Just Friends

by Dyan Sheldon

  “Shit, man, you really do live in a parallel world, don’t you? Why did you think I joined?”

  “To broaden your directorial experience?”

  “That’s not really the experience I wanted to broaden. I wanted to be around Ramona.”

  “You’re always around her.”

  “Yeah, but you know…” Can Sal possibly be blushing? Is that something future award-winning directors do? Would Orson Welles blush? Would Alexander Payne? Surely not Wes Anderson. “Without you being there, too. And I wanted to have something to talk about that was just between her and me.”

  Sometimes Josh watches The Antiques Roadshow with his mother. He is having an Antiques Roadshow moment, feeling like someone who brought in an old vase that’s been in the attic filled with paperclips for the last ninety years because nobody liked it – only to discover that it’s a work of art and worth a small fortune.

  “So you actually asked her out?”

  “I didn’t get that far. I started out by telling her I liked her.” Sal makes a face. Stupid or what? “And I’ve never been so shit-scared in my life. I thought I was going to faint.”

  “And?”

  “What do you mean ‘and’? And we’re going to elope to Las Vegas as soon as we finish high school.” Sal sighs. “She was as nice as you can be when you’re stabbing some poor jerk in the heart. She said she really likes me a lot, but just as friends.” He fiddles with the cuff of his shirt. “Actually, she was very sympathetic. Said she knows what it feels like. She’s been there, too. She said she gave me points for saying something because she’s never had the nerve.”

  “Really? Mo? Mo likes likes somebody?” This is a lot to take in. Some girls are desperate to have a boyfriend, but Ramona’s never been like that. She’s never declared any feelings for anyone who isn’t a dead composer, a character in a book or a domestic pet. “She told me she’s never been into anyone.”

  “She did?” Sal considers this for a few seconds. Or possibly it’s Josh he’s considering. It’s hard to tell. “So you think she just said that so I didn’t cry in front of her?”

  “No.” Josh shrugs. He shakes his head. He doesn’t seem to know what to do with his hands. “I don’t know. I’m only repeating what she said.” What did she say? She said no. She’d never been interested in anyone. Not really. He didn’t know what she meant and she said it meant not really. When she was little. Only now does he wonder if she was telling the truth. Why wouldn’t Mo tell him the truth? “It must be one of the post-postmodernists … maybe that tall guy with the black hair. I know they go to exhibitions together. What’s his name? Dara or Darius. Something like that. Artsy-fartsy and full of himself.” He looks at Sal, as if he’d forgotten he was there. “I don’t suppose she said who it is.”

  Sal shakes his head. “Not really.”

  He has no intention of telling Ramona about his plans, but he does have to tell her not to bring her fiddle to the Valentine’s party. Fair’s fair.

  “You have got to be joking.” Her voice is like a punch. “What do you mean, you’re not coming Saturday?”

  He should have texted. There’s a lot to be said for the impersonal electronic message. For one thing, you can’t tell how mad the recipient is.

  “I’m really sorry, Mo. I just can’t.”

  “But I’ve been practising ‘Some of These Days’. I know it’s one of your favourites.” No eye contact being another advantage of the email or text. “Why can’t you come?”

  He could tell her Charley Patton’s sick. Or that he doesn’t want his mom to be alone, missing his dad. Or even that the band got a last-minute gig. But he doesn’t. He’s pretty sure she’d know he was lying.

  “It’s Jena. She and Simon had a big fight—”

  “Excuse me!” Ramona pulls out her phone. “Just give me a minute while I make the announcement on Twitter. This is, like, earth-shattering news. Nobody’s going to believe it! We have to alert the President! They’ll probably call a special session of the UN!”

  He should have lied.

  Josh holds up a hand. “Okay, okay. You’re very funny. I know they’re always breaking up, but this time it’s the real deal. This time she’s not going to change her mind. They’re officially over.”

  “And what exactly does that have to do with you?” If scorn were water he’d be drowning.

  “I said I’d hang out with her. She doesn’t want to be alone.” Ramona’s expression doesn’t change. “You can understand that. It’s Valentine’s. Being alone would make her feel like the last teddy bear left on the toyshop shelf on Christmas Eve.”

