Keisha, Smile (no edits) - circa 2014

Keisha and I are smoking on our cigarette break when I suddenly feel all bubbly inside, and sad at the same time.

“Keisha, someday I want to be somebody. Somebody cool.”

“What? You mean cooler than you already are?”

“I want to be someone who lives in Europe, travels to Brussels and Russia and China, someone who drinks sherry with dinner every night, and who speaks like four different languages. Someone with two lovers on the side. Someone with several cute dogs and many more cats – “

“Okay, stop right there. I’m already nauseated, and I’m supposed to keep breakfast and snack down!”

“Oh, shush. You want what I want.”

“I want to see you be happy for once, sure. But why all this talk about travel, being somewhere else? You can’t find happiness in places; it’s within you. You’re the one who has to change.”

“Thanks.”

“No, I mean it. Isn’t there some saying, from some famous dude or something? ‘Happiness only comes from within, not from without.’ Something corny like that.”

“Whatever. I want to be a world traveler.”

“Good luck getting your dogs and cats and sherry on a flight to China.”

“Thanks, Keisha.”

As we stand outside the rehab facility and huff huge smoke clouds up into the sky, I decide that, along with my New York City dream, being a world traveler and sophisticate are a must for my future.

Screw Keisha, anyway. Whore.

Who says places can’t change you?

“I’m going to find someone someday who actually drinks sherry with dinner and can stand cats and dogs, many of them. Brett even said that to me once: ‘You’re going to marry someone who drinks sherry with dinner every night.’”

“Is that why you’re into this fantasy? Because Brett mentioned you might actually get married?”

“I think it could happen.”

When our cigarettes go out we head back inside. I’m shaking from nerves. Lunch. Ugh. Then I remember I have to have dessert today, because it’s Dessert Tuesday.

“Someday I’m going to eat scones and tea and other pastries without even batting an eyelid.”

“Someday I’m going to be the head of the CIA. Seriously, Ariel, you can get over this eating problem but you’re never going to forget.”

She’s probably right. I’m always – always – going to agonize over food. It’s like, written in the stars for me or some shit. I don’t say as much, but Keisha is right, and maybe my dreams of living in Europe and riding a bicycle to work every day are just horseshit I make up to keep myself from losing it over dessert every Tuesday.

“I’m going to work in a used bookstore in Paris! Or London!” The thought hits me as we sit down for lunch.

Keisha sighs. I can still smell cigarette smoke on her, or is that me? Both of us?

It intrigues me that Keisha never shares her dreams. I know she has them – but why doesn’t she share them with me? I’m always babbling about Paris and coffee shops and she just takes it in, and then reprimands me for dreaming.

I swear to God, someday I’m going to follow through on my dreams.

Keisha is especially timid over her food at lunch, taking smaller bites than usual and then leaving right at the very end of lunch for the break room.

I eat slowly, too, savoring my cookie (dessert!).

Then I walk into the break room and sit next to Keisha, who is staring intently at the ceiling.

“Keisha?”

“Ariel?”

“Where do you want to be in ten years?”

“Dead.”

“Oh.”

I keep forgetting that depression rules our lives, even more so than the voice inside our heads telling us to take smaller bites.

Staring at the ceiling does nothing for me, anyway. I pull out a book of poems and start reading.

“Enlighten me,” says Keisha, and I know she wants to hear Whitman, too.

I start reading and everyone in the break room stops what they’re doing to listen to my voice, which I make louder, bit by bit, over the course of a poem.

I feel famous.

Don’t get a big head on me, Keisha would say, but Keisha doesn’t have dreams and I don’t listen to cigarette whores.

And then I remember: I am one, too.