Chalk and Cheese

Light and dark, soft and hard, introvert and extrovert - all opposites and yet in so many situations one couldn’t do without the other, and quite often they even complement each other.

This was how it was with my best friend Annie and me. She was the extrovert and I was in introvert. Sometimes I would hate her for making me do things, go places, meet people, but ‘occasionally’ afterwards I would think ‘What would I do without Annie? I’d never go out and I’d just be a hermit’.

Annie would tell me that she was ever grateful when I told her “Don’t go out this Sunday night. You have an assignment due in three days and it’s worth a lot of marks. I’ll come over and bring you pizza so you don’t even have to cook dinner”. I mean at the time she wouldn’t feel grateful, calling me a ‘stick in the mud’ and ‘killjoy’ but when she got 86% for the assignment, she thanked me!

We first met in Primary school. I painfully shy and scared of my own shadow and Annie, now what can I say about my best friend? She was just a ray of sunshine, and I know that it sounds clichéd and meh, but it was true. I had already been at the school for three years and the first day of a new school year started the same as the previous ones for me, “I don’t want to go to school Mum. Please can I stay at home? My tummy hurts and I feel sick but I promise I will feel better tomorrow” I cried.

Now Annie, ponytailed and pretty, walked into the classroom for the first time ever and announced to the girl next to her “Hello, I’m Annie. This is a very run down classroom! And she laughed her delightful soft chuckle, which as I realised later on was one of the first traits that attracted people to Annie – a bit like bees to a honey pot.

I sat at my desk and bit my nails.

I watched and wondered what it would be like having other kids clambering to talk to me and laugh with me but I would never know. I just wasn’t made the same way as Annie.

At lunchtime I sat on my own under the tree on a wooden bench eating my sandwiches. I was happy on my own because I always got the hiccups after eating. Mum took me to the doctors once to ‘sort it out’ but he just said “There’s not much we can do, it’s probably a nervous thing!”

So on the first day of school as I sat alone making very loud hiccupping noises  I looked up to see the ‘new girl’ striding over to me. She even looked happy when walking, as if she was half skipping, her blond ponytail swinging behind her head. “Hello. Why are you sitting on your own? I’ve come over to see if you would like to join the group I’m sitting with?”

“Umm no thank you” I stammered “I don’t mind sitting on my own while I’m eating”.

“Oh and what about when you’re not eating?” she persisted.

I began to say that I find it easier as I get really bad hiccups after I’ve eaten but before I could finish the sentence they started to get out of control and I couldn’t keep them in check any more by just keeping my mouth closed! I was feeling embarrassed, and I could feel my cheeks start to flame up.

“Oh my brother does that. Every time he’s eaten something he gets the hiccups – it’s a medical thing or something. I think it’s funny”.

“Oh do you? I wouldn’t like anyone else to hear them. Anyway I quite like being on my own” I said.

“Well if you’re sure? What’s your name anyway? “She asked me, her smile lighting up her face.

“It’s Lucy” I replied

“Do you walk home through the pathway?” she asked me. I couldn’t believe she was still here after listening to me making weird noises.

“Yes I do”

“Well if we get separated after the last lesson of the day I’ll meet you here at this tree and we’ll walk the path together”. Before I could answer she added “You don’t mind do you?”

“No, I’ll see you then” I called after her as she bounced off.

That was the start of our friendship. I think that first day Annie felt sorry for me sitting on my own. She didn’t like to see anyone being left out. I loved that about her even though it wasn’t something I would do. When she had a birthday party, the whole class got invited. When it was my birthday I invited Annie around to have dinner with my family.

As our friendship developed over the years so did our respect for how both of us was different to the other, although one thing that I couldn’t relate to how Annie loved being with people all the time, socialising, chatting, having groups of people over for dinner parties and games nights. Don’t get me wrong, I like people, but a quick visit or catch-up was enough for me. I couldn’t spend hours making small talk, it drained me.

I only ever went to one of Annie’s games nights and that was the first and last. I thought the evening was a noisy crowded affair that went far too long and that I actually didn’t enjoy! I played charades at some stage and was embarrassed to the point of willing myself to have a heart attack and die. I not only got the actions wrong when it was ‘movie, book, or television show’ and so on, but had the title of the book I was acting out, wrong too. If it was happening to someone else I probably would have laughed too, but when it’s you and you’re shy and easily embarrassed, to be standing in the middle of a room, surrounded by people laughing at you uproariously because you had acted out ‘TO MOCK A KILLING BIRD’ instead of the famous book ‘TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD’, the only thing you want is for the floor to crack open and you fall through!

Of course the next day Annie told me that I was such a hit at her place – and  everyone thought I was so funny. And she finished off by telling me there was a cooking night coming up and to write it in my diary. She knew what I would say, which I did. “I’ll write this in my diary…’Takeaway pizza and early night for Lucy’…..” and we both laughed.

To me sitting reading a book at home, with no one else in the house, no radio blaring in the background or television yelling at me from the corner of the room, was heaven. But to Annie it was something you did when you were recovering from the flu!

We weren’t that dissimilar in our tastes in books but Annie could never just read by herself, so she started a book club. I didn’t go to it but from all of the stories she told me about the women who did and what they actually talked about – I’m not sure I would have enjoyed it. Apparently it was laughter from the start to the finish of the evening interspersed with plenty of vino and nibbles! I asked her one day just how many books they had all completed in the last month and got a rather convoluted answer from her “Well we’ve all been reading but not at the same pace, and can you believe it….two women haven’t even been reading the same book!” to which I replied “Yes I can”.

