CHAPTER TEN: Scent of Smoke
June 18, 1995
He felt it in the way the air caressed the insides of his systems as he inhaled and exhaled. He tasted it in the way the morning droplets of rain pelted his lips. And it was all in his heart: the familiarity, the way the sun seemed to shine a lot brighter, the way the wind blew on his face.
He was home, in his one and only Chicago.
Mac Taylor loved every bit of Chicago, especially where he was strolling in that very moment: Downtown Chicago. With every street he passed by, he could recreate chapter after chapter of memories and make them dance alive in front of his eyes. It was refreshing to be somewhere he knew like the back of his palm. THIS was home, and it would always be. New York was like a blurry dream compared to his town; Chicago was his reality.
He squeezed his hand into the pocket of his windbreaker and took out his cellular phone. He was about to dial a number when he saw an old fruit stand that he used to steal apples from when he was a kid. With a smirk on his face, he approached the store and gazed at the luscious crates of fruits on display.
Deciding that the peaches were too good to pass up, he was silently computing how much he could eat for the night when his phone rang. He answered it absentmindedly, eyes still glued on the shiny saccharine feast.
"Hello?" he said into the receiver, breathing in the melting pot of scents the fruits tickled his nostrils with.
"Hey, Honey! It's me."
"Claire!" he greeted pleasantly, happy to hear his wife's voice after a lonesome (albeit enjoyable) day. "How's the convention going?"
"Boring, as usual," she answered, and he heard the tinker of plates in the background. "I'm at the restaurant. The food here is amazing, which is a good compensation for the shit that they're making us sit through. I love the Hyatt Regency."
"You should. We had our first date there."
"Don't remind me that," she laughed heartily, "You spilled sticky red wine all over my dress and I think I cried in the bathroom for two hours. When I went out of the bathroom and found you waiting out there for me, I knew that –"
"- this was it," he finished for her, motioning to the young boy who was watching over the stand. "You really are bored with that seminar, aren't you?"
"I'm just happy that we're having it here in Chicago. I missed this city so much." He heard a sigh coming from his wife's tongue, but she suppressed it and instead changed the subject. "Where are you having lunch, Honey?"
"Any place that has authentic deep-dish pizza. My taste buds have been craving it for the past five years."
She giggled, and didn't keep the creak of amusement in her voice when she answered. "Buy some for me, will you? And don't eat much - remember, we're going out for dinner with Ma and Pa tonight. You know how they love to really, really spoil us when we eat out. Then we're meeting with Cecille afterwards at the Goodman Theatre," she reminded him tenderly, and he loved the way her voice changed when it came to family business. He had no problem spending time with Claire's family; they might as well have been his own. Her Mother and Father always treated him like their long-lost son (having none of their own), and her little sister Cecille recently just got married and was pregnant with her first child. It would be nice to see familiar faces after all the unfamiliarity of New York.
"It's as good as done," he promised. The blonde fruit stand boy eyed Mac, then petulantly gestured towards the peaches. Mac pointed at an irresistible bunch. "I'm also buying peaches for Ma and Pa's home. I mean, God, how can you resist these peaches?"
"Buy whatever you want, Taylor," Claire remarked, her voice taking on a tone that - to Mac's ears - sounded a lot like a cherub's innocent gurgle. "You can buy Chicago … if you really want to."
That made him laugh. He only wished that he COULD buy Chicago, relocate it somewhere near New York, and then they could shuttle themselves back and forth the two cities like it was the most normal thing to do every Friday afternoon. They could have their breakfasts in Chicago, lunches in New York, and dinner anywhere they wanted it to be.
As his laugh ended with sharp exhales, his eyes skimmed his surroundings.
Sometimes, he liked to think that maybe if they never left Chicago, their problems would never have started in the first place. Maybe they would still be that too-much-in-love young couple who happily waved their families goodbye as they boarded that plane to New York years ago. Maybe HE would still be that young man – so idealistic, so full of hope, so relaxed yet efficient.
