Guarded - Part Two

***

         

                It was one of the quietest meals they’d ever shared. Between Danielle’s exhaustion and the tension between the two women, conversation barely passed the “so how’s work/husband/kids?” level. Fortunately Katana was one of their favorite hangouts for more than just their extensive martini menu, and both women enjoyed their favorite sushi as they danced around the topic of conversation that neither one seemed willing to breach.

         Finally, after the edamame and the dumplings and the rolls, as they were sitting and nursing their second martinis an awkward silence fell between the two. Danielle carefully examined the depths of her drink, quietly dreading the conversation she knew was coming. Dreading revisiting the past, the scars she still carried from that friendship lost so long ago.  Dreading the possibility – the probability? -  of going through it all over again. The knot in her stomach tightened at the thought, she really wished she had run for home when she had the chance.

         “Danielle?” Lynn asked quietly - interrupting Danielle’s musings. She was looking down, shifting the lime slice around the rim of her glass. “You didn’t answer my question. Back at the office.”

         “Sorry, Lynn, what? I didn’t hear you.” Danielle fibbed.

         A knowing smile crossed Lynn’s face, and now she looked up, right into Danielle’s eyes.  She knows me too well, Danielle thought, suppressing a sad smile herself.

         “Have I hurt your feelings?”

         “To tell you the truth Lynn, I thought I was the one who had crossed a line. I thought I had hurt or scared you, or… or something.” Danielle’s voice trailed off.

         “What?” Lynn seemed genuinely incredulous. “What in the world made you think that?”

         “Well…” Danielle hesitated again. “It’s just that ever since the funeral you’ve seemed, I don’t know… distant I guess.”

“Distant?”

“Well, yeah. I mean, I’ve barely heard from you. You haven’t talked to me at work, you haven’t been online, haven’t been texting. And I just thought, I mean, well I thought I’d scared you off.”

“Danielle, what the hell are you talking about? I’ve been busy is all. How could you think I was avoiding you?”

“I know, I mean I don’t know, I mean… ah shit. I’m gonna need another martini.” Danielle sighed, then caught their waitress’ eye and signaled for a refill. Taking a deep breath, she said “Look, Lynn, there’s a story I’ve never told you – or Bev or Kelley for that matter. Maybe if I do now, I’ll make more sense.”

“OK.” Lynn couldn’t seem to find anything more to say. Instead she just looked at Danielle, confused and expectant.

“Do you remember me mentioning my former friend Dina?”

“Yes.”

“Well, there’s a whole story there.”

“I figured, but, well, I never really knew how to ask.”

“It’s OK, if you had I would have bullshitted my way out of giving you a real answer.”

“Danielle, if you don’t want to talk about it…” Lynn began.

“No,” Danielle interrupted. “I want to. Well, not really, but – I think I have to, in order to – ah, you’ll see what I mean.” she said, meeting her friend’s eyes again. Lynn looked puzzled, but not put off. Here goes, thought Danielle. “Dina and I were really close, like sisters close. We worked together and we lived on the same block. We got along great, we bonded pretty much immediately after we met. We saw each other literally every day, we went to the gym together, you name it. Her sisters even started calling me the ‘Fourth Fairbanks Girl’ we were around each other so much.”

“It sounds great.”

“Yeah, it was,” Danielle looked down again. “Then it changed. See, the whole time we were growing closer Dina kept saying things like ‘You’re a better friend than I’ll ever be. Don’t get too close to me, I know I’ll let you down. It’s just the way I am, so you’d better accept it.’ and like that.”

Danielle raised her eyes again here – and just for a second, she thought she saw a hint of recognition in Lynn’s face. Then it was gone, so Danielle plunged forward.

“The thing is, even through all those pronouncements, Dina kept acting like a good friend. We’d talk, we’d share, she knew things about me I hardly share with anyone. And she shared things with me too. We were the consummate best girlfriends. I hadn’t had that kind of friendship since college, and I missed it incredibly. So I blew off the warnings and I began to really trust in the connections between us.”

