Once Strange, Twice Friendly

I watch them come in for breakfast like they do every Thursday morning. Just the two of them. They are always interesting to watch, polar opposites that get along so well. Theirs is the sort of friendship people write about, the kind everyone wants to be a part of. I don’t know much about them but I like their commitment to this weekly meeting. Some people may think that this kind of monotony is boring but I find that consistency endearing.

Especially since I can’t seem to keep up interest among my own circle of friends. Who am I kidding? I barely have friends.

The shorter one who answers to ‘Poppy’ seems to be the wild one. Today, her hair is a horrible shade of green and she is dressed in what look like pyjama pants and a bright pink shirt with the words ‘Mind your business’. Very fitting. Very Poppy. She always seems to be trying hard to keep a finger on her youth. I don’t see her say much, she must be a good listener.

The other - more collected, more fashionable in a blue pant suit, more talkative - responds to Lassie. I’ve never heard Poppy call her anything else. She seems busier and always leaves first.

From the little I do know about them, this much is true - laughter seems to be their constant companion. Poppy’s is a shriek-ish fitful affair that always leaves her wheezing. Lassie’s, like everything else about her, is more collected, more civil. 

I approach them with their usual order before they are fully settled in. We’ve all been apart of this dance for three solid months now, since I started working here. They probably go back longer than that. They have their own table in this tiny restaurant and are on first name basis with most of the staff here. Like a bored employee, I have grown an unhealthy obsession with these customers and have a number of questions I would like to ask. I interrupt already ripe conversation when I put down their meal. They say their thanks and get back to talking.

I don’t want to take up more of their time but this looks as good a day as any to get some answers.

‘I’ve been curious. You guys go back like all the way to your high school days?’ They look at each other and laugh. I press on anyway, ‘How do you keep your friendship going? Like any tips on how to sustain a friendship.’ They have no idea how deeply I mean that. The only friend I can claim to have any depth with is a thousand miles away and forever locked behind a screen to me.

They both readily respond with ‘Food’, clink their cups of abhorrent concoctions together and sip. That should be a sufficient answer and I’m needed back at my post but I push my luck and ask ‘How did the two of you meet? If you remember? Or has yours been the kind of relationship where time blurs into infinity?’

‘Oh we remember how we met.’ Lassie says, looking at Poppy with one of their ‘inside looks’.

‘Definitely. We cheated death.’ Poppy responds solemnly and I get more curious.

‘We didn’t.’

‘Did too.’

‘Did not. It was nothing that dire. We simply met in an elevator.’

‘Unexpected and steamy,’ Poppy wiggles her eyebrows at me and I can’t help but laugh as Lassie rolls her eyes. ‘Lassie, of course would want to drown out our story with the basics but it’s a whole lot more romantic than that. Do you have the time to hear the whole story?’

Poppy is warm and inviting - she looks it. Lassie’s is a much stricter face but she seems to be going along with it. I don’t have the time but I chance a look around the restaurant; it’s a slow morning and my manager is nowhere close. I don’t think I will get an opportunity when fate aligns to let me hear their story. I pull up a chair from another table. Lassie pushes her plate towards me. I don’t expect this but I take it. I am not one to pass off the opportunity to eat food without having to pay for it. I really hope I don’t have to pay for it.

‘It was a dark and stormy night…’ Poppy starts.

‘It wasn’t. It was a cool morning.’ Lassie interjects. Poppy shoots her laser eyes.

‘Who is telling this story, me or you?’

‘If you are going to tell it, tell it right.’ she looks at me, ‘It was a cool Thursday morning in May, five years ago at about 9.30 am. The clouds held promise of a storm that broke loose when we got together. I was dressed in a green dress with heels and Poppy…well, Poppy was pretty much as you see her here. A whole lot wilder though. I think I’m teaching her a little bit of sanity. You can take the story from there, Poppy.’

‘Taking the fun out of the story. Anyway….what she said. I was in the elevator before her. At Gabanamu Hotel. Both there for very different purposes…’

‘I was there for a work conference.’

‘I can’t say why I was there. Ever.’ I get the impression Poppy loves her mystery.

‘She was spying on her clients.’ Lassie ends the mystery as she sips her drink. I think Poppy expected her to react that way.

