One of my most beloved friends, who long ago died, had a way of exaggerating that didn't qualify her as a bold faced liar but still had the effect lies did at times. I'm sure she couldn't see it.
She was a highly intelligent and sensitive woman who I met in a fiction writing class, basically a good person. She was the person who critiqued with care and caring. You knew that about her.
One day I gave her a copy of a short fiction piece I'd read in a magazine that I loved. The short story took place in England. She called me an Anglophile.
I'm not.
But it wasn't something worth mentioning.
Then, I met up with one of the writers in our class who'd written a fun story and was also quite popular in the class.
His character and personality outside of class quickly proved to be no fun. As a friend, he came to share a meal. I suspected he was on drugs because he was so shaky he managed to almost overturn the table. Later I suspected that he'd stolen from me while in my apartment.
We were never a couple. It wasn't an affair. We never kissed - not even a friendly hug. It was just a few meets - a go see - with a classmate.
I was incredibly busy in those days and I just let him go. No biggy. Until he climbed over an eight foot security wall, knocked on my door, which I opened thinking it was the neighbor across the hall, and threw flowers. They flew past me and landed inside my living room.
He said, "I suspected you were with another man!" Then he stomped back down the stairs and out the gate.
I knew he was crazy. There was no "other man" but also absolutely no reason to think we were in a committed relationship that he should express jealousy or anger. And this kind of behavior wouldn't be acceptable to me if we had been.
I told my friend about this. I was irked when it got back to me that she said that because of this brief go-see I was someone who had "trouble in relationships."
Nothing, I thought, to the trouble in hers. She was living with a paranoid. He was suspicious of everyone, especially a new female friend, to the point where he'd accuse her falsely of lesbianism. She'd had to let me into her life slowly. He found it suspicious that I'd invited her to an exercise class held at a community center so he sat outside in their car sulking while she went in and joined us. He checked doors and windows every night in fear of an intruder and I guess that's always possible but they were living in a decent suburban area, without gang warfare. Maybe he had an enemy. Who knows?
He'd let her support him for years. She'd wanted that overturned.
That is a relationship. That is trouble.
It took a while for me to realize that the grip on reality was slipping over at that house.
These were the days when hugging was becoming popular and there was even a hug guru who said everyone needed a minimum of one a day. I was never much of a hugger. I had never touched her. I'd read in an Oprah magazine that you should tell your friends you love them. I never did.
I hadn't seen her for several weeks. She'd called to tell me she'd been re-diagnosed with cancer. It had come back and I knew the treatment this time would extinguish her hopes of having a baby. I was heartbroken for her because having a child had become her obsession.
When she'd told her mother, the woman had blurted, "Why are you telling me this, cancer doesn't run in the family!"
As if it had nothing to do with her.
Her mother had depended on her to financially provide all the extras. My friend had even bought her mom a franchise.
Her husband had gotten a job after all. It was a good job but he traveled and worked long hours.
Who was going to be there for her?
I wrote a little note that Oprah would be proud of and attached it to a few flowers I bought for her on my way home from work.
She had said she wanted a year to be alone, suggesting for spiritual reasons, saying there were three spirits there with her. I accepted this, including the spirits.
I didn't want her to feel abandoned by me, by people.
My flowers included a pink rose for friendship and an iris for hope. It was a simple gesture. When I got to her house, cars in the driveway, I rang the bell and could hear whispers inside, but no one came to the door. It was early in the evening but I assumed it was a bad time. I left the flowers and note on her doorstep.
Her response was exaggerated. She took it all wrong. She sent me a thank you note. She defended her marriage.
The year came and went. I made no further contact with her though I felt sad when I thought of her. Sometimes I would try to imagine what she was going through. Had her mother finally realized her daughter was dying and helped her around the house? As I had offered to. Who took her to appointments for radiation and chemo?
I wondered.
I told myself I probably couldn't imagine what she must be going through.
I told myself she didn't want me to know.
I told myself she didn't care if I was worried.
I got a call from an old member of our extinguished writing group. Would I be interested in a screen writing roundtable? I said no. No interest. He said he'd called her and she hadn't had much to say.
It was uncanny I know, because I rarely bought the paper or read obits, my eyes caught a notice. She'd died a few months before.
I decided I'd been guided to buy that paper, to see that notice. Maybe even by her. The notice guided me to more realizations such as that I'd had an exaggerated notion of what good friends we were.
Maybe that's because when I went over to help her stencil the room that has been intended as a nursery she said, "You are my best friend. None of our other friends would ever come over and do this."
C 2021