  “And what about your friends. Your other friends, I mean. What about how we feel?”

  “Yeah, but you have each other.”

  She leans back in her chair. Regrouping. “I still don’t see why you can’t come,” she says. “Bring Jena with you. More the merrier. She and Murray can talk about scene changes.”

  He did think of that. Not Jena swapping stagehand stories with Murray, but her going to Sal’s with him. But when he told Jena about the alternative Valentine’s Day party she said, “That would really show Simon, wouldn’t it?” He could tell she was being sarcastic. She didn’t say it in so many words, but he got the impression that she’d rather hang out with her dad and his poker buddies than with Josh’s friends. What she did say, with so much sweetness and sincerity that you had to wonder why she thought she can’t act, was that she’s sure they’re really interesting and terrific people and everything but she’d feel uncomfortable. She couldn’t even imagine what they’ll do at this party. Josh said they’ll play pin the tail on the donkey and then shoot cans off the fence in the backyard with BB guns. It was a few seconds before Jena said, “Oh, that’s funny. No, really, what’ll they do?” Josh said hang out. Maybe watch a movie. Ramona and he might play a little music. He could tell from the way she smiled that she thought that was kind of weird. “See what I mean?” said Jena. “We don’t do that kind of thing at the parties I go to.” She wasn’t being bad, she said, but his friends aren’t really her crowd. “I mean, you don’t hang out with my crew, do you?” Not that he’s ever been invited. “Because, you know, you wouldn’t fit. And I wouldn’t fit with yours.” She laughed. “Can you imagine me trying to have a conversation with them? With Carver? How’s global warming coming along? And I hear Sal and Ramona blah-blahing away in drama meetings and half the time I don’t have a clue what they’re talking about.”

  “I don’t think she’s really up for a lot of people,” he says to Ramona now. “You know, dented heart and everything.”

  Ramona tilts her head to one side. Considering – though he isn’t certain what. “So you think this time she and the football hero are really quits? That’s what you think?”

  “Looks like it.” And then, because she is still watching him consideringly, answers the question she doesn’t ask – the one he wasn’t going to answer. “I figure maybe I’ll say something.”

  “You mean, before she gets another boyfriend,” says Ramona.

  The Trouble with Hope

  Though this is something else she hasn’t said in so many words, Josh can tell that Jena thinks he’s all head and no heart; emotionally contained and as romantic as cold mashed potatoes. Well, she’s going to have to think again. If she wants romance she’s going to get romance. Josh’s mother is out for the evening, so he has the house to himself and doesn’t have to explain what he’s doing or beg her to stay in her room – no matter what. He went online and looked up romantic movies, and got three of them. He bought enough candles to torch Rome and burnt himself several times lighting them. Instead of boring old pretzels and chips, he got those corn nut things Jena likes and olives. He’s not sure why, but olives seem very sexy to him, even though he doesn’t particularly like to eat them. He bought a single red rose. He’s rehearsed what he’s going to say so many times you’d think he was addressing Congress. He cut himself shaving, changed his shirt three times, and has a record ready
to play that will tell her everything she needs to know even before he opens his mouth. Ray Charles singing that classic of unrequited love “You Don’t Know Me”, about someone who’s always been just a friend to the woman he loves.

  By six thirty, when Jena should be nearing his street, Josh is so nervous he thinks he may be having a stroke. It could happen. Youth protects you from nothing, except maybe taxes. Be calm … be calm… he tells himself. He doesn’t want her to arrive only to find his lifeless body on the living-room floor. Not now, for God’s sake. How ironic would that be? He turns on the music when he hears the bell, picks up the rose and takes several deep breaths. He wipes his hands on his jeans and breathes some more. The bell rings again. Damn, there aren’t any lights on in the living room. What if she doesn’t notice the flickering candlelight and thinks he forgot she’s coming over? Josh dashes into the hall, and trips over Charley Patton, who howls indignantly. He’ll be lucky not to kill himself before he gets to the door.