Now, he only felt like any other man. None of those adjectives apply to him anymore. He was now only a man working for himself - because work was his only reprieve in New York. Especially when those fucked up voices in his head would keep him from sleeping.
He let a sad smile linger on his face as he promised his wife that he would be home in time for dinner. He bid her goodbye and in turn, also made her promise to him that she would try her best to listen to the seminar. When he ended the call, he paid for the peaches, happily received the paper bag, and began to walk to where he used to eat deep-dish pizza as a young adolescent.
As he stepped onto the sidewalk housing the humble little pizza palace, his gaze drifted to the humongous sign that announced the building as the "Jazz Café." It was sprawled tackily on top of the entrance, with a gleaming red color that had golden trimmings as highlights for the letters – just as it had been for the past forty or sixty years in business.
Mac smiled contentedly when he entered, hearing at once the familiar rusty tinkle of the bell that announced his presence. The head waitress, usually situated at the first table across the entrance, greeted him warmly and asked him if he would be dining with anyone. He quickly replied that he was alone and with a quirky wink from the waitress, she led him to a seat at the far end of the restaurant.
The place barely changed since he last had seen it, at least seven years ago. The counter was still bustling with energy - with the chefs shouting at the top of their lungs the announcement of the meal, the waitresses shouting back their own responses or the incoming orders, and then more waitresses attending to the montage of customers that were always, always present. These customers were both the young and old: teenagers from school, couples taking a break from their daily hustle and bustle, impatient office nuts, senior citizens who chose to enjoy the lively noise, and then there were people like him. People who refuse to forget what home REALLY tasted like.
He happily sat down on the table allotted for him, and thanked the waitress for her hospitality. She gave him a smile and told him to wait for the next waitress who would be assigned to his table.
Alone again, Mac stared out at the glass window beside him. In the rare silence of his mind, he watched his beloved Chicago go by through the wide glass. He scanned the people scrambling to cross the street or catching up with their companions, the hats that were shocked off of their heads by the wind and those that paused to scan the row of restaurants before them. Each and every face was a slap in his heart: none of them, not even one, had the veil of curly brown hair, those hazel eyes, and that olive skin. None of them had that particular smirk, the one she readily offered him, whenever he reminded her to eat before leaving for university because she had no breaks in between classes. None of them was her … none of them had been, for the past two years. Sometimes, if he closed his eyes hard enough, he imagined hearing her voice – her Joni Mitchell song off-key, either Blue or A Case of You. Sometimes, he heard it in the wind at night when he was beside his wife and he couldn't, for the life of him, sleep.
Drop it, a strange voice within urged, drop her.
Mac shook his head. He wished it were that easy to drop someone like her.
"Hi, may I take your order?"
It was a welcome distraction for the thoughts that were tethering dangerous grounds. Mac faced the waitress and smiled, "Yeah, a deep-dish Jazz special with extra cheese and …"
"… and what else would you want with that?" said a voice coming from the table behind him.
"What?" Mac blinked, the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end. Without any warning, his heart started pounding deep into his chest and he physically had to reach up and press down on it. The feeling in him was the exact same one he had in Beirut, at the forefront of chaos, right before the first gunshot was heard above a silent truce. It was his sixth sense of danger.
"Excuse me?" the waitress in front of him clarified. She studied him with an unreadable expression. "Are you okay?"
It was then that he saw her. Not one of them, not any of them, but her.
Mac scrubbed his eyes in shock, mouth hanging open, as his vision focused on the back of the opposite table's waitress. Her curly brown hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail, face planted on the small notepad she was holding, and her olive skin tampered by the tacky yellow uniform she was wearing. She appeared thinner, gaunt even, but she leaned on her right hip as she waited for her table's orders and it brought Mac back to the many nights they spent in her kitchen cooking dinner together. She always leaned on her right hip – never the left – and it was such an insubstantial piece of information about her that he catalogued at the back of his brain for no reason at all. No reason at all, yet there he was, on an afternoon in Chicago, gaping at that same lean on the same hip on the person who could be the one he had been waiting to see for the past two years.
