Published Articles

NOT THE SAME
by Karen Ackland

At first Judy and I were wary of each other. That was almost fifteen years ago when I moved to Northern California to work for a local software company. Judy sat in the cubicle next to mine and she clearly distrusted the newcomer, wondering how much money I was making. I discounted the woman who rode her bike to work and changed into business clothes in the restroom. Two weeks later on my birthday she handed me a chocolate truffle in a square white box.

"Here, this is for you," she said, attempting to straighten the box whose corners were smashed from being in her bike bag.

Judy's generosity always overcame her suspicions, and that seemed to characterize our relationship. I put aside my arms-length reserve, grateful for our easy companionship. We started meeting before work to run along the beach. For dinner we went to Chinese restaurants and ordered the basil eggplant. We planned trips we never took, spreading out maps and calling for ferry schedules. We shopped for shoes.

Once Judy fell asleep while talking to me on the telephone. She'd put the phone down to check the movies in the Good Times.

I finally asked, "Judy, are you there?"

"Oh, I was just taking a little nap."

She was easily distracted. One evening I was getting ready to go out when the telephone rang.

"Hi," I heard, followed by silence. This made me impatient but I waited. "I was wondering if you are still going to hear that guy talk."

I'd invited her three days earlier to a lecture and she'd said she'd think about it.

"Yes. Do you want to go? It starts in a half hour."

"I guess so."

"Good. I'll wait for you in front of the auditorium."

"OK, but I don't know where it is." Her voice trailed off.

"Come by here. We'll drive together." I urged her to hurry.

We were late, but there were still several seats in the back. Afterwards, when they started passing baskets for a donation, Judy reached for her purse and then, forgetting that she was looking for her wallet, started to clean it out. She made a little pile on her lap of credit card receipts, torn movie ticket stubs, and an expired coupon for a free cookie at the Pacific Cookie Company.

"Do you have a dollar?" she whispered when the man beside her passed her a basket.

I grabbed it and put in two dollars. Judy collected the stuff she had cleaned out of her purse and put it back in.

Judy was not always forthcoming about herself, but she was tenacious about asking other people questions. She frightened near strangers into telling her that they were lesbians, just took out a second mortgage, and never recycle their plastic. Armed with this information she would respond with a simple, "Oh, I thought so," and return to what she was doing.

We spent hours and hours together, building up a reserve of good will and common experiences that I assumed was sufficient for whatever the future might bring. Today I suspect we would both name the other as a friend, but we rarely spend time together. When we do, we are wary again. Initially I thought the change was my doing. I married and my time was more closely scheduled, my need for companionship reduced.

But when I suggested meeting for dinner or a movie, Judy couldn't commit. She had a new boyfriend and they might go to San Francisco on Thursday, she'd say, or there was a chance they would get tickets to a concert. She'd give me a call. But she forgot to call. When we did make plans she showed up late or brought other people with her. "Michele needed company," she would whisper, or "Rick was lonely." I didn't need anything, but I wondered why the two of us couldn't have dinner alone the way we did before.

Judy and I used to talk in a self-deprecating way that made the other laugh. It was our way of distancing ourselves from minor disappointments. Recently when I made a similar comment, expecting her laugh, Judy suggested that I should be grateful. I am confused by this change. "Why are you telling me this?" I want to ask. "Why do you act like you don't know me?"

"Make new friends, but keep the old. One is silver and the other gold." Those were the words to the round that we sang in my Brownie troop. What the song doesn't consider is how friendships change - the connections sometimes stretched so thin that the pleasure in the relationship is lost. The song did not prepare me for friendship's ebb and flow.

When a lover leaves or a marriage dissolves, we are expected to be upset. Friends gather around to take sides, express sympathy, and offer support. We are given time and space to mourn. But when a friend moves to take a better job or build a dream house at the beach, when she marries or has a baby - we are expected to be happy. Unlike a love affair, a friendship is not expected to be exclusive. We might be asked, "Have you heard from Jane?" But the person asking is curious for news herself. No one sympathizes with the loss we feel. It would be inappropriate, even suspect, to complain.

When separations occur, we promise to keep in touch. This doesn't need to change anything, we assure each other. You can always count on me. While we might be suspicious of that claim from a lover, in a friend, we believe it. But the friendship is altered, of course. We put off making the phone call or writing the letter. We no longer know the shoes our friend wears or the color of her car.

There have been people who have passed through my life, people whose company was important to me at the time, whose absence doesn't pain me. I have friends who I call if I am on the East Coast, and who call me when they are in California. Although I would like to see the quilts a friend in Pittsburgh collects or sit by the pool of my cousin's Long Island home, I don't regret that these lives exist without me.

I am pleased when a friend from college phones. It has been several years since we last spoke yet we chat easily about our families and jobs. She tells me about the problems she is having with her teenage daughter. I complain about a recent kitchen remodel. Early in the conversation I realize that she is my age and the dissembling that occurs with my day-to-day friends, who are both older and younger than I am, is not necessary. My friend has heard of Khrushchev; we have decades in common. I dedicate myself to the thirty minutes of the conversation with pleasure; but I consider it a bonus.

There are small betrayals. I meet a friend for coffee to find that she now prefers green tea. I don't remember another being so brand conscious and try to ignore the labels and prices that she tells me. A friend who used to fall asleep each evening at 9:30 dismisses my concerns about a 9:00 movie. I try to nudge these friends back to the roles they previously played in my life, but they reasonably insist on their right to change.

I offer these examples to show that I recognize friendships evolve. Still I puzzle over the change in my relationship with Judy, questioning if it was my fault, or hers. I can neither define my hurt nor explain it away.

Recently Judy started bringing me presents. A cookbook, a bottle of macadamia nut oil, a bunch of sweet peas. It was done so casually that at first I didn't notice. "Here," she might say, rifling through the woven sack she carries and pulling out a bag of peaches. "I think these are still good."

I have begun to reciprocate these gifts - a bottle of olallieberry vinegar from the Farmer's Market or three paperwhites I'd forced in a glass vase. I am warmed by the give and take of these presents, but it is not the same. Affection remains, and history, but like former lovers we have lost patience with each others' foibles and hold back, our differences emphasized, our easy companionship mislaid.

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