‘But I was there in the elevator, plotting my events for the day and how I would get all the information I need when Lassie over here…’

‘Sorry to interrupt, but what do you do?’

‘I’m a private investigator. I thought that was obvious,’ she hands me her card that I pocket without looking at. There are very few events in my boring life. To think one would warrant the need for an investigator is laughable, ‘now no more interruptions to my story.’ I mime the sealed mouth expression, ‘Lassie walked in all business, barking furious orders at whoever it was and ignored me.’

‘I didn’t. I was caught up.’

‘No, you weren’t. You totally ignored me.’

‘No one could blame me though. I didn’t think you a sane citizen in that hideous outfit you had on.’

‘She didn’t respond to my greeting. Thought I wasn’t worth her time. Look at me now,’ Poppy takes a bite of her eggs, ‘Look at me now. Very indispensable.’ Lassie nods at that with a smile on face, ‘so we clearly had our own awful impressions of each other within our first three seconds of meeting.’

‘I thought she was an escapee from a mental institution.’ Lassie laughs. With a stranger around, she appears quieter, more thoughtful and picky over what to say.

‘You did? That was exactly what I was going for. I thought you were some stuck up-boring judgemental little witch. And I was right too. It was just the two of us in that elevator and I should have seen the signs for what they were. Usually I don’t even take the elevator but I was running late and thought I would skip the eight levels of stairs with a quick trip in a metal box.’

‘And I would never get into an elevator with less than three people but I was also in a hurry. So much for our rush! Life is always out to crush your plans.’

‘Lassie was still on the phone when the electricity cut off.’

‘The storm I mentioned before.’

‘And then, like a terribly scripted movie…or as was to be expected, the elevator stopped.’

‘Poppy,’ Lassie burst out laughing, ‘Poppy…oh my goodness Poppy collapsed to the floor in a fit I had never seen before. Stretching across that little floor with a childish rage, screaming how she was going to die and this was a trap and how she should have taken the stairs because nothing like that ever happens on the stairs.’ Lassie is laughing so hard. The memory of it must be so strong and I get into laughing because her hearty laughter is infectious.

‘Oh it’s funny now but it definitely wasn’t in the moment.’

‘Definitely,’ Lassie mocks.

‘And what are you laughing at? My reaction was probably more expected than your whispering at the door. "Hello, is anybody there? The elevator has stopped and we are locked in here. Please help us.’’' Poppy masterfully imitates her.

‘I wasn’t whispering. And that was better than your dramatic reaction. I was out of my depth, locked in an elevator with a mental patient. Seeing how Poppy wasn’t calming down, I gave up my cry for help and sought to assuage her first. I had to get her off the floor and propped up against the wall and forget her appearance, it wasn’t easy to move her. Poppy is as heavy as an elephant.’

Poppy nods and pointedly stuffs her mouth with more food.

‘I figured she was having a panic attack…’

‘Yeah, I’m mostly claustrophobic and one of my biggest fears is…well was since I survived it…being locked in an elevator.’

‘...and I had to coach her back to calmness. Knees crunched up and head between thighs, counting breaths - in, out, in out - I’ve never told you this Poppy, but in that moment I hated doing it.’

‘I could tell. From your tone. But you were really nice about it. The trick truly was to distract me.’ This last bit is mostly for my benefit.

‘Which I did very well, if I must say so myself.’

‘You told very pathetic jokes.’

‘I’ve never claimed to be a funny person. But they did the trick anyway. Slowly you came out of it.’

‘Then I asked how long we had been in there.’

‘Then you asked how long we had been in there. I hadn’t checked my phone or watch before and I couldn’t be certain. I gave a rough estimate of twenty minutes.’

‘Ah-huh. If I remember correctly you said, in your bossy voice trying so quickly to dismiss me, ‘Twenty-ish minutes. Give or take.’ I like how conversation flows between them. They seem to forget that I am sitting at their table, eating Lassie’s sandwiches and listening in to all this.

‘And then you broke down again. Saying how we were going to run

out of air and die and you hadn’t lived as wildly as you had wanted to because you thought you had more time than the measly 27 years you had got. I wasn’t kind about your fears, was I? Now that I can see it in hindsight I should have done better.’

