Perspective: Notes on Spaghetti and A Phone Call Gone Bad

I’ve missed her terribly.

I think I’ve said that before, and probably said it more than once since October 7th when she moved out of the condo across the hall. My Lainie. My Sit On The Front Step And Figure Out The Universe Companion, gone. In a couple of simple moves with a truck.

It hasn’t been the same without her, never mind that The Odd Girl Downstairs has been much friendlier since she left. “I always thought,” Lainie said tonight, “she wanted to be friends with us, but she’d kind of feel like she was intruding.” I digested that, because it was true. Lainie and I did have a way, maybe because we had birthdays two days apart, or maybe because we were both single women and both so damnably alike on so many subjects (usually any and all of those we gave any thought to at all) that anytime anyone encountered one of our ‘in depth discussions’ (read: nightly occurrences) on the front step, would have thought that to interrupt, to intrude, to attempt even in a small way to become a part of, would have been unthinkable.

I can’t explain that, except to say that she and I could talk about everything…even about God, if you will (and we did) and we were on the same page.

Indelibly.

“I was really bothered,” Lainie said tonight, “thinking as soon as I moved she’d try to take my place.”

“Not happening,” I said, without hesitation. True, she’s been friendlier, and we’ve even exchanged entire conversations in the evenings after work and on the odd Saturday morning. But to replace Lainie? I don’t think so.

I remember once, when Lainie had her heart broken (In hindsight, maybe it was more than once. She lived here over a year, we’re both single, and these things, these broken hearts, they happen fairly often), I was busy at the time, madly dashing off to spend time with someone I was ‘in a relationship’ (read: sharing communal emotional misdirection) with and couldn’t stop to console her. I did, however, give her my password for Netflix, two issues of Oprah, and a roll of quarters for laundry, assuring her that if she’d just hole up in her place for the weekend, watch romantic comedies on her computer until she couldn’t see straight, and read at a minimum the “Things We Love” articles in Oprah, she’d survive. I’d check on her when the weekend was over.

She survived, because she’s Lainie.

Still, I felt bad. In hindsight, I made the wrong choice and should have stayed home with her that evening. But sometimes, even a grown up, rational adult makes choices that aren’t perfect.

What was perfect was tonight. I hate to say this, but she’s been gone, as I said, nearly a month, and it’s been this long until we both found time to spend time together. Work schedules, and all that. Her schedule with Blake (he’s a keeper, I do not begrudge her that), my writer’s group and book club and need for a night alone to just hit the pillows before nine. Still. She emailed, invited me over for dinner, and to see her new place.

It’s not that much different from this one, except…well, the foyers are bigger. She doesn’t have a hallway anywhere that I could see, although the rooms are bigger, and it feels spacious. It would seem great, I thought, and tried not to laugh when she told me that even ‘great’ has its drawbacks.

The walls, apparently, are paper thin. To the point that the last time Blake visited past 10pm, one of her neighbors banged on the wall adjacent to her bedroom with a broom. I had to laugh about that. The Old Dutch Village is nothing but solid, the only irony to that being, there’s certainly not now and not for some time been a reason for it to be so solid, when it comes to my own bedroom walls. “You can hear,” she said, “out in the foyer”, and that meant even our dinner table conversation was audible to anyone lingering outside.

A definite minus, in my book and clearly in hers, but still, it was less expensive. It was home. OK, it looked different, but it looked at the same time, all Lainie. Even right down to her wooden sign over the sink, “When things get too hard to stand…kneel”, which I’ve always appreciated.

I had a remarkable dinner. Spaghetti.

The irony wasn’t lost on me, thinking of the last homemade spaghetti I made and where it finally ended up (I think, anyway) residing.

We shared a small bottle of Little Lulu Pinot Noir, and I left at 9:15.

“Text me when you get home,” she said, and I did, as soon as I leashed up Basil and got her out of the car. Basil, it should be noted, completely enjoyed the evening. She knows home when she’s standing in it, even if it isn’t the one she lives in.

“We’ll do it again,” I said, with a heartfelt hug as I left, and having received one in return, after dinner and spending a half hour or so sitting on her couch, figuring out the universe as it were as we once did on the steps.

I had barely walked in the door when I got a phone call.

I am seldom the recipient of a Drink and Dial, but tonight was the exception, and it was from Brent Babcock. My husband, circa 1991 - 2007. He was still in much pain over the loss of his twin, and even confided, “I have moments of sadness. Yeah, the last one I had, I was on a Southwest flight from Denver…I broke down and was escorted off the plane.” He laughed then, and finished, “but they were very nice about it.”

Well, yay Southwest.

I listened because that’s what friends do, and said not much. He talked about his ‘relationship’, the Norwegian woman he’d found on Match.com and had been with ‘for over a year’ but was now ‘thinking about letting go’. I didn’t’ say much about that, either, feeling my place was to be a sounding board.

Maybe there are occasions where being a friend, and an objective sounding board, are not recommended. He then said something very hurtful, and very much intended to make me angry, and strangely enough, I wasn’t angry at all. Not considering the source. Some people claim to feel loss. This man honestly has experienced that. “I’m not looking forward to my next birthday,” he said. “It will be my first without my brother.”

Because I am a human being, I didn’t really have a rejoinder.

“So what…are you mad at me?” He asked. “Have I totally pissed you off?”

“No,” I said, and then listened as he finished up with a few more things he felt might and having heard no result, he said, “Well, I only called you because I’m drunk” (which had been obvious, honestly, since I took the call).

“Well OK, then,” I said. “That’s what friends are for.”

At this point, he said he’d talk to me later and hung up on me.

Which is not, pre or post divorce, a new experience. It just felt odd, coming on the heels (and barely as I’d come in the door, to be honest) of such a perfect evening with a very good friend.

Which only made me realize, as I turned off my cell phone for the day and plugged it into the charger, that life is all about how we choose to see it.

In that moment, I chose to see it as a wonderful dinner with an incredible gift from the cosmos, a twin of me, so to speak, and a damned great friend, in the form of another single woman just going about her life. Rather in the alternative, about a call from a very unhappy and hurting man (and with good reason) who has lost his own twin, and doesn’t yet have anything else to believe in.