Strangers to Friends and Back Again

TW; child abuse

I came to work one day, and my three coworkers were all abuzz with gossip, Courtney breathlessly approaching me and informing me that John had a stroke.

“Who’s John?” I asked.

Courtney rolled her eyes at me. “The guy next door.”

“Shogun’s dad,” I replied with a nod of recognition. It’s funny—dog people are like that with each other. We aren’t John or Emily or Jane or Bill, we’re Max’s Mom or Shogun’s Dad. I mean, funny, right? We obviously didn’t produce a different species from our wombs or ejaculate.

Two weeks later, the buzz was different and again I was surrounded. “Oh. My. God. Have you seen John’s son?”

I hadn’t. Nor did I have any interest in seeing John’s son. A full-time student, a full-time manicurist, and separated from my estranged husband at the time, the last thing that interested me was seeing some dude.

I was busy. I was reeling from the knowledge that like my mother, I too could fail at the marriage thing.

Courtney continued, “He’s SO CUTE!”

“So is Chad,” I pointed out to her thinking that perhaps she forgot she had a boyfriend already. Not just any boyfriend, but a fucking Adonis of one—six foot three, blonde haired, blue-eyed, with the perfect shoulder to hip ratio.

Not only was he good-looking, when he’d come by to visit her, there were no flirty-flirty vibes coming off of him—not even toward the Barbie doll of the salon, Kimmee.

“Chad’s boring,” Courtney said, "John's son seems way more interesting."

I have two bad boy brothers. I know the deal with ‘interesting’ guys. The bad boys. Women want to tame them; they’re a challenge. The thing is it doesn’t work. They either get frustrated that they can’t tame the bad boy, or they do tame them and then sulkily announce that things are over because, “You aren’t the man I fell in love with.”

I listened until my first client arrived and then got to work and in between clients, pulled my textbooks out to study to give the hint that I didn’t care about any of the gossip of the day.

They got the message and left me alone, keeping the gossip among themselves. I mentally placed my bet on Courtney. Sexually overt, so probably the lamest fuck there, but guys only see what’s in front of them. They’re cute that way.

About 9 weeks later, on my birthday, the last day of the year, the last day of work, tradition having me see out the holidays and then head up to Oregon to be with my dad, my still husband had a birthday party planned for me. It was one of many last ditch efforts he’d make to assure me it was safe to come home after he had kicked me out fairly unceremoniously.

None of them worked, by the way. He had screwed around on me and I had known he was doing it. I mean, tell me all you want how you were just sitting there talking to your female client until 6 a.m. and I'm going to nod at you and go, "Sure. Right. Talking. *eyeroll*" And then he got bent when I found a blast from my past and paid him back. Hence, the unceremonious request for me to leave.

A client canceled. Finals were over and I stood outside and chain-smoked to fill the time and behind me, I heard, “I’m Steve.”

“Annie,” I said, not looking at him.

“Nice to meet you,” he said and lit his own cigarette, “you’re the only one I haven’t met yet.” 

I stood there quietly. Honestly? I was annoyed at having my space and thoughts invaded.

“Are you always such a bitch?”

I laughed at the forwardness of his comment, and it freed me to be forward myself. “We haven’t met because I’m the only one not interested in fucking you,” I said and suddenly examined him lightly, enough to figure out the vibe he had that had entranced everyone. I had had it right just extrapolating from the conversations I overheard—bad boy. Tattooed, thin, obviously not too far removed from drugs.

A customer approached his dad’s store, and he stubbed his cigarette out. “Nice to meet you, Annie.”

And that was it.

Until I came back from Oregon and was surrounded yet again. Courtney again: “I forged your name on a lease. You’re moving to Vista with Kimmee and Sofie into this huge 4-bedroom house," she said as Sofie and Kimmee stood there nodding and smiling.

Sofie added, "You can get out of that shitty apartment you live in."

Nice of them to plot my life out for me, right?

“I like my shitty apartment," I said a bit testily.

“It’s gross.”

No argument. Someone had built it in the back of their garage. It was basically two rooms—a main living area with a kitchenette and a bathroom. Paneled in dark walnut color paneling, no doubt because it was cheaper than putting up drywall. But it was the first time I wasn’t living with someone else, and they had a dog. Suzie the Saluki liked to come in and watch TV with me or sit at my feet while I studied.

It was a good place to sit and think and wonder about the state of my life and whether I wanted to work things out with the husband.

“Steve’s going to be one of the roommates,” Courtney offered up as if it were incentive as Kimmee and Sofie giggled, again nodding. Every group has a spokesperson, doesn't it?

I sighed. Hard. They weren't going to let it go. "Fine," I said. It was a woman fine-not really fine, but, yeah, sure if it will bring world peace, then, well, fine.