Poppy shrugs, ‘I like the way the story turned out. Silly fact, we always go back to that hotel in May to celebrate our meet anniversary. I’m so glad I found someone who is high on remembering days like me.’ Poppy tries to include me with that statement.

‘So I asked you to tell me about your dreams. The things you wanted to do in your next years because you weren’t going to die.’

‘You were actually rude about it. In a way. You said so forcefully how we weren’t going to die and once we made it you’d treat me to breakfast once we made it out. Then proceeded to drown me in facts. How movies had brainwashed me to think I’d run out of air before someone responds and that just wasn’t true. I was impressed that you knew that much about elevators,’ Lassie smiles at the compliment, ‘and then you pulled out a list and wrote down the things I said. And you didn’t laugh even once at the ones I thought were absurd.’

‘Like swim naked in the ocean. Oh I definitely laughed but not out loud.’

‘Then I asked for the time. I think I did that every what…three minutes? Five minutes?’

‘Five minutes. And I remember you were so surprised that you could name all the things you wanted to do in under ten minutes.’

‘Yeah, I wasn’t living as wildly as I should have. Then I asked about your fears.’

‘And I said ‘Oblivion.’ It still is even though I have tried to make a name for myself. Aren’t we all a little afraid of that? To live out all our days, long or short, and then find that they mattered to know one. And once you are gone, no one would remember the impact you had.’

‘I said that I would remember you for all of time. I asked what name you would love to be known by and you gave me that cryptic Lassie.’ We all laugh at this.

‘And in retaliation you gave me Poppy. But I like these names. I think they suit us better than the ones we were given.’

‘I agree. But then we got to talking. Really talking. It became clear to us that we weren’t about to get out anytime soon so we had to make the most of it. And somehow the hour and a half we spent in there felt like years basing on the information we shared. I told you about my first case and you told me about your first heartbreak. Silly sad stories that got us moving along. And somehow we got comfortable with each other. Then deeper. Like conversations you breach once and then never again because you are worried no one would ever get them.’

‘You should know, I told you some of those things because I didn’t think I would meet you again.’

‘Joke on you, Lassie. Five years and counting and I’m the holder of all your secrets.’ An alarm goes off and shocks us out of our thinking.

‘Oh gosh,’ Lassie rushes to turn it off, ‘Work time! This was different from our usual breakfast meets, and somehow felt shorter but I didn’t mind the trip down memory lane. I’ll let you wrap up the story here, Poppy, yes? Let me know how it ends.’ She winks at me.

We watch Lassie walk out and Poppy jokingly says, ‘Good riddance. Now where were we with the story? I’ll tell you the truth without her interruption.’

‘You were talking about the intimate details of your lives in the elevator.’

‘Yes we were. There’s not much to go on after that. At some point in all that we got so comfortable with each other and completely forgot about the storm on the outside. The elevator didn’t seem like a shrinking box and our confinement took on the feeling as though we had chosen it for ourselves. They couldn’t believe it when they finally ‘rescued’ us. We were a heap of laughter with our shoes kicked off and sitting so close as though we had known each other for years. Taking pictures too.’

She takes the finishing bites of her meal and we both think about the story. It’s not entirely remarkable, I think to myself but it’s theirs and that must make all the difference. ‘I don’t know but I guess there is always that person for everyone.’ Poppy continues,

‘The one you strike a chord of understanding with. Almost as though your hearts hear the same tune and you dance away to it.’

‘A little like soulmates?’ I say that and immediately feel childish for holding onto such notions.

‘A lot like soulmates. It takes work though. Lassie and I knew what we had found when we stepped out of that elevator and definitely take the time to keep it alive. Even music fades sometimes. But anyway, they got us out and Lassie didn’t feel like her work conference. We were having so much fun together and hang out all day. I think this is the part where I sign off with ‘the rest is history’.’

And the rest is history with five years under their belt. I stand up to clear the table and leave.

‘You asked for tips before, yeah,’ I nod, ‘This is not about sustaining but making friends. Approach people with the idea that there could be a friend lurking behind every strange face. Let your guard down once in a while.’