by Joy Argento
“Are you sure you want to do this?”
I’m sure. I’m sure I need to let go of these feelings. They rose without my permission. My recent attempts to stuff them back into that secret box proved unsuccessful. I turned around to face Jodi. I got lost in her eyes for a split second before answering. “It’s just nerves,” I repeated. “I’ll be fine.”
And I was. The wedding went off without a hitch. Everyone told me how beautiful I looked in my long white dress. Al looked so handsome in his tux. His mother couldn’t attend due to a recent fall and a stay in the hospital. I offered to postpone, but Al wouldn’t hear of it. She wouldn’t remember it anyway, he reminded me.
Jodi gave me a rose quartz in the shape of a heart. It was wrapped in velvet and tucked into a handmade wooden box. The note included said:
For my best friend,
This rose quartz is a symbol of unconditional love. It opens the heart, increases self-love, friendship, and healing. May it bring you inner peace and harmony in everything you do for all your life.
All my love,
Jodi
We started our life as a married couple in Jamaica on our honeymoon. The warm sand and sunshine were just what I needed. My texts and pictures to Jodi were frequent. I wanted to share the experience with her. I set the rose quartz heart in the sand and took pictures of it with the ocean in the background. I texted the best one to her.
Hey. She texted back. Don’t lose that on the beach.
Lol. I won’t. It’s too important to me.
I can’t believe you brought it on your honeymoon.
Of course I did. I’m going to put it in my nightstand by my bed when I get home. I want to keep it close by.
“Texting Jodi, again?” Al asked, sitting in the lounge chair next to me.
I felt like I had been caught cheating. She was just a friend I told myself, but I knew better. My feelings for her were too strong. I looked at Al and closed my phone. “Last time. I promise.” It was a promise I intended to keep. How could I look Al in the eye and be thinking about Jodi? It was never going to work.
* * *
That was the third message Jodi left me. I looked at it but didn’t pick it up either to answer the phone when it rang or to listen to the voice mail. How could I tell her that I couldn’t see her anymore—couldn’t be around her? How could I make a new marriage work and love her at the same time? I pushed my feelings for her way down into the bottom of my heart where the moths and rust couldn’t ruin it. I locked it up tight and put the key where no one would ever find it.
If I saw her or even talked to her on the phone, I knew that lock wouldn’t be able to contain my feelings and I couldn’t trust my mouth not to let the truth tumble out. I couldn’t risk that.
Jodi
Four Years Later
I woke up the morning of my forty-fifth birthday and thought, Where the hell am I? It wasn’t that I physically didn’t know where I was. I was in the house I shared with my partner of nine years tucked away on that cozy little cul-de-sac in the suburbs. I would have called her my lover, but we hadn’t made love in well over a year. I’d spent so much time trying to get our love life back. I wooed her with flowers and compliments and romance. I gave her space to figure out that she missed that part of me, of us. I begged, I pleaded, I cried. I gave up trying. On the rare occasion that she would toss me a bone, I was made to feel like she was doing me a favor.
Lovemaking became stiff, forced, robotic. My kisses were unanswered and she performed as if following a script. She would touch my cheek twice, move down to the breasts giving each one thirty seconds of attention, run her fingers across my stomach and down to the pleasure center, stroke and insert. Not wet yet? Oh well, continue anyway so I can’t say we never make love any more. And oh yeah, don’t let her body get too close to me while she’s doing it.
I would spend months wanting her, needing her, and when I finally got her for several minutes I would wonder why I had bothered trying. Her small offering left me feeling even more empty and alone than before.
Our love life became the pattern for our everyday existence, and I watched her move away from me and what we shared as if in slow motion. My arms reaching out for her to keep her close but catching nothing but air.
Did I still love her? I didn’t know. I still cared about her. A piece of me still wanted her, still wanted her to want me.
I came from a family where you stayed together through thick and thin, good times and bad, or any other cliché you cared to throw in there. I was an only child—never daring enough to cause trouble to get noticed, I was quiet and shy—the good kid. I had witnessed, through closed doors, my parents fighting from time to time. I could rarely make out the muffled words, and sometimes the tension in the house would last for days, but in the end, they would always come back together, stronger than they were before. I learned at a young age that fighting with the one you loved was normal and could even be good. I learned you just needed to stick it out for a few days.
My days turned into months and then into years. I was waiting for us to come back together and be stronger. Only this wasn’t really fighting. I think both people needed to care in order to fight. This was more like Claire was pulling away, inch by painful inch, and I was powerless to stop her. For a long time, I thought maybe there was something wrong with me. Something I needed to figure out and do different in order for her to want me. That had been a theme in my life—there’s something wrong with me.
If Claire didn’t act like she loved me, didn’t want me, didn’t want to touch me—there’s something wrong with me. But I’d come to the conclusion that it was not me. The only thing wrong with me was that I hadn’t drawn up enough courage to actually walk out the door—until the day I did.
Beth
This wasn’t the way it was supposed to be. I did everything I could to make sure my marriage would succeed. Hell, I had even lost my best friend to make sure my feelings for her didn’t get in the way. And what did he do? He fucking cheated on me. It was just a few times he said. It was over he said. He still loved me. He begged for my forgiveness.