  As soon as he opens it, he wishes he hadn’t.

  Jena looks like she’s stepped out of a dream. She’s all dressed up: new dress, new shoes and her good coat. The dream she’s stepped out of is not his, of course. Without even looking he can see Copeland’s car at the kerb. Jena’s going to the dance.

  Josh hides the rose behind his back and steps forward, blocking her view into the house.

  “You didn’t have to dress up for me,” Josh jokes. He hopes she doesn’t realize he’s wearing his best shirt, the one he only wears for gigs, and his lucky red suspenders that belonged to his dad.

  “Oh, Josh…” Jena makes a sad, apologetic face. “I’m really sorry. I tried to call you but it went straight to voicemail.”

  He turned off his phone so he wouldn’t forget to turn it off; he didn’t want them to be disturbed.

  “I’m guessing you and Simon made up.” If he holds the doorframe any more tightly he’ll break it.

  “Yeah. You know…” Her shrug is helpless. As if it’s something that happened to her, like getting a cold. “I just can’t seem to stay mad at him for long.”

  “Fool for love,” says Josh, trying to remember where he heard that.

  Jena laughs. “I guess that’s me. But there are worse things, right?”

  There definitely are worse things, even if he can’t think of any of them at the moment.

  He doesn’t feel angry or particularly surprised. More like he’s been standing in the cold for several hours, waiting for a train that isn’t going to come. None so blind as those who will not see, he thinks – but can’t remember where he heard that either.

  “Well, have a great time.” Josh nods towards the road. “You better go. You don’t want to keep Simon waiting. Not tonight.”

  She’s peering under his arm. “Why is it so dark?” She sniffs. “What’s that smell?”

  “Nothing.” Lilac. Lavender. Jasmine. Rose. Sandalwood. “Some candles my mom had.”

  “It looks like Christmas or something in there.”

  Could be. It definitely seems to be snowing in his heart.

  “It’s just some candles my—”

  Jena pushes past him and into the hall, her eyes following the shimmering flames, a string of light weaving its way through the room. She turns back to him. “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing,” says Josh. “I just wanted it to look Valentiney, that’s all. I thought it would cheer you up.”

  But she isn’t listening to Josh. “Who’s that singing? What’s that song?”

  “No one.” Thank God she doesn’t know much music that wasn’t made in the last five years. “Just one of my old records.”

  Her smile isn’t sure of itself. “You did all this for me?”

  Who else? The dozen other people he’s expecting?

  “Yeah. Like I said, I thought it would cheer you up.”

  Outside, Simon leans out the car window and calls, “Hey, Jen! We have to get going!”

  For once, Josh wishes she would do what Simon says. Go. Quickly.

  “You really should go.” He tries to edge her back to the door. “Simon’s waiting.”

  “Josh, I— I’m really sorry. I didn’t think—”

  “It’s okay.” If he wasn’t holding the rose behind his back and had two hands free he’d be tempted to just grab hold of her and throw her out of the house. “I figured you’d probably change your mind. I just did the candles in case.”

  “I really am sorry. I didn’t know you’d go to all this trouble.”

  He doesn’t want her to be sorry; he wants her to leave. “It’s fine. I told you.” He gives her a tug, but she seems to have grown roots.

  “You’re such a good friend,” says Jena. “Next to Tilda, you’re the best friend I’ve ever had. You know that, don’t you?”

  Of course he does. He’s always known it; she made it clear that she would never be interested in him as a boyfriend; made it clear they’d always only be friends. But he wouldn’t listen. Not to her, not to himself and not to anyone. That’s the problem with Hope; it blinds you even more than love.

  She gestures to the room. “I just feel so bad—”

  She’s not the only one.

  “It’s okay, Jen. Really.” It is. It has to be. She never meant to hurt him or lead him on. He’s brought this on himself. She always said she was nothing like him; he always knew what kind of boyfriend she wanted, and the boyfriend she wanted was never Josh. Jena doesn’t want to be on the sidelines; she wants to be smack-dab in the middle with Simon Copeland or someone like him. Someone good-looking and popular and envied. Prom queen to his king. At the centre of the high-school universe with Tilda Kopel. And he remembers her once saying, Sometimes the people you like the best aren’t the ones you’re attracted to. “I swear.”

