by Cole Parker
Circumstances 14
I was at my locker when suddenly I was tapped on the shoulder. I swung around, fearing the worst, and instead found Gary looking at me. He wasn’t smiling.
“Hey!” I said, sort of hopefully, sort of tentatively, sort of defensively, sort of me being me.
“Why haven’t you called?” he asked. He sounded both curious and pissed. Maybe more of the first.
“Well, uh....” Damn! I didn’t quite know what to say. Then I thought of the perfect answer!
“I did call you that once. I thought it was your turn to call next. I didn’t want to be pushy or anything.”
He scowled. “Since when is calling your friend being pushy? And I did try to call. You never gave me your number so I tried both the phone book and Directory Assistance, but there was no listing for Perryman. And no one at school knew your number, either.”
“Oh…um…yeah, when my parents got divorced, my mother took back her maiden name, and that’s what the phone’s listed under. Stuart. With a ‘u’, not a ‘w’.”
“OK, but there are probably a lot of those. Why don’t you just tell me your number?”
So I did, feeling excited that he still wanted to be friends. I hadn’t known that. I did know that sometimes I let my self-doubts get the better of my judgment, but hadn’t considered that this time.
He then said, “But you never answered my question. Why didn’t you call again?”
“Well, I—” What could I say? That I thought he had other, better friends now and so wouldn’t want to be friends with me? That insulted both of us, if you wanted to look at it that way. And if I told him any of my self-doubts about being worthy of his friendship, I’d sound totally pathetic. But lying would be wrong if I wanted to really be his friend. That would be a horrible way to start a friendship!
So I didn’t answer. I simply hung my head.
He caught on real fast, which surprised me because most guys are put off by the
way I sort of retreat into myself. But Gary just stepped closer and put his arm
around my shoulders, and said in a soft voice, “Oh. I get it. I didn’t know
you were that shy. Hey!” He gave me a quick squeeze, then stepped back and
continued, “Why don’t you come over to my house after school today. You can see
where I live—my room. And we can talk. I think we should talk.”
His enthusiasm got to me, and even those serious sounding last few words weren’t all that intimidating. That’s because he didn’t say them at all ominously. He was cheerful! He was so cheerful all the time!
It was difficult to feel sorry for myself when I was with him. “OK,” I said, and realized I was grinning. “I’ll meet you right here after school.”
∫ ∫ ∫
We rode on his bus. A lot of kids said ‘hi’ to him as we walked down the center aisle, both boys and girls, and they all smiled when they said it. He was already popular, even though he was new. Some kids are just like that. They’re the good-looking ones, generally, but I’ve noticed that isn’t the main thing. An outgoing personality seems the most important thing in being popular. Having money is good, too.
We were on the bus that went to the affluent part of town. Gary’s house fit right in with that. It was very large, set on a landscaped lawn and had a pool in the back. I was impressed, as my house was simply a house, a small one like all the others in my neighborhood. None of these houses were tract houses; each one was individual and imposing.
Gary yelled ‘hi’ to his mom, and she came out of wherever she’d been in the house and I got introduced to her, and then we were off upstairs. To Gary’s room. Which was about the size of our living room. And I had the impression his mom must straighten it up because it sure didn’t look like mine. No clothes on the floor, no unmade bed, nothing scattered around.
He had all the things most any kid our age who wasn’t poor had. Even I had a computer and some games. He had more, like his own TV set, and a lot of other stuff.
I looked around while he went to the bathroom. Then he came back and sat down on his bed, cross-legged, right in the middle. He patted the bed in front of him, and so I climbed up on it and sat like he was, facing him.
“We’re friends, right?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“Then I want you to tell me why you didn’t call me. You couldn’t tell me at school, there were too many people around and you were nervous.”
He was looking at me, and I wanted to tell him the truth. Instead, I looked away and said, “I’ve always been shy.”
He was silent a moment, and then he said things that made me ashamed. He was able to be much more honest than I was.
“Keith,” he said after that silence, seeming to have gathered the resolve to say what he wanted to say, which was a resolve and honesty and courage that I didn’t have, “it’s easy for me to make friends. I’ve had a lot of experience at it because we moved a lot as my father moved up in his company. But I’ve never had a really close friend, a best friend. Maybe because I never stay one place long enough to become really close to anyone. A lot of best friends seem to have been together since they were little kids. Or maybe it’s something else. I think when guys get to know me, they see something that makes them back off. I don’t know what it is. I think there’s something wrong with me.”
I could see in his eyes. What he was saying was difficult for him. He was a guy who was constantly smiling, always happy. At least that was my opinion of him. It was what made him so attractive. He wasn’t smiling now. I hadn’t seen this side of him before.
He kept talking. “I did a lot of thinking when I knew we were moving again, this last time,” he continued. “I knew I’d be making new friends again, but I wanted it to be different this time. I wanted to find someone who could be a really good friend this time. A best friend.”
He stopped, and looked at the bed, and without looking up, said, “I thought I’d found that person. You. And then you didn’t call, and it was just like every time before. You saw something in me and decided you didn’t want to be that kind of friend. I want you to tell me, though. I need to know. Please? What’s wrong with me?”
His eyes remained on the bed. I had to think what to say. This was difficult.
“Gary, there’s nothing wrong with you. There is with me, and I don’t want to talk about it. You’re fine. I didn’t call because, well, it wasn’t you, OK? After we met, after we spoke on the phone, I was really excited about us being friends. I still want that.”
“You do?” He looked up at me, his face full of hope.
“More than anything,” I said. “We have to work on it, though. You don’t become best friends just because you want to be. You have to spend time together, find out what you have in common. And we might not have much in common. You probably like sports. I don’t. You’re going to be a popular kid; you already are. That’s not me.”
I hadn’t discouraged him. He sounded enthusiastic again. “Yeah, but one thing we do have in common is what we both want. That has to count for something. Hey, getting to know each other better will be part of the fun. Look—I think, to be friends, real friends, we have to be honest, and we have to be able to really communicate without holding anything back. We can do that, can’t we?”
“That’s hard for me,” I said. “I think we have to learn to trust each other first.” I couldn’t meet his eyes when I said that.
“Do you want to try, though?” he asked, and when I looked back at him, I could see he was apprehensive.
I nodded at him. “I do. I’d really like to have a friend I could say anything at all to, and he’d still like me.”
He smiled, a really bright smile. I didn’t think he’d really listened to what I’d just said. “OK. Let’s begin right away. Tomorrow’s Friday. Can you sleep over here? We’ll get to know each other better. You could come over after school and eat here, too.”
I smiled, too, and nodded. Even if inside my stomach was all worms. I didn’t know if I trusted him that much; I still was my overly-cautious, overly-protective self. And of even greater concern, I knew I still had personal issues that I’d have to hide from him.