"Mister? Are you okay?" his attending waitress again asked. Mac blinked once, twice; he opened his mouth to say something, but only thick hot air came out. In desperation, he raised his finger to point at the other table's waitress, who was now walking toward the kitchen area.
"Oh? Her?" the waitress buffered, "she's been here a while."
"Who, who is she?" he cleared his throat, "What's her name?"
Her face broke into a lopsided grin. "We call her Bos around here. She sure acts like one." She tapped on her pad. "Now, can I take your order?"
Mac absentmindedly gave her his deep-dish pizza preferences, his eyes still glued to the waitress who stroked the empty space within him to a fury.
He watched her as she entered the dark alley behind the restaurant, leaned on the dirty wall for a second, rummaged one pocket for a pack of cigarettes and the other for a lighter, lit the stick, inhaled through the filter. The smoke curled around her as she slowly exhaled, and he found it funny that only when she was surrounded by all the swirling white that he was dead sure that it was indeed her and not anyone else.
"Stella."
Her head snapped to the direction of his voice, eyes bulging when she saw his profile. In that moment of recognition, he couldn't count all the emotions that ran through her face.
"Mac." It was a statement, not a question. "H-How did you …?"
A smirk found his lips. "There could be a crowded baseball stadium, Stella, and I'd still know you're in there somewhere."
"T-There's no escaping you, Mac Taylor," she retorted, hands visibly shaking as she reached up one hand around her waist to rest her elbow on it. She tried lifting her stick for another drag but found that her hands were shaking too hard to do it. In frustration, she threw the cigarette to the ground and stepped the pointed heel of her white shoe on it.
"You smoke now?" Mac enquired, moving closer to where she was. Stella shrugged as calmly as she could.
"Yeah." Her free hand crossed over the other so that she was hugging herself.
As he came to stand before her, Mac closed his eyes for a second. The world swayed beneath his feet, and he was afraid he'd faint on the spot. How long had he dreamt of this moment? How long had he wanted to see her – to at least talk to her? He never imagined it would be in Chicago, at the back alley of his favorite restaurant, with a haze of smoke around them, but anyway, he never imagined this scenario happening at all.
Opening his eyes, he found Stella studying him. She averted her gaze when his found hers.
Nervous again, she grabbed the pack of cigarettes from her pocket, opened it, only to reveal that there was nothing in it. She tossed it into the nearby garbage can and nodded her head to his direction. "You have a cigarette with you?"
He almost laughed, but knew better not to. "You know I don't smoke."
"I know that," she agreed too quickly. Now, Mac didn't control the chuckle that erupted from his throat like a belch.
"Why ask for a stick then?"
Stella lifted her head, met his eyes for a second. "I couldn't ask for anything else," she replied, and then stared back down on her feet.
"Oh Stella …" he trailed off, all the emotions simmering in his gut popping up like a bubble, and he reached out with both hands to hold her against him as a proof that she was indeed real.
However, before he could, Stella ducked out of his embrace and away from his space. She stood at the opposite end of the alley, eyes wide and wild, visibly afraid.
Of what? he wondered. Of me?
When she began to slowly retreat back to the kitchen, never keeping her eyes off him as if he was armed and dangerous, it hit him like a bullet: She's afraid of us.
"Stella," he panicked, eating up the spaces between them with giant steps. Before he could get any closer, she held up two hands to keep him where he was. "Stella," he tried yet again, "I just need five minutes with you …"
She shook her head, the fluffy curly ponytail behind her swaying. "No, Mac. You want MORE than five minutes. I can't. Not anymore. Go … I have to go." She brought her hands down and ran into the kitchen before he could say or do anything else.
Mac was left there all alone in the alley, but this time, the emptiness within him was filled with a determination he hadn't felt since that early morning he met her for the first time in New York.
This is insane, a tiny voice at the back of his head reproached while he watched the dark street before him through the hot wisps of his coffee. Claire was requested by her pregnant sister for a movie night, which made it the perfect opportunity for him to decline and make excuses about where he's spending his twilight. She didn't even ask him where he was off to, he realized: such was her trust in him nowadays. This insane thing that he was doing right now was probably the last thing on her mind.