“It sure sounds like you guys were close.”

“Yeah, we were. And then a while after I started to trust like that, Dina got pregnant. I think it was the best time of our friendship. We shopped for baby clothes, she ran ideas by me for the nursery, we went through baby name books. She even shared with me about how scared she was – not the kind of thing she had done before. We were so connected, one night I had this incredibly vivid dream. In the dream it was the middle of the night and I was sleeping, when the phone started ringing. Somehow I knew it was Dina, but I couldn’t get to the phone and she had to leave a message on my answering machine: ‘Danielle, it’s me. I’m having the baby. Tommy’s driving me to the hospital now. I know it’s the middle of the night, but I knew you’d want to know. I’ll call you tomorrow!’ And that’s when I woke up, absolutely convinced that the call had been real. To the point where I went and checked my answering machine, which of course had no message. But I knew it was really happening, even without the message. You know I don’t usually buy stuff like this, ESP and all that, but I was convinced that dream was telling me Dina was in labor. And when I passed their house the next morning on my way to work her car was gone, which it never was at that time of the morning. So then I’m more convinced, and frankly a little freaked out.”

“I’ll bet.”

“So of course I get to work and our boss tells me what I was already convinced was true anyway – Dina’s at the hospital and in labor. When I went in to see her and meet the baby the next day she told me all about the contractions waking her up, and her waking Tommy up and the whole comedy of getting out of the house in the middle of the night.  So I asked her what time they left and she said ‘3:30 why?’ That’s when I told her the whole story of my dream, ending with the real kicker – when I got up to check my answering machine for that non-existent message, it was 3:30 in the morning.”

“Wow… that’s… I didn’t realize, I mean, you’ve mentioned her, but that’s just…you were close, huh?” Lynn stumbled.

“Yeah well, I guess the operative word there is ‘were’, really.” Danielle gave a sharp laugh.

“What happened?” Lynn asked. She was so caught up she even forgot to add her usual “tell me to eff off if it’s too personal” caveat.

Danielle exhaled a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. “You know, Lynn, I know what she told me, I know the sequence of events, but I doubt I’ll ever really know what happened. Not in her mind anyway.”

“What do you mean?” Lynn asked.

“I mean, I guess, I know what I did, but I don’t know what in her made her react the way she did. And I never will.” Danielle looked back to the now half-finished martini in her hand. Her mind was racing. She hadn’t thought about all this in so long, sharing it all like this, even with Lynn, was so much harder than she’d ever thought it would be. They were coming to the point where Lynn could easily put it all together and become the next person after Dina to see that part of Danielle that she kept so closely guarded. And that terrified Danielle. But she was in too deep, all she could do now was keep going. And pray that Lynn was actually less like Dina that Danielle thought. “Anyway, after she had the baby, and after I’d told her about my eerie dream, I felt so close to Dina, I trusted that I could tell her anything. After all, I almost had.”

“Almost?”

“Almost. What I hadn’t told her was…” Danielle paused, fear now almost closing her throat. “…was how much her friendship meant to me. So I did. I bought her a baby gift, and I bought her a card. And in the card I wrote her a note. I thanked her for her friendship, for the fun times, for the listening and the sharing and for caring and letting me be a part of her world. I told her in so many words that her friendship was something I treasured and that I was truly grateful to have her in my life.” Danielle didn’t need to look up, she could practically feel Lynn’s stare boring into her.

“Wait a second Danielle, you’re telling me… a card…” Lynn started to say, but Danielle knew where she was going and she cut her off before she could get there.

“I know Lynn, but please – just let me get through all of this, OK?

“But… yeah, OK” Lynn conceded for the moment.

