The Dollhouse

Chapter 12

THERE was something inherently distinctive about the odor of cigarette smoke. The ashy aroma lingered, a stench that would never quite leave your clothes. I never saw the point of the tobacco industry. The wasted dollars on a pack-a-day habit, the craving for nicotine, the potential to damage your pretty lungs.

Then again, I had never tried it.

When I had gone to see Violet in her room, she had been inhaling a cigarette. She was perched on the further end of her bed with the window wide open. Her sheets were tangled. A cold air drafted into the room, and the grey smoke curled above her head like a permanent cloud.

I slammed the door behind me at once.

"Violet, Arabella's home!"

"She's downstairs," Violet closed her eyes and took a deep drag. Her voice came out strangled.

Misery. That was the only word that could describe her state. Her hair was flat against her head. Her face naked, clean of cosmetics. But she wasn't any less beautiful.

She tapped some of the residue on the windowsill. "Stop staring at me like I'm some wounded bird. What do you want?"

I climbed on to the bed and sat on my knees. Her hard expression softened.

"I just came to ask if you wanted to come to the diner later on," I said. My gaze turned towards the happenings of the street outside.

"Who else will be there?"

"Betsy, Danny, Nick. You know."

"Can't y'all see a flick at the drive-in?" she murmured.

"I don't think the pictures are very good around here."

A few blue jays flitted by. The Dollhouse looked no more different than any other day, save the ghostly absence of a second car in the driveway. The sun was at its pinnacle, high enough to cause a glare from below.

My sister needed an ashtray, really. The telling indicators of a smoking habit could be identified just from where I was sitting. Perhaps Violet thought she had perfected the art of hiding.

She never confessed where she kept the evidence. It was only later on, many months later, I came across her lighter by accident. A hollowed-out book! The very copy of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe I gave her last Thanksgiving.

I draped my elbows across the window. My chin rested on my knuckles. If Violet was irritated by this, she failed to show it.

"You don't talk to me anymore," I said.

Violet lifted an eyebrow.

"Neither do you."

"What you said,"- I coughed due to second-hand smoke - "it's almost become true, hasn't it? Becoming new people after the move. I feel different."

A moonstruck expression came over Violet.

"We're not children anymore," she stated simply.

I had the sudden urge to ignite one of the smokes for myself, and brood romantically out of the window like some heartbroken poet. The fantasy made me feel self-conscious.

"Don't you miss your friends?" Memories surfaced of the troublesome gang Violet loved to cause mischief with. "I mean, you were pretty tight."

She ignored the question.

"You seem different because you are different," she spoke with such clarity, that I quit staring down at the street. "No more hiding behind the strands of your hair. Pardon my fucking language, but you're not a sad little wisp anymore... you weren't happy in Seattle. I know that. Mom thought I was blind, but any fool could notice something was wrong. I don't care if you had some kind of psychological episode, or an illness, or what. You don't have to tell me. But finally, I can see your becoming yourself at last."