Fair Weather Friends

By Danielle Mires

 

We'd been friends since college, Greg and I, almost inseparable since freshman year. We had both been rejected during Fraternity Rush, that age-old method of social exclusion, and had befriended one another first out of loneliness then out of mutual respect. Despite our differences (oh, there were many) we managed to get along; I admired (nay, was jealous of) his brilliance. There wasn't a class or a subject that he was incapable of grasping, not a fact or a concept that could escape him. But he was lazy or disinterested or a damn fool, for he frequently overslept or missed class altogether and often failed to hand assignments in on time. I, on the other hand, couldn't study enough. My life revolved around my library cubicle and the desk in my cramped apartment. I was forever shuffling index cards and highlighted notes, rewriting and memorizing and re-reading. But to no avail. I was a solid B student. I admired (and hated) Greg's brilliant mind, for I dreamed of such lucidity, such grace, such clarity. What I could have accomplished with that mind! With my hard work and his intelligence, we could have moved mountains, saved the world, altered the known (and possibly unknown) universe. But it was his brain, not mine, so he was free to do whatever he pleased. Namely, nothing. Perhaps I sound bitter. I should explain.

We both majored in Biology and graduated from the pre-med program in early June of '95. Much like fraternity rush, neither of us had been accepted into medical school, but this time for better reasons (I hope) than because we were wearing the wrong tie or came from the wrong side of town. I didn't have the grades or the test scores, and Greg had the test scores but abysmal grades and a flippant nature that surely unnerved the stoic interview panels. So we found ourselves together again, not by choice but by fate, left to face life after college with no job prospects and no graduate school in which to hide. I was devastated. He seemed thrilled. "We're young and single," he said, "let's take a trip! We can go anywhere right now! Think about it Connor, anywhere!"

"Take a trip, are you mad? What are we going to do, celebrate our rejection?" I was still licking my wounds from the 3 rejection letters that I had received that week alone.

"Connor it may be that this is the best thing that has ever happened to you." His dark blue eyes stared straight into me; I could see why women swooned over him. Right past me and over to him. I did mention that I was bitter, didn't I?
"How can this be the best thing that ever happened to me? I'm done! I’m 21 years old and my future plans have been destroyed! What the hell am I going to do now? I don't have a backup plan! I want to be a doctor! Dammit that's all I've ever wanted!" Now that last part wasn’t true, but I was feeling a touch melodramatic. Greg sighed.

"Silver linings, man, silver linings. Don't bitch about what you can't change. What's happened has happened. 'What now?', that's where I am. What now, well, we take what little money we have left and we bail. We leave behind school and professors and our disappointed parents and the whole conformist culture that we've been trying to appease for years. We just shrug our shoulders and go. We take a few moments of our youth and we savor them. We go and find what it means to be alive." His eyes implored me. But I couldn't, I just didn't feel that passion; in fact, the tone of his voice frightened me. I always hated when he got like that, talking about the meaning of life and other philosophical bullshit. I used to think that he did it just to impress the girls, which I could respect, but it soon became evident that he was sincere. It was enough to make me nauseous. I could tell you the meaning of life. Big house, big car, big paycheck. Wife, kids, and a 20 year old mistress. That's the American Dream. I wanted it all, and a slice of apple pie on top. Greg, I think, wanted to be one with the universe, whatever that means.

So we didn't go on any around the world trip. My Dad's friend's brother's company took both of us on in entry-level positions in the Research and Development department of their software concern. We both had a little programming experience, so we were perfect little gophers. I felt grateful to be getting a paycheck. Greg turned green every time he was handed his; he'd turn to me and I would have to say that his eyes were pleading with me. Pleading. For what I don't know, why I don't know, but that's the only way that I can describe it.