“Anyway, right there something changed. Suddenly the visits, the invites, the calls, the IMs – they all stopped. It was like she’d dropped off the face of the earth. Or I had. So I tried to reach out to her. I called, I IM-ed and she wouldn’t respond. I couldn’t believe it. I had no clue what was going on. We were so close then… it was like she’d just slammed the door on me. I was crushed. Somehow I’d lost the best friend I’d made in 10 years. Or thought I’d made I guess. Finally I couldn’t take it, I had to know what happened. So I went over to her house. I remember it was pouring rain and I was standing on her back porch and she was standing in the kitchen, looking out the window at me and mouthing ‘I’m not going to talk about it’ over and over.” Danielle closed her eyes, trying to block the tears she had somehow contained until now, and tightened her grip on the stem of her glass. “Dammit. Sorry. Anyway I guess she finally realized she had to talk to me because a couple days later she called. And she told me we weren’t going to be friends anymore. She didn’t want to be around me and she didn’t want me around her daughter. She told me that what I thought was just a really close, terrific friendship was too ‘intense.’ She told me my note was too much for her to take, and in so many words, to just back off.” Danielle finished with a small sob, looked away and wiped a tear from her eye. “Sorry, I know… the whole weepy thing… I just,” Danielle sighed, trying to gather her composure. “I just haven’t talked about this in a really long time.”

“So you…” Lynn began.

“So I,” Danielle interrupted emphatically “had to go on, without my friend. But worse, without understanding what had happened. And since all this was happening just as I was dealing with Mom’s cancer diagnosis… well that’s when I started therapy with Sue. And even though I got past it, I have never fully been able to shake the feeling that it was my fault. I ignored her when she told me she wouldn’t make a good friend. I trusted her with my feelings, I sent her that Goddamned note.” Danielle paused again here, fighting back more tears, but she went on before Lynn could interrupt again. “I swore I’d never be that stupid again. I’d know who I could trust and I’d only share my real feelings with them. Period. I figured ‘who needs new friends anyway?’ So when Kelley makes those comments about me being ‘closed off’, yeah, well, that’s intentional.”

“But I don’t see you as closed off.”

“I haven’t been with you. At least, not so much as I have with them.  I feel like we have more in common. You know more about my depression, more details, just because you’ve been through similar things with Paul.” Danielle drained the last of her drink. “And I’m afraid that’s where I let my guard down again. Just like I’d sworn I wouldn’t. But I did. Because I trusted you, and despite everything I was terrified of, there came that point where you said you trusted me. When you said that, I was so happy, I thought maybe I’d escaped the old ghosts at last.”

“Danielle, you lost me – what have I got to do with ‘ghosts’ or whatever you’re talking about?”Lynn asked, pushing aside the check the waitress had quietly dropped on the table.

“Don’t you see Lynn?” Danielle looked up now, trying to find the nerve to say what she’d been so carefully dancing around. One more deep breath and – “You remind me of Dina, you have since the day we met. It’s what made me feel so instantly close to you. And what scared me away from your initial offers of friendship.”

“I did wonder…” Lynn started, and Danielle could imagine she was going back in her mind, back to 10 years earlier, when they had first met and Danielle had backed away from her so suddenly.

“You probably thought I was such a bitch.”

“No, never, I mean… I always thought you were a really nice person.” Lynn quickly interjected.

“Well, thanks for that anyway.” Danielle sighed “See, what happened was, as soon as it hit me that what had drawn me to your friendship was how similar your personality was to Dina’s I just ran like hell. Shut down. I knew I’d get close to you and I was afraid I’d get myself trashed again. But it didn’t work… the friendship with Bev and Kelley started, then you came into the department and before I could really think about it the friendship I swore I’d avoid grew up of its own accord.” Danielle paused again, looking up at the clock and wondering if their waitress was going to come over and kick them out. She didn’t, and Danielle went on. “So there I was, half my promise to myself shot. But I could still hold onto the other half. No matter how much your friendship meant to me, you had been really clear that your friendships were casual things, so there was no way I was going to show you that it was ny different for me.”

“Because if you did, you figured I’d pull a Dina and tell you to eff off.”