  “I really am sorry…” She bites her bottom lip.

  “For God’s sake, Jena, it’s okay. You have nothing to be sorry for.” Unlike Josh.

  Simon calls her name again. “I guess I better go.” She gives him a hug. “Try not to burn the house down. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

  Josh stands in the doorway, watching her run down the front path and get in the car. He waves as they pull away and even Simon waves back. The rose falls to the floor.

  Back inside, he turns off the player and puts out the candles. He doesn’t bother turning on the lights but throws himself on the sofa. Charley Patton jumps up beside him. Josh strokes his head. “Looks like it’s you and me, boy.” Charley nuzzles against him. Your friends are there when you need them most. Even if all they can do is purr. He and Charley sit in the dark, each lost in his own thoughts. Something Ramona said way long ago last year comes back to him: Tilda Kopel would never allow it. He paid no attention then, of course, but now he realizes how right Ramona was. Tilda Kopel never would allow it. If Jena had chosen to date Josh she would have lost everything else – Tilda and all her other new friends; feeling like she fit; finally belonging. Somehow, this makes him feel slightly less bad. The sudden ringing of the doorbell makes both him and Charley jump.

  For only as long as it takes him to get to the door, Josh thinks it might be Jena. She dropped something. She forgot something. She changed her heart. But even as he puts his hand on the knob he knows it isn’t her. He opens the door.

  It’s Ramona. She’s all in black – black coat, black lace skirt, black boots, black hearts hanging from her ears – looming in front of him like the ghost of Valentine’s to come. She doesn’t wait for him to ask her in. She strides past him, stepping on the fallen flower. She has her violin strapped across her back.

  “Christ,” she says, “turn on a light before I trip over something.”

  He has no choice but to follow her in, kicking the rose into a corner and turning on a light. “What are you doing here?”

  At the moment she’s looking around the room. She squinches up her nose. “It smells like a florist. Or one of those New Age shops with all the crystals in the window.”

  “So what
are you doing here?”

  She turns to face him. “I saw Jena leave with Simon.” Even her earrings seem to shrug. “So I figured they made up.”

  This is all he needs. A lecture from Ramona. “Look, I know what you’re going to say. You told me so. You—”

  “That’s not what I’m going to say. I didn’t come to make you feel worse. I came to get you. You know, for the party.”

  “The party?” He needs a party about as much as Charley Patton needs a skateboard. “But I—”

  “No buts,” says Ramona. “You’re coming with me.”

  “I don’t really feel—”

  Ramona doesn’t care. She’s a lot more like her mother than he thought. “You’re not sitting here by yourself in the dark all night. You’re going to come and hang out with the rest of us. We’re all in the same boat, Josh. You, me, Sal, Carver, Murray and Zara. And it’s not the love boat. So you’re going to get your guitar and we’re going to play some cool music and by the end of the night everybody’s going to feel a lot better. You know, ’cause at least we have great songs and friends.”

  “I appreciate what you’re trying to do, Mo—”

  “I’m not trying, I’m doing it.” She grabs him by the shoulders. Her eyes are darker than he thought, too. “You listen to me, Joshua Shine. I know you talked to Sal, so I know you know how great he’s feeling. And how great I’m feeling. Really, if you want the truth, we all feel shitty. Maybe not as shitty as you’re feeling right now, but bad enough. So get over yourself.” She looks at the couch. “Back me up here, Charley. Don’t you think I’m right?”

  Charley Patton opens his eyes, stares at them both for a second, then closes his eyes again.

  “That’s a yes,” says Ramona. “He doesn’t want you hanging around here making him depressed.” As she takes her hands from his shoulders she gives him a shove. “Go get your guitar.”

  Some of These Days

  After the days of dark and cold, finally Spring has arrived. The sun is shining, the trees are budding, his mother’s hyacinths are blooming and Josh’s world has gone back to how it was before last September. More or less.