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by Laura Byrne |
I stared at the crumpled papers on the broken pencils littering my desk, then at the geometry textbook open in front of me, then back at the desk top. I'd been struggling with this stupid math homework for almost an hour, and I wasn't getting anywhere. So I did what I always did when I got snagged in geometry; I phoned Brian.
Brain Campbell has been one of my best friends since Grade three. We both have other friends, of course, but in all major crises we lean on each other's shoulders. And this geometry exercise was a major crisis.
After a couple of minutes on the phone, he had explained the "concyclic points theorem" to me and has succeeded in pounding the "tangent chord theorem" into my befuddled brain.
Amazingly enough, I made it through geometry the next day without falling asleep. After math class we had sort of a hen party at McDonalds. It was Lucy Donahue's birthday and since all of our finances were in the usual awful state, it was all we could afford. By the time I arrived at the table with my Big Mac, Lucy was hard at work teasing Maria D'Angelo, a shy girl in my history class.
"Of course Steve likes you," she was saying in a matter-of-fact tone. "He stares at you all through geography class. Why do you think he's failing geography this term?"
Maria blushed and started unwrapping her hamburger. "Don't be silly," she mumbled.
"Oh, I'm not being silly! I'm just calling 'em as I see 'em. But since I'm bugging you, I'll stop," said Lucy good-naturedly. Her eyes came to rest on me, and they gleamed mischievously as she said, "I'll pick on Sara instead. Who's the latest love of your life, Sara?"
"Oh, you know, the usual crowd. Warren Beatty, Harrison Ford, Richard Chamberlain. I haven't talked to Dustin Hoffman since he refused to take me to the Academy Awards, though, " I replied with a perfectly straight face.
"Come on, I'm serious!" Lucy protested.
"Well seriously, I'm not seriously involved in any serious infatuation right now."
"What about Brian Campbell?" asked Elizabeth Van Dyke. Elizabeth has just moved to town a month ago, and I didn't know her very well. She and Lucy seemed to have hit it off, though.
"Oh Brian," I laughed. "We're just friends."
"You're just shy."
"Sure, sure, a likely story!" Elizabeth laughed.
"It's true."
"It's sort of a funny friendship."
"Why?" I asked suspiciously. "Just because he happens to be a guy?"
"Well...most girls don't hang around with a guy as just friends...you know what I mean?"
"You mean that if you can't go out with a guy he's not worth talking to at all? That's crazy!" I was becoming more and more exasperated. "That's relegating one half of the world's population to just one role. Think of all the great friendships you could miss thinking like that! After all, you can only have one boyfriend at a time."
"If you play your cards right, you can manage three or four," commented Joanne Finley, with such a droll expression on her face that the discussion dissolved in a fit of giggles. I was left with a funny feeling nagging at the back of my mind, though.
A couple of days later, I was at my locker piling some notebooks into my Adidas bag when I heard Brian's voice behind me. "Hi, Sara!"
"Oh, hi Brian," I said stuffing a copy of The Grapes of Wrath into my bag. I closed the locker door, locked it, and turned around. "Are you heading home now?"
"Yeah. I have to get home quickly so I have time to get ready for work."
"Well, I'll walk home with you then. I have to get home in time to drive Diane to her piano lesson." Diane is my little sister.
A breath of cool, damp air, greeted us as we emerged from the school, and the grey clouds that had been threatening to break all day looked as though they were about to fulfill their promise.
We joked around for a couple of minutes as we walked. Then Brian said, "Have you ever met Elizabeth Van Dyke, the new girl in our English class?"
"Yes, I met her over at McDonalds's last Tuesday," I said guardedly. I could sense what was coming.
"Do you think she's nice?" Brian queried.
"I wasn't talking to her very much," I said, which was true. She had seemed nice enough, too, except for that one exchange. And one conversation was hardly enough to judge a person's character on.
"I'm going to ask her to go and see a show with me this weekend," Brian announced. Aha, I thought. My sixth sense was right again.
"Another torrid romance is looming on the horizon eh?" I teased.
But my interrogation was rudely interrupted by a splatter of raindrops that quickly became a deluge. I scrambled through my bag to find my umbrella and opened it.
"We'd better hurry or we're going to get soaked!" I yelled as I broke into a jog trot. The rain and the pace precluded any further discussion of Brian's "love life" that day.
One day I was leaving math class and Brian fell into step behind me.
"Did you understand a word of that?" I asked in bewilderment.
"Sure, no problem!" Brian laughed. "I'll phone you tonight and unlock the mysteries of geometry for you. I have to run, though. Miss Daniels will kill me if I'm late for history again. Teachers!" He raised his eyes heavenward and dashed off.
"That'll be the day, when Brian's on time," I laughed to myself. I was still smiling when Elizabeth came up beside me.
"Hi, Elizabeth. How's it going?"
"Oh fine, Sara, fine," she said somewhat absently. "Hey Sara..." Then she stopped. I turned around, suddenly aware that something was wrong. But before I could say anything, however, she continued.