Now you’re starting to get it, Danielle thought. But she went on as if Lynn hadn’t spoken. “But like I said, we started talking more, you shared so much with me after you and Paul lost the baby last year – and everything you’ve gone through since. You were showing me that you trusted out friendship, then you did what was unusual for you and outright told me you trusted me… and like I said that made me confident in our friendship. And then Dad died. And you and Bev and Kelley were there, the only friends I’ve made in the past 10 years who were. I was so touched, I went and broke the other half of that promise to myself.” Danielle stopped again, wiping her now thoroughly red eyes.

“And you told me thank you, and you told me I mattered to you, in your thank-you card.”

“Yeah, I did. So now you see what I mean when I say I I have to wonder if I crossed a line. When you stopped talking with me, I just figured, well I figured it must have been that I misread things between us. That I heard things about our friendship that you didn’t mean to say, read too much between the lines. So when you backed off, I backed off. I figured I’d lost a friend. Again.” Danielle stopped. That was it, story told and she’d survived. Survived with an ache in the pit of her stomach, but she’d been there before. Now the question is – does this friendship survive? That question Lynn had to answer.

“Danielle, I’m so sorry.” Now Lynn was looking down, now she seemed to be the one searching for words. “I thought I was being… I thought it was best…” she stammered. Then she looked up, and Danielle couldn’t believe what she saw. There were tears in Lynn’s eyes. Lynn didn’t cry, not in public, not like this. Well, that one time when she told Danielle about losing the baby – but even then she almost seemed more upset about getting “all super-emotional” than about what she was saying. Now she wasn’t making any move to hide her tears. She just blinked and said simply “I got pregnant again. In November.”

“Lynn, what? November? But it’s March… why?”Danielle stopped, utterly confused.

“Danielle, I found out right after they admitted your dad to Hospice.”

“And you didn’t…”

“Please, Danielle. Now I’m the one that need to finish talking, OK?” Lynn waited for Danielle to nod her OK before she plunged on. “I was terrified, after the miscarriage, and you already had so much on your plate… no, don’t.” she said, cutting off the rebuke she knew was on Danielle’s lips. “I know how you feel about that, but it’s what I did. Then just a few weeks later, you dad was gone. Then right after the funeral…” Lynn stopped, choking back a sob, “so was the baby.”

“Lynn, how the hell could you not tell me?” Danielle cried. Suddenly all her own pain was pushed aside as she thought of her friend’s torment.

“Danielle you were mourning your father! It all happened during your leave, it was just a replay of the nightmare: the bleeding, the hospital, the look in my OB’s eyes, the pain… then the D&C and I was back at work before you were. All while you were dealing with the funeral aftermath and the house and the bullshit with your brothers – what the hell could you have done?”

Danielle swallowed the lump in her throat. “I could have been a friend to you, Lynn. That’s what I could have done. That’s what I would have wanted to do!”

“I know. That’s why I’m sorry. I thought I was sheltering you somehow. But I didn’t realize the timing. And I didn’t know the story you just told me…” Lynn paused, wiped her eyes and reached into her purse. “…or I never would have tried to back away from your caring just after you sent me this.” Danielle looked down at Lynn’s purse, and saw her friend pulling out the thank-you card Danielle had sent her after the funeral. Danielle could see it was worn, frayed from floating around in Lynn’s bag. Had she really been carrying it around all this time? “See Danielle, I wasn’t put off by what you said. It meant more to me than I can ever tell you. You were being a friend to me, you just didn’t know it. So it really is me who’s sorry. I wish I could undo it, I wish I could go back. I wish I hadn’t hurt…” Lynn’s voice trailed off as she glanced down at the card she was holding open in front of her. “I wish I hadn’t hurt the closest friend I’ve made in years.” She sighed, putting the card back in its place.

Danielle looked up, stunned. The knot in her stomach dissolved. She had her answer. She had a friend who didn’t run from caring, despite what she’d thought.

“Lynn, I…” there was so much Danielle wanted to say, but now she could see in Lynn’s eyes that she didn’t need to. “I think we’d better pay up and let these guys get home,” she said, nodding toward the shadows in the restaurant kitchen, “or they might refuse to seat us next Friday.”

She smiled, and when Lynn grinned back at her she knew she understood. Next Friday, Dinner with a friend.