Her and I had been friends once…..really good friends but now I am not sure I know her. She called me out of the blue her voice weak and tight; she was in town, she wanted to meet and now here I am staring at a Guinness as we try and find some semblance of a conversation. I can’t remember how long it has been. As she goes on and on about her job and her rise in her career for the past 6 years I am flooded with memories as I try and place the last time I saw her. Her hair is short now. She constantly plays with it and pushes it back but then she leans forward and it hangs again in her face. She is still beautiful but now there is something else she wears besides her age. I can’t quite figure it out as she continues to talk. She asks me about my wife, my kids, my life but as I tell her a bit I can see and sense her drift off. I give her the Cliff’s Notes version of my life instead of the full version and she smiles and says, “great…..really great” but in that practiced polite way that we all do when someone says at a barbecue something like “how was the steak?”
I’m not good at this anymore. I feel like over the years I just can’t do small talk anymore. ”What is the point of this?”, I often think to myself. I want to make a rule with any person that knows me and say, “look I don’t want to talk about the housing market, or the price of pie, or the new really funny commercial on TV or how your parents got a new RV. I want to have real fucking conversations instead of this pap, this filler, this empty waste of time.”
She asks me how “my San Diego Chargers are doing.” I almost walk out. I have absolutely no patience sometimes…..well…..actually all the time. You see, I can’t live that way anymore. Something in me says, “this life is short my friends so lets talk about real things, lets eat real food, lets focus our energy towards a life that feeds our souls!” I am not interested in this person who used to be alive, I want to dig underneath all the dirt and find her again.
She takes out her iphone and looks at it as the waitress talks to me. I order a whiskey to go with my Guinness, I feel I am going to need it. ”oh my God this is so funny! Have you seen this!” She turns her phone to me to show a video of a baby sneezing and scaring a cat that jumps into a lamp. ”ya, that is pretty funny” I say with forced smile. A part of me is beginning to push forward and I think to myself, “uh oh. Take it easy Trent. Be nice, have your drink, smile, wave and go home. You don’t need to do this.”
She stares at her phone some more and then says, “Oh my God! Have you seen this commercial? It is so wild! Watch this guy.” She turns her phone to me to show me another youtube video. “oh shit” I think. Here it comes.Something in me can’t stand it anymore and is now in front. After an hour and a half of politeness; I lose it.
“Ya I have seen it Mandy and the one with the babies rollerskating and the one of the dancing wedding and whatever else you have on your phone. Look are we going to talk about anything real or what? Why am I here? Why did you call me? Are we really going to watch youtube all night and pretend we are talking?”
She stares back at me stunned and slowly puts down her phone, “I just thought we could………I don’t know”
“Yes, what? You thought what?” softening my voice, suddenly aware that I have totally snapped at her.
“I just thought we could talk. You know about the old days.”
“Why? What is there to say about those time? They were great Mandy but they are gone. What is going on with you right now?”
“I already told you, you know work and….”
“Ya I know but what is going on with YOU right now. That is what I am interested in. Not work. Not your finances. You.”
“You’ve changed. I thought we could have a drink and catch up but…”
“I know but seriously Mandy what is going on with you. Last time we talked you were married. You followed him to the east coast, you left your career, your family and everything else to make it work. What happened?”
“Nothing, I mean, he just changed and I tried to make it work but….well you know”
“No I don’t know, but what? But what Mandy? What happened?”
She pushes her hair back and stares up at the ceiling and lets out a long exhale. Her gaze comes back down and gently looks back at me. Whatever I noticed on her face before is now gone for the moment. Tears are there now but still distant.
“I tried really hard to be what he wanted. It was a full time job, believe me. I just woke up one morning and…”
She looks down at her drink and suddenly drinks it all in one gulp.
“Fuck this,” she says with a small quiet smile. She shakes her head, takes a deep breath, straightens her hair and runs her hands down her face as if smoothing out a wrinkle on a bed sheet.
“It was good to see you.” She then gets up and walks out of the bar.
I scramble to find some money to pay our bill and finally throw it on the table and run after her. She is walking fast towards her car.
“you woke up one morning and what!” I call out to her.
“What?” She spins and snaps her face to me, “what!?”
“You woke up one morning and what?” I say gently and out of breath as I catch up to her.
“You know, what the fuck, I haven’t seen you in how many years and now we are going to do this? I’m getting a headache. I don’t….”
Suddenly it comes to me when I last saw her, “Your wedding. You last saw me at your wedding.”
We both stare at each other for awhile after a flood of memories roll through us both.
“You woke up one morning and what?” I say to her again as I move to make eye contact with her.
“You don’t stop do you! Shit. Shit.” She is pacing back and forth in the parking lot now. “Goddamn it, Trent,” she says pushing her hair back with both hands tightly against her head as she stares up at the moon.
“HE FUCKING LEFT ME! OKAY! Are you happy now!?!”
The night is quiet now and I suddenly feel very sorry that I have pushed so hard, that I have opened up a window that can’t be shut now but then I think, “how else can any air get in.”
“No I am not happy Mandy. I am really sorry that happened. I really am. Look at me, I am really sorry.”
“ya well, what the fuck are you going to do.” She says this as she tries to smooth her skirt but tears start to fall and she covers her face.
“You woke up one morning and what? You were going to answer that and then something stopped you. Go back to that part of you that wanted to say something. Can you do that? Just be quiet for a moment and then answer that question from the same place from where it came.”
“Jesus…what the….I just said he fucking left me isn’t that enough?”
“Just be quiet for a moment and then answer….trust me.”
She is glaring at me with eyes like splinters. A man walks up and says, “is everything ok here?” I tell him we are fine. He asks her directly and she actually takes an uncomfortable amount of time to answer. Finally he leaves. I turn back to her after he leaves and both of her hands are on her stomach now. She gasps and then doubles over wrapping both arms around her stomach and falling to the curb. Tears are coming in waves now. I wait a long time for all the grief, shame and hurt she has been carrying to spill out before she speaks again.
An old familiar voice emerges from her “It was never enough. I was never enough. I thought if I could just always keep him happy he would always love me. I never stood up for myself. I spent all my time doing whatever he wanted or needed or felt was right. I kidded myself by saying relationships were about compromising but I was the only one compromising. The truth was I was too scared to say the truth or stand up for myself. I didn’t want him to be disappointed in me or angry with me. Shit, I do that with everyone in my life; my dad, my work, my brother…everyone. It is the only way I feel important or cared for or loved.”
Her voice is calm now, her face is clear and bright and I see my old friend again for the first time.
“I just kept stuffing myself down even when I knew I was right, I kept stuffing and stuffing until……..I woke up….. I woke up one morning and I didn’t know who I was anymore. My whole life was about stuffing down and distracting myself. I was so lost, so numb. He left me anyways. [she laughs] He wanted someone who was more ‘full of life’ he said.”
I sit next to her on the curb for awhile and we both stare at the moon.
“This isn’t who I am Trent. Not really. You know that right?”
“Yes I do. I remember the girl who wasn’t so worried about pleasing everyone all the time. Who was confident and loved to dance. Remember when you were going out with Martin and I was with Anna and after dinner you danced in that fountain and we had to bribe that cop to let you go?”
She thinks for a moment, her eyes light up and then begins to laugh again, “ya….ya I do. Oh my god, I forgot about that.”
She smiles at me, “I liked that girl.”
“Now we can talk,” I say as I pull her up from the curb.
“Jerk.”
“Ya, I know.”
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