I’m not sure he ever would have told me about it had I not found the charges on the credit card statement. Awfully stupid of him not to use cash to pay for hotel rooms and to buy his mistress gifts.
He agreed to counseling with the pastor of our church. I was in the process of forgiving him. It was taking some time. I let him back into the bedroom but found myself sleeping on the edge of the bed in an effort to stay away from him. I still couldn’t let him touch me. Not the way he had touched her.
People make mistakes. I told myself that again and again. I didn’t want my marriage to fail. If I could just forgive him, we could get past this. But it wasn’t that simple. Forgiveness didn’t get back the trust. Didn’t get back what we lost. No, not what we lost—what he threw away. What he tore apart, waded into a ball, and stomped on. No getting back to where we were—or maybe we were never really there. I just didn’t know anymore.
To the rest of the world, nothing had changed. I went to work, bought groceries from Wegmans, and went to family functions. No one knew. No one except my mother.
“Men will be men,” she said to me. “It’s what they do.”
That wasn’t good enough for me. “Forsaking all others,” he had said in church, in front of me, in front of a hundred and fifty people. In front of God. But he hadn’t forsaken her. He had fucked her.
Jodi
I hadn’t seen Beth in more than four years. She had slowly and silently slipped out of my life. I chalked it up to her new marriage and a husband who didn’t want to share her. It hurt but I understood. At least that’s what I told myself. I didn’t want to hate her. I loved her too much for that. I figured it would be better—healthier for me and my relationship with Claire—if I let Beth go without a fight. When she started to slip away, I let her. But the end of my relationship with Claire was upon me, and what I needed most was a friend. Not just any friend. I needed Beth.
>
It took me a week to gather up enough courage to call her. I had no idea if she would even answer. I was a little surprised when she did. She seemed genuinely happy to hear from me. We made plans for lunch the following day.
I woke when the sun came up. Elation and a bit of anxiety wouldn’t let me sleep any longer. A lot had changed since I had last seen Beth. I had my own apartment—tiny, but mine. My business was now located in a small storefront on Main Street.
My mom had died three years ago and my dad six months later. I was swallowed up by grief for a long while, but that had settled down to a dull ache. Andrew was at boot camp, training to be a marine. He had joined against my strong objections. My ex-husband was all for it. “It will make a man out of him,” he told me. The stress of it caused a cascade of stomach pains on a regular basis. I took up meditation as a path to relaxation. It wasn’t helping as much as I had hoped.
Annie was fourteen and would soon be a freshman in high school. My kids were definitely growing up. My relationship was done, and I was feeling left behind. I wondered what life was like for Beth.
I tapped my foot in a steady rhythm. I had arrived a few minutes early and ordered a drink to steady my nerves. I wasn’t quite sure what I was so nervous about. My anxiety bordered on fear. I was afraid the strength of my feelings for Beth would come rushing back. But I was more afraid they wouldn’t. I was afraid Beth’s feelings for me had changed. That we wouldn’t be able to find our way back to friendship. If they’d changed would I know it? Would I be chasing after a friendship that didn’t exist anymore?
I looked up from the menu in time to see Beth walk through the door. My breath caught in my throat. There was no denying the feelings were still there. I just had to be sure I could keep them under control. I was surprised that I had almost forgotten how beautiful she was. During the years we were out of touch I thought mostly about the pain of missing her. I forget the actual her I was missing. Because that was who I loved. The actual her.
I was on my feet as Beth approached the table. Her face lit up with a huge grin. There she was. My friend. She was back in the blink of an eye. The hug she gave me confirmed it.
The conversation flowed as if no time had passed. We touched on every subject but the one that had separated us four years ago. Why had we lost touch and drifted apart?
I broached the subject choosing my words carefully. Not wanting to place blame. Not wanting to put another wedge between us.
“Four years ago, I felt like you pulled back and away from me. It was shortly after you got married. I let you do it without much of a fight,” I said, just pointing out the facts as I saw them.
She averted her eyes for a few seconds and then brought them back to me. She swallowed hard. “Did it ever occur to you that I did that because I had feelings for you?”
What? No. That never occurred to me. How could that be true? How could I not figure that out? Everything pointed to the opposite. She pulled away because she didn’t want to be my friend, not because she wanted to be my lover. “Wait a minute,” I said. “What are you saying?” I obviously didn’t understand.
“I had feelings for you. I found it very hard to be around you and not touch you.”
“Why didn’t you ever tell me?” The whole room had taken on a surreal feeling. All the time I wanted her, she wanted me back?
“I wasn’t going to be the reason you broke up with Claire. You loved her. I wanted to honor that. And then I married Al. There was no sense telling you when we were both with other people.”
“When you say it was hard for you not to touch me…you mean everything? Could you have had sex with me?” Did this mean she wasn’t straight after all? I was confused.
“Oh yes,” she said. “Without a doubt. But it was only you.”
“What do you mean?”
