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Just Friends (a short story) by Dallas Nicole Woodburn Ventura CA
He stares straight ahead, face awash in the dim red glare of the stoplight. He taps out a melody on the steering wheel with his thumbs. He is beautiful. “Do you love her?” I ask suddenly, squeezing the foam Disneyland heart, Be Mine embossed in script across its surface like some second-grade Valentine. His eyes meet mine, briefly. “Yes,” he says, and it is something simple, definite, a math equation with the same answer every time. Is two-plus-two four? Yes. Easy as that. It is the meanest thing he’s ever said to me. The light turns green and he takes me home. * * * I have this plant on my desk in a small clay pot. A real plant, with real soil. I water it every Tuesday. My aunt gave it to me for my seventeenth birthday. “It’s good for your chi,” she explained, her penciled-on eyebrows drawn together in seriousness. I don’t know about chi. I don’t even know what kind of plant this is. I think it’s some sort of flower, but I’m not sure. There aren’t any blooms on it right now. * * * Sometimes I lie awake at night and stare at my ceiling. At first it’s kind of boring, but after awhile you start to see things. Images, pictures, like movies unwinding above your head. Sometimes I don’t understand what they mean, and sometimes they don’t seem to make sense – dancing bears changing into a flock of flying birds changing into me, naked, standing in the kitchen of some house I’ve never been to. I used to think maybe they were predictions of the future, but not one has come true yet. I don’t try to wish meaning into things anymore. It’s too depressing. You have to keep staring, and staring, because if you blink the images disappear and your ceiling is just a regular ceiling again, flecks of white paint peeling off in places. You have to keep staring, because when you do it’s almost like you’re dreaming, but your eyes are open. Sometimes I wonder if that’s what it feels like to die. And sometimes I think no, that’s what it feels like to live. * * * “This’ll probably sound stupid,” he says. I don’t say anything, just raise my eyebrows a bit, chewing my gum. I usually don’t like to chew gum. It makes me feel like a cow chewing her cud. But he gave me the gum, so I chew it and almost forget that I don’t like it. “So yesterday I was driving around,” he continues, just as I knew he would, without any response from me, “and I suddenly felt like – I don’t know, it’s hard to explain – like maybe I wasn’t really here, you know? Like what if I don’t exist at all? What if it’s all in my head?” We’re parked at Surfer’s Point, looking out at the midnight waves. A palm tree sways slightly in the April breeze. “No,” I say. “That’s not stupid at all.” Later, he drives me home. The Beatles sing “Let It Be” and the stars are bright and the dashboard is dusty. He smells like vanilla, which would be weird on anyone else but is perfect on him. He doesn’t try to kiss me goodnight. It doesn’t come as a surprise but hurts nonetheless. I feel how ice cubes must feel, clinking against each other, trapped inside a glass. I spit out the gum in my bathroom sink. I look at it for a moment, and then I change into an oversized T-shirt and climb into bed and lie with my legs under the sheet but not the covers because even though it’s still a little chilly out I’ve never cared much for layers of insulation. Too restricting. My bedroom window is open a couple of inches and I know I will wake up in a few hours, curled into the fetal position, trying to get warm. I will give in and pull the covers up from their rumpled post at the foot of my bed. But for now, the thin sheet is enough. I try to stare at the ceiling but it doesn’t work, not tonight. In the morning the gum is a hard round blob. I pick it off the porcelain and throw it in my trash can but there is still a tiny film of gum residue left inside the sink. You wouldn’t notice it, if you didn’t know it was there. But I know it is there and this makes me sad, for some reason. I wish I wasn’t so reckless. * * * When I was six I wanted an invisible friend. All my real friends also had invisible friends. I wanted one too. So. I tried making one up. A girl, like me. In first grade, like me. Red hair, brown eyes, a mole on her left cheek below the jawline. Her name was Molly Hudson. I don’t know why I chose the name Molly Hudson. It sounded nice, I guess. The first day we decided to play tea party. Actually, I decided, and Molly didn’t object. I carefully placed the teacups on their paper doilies, the plastic crumpets on their plastic plates, the teapot a queen bee in the center of the table. Then we sat down. It only lasted a few minutes. I tried talking to Molly, but she never responded. I tried smiling at her, but she never smiled back. I tried, but I could never quite see her, sitting across the table from me. I felt stupid. So my invisible friend – who never appeared – disappeared. I lost her. I guess, even at six years old, I didn’t have enough imagination. A few weeks later, I thought I caught a glimpse of Molly Hudson, a flash of red hair and serious brown eyes, but then I realized I was looking into a mirror. * * * My mother comes with me to pick out my graduation announcements. I tell her I can go by myself, but I think she’s afraid I’ll pick out the wrong ones. I probably would. She is upset because we have to buy our caps and gowns instead of renting them. “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard!” she says, like it is a personal affront to her parenting skills. I tell her maybe I can borrow Jenny’s cap and gown. Jenny is my cousin. She graduated last year. But my mother will have none of it. She prefers to argue. I pick out the simplest design for my announcements: plain namecards, block lettering, the minimal amount of gilded swirls around the border. My mother favors the more ornate ones, with the formal sticker seals and gold embossing. We end up getting those. * * * “Of course we’ll stay in touch,” he says. I lean back against the headrest and close my eyes. I have a headache. I try to picture writing him e-mails and I can’t. I try to picture college and I can’t envision that either. “Yeah,” I say. “I know we will.” * * * For Christmas my mother got my dad a silk shirt with Hawaiian print. He didn’t like it but pretended he did, trying it on and modeling it for us with a too-tight smile. “Thank you,” he said, giving my mother a kiss. I asked him why he doesn’t just take it back. Mom wouldn’t mind. “But I love her,” Dad answered, as if that was all the explanation needed. Now, four years later, the silk Hawaiian shirt still hangs in his closet, pressed between collared dress shirts and formal suit jackets. You’d think my mother would notice he’s never worn it. But she doesn’t. * * * Sometimes I look in the mirror and it feels like I am looking at a stranger. * * * I take Herman for a walk. Herman is my golden retriever and he likes walks, though not long walks in the summertime because it is hot and he is growing old. We walk around the block once. It is not a big block. By the end Herman is trailing behind me, like a quickly-wilting flower, not even bothering to stop and sniff at random bushes. When we get inside the house I clip off his leash and pat him on the head. He has a bald patch and he likes me to scratch him there. “Good boy, Herman,” I say. “Good boy.” * * * He stares straight ahead, face awash in the dim glow from the streetlamp. He taps his thumbs on the steering wheel, a nervous habit. He is beautiful. “Well,” I say, opening the car door. “I’d better go. Thanks for the ride.” “No problem.” Suddenly he looks over at me. “Goodbye,” he says, and it seems as if he wants to say something more. Like maybe it isn’t so simple, maybe life isn’t a math equation, maybe two-plus-two doesn’t always equal four, maybe . . . maybe . . . It is the nicest thing he’s ever said to me. “Goodbye,” I say, climbing out. I shut the door behind me and walk up the driveway, my purse dangling against my right calf. When I reach the doorstep I turn around, just briefly, and glance back. But he’s already gone.
THE END
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