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Secondhand Smoke by Brooke Dwojak Lehmann
Brooke Dwojak Lehmann
Secondhand Smoke
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Autumn blows in with the smell of pine air freshener and cigarettes, and I am back in her Cougar, a car that drove stealth and fast.
She smoked in the car, all through the house tanned topless in her above ground pool, proud of her D-cupped breasts and dimpled thighs.
This was the first pool we swam in, before she left my uncle Carl, the one who drank all the ‘Dr. Pepper’.
Mornings I watched Charlie’s Angels reruns, perched on the couch, like a well-trained parrot, repeated simple phrases, asked to use the bathroom.
I wanted to be like the angels, brave, sexy, ambivalent to the weapon of choice, brazen femininity or a loaded gun.
Most days, she made us macaroni and cheese sliced hotdogs, sometimes, SpaghettiOs, the alphabet themed ones, if we were lucky.
After lunch, we floated in the pool until the chlorine stung our eyes bloodshot, hands shriveled up like clams.
We hung our sun faded towels and smiles, placed noodles neatly on the redwood deck, dried off in time for the ghost of my mother to return.
The first time I was stung by a bee, in her pool, she sprinkled cigarette ashes on my pierced arm, said the nicotine would help numb the pain.