To be fair Annie didn’t have to the volume turned up for everything in life. Quite often she would come over to my place for a girl’s night – we would do our nails, have a facial and then order dinner, but when I was ready for bed, the night was still young to her, and she would go out somewhere else afterwards. I couldn’t have thought of anything worse!

But we were best friends. We felt relaxed and could just be ourselves when in each other’s company – like an old married couple really. My Gran and Pop were like that, as if they were always meant to be together and you had the feeling that when one died, the other one would soon follow. And that is exactly how it happened – my Gran passed away and twelve days later Pop died. Of course people said it was from loneliness and a broken heart, but who knows, maybe it was. I mean Annie and I weren’t like that – we liked to see each other on a regular basis but we certainly didn’t live in each other’s pockets.

So when Annie told me that she had decided to go overseas and ‘have a ball’ although disappointed that she was going away because I knew how much I was going to miss her, I knew it wouldn’t be forever.

Annie was indeed having a ‘ball’ overseas. From the emails, photos and voice messages I received from her I could see that she was making the most of working part time and partying full time!

“You should have come with me Lucy – you would love it over here” she told me in a voice message  at 2.30 am one morning, the music and laughter so loud that I could hardly hear what she was saying at first. I listened with my ear pressed to my phone, heard the message, laughed at it and went back to bed saying to myself ‘I don’t think so’.

When Annie had been away for about six months she met someone, who according to her was ‘a darling’, amazing, handsome, quiet and not really a ‘party goer’! I thought I was seeing things when I read the ‘quite quiet and not really a party goer’ part of the message. ‘I wonder how long that will last then’ I thought, not being able to picture Annie with a man who wasn’t as gregarious and social as she was.

When I spoke to her on the phone she said herself that it was very different and a little strange going out with someone who enjoyed reading and listening to music rather than partying, and movies and dinner at home rather than actually going to the cinema. “In fact” she added, sometimes it’s rather like being with you Lucy!”

She rang me one night from her flat where she and ‘Mr Quiet Man’ had been cooking dinner together and later on were going to watch the new James Bond Movie…at home! “It’s like I’m talking to someone else Annie” I told her, to which she replied “I never thought I would change from being ‘slightly wild’ to a ‘stay at home kinda gal’ and be content, and can you believe how much I love James Bond!

I still wasn’t convinced. Her voice told a different story and I wasn’t sure she really was content with the ‘new Annie’. I didn’t think it would last for too long with Jack.

Annie began to ring me up a lot more often, telling me how much she was enjoying the quiet life…or so she said. But a few months later she rang me up crying I knew even before she started talking what it was about. “Lucy I am so bored it’s unbelievable. If I have to watch one more movie on a Saturday night after making Pork San Choy Bow together I will go mad. I asked him if we could go to the movies in town, just for a change but he said there are too many people in a confined space! I mean Jack won’t even attempt to come to a pub or a night club. He doesn’t like dancing, so I told him to just watch me, but he can’t stand lots of people close to him! And heaven forbid that we ever ask more than two people over to my flat at once. And listen to this Lucy….Jack doesn’t see why it’s ‘necessary’ to have people over…necessary! I told him it’s ‘necessary’ so that I can remain sane! He refuses every party invite we get, so I usually go without him, but that’s not how it’s supposed to be when you’re going out with someone. I just want a compromise. Let me loose every so often and I’ll be fine, but he won’t. It’s like we’re tethered at the wrists. Ahhh! I can’t stand it!”

Here I tried to but in and speak, but Annie continued without taking a breath “And he doesn’t like clubs of any sort. I offered to start a book club, a mixed one which I thought would help us to meet some other couples, but it’s not for him. What is for him? Nothing!  When I first met him I thought he was a bit shy and it was sort of cute, but that has worn right of. It’s not cute Lucy, it’s pathetic, and so is he! What was I thinking? I miss the ‘old me’, the fun Annie, who’s turned into the boring one”.

Before she could wind up again I butted in …..”What are you going to do Annie?” I asked thinking that Jack would be devastated and it was going to be a stressful breakup. I could hear how infuriated Annie was but knew that she was a very caring person and would not want to hurt Jack - I was sure of that. I told her just before we hung up that if she needed to talk to me, she could ring any time, but I didn’t want to be a nuisance so I would leave it until she contacted me.

I might have been right about how long the relationship between Annie and Jack would last but I was completely wrong about her not wanting to hurt him….

About three days after our phone conversation Annie turned up on my doorstep. She had been home for a day and had wanted to surprise me, and that she did. We were so excited to see each other after all this time of her being away.

She looked relaxed and sounded relieved that it was all over with Jack, and that she was grateful to be back on home soil.

“How did Jack take the breakup?” I asked her after a little while of chatting.

“You know Lucy I think he was as relieved as I was. I was too much for him. He once told me, probably after I’d been on about never going out anywhere that being with me was like trying to keep a lid on something fermenting and ready to explode. And he was right - I did”

“So he wasn’t too upset?” I asked still concerned for someone I had never met!

“Didn’t seem too upset….he drove me to the airport and waved me off. So I think that said it all, don’t you?”

“Yes it sounds like he was as happy as you were Annie. So what’s your plan now? Look for a new job?”

“First thing Monday is job hunting, but today is only Friday. I’m meeting some of the girls at the pub later and then we’ll take it from there. Would you care to join us Lucy?”

“You might have changed temporarily while you were away but I didn’t change one bit…Let’s get that clear. I couldn’t think of anything worse than going to the pub – no I’ll be in my PJ’s eating nachos and reading the last few chapters of my book”.

They gave each other a big hug as Annie left her best friend’s

 flat, miles apart in some ways but in others they couldn’t be closer.