He had been sitting in his rental for the past two hours, awaiting her arrival. With a smile and a wink, Mac was able to get Stella's current address from one of the restaurant's managers. The moment he spotted her there, he vowed that he wasn't going to leave Chicago without even trying to get to talk to her. He was prepared to die trying – actually, he almost did when he witnessed the nth altercation between a neighbor and her drunk husband in one of the open windows upstairs. After a threat from another neighbor that she'd call the police if they keep up the racket, they finally quieted down.
Soon, he spotted her form getting off the nine o'clock bus and crossing the street. Her hands found the pockets of her gray trench coat upon reaching the stoop of her rundown apartment complex.
This was his one last chance.
Mac dropped his coffee in the holder and quickly exited his car. He locked all the doors and ran to where Stella was. When he was a few feet away from her, the ground seemed to melt into a puddle of water and he had to grasp the nearby tree trunk to steady himself. Of course, Stella's keen sense didn't miss the noise he made and she froze in her spot.
Without turning around, he heard her sigh heavily. "Mac, what are you doing here?"
He straightened himself and neared her so that he stood directly behind her. Separated only by the air between them, Mac thought that if he leaned close enough he could actually grab her in an embrace.
"I just want to talk, Stella. That's all," he resolved, the promise in his tone.
She still didn't turn around. "Just talk?"
"Just talk."
He heard the keys jangle in her pocket and she fit one into the keyhole. Opening the door, Stella finally turned around to stare at him. Her patio was dark – there was a light bulb overhead but it didn't seem working – yet, when their gazes met, he was reminded of how he had always thought that her eyes were the most beautiful green he had ever seen. Like a magnet, he was drawn into them, to her: the North to the South Pole.
"Come in," she whispered, gesturing inside.
Mac followed her in, standing awkwardly behind the closed door while she removed her coat and hung it on a nearby chair. She reached over and opened a light, baring her apartment to him: it was worse than the place he had gotten her in New York. The living room was one chair, a few magazines, and coke cans substituting as ashtrays in every corner. There was one bed, neatly made, at the other end of the small room; one wardrobe cabinet; a door to the bathroom and outside of it, a makeshift kitchen with a stove and an old microwave.
"Find yourself a place to sit," she remarked, ignoring his expression. She sauntered over to the kitchen, still in her tacky yellow uniform, and placed a pot on the stove. "You want coffee?"
He brushed away a stack of magazines from the only chair in the room and sat down. "Umm, no thank you. I've had enough … I have trouble sleeping." Mac intertwined his fingers on his lap, not sure what to do with them.
"You?" she asked incredulously, opening the stove. She poured water into the pot and placed it atop a burner. "Since when did you have trouble sleeping?"
"Since two years ago."
"Two ye …" Stella paused, then shook her head. It was a bridge she was not yet willing to cross. Nevertheless, for Mac, he had been standing on that same bridge since she left him. He had enough of standing there – he wanted to cross over, to move on, with or without her.
"Stella," he began, "Why did you leave?"
She left the pot on boil and grabbed an ashtray from a nearby countertop. Mac stood up to offer her a seat, but she declined; instead, Stella opened a window and eased herself on its perch. In her pocket was a new pack of cigarettes; lighting one stick, she satisfied herself with a long drag. Mac could only see the outline of her contours from where he was, but he knew that it was deliberate: she wasn't ready for him to see all of her.
"Why did you leave?" he repeated, wringing his hands tighter together.
She glanced at him. "Why did YOU stay?" Then returned to her cigarette.
If that was a question he could actually answer, he would be sleeping rather than stalking her apartment in the dark.
Stella rested her cigarette on the ashtray and bounced off the perch to take care of the boiling water. Like clockwork, she poured water into two mugs, mixed juice from a dingy canister into each, and handed him one. "That's herbal tea. Try it. Good for you, I think," she insisted, to which Mac accepted. At least his hands could be busy with something.
