Read Where There's Smoke for Free Online

red that belonged to some earlier, jazz-smoked era. Her body was slight and wonderfully slouched. She had, all in all, the look of a good girl gone a bit grungy. Thinking of their story, I saw her arms lined by light in the alley, locked crossed amid the scudding bodies, the car alarm caterwauling through her skull. Then I saw my brother watching her. He looked the happiest I’d ever seen him.
    â€˜I wish I had been there,’ I said, and meant it.
    That summer, I spent more time with Thuan than ever before or since; Baby liked my company, insisted on it, and my brother was surprisingly acquiescent – especially given we’d never really had any mutual friends. She called him Little T and so, with even less reason, I became Big T. I came to need her, and probably what I needed most about her was him: the emergent, intricate person he became around her. He developed a way of talking to me through her, in third-person – Look at him – and he reckons he’s not on steroids! She kept him kind to me like that. At Brighton Beach she stripped to a grey bikini. When he caught me staring, he gave me a look that was warning and mockery, shy and full of braggadocio, knowing and forgiving all at once. Do you see what I mean? We lived then in slow-time; the light more viscous, the breath drawn deeper into our bodies. I had a new brother and a new name – how would I not rally to both?
    *
    When we get back, Thuan breaks the silence and tells me to head inside – he’s going to keep wandering. There’s no invitation in his announcement so I go in – glad to escape the punishing heat – strip to my boxers, splash water over my face and chest. I think for a droll moment of working out. Then I resume my place on the couch, following the creak of the fan, the odd foolhardy cyclist whizzing by on the track below.
    The wind sears my face awake. I’m sodden and sticky. I find myself incredibly aroused. The wind feels as though it’s passed through fire. I press my face into the cushion and reach for myself, drowsing into the familiar memory of Baby, that one time. The habitual quickening. She came over to our house wheeling a large suitcase full of clothes to launder. Yes. These trips were timed so both our parents would be out working the night shift. My brother steered and shut her up in his room, not knowing I could hear their every other sound. At the end of the night she unloaded the dryer and folded her clothes into the suitcase.
    â€˜Need any help with that?’
    â€˜I’ll be right.’
    â€˜You can carry it down the stairs?’
    A flirtatious pause.
    â€˜Sure, you can help me bring it down.’
    I glided to the window and lifted the hem of the blinds. I was nearly seventeen. They left, as usual, by the small unlit walkway between the fence and my side of the house. And as usual, they tarried in the dark, swaying in and away from each other, whispering, and I cracked open the window to listen in from above.
    â€˜So what’s the going tip for a bellboy here?’ she asked.
    Outside, the night was cool and a wind blew full and quiet along the empty street, carrying with it the scent of new flowers, jasmine and hibiscus and bougainvillea. A wood chime sounded from a neighbour’s porch.
    â€˜Just a quick blow job,’ he said.
    She spluttered out a low laugh, pushed and punched him. Then they kissed. She kissed him soft and then she kissed him hard, and after some abortive fumblings she spun around and folded herself over the standing suitcase. She wriggled her pants down to her knees.
    â€˜Make it quick,’ her voice hissed.
    He shoved down his own pants and grabbed her pale hips. He leaned and rocked over her. The wheels scrabbled wildly across the concrete but the suitcase stayed upright. From where I was watching, all I could see of Baby was the side of her head, curtained off by her jogging black hair. She nodded and nodded and nodded and I