The Face Page #2

A Story about a lost girl.

• Fiction
• Diaries

								

	Still, I froze my focus on her movements, I searched for a still-life photograph. Mitch offered to meet me at the mall two weeks later. I had invited her to a party. She was hesitant. I suppose the constant talk about acid and angel dust at these parties turned her off. She had a taste for alcohol and the harder, powdered stuff.
	Nobody in my crowd attended acid or angel dust parties. We went to pot parties, nightclubs, pool BBQs, movies, the forest, and donut shops. Metallica and drinking were our common interests. Mitch dove into morphine and prescription drug addiction. She liked street rock cocaine, Vicodin, Percocets, Oxycontin, old tranquilizers, and her favorite by far, codeine. 
	Those harder, powdered drugs lacked appeal or recognition in my group. Most of my friends started with soft-core California acid under the bridge and in the cave by the park downtown. They wanted to explore their mindset and creativity. I had begun seeing a man by the name of Allan, who had undergone acid therapy to treat his depression. It seemed to work for a while. I did not condemn or condone the drug. People were using it and I said nothing. 
	I had been offered the drug in Johnathan Segal's lobby when I was there for coffee and had refused. The dealer was aggressive. I had to threaten him with a police report to get him to back off. I suspect these types of dealers and Mitch's own aggressively addictive nature led to her opiate dependency. I never touched any acid, prescription drugs, heroin, crack cocaine, angel dust, or anything of that sort. 
	If she was doing this stuff, it wasn't because of us. She sought out morphine parties, codeine prescriptions, and drug dealer-boyfriends on her own. Mitch moved much too quickly for the chance to stop and ask questions. She looked at my phone number on a piece of paper and was hesitant.
	"I will think about it. I may not go to this party. We can meet at NYF at the mall in two weeks," she suggested.
	She could never truly be captured on camera. Today was Valentine's Day. She was a manipulator, not a lover of humanity. Many men surrounded her, and she used them as they used her. It was soon. I knew I would see it. Mitch was the type to attract the wrong guy and be the wrong kind of girl. I wasn't blaming her. It was just inherent to her complex yet simple nature. 
	I was looking forward to hearing from her. It was my wish to bring her to one of our parties, I had suspected she was fond of L.S.D. at the time. Soon, I would learn it was better to separate her from the others and keep her away from my social group than to bring her into it, hoping to add a little spice. There is spice and then there is a hot pepper. Mitch was a Ghost Pepper. 
	A few weeks later, Mitch and I met at New York Fries. I had waited ninety minutes for her arrival by cab. I simply walked or took the bus to the mall, as I had not applied for my driver's license yet. As I sat waiting, I stared at the menu. There was nothing about the food that appealed to me. 
	The mall was crowded. I waited for her. She was hard to miss. Her garbled messages suggested she was arriving by cab any minute. I waited for a long time in the food court at a table near New York Fries, uninterested in ordering anything but a small coffee with lots of milk from a local donut shop. I had put on a nice outfit for this occasion-an old red dress with black boots. 
	I called a few times on a payphone and she finally arrived after leaving five messages on my home phone. She wore a crushed purple velvet and silk mini dress with a matching hat and black high-heeled Chelsea boots. The look was right out of the late 1960s. I was uncertain what to make of her outfit, but she executed it well. 
	Finally, I ordered plain snack fries with a side of gravy. Mitch couldn't decide between the vegan Butter Chicken or the Poutine. She ended up ordering a split large fries. Unsatisfied with the two tablespoons of California seasoning she had dumped on the fries, she took the entire condiment and salt stand from the shop counter to her table. When the server put out two more California seasoning shakers, she took them from the counter as well. 	
	"Could I have back that entire condiment shelf? It belongs on the counter. The other two shakers I put out are missing," the cashier said out loud, to no one.
	"Ha! They will get it back when I am done. I appreciate how they put this all out for me, along with the extra shakers," Mitch quipped. 
	"Do you need that salt? Why did you bring the other condiments?" I asked her.
	Mitch refused to answer. She began layering California seasoning in each layer of fries. The look was unappetizing. I smelled the slightly sweet and tangy seasoning, which I once had an appreciation for. I had asked for my fries without salt, as excessive seasoning was unappealing to me. Mitch began to dig in, nearly gulping down her fries without chewing.	
	We discussed some plans for the coming weeks. She wanted to introduce me to an older man she had been dating, Lorne. Lorne was somewhere between the ages of twenty-one and twenty-seven, depending on what day it was and what lie he told. Lorne had promised to take pictures of Mitch. 
	"It's coming up soon. The pictures are partly for my modeling portfolio. I am also entering my photos for a chance to become a model at a car show. I have to send in pictures," she commented. 
	"Really. It sounds exciting. It might help your modeling career. I heard you need an extensive portfolio. Is Lorne a trained photographer?" I asked her.
	"I think so, or so he claims. His stories change. He has the time and equipment. He told me that he could save me money on photographs and was as good as a professional photographer. Portfolio shots can run $150 to $500 per session. Typically, it costs a model $2,000 or more for a proper beginner's portfolio. One way around it is to ask for free rejected photos from shoots. I put those in my portfolio," she commented.
	"Well, you do private showings every week for Garage. On top of it, you do the runway once a month or so. Do you get shots from that?" I asked her. 
	"No, I don't. I want to do commercial modeling," Mitch answered. 
	She went on to detail the red Porsche she was planning on using, a loan from a friend of hers named Alan. Alan collected red cars and trucks in his spare time, outside his job in painting doors and music promotion. Alan sounded interesting and Lorne gave me the creeps. 	
	We talked for about forty-five minutes. She thanked me for coming and offered to meet me at the mall again in two weeks. I agreed. No apology was put forth. I walked away, curious about her upbeat behavior. She seemed either up or down most of the time. The only drug she had talked about was pot, which did not seem to intrigue her. I suspected she found it to be a downer or inducer of stress, as some people had. We met again a couple of months later. 

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