She was smoking when I met her:
I was smoking when she left;
Maybe it's got something to do with cigarettes.
Tex Perkins, 'Fine Mess'
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Carly lived behind a thick, white door leading into a tiny, irregular-shaped lobby.
Inside the lobby the carpet was charcoal grey, the walls a white-washed pastel green and the two elevators - one on each side - a shiny silver. The elevator on the left lifted up to the apartment on the middle level and the one on the right took you up to the apartment on the top floor. Beyond them and facing out diagonally in the back left corner, stood an a emerald green door that opened up into her ground-floor apartment.
She moved out to London from Los Angeles in the early aughts. Back in the 70's, her father had trekked the other way in an effort to escape a business venture gone wrong. By the end of his second week in town, he had met her mother and by the end of the second month, he had managed to get her pregnant. They settled into a mediocre marriage of compromise and hope, which they then spiced up with deceit and ignorance.
After Carly was born, her father made sure to secure two passports for her - one British and one American. Just in case. Freedom is often just access to choice and home is often just wherever they accept you the most. And her dad believed that one of those would end up being more important than the other.
A week after Carly's 24th birthday, he was driving home drunk and missed a bend up on Mulholland, sending his car cartwheeling down one of those ravines up there. He died instantly on the first impact. When the car finally came to a rest, it burst into flames and he was charred beyond recognition. All that remained was a remarkably unscathed pair of dark blue, New Balance sneakers still clinging to his feet.
After the funeral, Carly felt the urge to be in a place where no one knew her. Somewhere she didn't have to answer or explain. Somewhere both new and old. Somewhere where the streets don't change, but maybe the names do.
So, with the chunk of inheritance she now had, she packed up and left for London.
The first time we met, was the night she came into our little Supper Club in Old Soho. It was just before midnight on a Wednesday. Everything she had on was black. From her round, thick black frame glasses, down to the shiny black heels of her stilettoes. I later found out that everything she was wearing was Prada. But that was much later - when I learned about her commitment to consistency.
She was on a date with some fellow and they got drunk fast. Or maybe it was just that they were already pretty drunk when they got there. Either way, they sat side to side on one of the banquettes, swooning and swaying in and out from each other. Even on first impressions, she seemed out of his league. It wasn't that he was tepid or mediocre - more so that she projected an understated and quiet magnetism, whilst his act was just a bundle of 'keen & eager'.
I had no reason to linger on at the venue that night. We had one of the good managers on, who didn't need much of any supervision. I pottered around up by the wine racks and in the waiter's station, trying to camouflage how much of my attention she had captured.
I was behind the bar fixing myself a Gin Bramble, when the manager approached me for a match and told me he had laid out a line of coke for me in the office downstairs. Like I said - he was one of our good managers.
I eased myself down the narrow, brown and vinyl stairway, past the customer restrooms and into the tiny office space we had stuck in the basement. On the desk, next to the computer keyboard, was the little line of chunky white powder, sitting next to a rolled up ten-pound note. I quickly pulled the coke up my nose, wiped the edges of my nostrils clean with the back of my hand and exited back out of the cramped and claustrophobic room.
As I turned to go back up the stairs, Carly fell out of them and straight into my arms.
"I'm guessing you were looking for the bathrooms?" I asked with a little wry grin, as I caught her from falling.
"Yes, I am. Why? What else could be down here?" she replied, somewhat defiantly, as she stepped back into balance.
"Oh, nothing... Unless you were looking for me, that is?"
She straightened herself a little taller and, in a slow and obvious way, looked me up and down.
"Well..." she said in that casual Californian accent, "I didn't know you were on offer down here."
"Well... I'm not really on offer down here... But, I am on offer elsewhere. Maybe another time? When you're done dragging around that sweet little puppy dog up there?"
She laughed and, without a word, reached into her black, leather bag with gold Prada lettering and came back out with an eggshell-white business card. On it, in bold sans-serif lettering, was her name and her cellphone number.
And that's how we met. As clean and direct as that.
We hung out for a while. Must've been six or seven months. We started with a bunch of late nights and then moved onto a stack of early mornings. We went to a band or two together, ate lots of overpriced raw fish, people-watched in the park and made plans that we then kept.
It was intense and hectic and the rhythm felt in line with the beat.
And then her mother got sick back in LA and she had to fly over to take care of things for a while. We tried to stay in contact, but we were never that good on the phone - and even worse by text.
After a few months, cancer got the better of her mother and she passed away. Carly came back to London after the funeral. But, unlike after her dad's funeral, this time she only came for the purposes of leaving.
I helped her pack up her apartment. We sold some of her furniture and dragged the remaining bits and pieces out onto the sidewalk. We boxed up her clothes and art for the shippers, whilst we drank and took pills and pretended that death wasn't narrating her latest choices.
She left on a Thursday morning, wearing all grey - from beanie to Chelsea boot.
I kissed her one last time and I helped her load her bags into the cab. I watched it round the corner and then I headed for the pub. I ordered a Guinness and sat in the corner, watching the old men crumble up their betting slips, as I tried to decide what to do next.
