Pineapple Candies

*****

    "So anyway," she went on as she sat her cup down again, "this was the favour I wanted to ask you: For the next few weeks, would you be my friend?"

    Then I really laughed. I mean we were friends, or what passes for it as adults; you commiserate and joke about work, hang out together at office functions, talk to each other whenever you get the chance - that kind of stuff. We already did that. We got on well together.

    She smiled. "No, I'm serious." She said.

    "Okay... so like, what do you mean then?"

    "I mean, like, really friends."

    I looked over at her, arching my brow as if she meant it suggestively, though I was fairly sure she hadn't.

    "No, that's not what I meant; we know I eschew the whole cougar thing and I am nobody's Susan Sarandon.

Or Juliette Mills." She adds.

    "Julliette Mills?" I ask. I get the Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins reference. But I 'm not familiar with the second one.

    "Haley's older sister."

    Still nothing.

    "Wiki it." She says finally and takes another drink of her coffee.

    "So, okay, what exactly is it you want me to agree to then?"

    "I want us to be friends, real friends; like, you do things together, you talk to each other outside of work, you share secrets, you hang out together - you know, like 'besties'-

Like...

like you have relevance in someone else's life."

~

    Thinking back, I guess that was when I should have known. The way she said the word relevance. The way she looked away when she said it. But I guess we really didn't have that kind of relationship. Or I would have picked it up.

It comes back to that humanity thing...

~

    I sit there with my head cocked looking at her, I straighten it to take a drink of my coffee. It lists to the side again as I sit my cup down. She must be picking up on the questions that aren't quite formed enough  for me to vocalize because she starts jumping in with disclaimers.

    "Oh! I don't mean it like any sort of long term thing - I'm not asking you to make some sort of commitment like that. Just four weeks; not even an entire month. Unless it was February with no leap, but we're already in March anyway. And I don't mean it to be all one sided, I mean, friendship is reciprocal so I'd do stuff you want to do too. And you don't have to go along with everything just because I want to do it if you don't."

    She pauses to take a breath. She's talking fast, like she needs to address any misgivings I may have before I can turn her down.

    "Also, I'm not pushy or demanding or anything, and I won't get in your personal space. I can be a really good friend." 

    She nods her endorsement of the statement, smiling as she looks over at me.  But the smile doesn't quite reach her eyes, and she's fifteen again and she's seeking something that I'm not sure she came to the right person to find.

    I look away from her for a second, taking a drink of my coffee before I ask the one question she didn't address.

    "Kelley, why are you asking me? I mean you get along with everyone, you have good relationships with all the women in the office too; why not ask one of them?"

    She tilts her head down, taking a deep breath as she moves the straw around in her cup. She looks toward the window and releases her breath slowly.

    "See, I told you it wasn't such and easy favour to say yes to."

    "It's not that, it's just I don't understand why you're asking me."

    She's still looking toward the window as she starts to answer. "I don't really get on well with women. I do okay in basic social settings, but not so much in more friendly ones. I haven't had a close female friend since I was eleven and her family moved away. Since then I've just always gotten along better with guys." She pauses for a minute, looking down at the cup still in her hand. She sits it back on the table.

    "Maybe it's because I've always been a tomboy, or maybe it's because I grew up without a mom, but I've never gotten the hang of the line you have to tow with other women. They can turn on you in an instant and be totally vicious, regardless of how close you think you are." She takes a deep breath, holding it before she lets it go.  "I don't cope well with that."

    She glances over at me for a second and smiles. Her eyes belie the fact it's a statement of experience not mere observation. She turns back toward the window, taking another slow breath. It's followed by several more before she begins to answer the other part of my question.

    "I asked you, because it feels like we're on the same page most of the time. I have fun whenever we're together and you can always manage to make me laugh. I just get on really well with you, and, if I'm being perfectly honest, I can't say that about very many people. I don't know, maybe it's my imagination, or maybe it's a very one-sided perception."

    She glances over at me again and I shake my head; I feel that too.

    "For some reason," she goes on, "I feel comfortable around you, like we've known each other for a lot longer than we have and I can just be myself. I can't remember the last time I felt that way with anyone.

I just like being around you. I wanted to be able to do it more for a little while."

    She looks over at me, all raw edges and honesty, and I can't look away from her. There's not a single thing she's said that I haven't felt too, but I doubt I would ever have had the balls to put it out there like that the way she just did.

    She breaks eye contact first, picking up her drink and stirring it to remix it where it's begun to separate.

    To say this is a side of her that I'd never seen before, that I hadn't even guessed at, would be perfectly true - like her unexpected wardrobe change earlier.

    To say I possess the ability to respond in kind, with equal maturity and aplomb, would be completely false. Her unabashed candor leaves me at a loss and I reflexively try to defuse her sincerity with pretentiousness.

    "Well, just so you know, I generally avoid that whole friendship thing. Once you adopt the 'friend' label everything changes. It's like, if you don't see someone or talk to them for a few days, suddenly they're all in your face with 'what's up with you & why haven't I heard from you?' like you owe them something." I shake my head and take a drink of my coffee. "But, I think I can probably manage four weeks."

~

    At the time, I was too busy being smug to notice her expression when I made that remark. Actually, I had forgotten I even said it until she reminded me of it, that night...

    I don't know, in a different conversation, in a different situation, I feel reasonable certain she would have gotten that I was joking when I said it. But now, I realize there was much more at stake for her than I ever could have grasped at that moment.

More than I could possibly have imagined.