I knew three weeks into living in the house in Vista that it was a huge mistake. Kimmee and Sofie brought stray men that they picked up on in bars home with them. They threw parties, loud ones, leaving a mess and lines of cocaine, a substance I was a mere 2 years clean from, on the back of the toilets.

I’d wake up to pee in the middle of the night, dressed in panties and a wife-beater and some strange dude would leer at me.

My mom was like that. I called the guys Randoms, and I had flashbacks of the PTSD variety, having been molested by one and raped by another--both Randoms my mom invited to move in with us.

And I installed a lock on my bedroom door. And bought a super ugly robe that made me look 20 pounds heavier than I am.

Steve was not any happier than I was, I’d find out later. He had less clean time behind him. He was working at his dad’s store during the day, as a cook at a steakhouse at night, and working on his days off on getting certified as a drug counselor.

His schedule had him starting his laundry, putting it in the dryer then leaving to do whatever was on the agenda for the day and a frustrated Sofie or Kimmee would ignore his basket and throw his clothes onto the dirty garage floor. At the time, I didn’t know if it pissed him off (it did), but it definitely pissed ME off. I grew up using communal laundry space and I wouldn’t even put the stuff that was clogging up my laundry process in a basket without folding it first. I was even known to use my own coins to start the drying process for them if I needed a washer.

It might be weird folding a stranger’s laundry. I admit that. But I started doing it for him and then opening the door to his room and leaving it for him.

A kindness to counteract the other two being rude bitches about it all.

He was downstairs; all us women upstairs. Like it mattered with all the men they invited into their rooms--to have him not in the female space.

I heard a knock on my door and called out, “Yeah?”

“Can I come in?”

“I’m decent. Sure.”

Steve poked his head in. “I like what you did to your space,” he said.

“Did you come up here to say that?” I asked, kind of amused.

“No. I came up here because I wanted to thank you for folding my laundry for me. That’s nice of you,” he said, looking at me intensely, “and I’m sorry I called you a bitch.”

“We’re cool, man.” I was admittedly dismissive. I don’t like to be disturbed and I was in the middle of reading a book.

He picked up on it. “I’m sorry I’m bothering you,” he said defensively. “It’s just I have a couple of free hours and wanted to take you to lunch to say thanks for not being like Sofie or Kimmee.”

“They’re bitches,” I said, again fairly dismissively. Just stating the truth as we both knew it to be.

We had been working next door to each other for four months, living in the same house for over 6 weeks but I still couldn’t have told you that his hair was blonde and that his eyes were hazel at that point.

“Please? I’d feel better if I could pay you back. Yesterday was the third time I’ve come home to my laundry in my room, all neat and folded and I know for sure it wasn't one of them."

“A kindness isn’t a kindness if one expects a reward for it,” I said.

He looked at me even more intensely and asked, “Have you ever read As a Man Thinketh?

“I have.”

“It’s one of my favorite books.”

And that’s how Steve won me over. It was that simple.

I didn't accept the lunch, but I did invite him to my room to sit down. We talked about everything we could fit into two hours--his girlfriend, my husband, our alcoholic mothers, cleaning up from drugs. He was only five months older than me and when he left to go to his drug counseling gig, I was left with the idea that we fit well together as friends.

He was blunt and honest and not only did it not bother me, it made me comfortable to know that here was a person I could trust for a nice change of pace.

It's being a dog person, I think. You know where you stand with a dog. If it likes you, it wags its tail and approaches you. If it doesn't, it slinks away or growls at you. He's kind of like that. A person you don't have to guess about where you stand with them.

I’ll spare you the gooey falling in love part, but I'll say we did after that one talk. Over time. Slowly. After being friends for quite some time and his girlfriend and my husband were no longer part of our lives.

We looked at each other adoringly and everyone wanted to have the kind of relationship we had.

We weren't the overly PDA type couple, the ones who make you uncomfortable by making out or issuing saccharine sweet endearments to each other. Friends. Best friends by that point.

It makes me sad to remember it now. I mean, it's like when someone dies, okay? Sometimes you take comfort from the good times and other times, they make you sad. Today it makes me sad.

Flash forward thirty years: we got dealt a shit hand. Multiple sclerosis. His lesions are on his frontal cortex. The result is something quite similar to dementia.

I definitely was not prepared to have a 56-year-old husband who doesn’t recognize me anymore or hates me when he does recognize me.

A husband who’s angry because he’s frustrated that he doesn’t know who I am or what I’ve done for him or how I’ve helped him build what we have. One who has forgotten that we were friends, best friends of the highest order.

I'm still his friend, as well as his wife. I mean, I remember all the good things about him; all the good times and everything good that he once brought to our life to make it what it was.

But I'm a stranger to him now. Even when he does know who I am, he doesn't know who I am, if that makes sense. He doesn't remember any of the things that made us friends.

And that's how we became friends and then strangers of sorts.

It's kind of heartbreaking, isn't it? How you can be friends and have it ripped away with one shit diagnosis.