"You've been here a long time?"
Stella sat back by the window, eyes still missing his. "Yeah, I've been here since," she replied nonchalantly, taking a sip of her tea.
"Doing what?"
"Nothing much. Waitressing, the most. Living life."
"Running away?" he spit out, before he could hold back his tongue, "from me?"
"Mac, don't bring what we had into this," she sternly choked back. Mirroring her actions from earlier, she once more discarded a stick after her inability to bring it to her lips. "What we had is done. I'm trying to move on."
"You seem like YOU'RE doing a good job," Mac remarked snidely, taking a sip of his own tea and wincing as the hot water burnt his tongue. He placed the tea down on the floor.
"Stop this, Mac. I don't want to talk about this." She stretched her thin arms to the door, her face taut with tension. "If you have nothing else to say, just leave."
That was when the simmering emptiness within him clicked to a boil and he exploded; Mac stood up and with one giant step, without Stella even realizing what was about to happen, he ate up the distance between them and enveloped her in a tight hug.
Her body tensed as his skin met hers, eyes closing in what he couldn't constitute as pain or desire. Mac buried his nose in her hair, that wild curly hair, his fingers digging into the naked flesh of her arms so deep he knew there would be bruises tomorrow. His lips found the side of her cheek desperately, until he smelled her familiar scent underneath all that cigarette smoke. This was his Stella: his soul, his love.
"Stella," he murmured to the shell of her ear, awaking gooseflesh there, "go back home. You belong to New York."
She shut her eyes tighter, and from his vantage point, he saw a tear slipping free.
"Not to you?" she whispered, so soft if they weren't so close together he would've missed it.
Mac wished it was different – he wished, somehow, that when Stella left, everything had just gone on the way he planned it to: the divorce from Claire, NYPD, New York, his new life. But it didn't: the divorce never happened because when he came back to the house he shared with Claire to get his things, he never left; NYPD wasn't the same anymore, so he started looking into becoming a CSI; New York had been his only friend throughout the emptiness he felt when Stella left him and thus, the city became his greatest ally, and his new life was one that he now happily shared with his wife. Their relationship had never been better; it was everything he had wanted and more: everything Stella would never willingly give him.
The truth remained like an eternal cross on his back though: he would always, always love Stella. Always. And he knew, deep within his soul, that she belonged beside him – however that may turn out to be.
"No, Stella … not to me. Not anymore." He let her free, but they both didn't move.
Mac suddenly remembered the time and Claire's movie date. He checked his watch and shuffled away. "Uhh, I need to go. I'm picking Claire up from her sister's … I, uhh …" Stella only nodded, turning her face to the open window.
He grabbed her wrist and placed his card in her palm. When she didn't physically respond, he closed her fingers on the card. "You can do so much more in New York, Stell. You're brilliant – you deserve more than this shithole. Come back to New York, and I'll help you. I won't … be around like I used to be, but I'll be there to support you however you want me to do so. I'm your friend." He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it. "I won't interfere anymore like before. I'll let you live your own life, but live it where it's worth. There's a future waiting for you in NYPD, Stella. Don't waste that." He leaned forward and kissed her cheek, he hoped not for the last time.
"Give me a call when you're back in New York, Stell. I'll be waiting." For good measures, when he saw that she wasn't willing to watch him go, he placed a hundred dollar bill under the cup of tea she gave him. That was more than enough for her to buy a one-way bus ticket to New York. He wished he had enough for a plane fare in his wallet, but this was the best he could do.
He left Stella's apartment in silence. Upon returning to his rental, he reached for his coffee and discovered that it was ice cold.
END of CHAPTER TEN
C/N: It is such a pleasure to be writing for this story once more! Plus, thank you for all the wonderful replies you readers have written for me as a totem of encouragement – the fandom has changed, but the readers remain as awesome as ever.
So yes, I will certainly be finishing this story in the next few months. Spread the word! Maybe some of your friends knew of this story before and I'd love to have them onboard as it reaches its conclusion. Once more, thank you and I hoped you liked this chapter!