“You are the only woman I’ve ever been attracted to. The only one I’ve ever had those feelings for. I don’t know what that means. I don’t know what that makes me. I’ve never told anyone this. And to be quite honest…” She paused for a very long moment. “The thought of it terrified me.”
“Why?”
She hesitated, apparently choosing her words carefully. “You didn’t frighten me. The thought I might be gay did.”
I didn’t have to ask why. It had frightened me for a long time. Beth was brought up in a strict religion. She still attended church regularly. I’m sure the thought was even harder for her than it had been for me.
“Why are you telling me now?” All the years of wanting her, all that time thinking my feelings were mine alone and now this. It was hard to wrap my head around.
“Because you deserve the truth.”
She said she had had feelings for me. Did that mean those feelings were gone? I had assumed all of these years of not seeing her made my feelings fade into the background. Maybe the same thing happened for her. She was still married. I assumed she still loved Al.
She had mentioned there had been some problems, but she also said they were trying to work it out.
Beth
It was hard for me to admit my feelings to Jodi, but she deserved the truth. She deserved to know why I had to walk away. I hadn’t planned on it, but when she brought up the fact that I had pulled away, it just came pouring out. I had missed her dearly the last several years. There were times I picked up my phone and stared at her contact information with my finger hovering over the dial button. But in the end, I never pressed it. My marriage had to be my number one priority. My feelings for Jodi would just get in the way.
Maddie was living in my house, working part-time and going to Monroe Community College. She had her life on track. I was proud of her. I was living in Al’s house. His mother never recovered from her fall and she died in the hospital shortly after we returned from our honeymoon. Al seemed to take it well.
I attended church every Sunday and Al accompanied me most weeks. When I found out about his affair I insisted he start counseling with our minister. He agreed. He upped his efforts to win back my affections with flowers and expensive gifts. They didn’t make a difference. I knew only time and honesty would heal my heart. I vowed to give him the chance to prove himself.
Seeing Jodi again was wonderful. I believed my feelings for her were in check. The time apart had helped me lock them away. I was sure we could be friends again. I wanted that almost as much as I wanted my marriage to work.
I was surprised that Jodi had left Claire. I knew she hadn’t been totally happy with her, but I also thought she had enough love to stay, despite the fact that Claire didn’t deserve her.
“How are you doing with the breakup?” I asked.
She took a long swig of her Manhattan before answering. “It took a lot for me to get to the place where I could leave. Part of it was fear. You know how hard it is running your own business. There can be dry spells where the money just doesn’t come in.”
I nodded.
The waitress took that moment to clear the dishes from our table. “Can I get you anything else? We have a wonderful dessert menu?”
Jodi ordered another drink. We both passed on dessert. She continued as soon as we were alone again. “I reached a point where I was willing to live in my car if I had to. I just couldn’t stay any longer. The love was gone. It was torture being there.”
“Oh, Jodi.” I put my hand over hers but pulled it back again. I wasn’t prepared for the tingle I felt touching her. If she noticed she gave no indication.
“Claire didn’t want me to leave. Begged me to stay. Swore she would change.”
“That didn’t make a difference?”
“I had been telling her for years what my needs were. She wasn’t willing to change during that time. I had given up trying. I didn’t think she could change, or if she did I knew it would be short-lived.”
“Do you need a place to stay? Money? Are you okay?” There was no way I could let her sleep in her car.
She shook her head. “No. I have an apartment. It isn’t mu
ch, but it’s mine. Annie is with her father in Denver for the summer.”
The waitress returned with Jodi’s drink, and left the bill on the table. I picked it up before Jodi had a chance to.
“Hey,” she said, pointing at the check.
“I’ve got this.”
“I didn’t tell you that so you would feel sorry for me.”
I glanced at the bill, slipped my credit card in the folder, and set it down out of Jodi’s reach.
“Feel sorry for you? Never. You are the strongest, kindest woman I know. You’ll land on your feet. I’m taking care of the bill today. I’ll be ordering surf and turf next time, when it’s your turn to pay.”
She laughed. My heart warmed to the sound of it. I had missed her. Truly. Desperately. Missed her.
Jodi
Beth’s words stayed with me over the next week and bounced around in my head like an out of control ping-pong ball. She had feelings for me. Could she still have them? I knew I still felt for her. She’d never told me because of Claire—didn’t want to be the one to break us up. She had taken away my choice. I didn’t know how she felt, so I couldn’t choose her over Claire.
The more I thought about it, the more I thought there was a good chance I would have chosen her. I would still choose her. She took the high road. I wasn’t sure I wanted to do the same. I wanted to tell her I returned her feelings. See if there was any chance she would choose me. Could I put her in that position? I didn’t know.
I did know I didn’t have to decide anything right away. The task at hand was to get ready to go over to her house. Al was out for the evening—some church counseling session Beth had said.
I went through several outfits before deciding on simple jeans and a T-shirt. I laughed when Beth opened the door and she was dressed almost identically.
She gave me a tight hug, which I didn’t let go on too long, as much as I would have liked to. She led me to the large living room and sat on the couch next to me. The coffee table in front of us held an array of cheese, crackers, and other munchies.
