Cigarette's Balcony

            It was 23 degrees.  I was sitting on a camping chair on a balcony on the Upper East Side in a tank top.  Happy New Year.  Where was my jacket?  I left my drink inside.  I looked through the glass door at my companions"a few I had only met a few hours prior, the rest still mostly acquaintances.  There were a few of us out there smoking cigarettes.  People laughed.  I laughed with them.  Jon offered me a pull.  I only smoke when I drink.  I had a crush on him sophomore year.  That didn’t go too well.  Then there were Jesse and Marielynn near the edge, looking at the skyline blatantly looking to have sex with each other later.  There were a couple of people huddled in the corner and a boy I didn’t know was sitting on my lap.  The person on me stood up and called the others inside, leaving only me, the lovebirds, and a girl I hadn’t noticed until just then.  She had a box of cigarettes in the chest pocket of her flannel and messy red hair rested at her shoulders.  She was sitting opposite me on a chair similar to mine, twiddling a cigarette between her fingers. 

            “Need a light?” I asked.

            “No thanks.”

            “Good, because I don’t have one.”  I stood up to walk over to her, noticing my feet weren’t exactly doing what I wanted them to.  I knocked over the plastic cup that we put the butts in, sending them 9 floors to the pavement and the cup bouncing across the floor.   We laughed together.

            “Not used to the drinking thing, huh?”  she said.  I shook my head no and sat down on the ground instead.  I looked back inside.  “So who do you know?” she asked.

            “Amelia invited me, she’s one with Jon over there"actually don’t look.” I was sort of supposed to be watching to make sure she didn’t do anything stupid.  Woops.  “Who are you here for?”

            “I’m one of Jesse’s neighbors; he told me he was having a party so I stopped by.”  She picked at the chipping paint on the table.  I put the cup right side up again and circled its rim with my finger.  We sat in silence for a few minutes longer. 

            “So what’s your story?”

            “Hm?”

            “What’s your story,” I asked, “tell me your favorite story.”  And for the next"what seemed like hours"she told me dozens of stories of adventures with friends and some drunken tales, each more interesting than the next.  Sometimes she’d braid her hair as she spoke, particularly when talking about Jesse.  It was cold, but it didn’t really matter.  We watched people walk down the street, and laughed as people vomited on the pavement.  I told my own anecdotes, but I had only been drunk three times, and this was the third.  This part of the story always gets a little fuzzy when I tell it.  People came and went from the balcony, offering beers and cigarettes.  I asked her why she kept a cigarette in her hand but didn’t smoke it.  She used to smoke, until her dad died of complications from lung cancer, and she always brings it to parties to stop herself from getting back into the habit.  When I finished my cigarette, I tossed what was left in the now-empty plastic cup, just missing it, sending it over the edge. 

            “Hey, it’s almost midnight” she said, standing up.  “We should go back inside anyway, you’re gonna freeze.”  She took my hand and pulled aside the glass door and the inside curtain and we went back in.