vulnerable everywhere?
I thought about Greg. My love was probably making plans for tonight, maybe even getting flowers. Greg is very romantic. I shut my eyes, bent my head and leaned my cheek against the cool white piano keys. Suddenly I was remembering a man from a very long time ago who wasn’t so romantic.
“Stop it, please! You’re hurting me!”
“If you and Moira would listen to me for once instead of always trying to fight me on everything, I wouldn’t have to keep you in line like this.”
I closed my eyes, trying to quash those thoughts, but they simmered on the surface. Stop it, I told myself. Think about good things, about pleasant things. Doesn’t the Bible encourage this, after all? I’d been trying to live by its precepts since I’d become a Christian seven years ago.
So why should this happen now? It just wasn’t fair.
A tear fell onto the piano keys. I put my music books back into my bag, got out my cell phone and, before I could change my mind, called Greg at his home, a place I hoped he wouldn’t be. The phone rang once and I had a horrible feeling that he might answer it. What if he’d gone home early? I was counting on him not answering. It rang twice. I held my breath. Three times and I began to relax. On the fourth ring it went to the machine, and I said as pleasantly as I could, “Greg? It’s me. Sorry I missed you.” I coughed a bit for effect. “I’m so sorry, but I’m going to have to cancel tonight. I know, I know, but I am just so totally sick. I don’t know what’s come over me, but you really do not want to be around me tonight. You might catch it. I’m surprised I can even talk this long on the phone without running to the bathroom. It came on me so suddenly. So, hey, I’ll talk to you tomorrow. We’ll reschedule.” I hung up and very carefully and deliberately turned off my cell phone. Then I bent my head into my hands. I’d just told another lie in a long string of lies to the person I wanted to spent the rest of my life with.
When I got home to my apartment, I went into my room, and closed the door. I pulled my two big suitcases out from under my bed and haphazardly began stuffing clothes and books inside. When one suitcase was filled with my music books and composition papers, it became obvious that I couldn’t take everything. But when I got to where I was going, wherever that was, I wouldn’t be able to send for my stuff. Because I would have disappeared. Like I had eight years ago. Except I hadn’t, had I?
My mistake, I thought, as I crammed in T-shirts and jeans and socks and sweaters, was in ever thinking that I could have a normal life—get married, have children, go to church and pick out china patterns—like a regular person.
If I got in my car right now, I could miss rush hour maybe. I looked out my window to the street three stories below. Bridget and I live on a semi-busy avenue lined with old brownstones like ours. It’s also a pedestrian street with lots of ancient trees and people who walk dogs or jog or push baby carriages along the cement sidewalk. The church spire towers on the left, and I confess to often sitting right here, just to catch a glimpse of my beloved. I sat at the window and cried for all that I was about to lose.
And this is the way Bridget found me an hour later, sitting on my bed, clutching a book of poems that Greg had bought me, crying. I quickly dried my eyes on the ends of my sleeves and said, “What are you doing home so early?”
“Oh, Lilly!” She dropped the high heels she’d been holding and raced to my side. “You look so sick! Greg called me and told me you guys aren’t going out tonight. Do you want me to stay home with you? Was it something you ate? Why don’t I make some of my chicken soup?” She sat beside me, placed her perfectly manicured fingers on my forehead and looked at me sadly. Then she noticed the mess on my bed. “What’s all this?”
If there is another person I didn’t want to lie to, it’s Bridget, but again, I didn’t think I had a choice. We’ve shared this apartment for four years, and I value her wisdom and her friendship more than I can say. I could never lie to her and yet—and yet—I had and I would continue to do so.
I said, “I thought maybe of going home…I don’t know.”
“Are you that sick, Lilly?” Her eyes were wide as she sat beside me in her mauve designer suit. She pulled her stockinged feet up underneath her. Bridget works in a downtown Boston office. The first thing she does when she walks in the door from work is pull off her heels and groan about sore feet. She does this absolutely every day, even before she removes her coat.
Four years ago, when the rent on this place went up, it became apparent that with my music-store salary, I wasn’t going to be able to afford a somewhat pricey, top-floor walkup on my own. It has basically three rooms: two bedrooms and a large living space which is a combination living and dining room with a kitchen nook in the back. It’s a cute place, and even though it’s as expensive as the sky, I didn’t want to give it up. Plus, I love the location.
I let it be known around the church that I needed a roommate, and Bridget came and saw me. We’ve been best friends ever since. She seems so very sleek and sophisticated, but she bakes tollhouse cookies on the weekend, knits socks for her nieces and nephews and knows the names of all our neighbors.
She was sitting beside me, a worried look on her face as she raised her flawlessly waxed eyebrows. Even at the end of the day, her auburn hair shimmered and fell into place like in a TV commercial.
“And you’re going to need your music books there? A whole suitcase full of them?” She looked at me and then something seemed to register. “Oh Lilly, you really are sick, aren’t you? Does Greg know? When did you find out?”
I put up my hand. I had to stop her. “No, no. I’m not dying. I’m okay. Well, sick, but okay. I’m just organizing. I was feeling a speck better, so I decided to organize.”
“And you’re going home?”
“I don’t know. I’m just not thinking. I…” And then I began to cry deep, heaving sobs. I just couldn’t stop myself.
Bridget hugged me. “I’ll stay with you. I don’t have to go to that stupid company dinner tonight. I’ll call right now and cancel so I can be with you here. You shouldn’t be alone.”
“No, Bridget, you don’t have to. Really. Don’t miss your dinner on account of me.”
“My dinner is nothing compared to the welfare of my best friend.”
I looked down at my hands. Quietly, I said, “I lied to Greg. I’m not really sick, Bridget. I’m just afraid.” I looked at her. “I can’t go into it. It’s complicated and has to do with a whole lot of stuff that happened to me before I came here, before I met Greg.”
“But honey, everybody gets afraid. Everything is different for you now. You’re a Christian. The past is in the past and you and Greg love each other.”
I shook my head. Oh, if it were that simple. And as I looked up into the pretty face of my best friend, I thought about the pretty face of another best friend from a long time ago. Her name was Moira Peterson. At a time in my life when no one was my friend, we two clung to each other as if drowning.
THREE
I finally persuaded Bridget to go to her dinner when I told her I needed a bit of alone time to work through my thoughts and that I hoped she would understand. She left, but not without me promising that I’d call her on her cell if I needed her to come home. She’d come immediately, she said. Even if she were in the middle of a conversation with the owner of the company—even about a six-figure raise—she’d drop everything and skedaddle home. Bridget, who grew up in the country, freely uses words like skedaddle.
I couldn’t wait for her to leave so I could cry in private, but when she did, I felt lonely, afraid and desperate. I was actually getting a stomachache. At this rate, I really would be throwing up. That thought gave me a peculiar sort of comfort. At least then I wouldn’t be lying any more. I closed my eyes and snuggled down deep into the blankets on my bed.
I’d told Bridget I wanted to go home, when actually that was about the last