"You've known Brian for a long time, haven't you?
"Oh, years and years," I replied casually.
" And you see a lot of him, don't you?" What is this, the Inquisition? I asked inwardly. But I was determined not to lose my temper. "I don't see any more of him than I do Lucy or Maria, or Joanne," I answered.
Elizabeth decided to try another tack. "You know that Brian and I are going together, don't you?"
"Oh yeah, Brian told me."
"Look Sara, about that. I wish you wouldn't hang around Brian so much."
"What do I look like a clinging vine?" I could feel my temperature rising.
"No, and I know what you said at McDonalds but the whole situation makes me rather uncomfortable."
"It doesn't make me uncomfortable."
"Sara, I'm not trying to be a pain." Elizabeth's patience snapped. "Just keep away from him. Just get lost!"
The retort from my lips was never uttered, however, because Elizabeth wheeled around and left.
This whole incident sounds like some melodramatic episode of an afternoon soap opera. The whole thing put me in a bad mood for the rest of the day. But the worst was yet to come.
I was watching television and eating a bag of potato chips when the phone rang. It was Brian.
"Oh, hi Brian," I said without enthusiasm, with a feeling of dread.
"You still want me to help you with that math?"
"No thanks, it's okay." I didn't feel like discussing math.
"Hey I hear you had a bit of a fight with Elizabeth today."
"You could call it that."
"Yeah. I just wanted to ask you a favour." He paused. "I think Elizabeth is taking our friendship the wrong way."
"I gathered that," I commented wryly.
"But just give her time, Sara. She'll understand. For now, though, let's try not to be seen together too much. Just until all this cools down." I could tell he was trying to be a peacemaker. But I didn't feel very peaceful. By this time I was seeing red. Just who did Elizabeth think she, telling Brian, whom he could talk to and whom he couldn't? And didn't nine years of friendship mean anything to Brian, that he could just throw them away with a few words?
It's amazing, when you think about it, that people who are very good friends often have a great ability to hurt each other. I suppose it comes from knowing a person so well that you know exactly where to aim to wound their emotions the most.
"I never though, Brian, that you would ever be dictated to by anyone."
On the other end of the phone, there was a momentary silence. Then Brian spoke. Boy, was he angry. When he is very angry, he speaks stiltedly, almost formally, with great control in his voice.
"Sara, Elizabeth does not dictate to me. I was asking this as a favour. I thought that you might be kind enough to consider Elizabeth's feelings, if not for her sake, at least for mine. I supposed I was wrong. Good night Sara."
The line clicked, and I stood there holding a silent receiver in my hand. I didn't know what to do. Whenever I'm in a bad mood, I usually phone Lucy or Brian, or else I eat. But Lucy was at work, and I had already eaten a whole bag of barbecue chips. And Brian was no longer there to phone.
I acted like a bear for over a week; then I decided it was time to pull myself together. "If Brian wants to break this friendship, I can take it. I don't care." I said resolutely to Lucy on the phone one night.
"That's the spirit, Sara," Lucy answered. But each of us recognized the false bravado in the other's voice.
Slowly, things returned to the old pattern. But, whenever I saw Brian or Elizabeth, I nodded civilly and went on my way with a weird feeling.
But soon, the gossip started to travel around the school that all was not going well between Elizabeth and Brian. And soon, it wasn't just gossip - it was obvious. I was walking to my locker one day after history class when I heard an argument.
"I'm sorry," came Elizabeth's voice, rather stridently. "I totally forgot you needed that book for chemistry today. I can run home and get it for you ..."
"No, don't bother," said Brian curtly. "I'll go explain to Mr. Carson." He stalked off.
Elizabeth was standing by her locker as I walked past, and some bizarre impulse made me stop and say to her in a friendly tone - "he'll get over it. He always does."
Her reaction made me immediately regret my action. "How would you know?" she asked acidly.
"We used to be great friends," I blazed.
Instantly she flushed beat red. "I know," she mumbled. "There's another of the million things I seem to have done wrong since I got here. I'm really sorry, if that helps, which I doubt. And I shouldn't have snapped at you. I'm just sort of upset."
"Yeah, okay." I still wasn't feeling too congenial.
"Please don't be mad at me, Sara, although I know I deserve it. Brian's been so grouchy ever since I had that fight with you, and I realize now how stupid I was."
My congeniality and sense of perspective were returning. I gave her a tentative smile. "Okay."
Just then, Brian came around the corner, back from his trip to see Mr. Carson.
"Brian." Elizabeth began. "I've just been talking to Sara, and I realize now this whole fight has just been silly, and it's all my fault. Friends are friends, whether they're girls or guys. Sara just gave me some good advice... I think I'm going to follow it." She turned around and walked away.
"She's not mean, you know...just confused," Brian reflected.
"I know," I said.
"Friends" he asked, and held out his hand.
"Just friends," I added, as I shook on the agreement.
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