued in his suitcase from Sao Paolo, with the rest of his belongings.
It was white with magenta orchids painted over much of the white. I had told Lorenzo I'm a 27. I didn't know what size I was ever and Helen said if I could fit into 27 Sevens you know you're hot. I weighed 220lbs from eating a pint of ice cream every 2 days all of Spring semester. The bikini was 4- 3 inch isosceles. 4 triangles total, 2 on top, bottom front, and bottom back. On me, it did not cover my crack of cleft. Stella said she wouldn't go swimming in it, preserve the smell, and only sun bathe. Derby Court's green space was shared by a dozen townhomes.
25 years later, when Jack and I would smoke cigs together by the window, he regularly brought up how the upstairs neighbor's daughter sunbathed on the patch of grass, in front of their Flushing walkup. And how the entire neighborhood was astir,
"I was scared to ever look out the window if the weather was nice enough to possibly suntan!"
"I had to cancel my appointment bc I couldn't walk past her laying out."
Repeatedly, I'd laugh at Jack's retelling of the boobage. He spoke of it as if it were a pig slaughter or gorey car accident. The incongruity of his level of emotion over a bikini was, I thought, humerous. And then Bok would say, "she wants the attention. She's young and pretty, why not. Except this is not the beach, it's a 6 by 3 patch of grass in center of the buildings one parking spot in front of the garage. It's a shared space. Her mother apologized for a year."
Over the next 3 years, they'd repeat themselves again and again.
Until living in Queens, I never knew cigarette smoke could travel in from the outside. I'd chain smoke on Derby Court's tiny deck. Over a decade, none of the family ever mentioned the cigarette smoke.
