Jean purposely broke her pencil, straining against the task, mortifying she couldn’t finish it, anguishing she’d let her best friend down. No sunrays, even with the shades up, streaked through the window above her desk in the empty-nester studio apartment. The Baltimore day outside her window as gloomy as she felt. The boats on the Inner Harbor barely moved, matching the neurons in her brain.
Adrienne had been her best friend for decades. In the joy of youth each had promised to write the eulogy of the other. Adrienne, in her thirties, confided confidentially she had recounted the best of their lives. Jean lied she’d written glowing words knowing her chance of being caught registered fifty-fifty.
The years to both of them had been kind. Marriage, kids, and a lifestyle, if not extravagant, had, at least, been comfortable. Reaching age fifty had suggested a normal future retirement for both, even if Adrienne’s husband had refused to exercise, lose weight, quit smoking, and collapsed grasping for breath when his arteries clogged.
They had sobbed at the funeral, hugging each other for the longest time.
After Adrienne’s husband’s burial, Jean didn’t understand and initially barely recognized the transformation in her lifelong friend. Adrienne’s bubbly exterior not only became subdued, but also completely disappeared. It didn’t happen overnight. The effect like a beach slowly eroding with each tide splash and backwash.
First there was Adrienne’s oldest daughter’s eighteenth birthday party. An outwardly joyous occasion planned with the festive balloons and catered food signaling a good time for all. A pall gripped the crowd when Adrienne in a toast saluted her daughter and ended by saying that she hoped the daughter hadn’t been impregnated by her boyfriend to require a shower the next week.
Others gossiped that Adrienne’s conduct exhibited pure mean-spiritedness and Jean agreed. She tried to mention it to Adrienne, but Adrienne turned her back and wouldn’t listen. At their next meeting, Adrienne offered an insincere apology and explained that she’d had one too many scotch and waters. Besides, she’d overheard this rustle in her daughter’s bedroom when the boyfriend visited and Adrienne said she dreaded the gossip accompanying her being a premature grandmother.
Jean could understand if it had been just one incident, but there were more. Within Jean’s earshot, Adrienne had cussed out the newspaper boy for one day not getting the paper to her door. When the cowering boy tried to explain he’d hired a substitute to attend to his ailing out-of-town grandfather, she cussed him for having poor substitute-hiring judgment.
Adrienne and she had both used the same hairdresser for two decades and Jean one day, sitting in the hairdresser’s chair, commented that she’d not seen Adrienne waiting as had often been her experience. The hairdresser cleared her throat to say that Adrienne hadn’t been in lately. That’s strange said Jean who continued her comment with: “She had a beautiful cut only two days ago.”
Wasn’t me, said the hairdresser who couched her words by first saying she wished Adrienne well. The hairdresser said Adrienne had told her in a huff she’d rather shave her head and wear a wig than suffer what the hairdresser had done to her. Jean asked what that was. The response Jean received was one of I don’t know. Said the hairdresser, Adrienne just got mad one day and stomped out.
In the supermarket, Adrienne passed Jean in one aisle without comment. Jean thought that Adrienne had been distracted by another cart. Then from a distance Jean witnessed a clerk shut down her aisle rather than accept Adrienne as a customer. The clerk walked over to bag another customer’s groceries.
Jean reached into her desk drawer to pull out another pencil. There were no words except Adrienne’s name atop the sheet of paper. Jean had to be respectful, not damning. What words could she use for a deceased friend who had become so mean-spirited.
Jean wrote:
“We all come into this world with high hopes, and Adrienne had her rightful share. While we may accomplish what we seek, Adrienne did to a degree no one but God may know. Those of us here may remember a special moment when and where Adrienne gave us joy. We should celebrate that moment for its uniqueness and special quality that may never reappear.
“However much we may think we knew Adrienne, no one can ever be sure we really knew precisely and exactly the burdens shouldered by her or any one of our friends, or our foes for that matter.
“We ourselves sometimes don’t completely understand what is happening to us.
“Therefore, before we condemn any rudeness, ill-behavior, or crudeness, let us offer a prayer for the essential goodness that resides in each man, woman, and child. Adrienne deserves our sincerest heartfelt prayers, nothing less. We should all be blessed in the giving.”