At such points I would give my standard pep talk. "Dude, can you believe that they pay us to sit here 40 hours a week and mess around on the computers? It's insane. And we both got raises. I love it. This is so much better than med school." Sometimes Greg would answer, but mostly he would stare at me and stuff his check into his pocket. Once he mumbled something about being bought, but I didn't hear much whining or philosophizing while we were at work. Things were great, or so I thought.

Well a few years went by this way. I eventually ended up in the Marketing Department where I didn't need book-smarts to schmooze customers and close deals. I had a new girlfriend (I hadn't yet introduced her to Greg, who was increasingly keeping to himself) and had bought a new car. I went to our three-year college reunion. Greg didn't. I didn't think much of it. We had always been partners in our disenchantment, and sometimes I think that the only thing holding our friendship together was our shared sense of rejection, our status as outcasts. Now that I had found my niche, now that I had the money and the title that I had been seeking, the validation and rewards for my years of hard work, we didn't seem to have much in common. In fact, the better I did at work, the less time I spent with Greg. His choice or mine, I'm not sure. It was probably mutual.

I bumped into him once during lunch after nearly a month without talking to him. He was sitting outside reading an old paperback.

"Greg! You elusive devil, how've you been?"

"Oh, hello Connor. Fine. You?" He glanced uneasily between me and his book, and I had the uneasy feeling that I was interrupting a private moment.

"Good, damn good." I gestured at the book, "So what do you have there, my man?"

"Somorset Maugham."

"What's that?"

"Just a dead author. I like his short stories. You ever wanted to go to, say, Tahiti?"

"Why, they got topless beaches? Maybe I'll take Jen there for a little R&R. Is it expensive?"

"I don't know." He was staring off towards the horizon. I suddenly realized how much his aloofness bothered me. It was if I didn't exist at all.
"Okay, well, I have to go back up. See you later, give me a call sometime." I turned and started to walk away.

"Connor?" He said quietly. I turned back around and walked over to where he was seated. He had that pained, thoughtful tone to his voice. I was nervous. I don't like surprises.

"Yea?"

"Have you ever thought about running away? Just leaving it all behind? Seeing if you can make it somehow, somewhere else? Ever?" He wasn't looking at me but his voice said it all. I took a deep breath.

"No." And I was telling the truth.

The moment was over. He looked up at me with those brilliant blue eyes, flashed his trademark smile, and said, "I didn't think so. I'll catch up with you later." And he got up and walked away. I wish I had known that was the last time I would ever see him, but even if I had known, what would I have said? We didn't need each other any more, I guess. He was unhappy, I couldn't see it or understand it, but he was so unhappy that when he walked away that day he must have driven straight home and packed, for nobody at the office ever saw him again. And I mean nobody. At first we all thought that he had been kidnapped, but a week later a letter of resignation arrived in the mail, no apology, just a simple, formal resignation. The bosses and higher-ups were furious, and as we had once been friends I was interrogated to no end. But I knew nothing, so they eventually left me alone. The work that he left behind was distributed, and the company sands shifted to cover his tracks. He was gone. I would say that I missed him, but I would be lying.

About a year later I arrived home around six as I always do, grabbed my mail, and went into the house. I sorted through the mail. Since the advent of email I rarely receive personal mail, so all I expected were bills and advertisements, which I lay on the table. Phone bill, credit-card statement, alumni newsletter, coupon book. But when I lay the last flyer down on the table, something fluttered out from between the pages. I bent over to pick it up. It was a postcard. "Horsemen on the Beach, 1902" by Paul Gauguin. A chill ran through me, and I knew that it was Greg before I turned it over.

"I started the year in Africa," he wrote, his loopy handwriting scrolling across the small space, "as I had to see the Nigerian sunsets that my mother raved about. Now that I have finally made it to Tahiti, I had to write and say that I was thinking about you - yes, you should come out here if you ever have the chance. It will change your life. Hope all is well - although in a way, I hope that this postcard never finds you, for that would mean that you, too, are out wandering and maybe one day we'll bump into each other. Take care, Greg."

Much to my surprise, my hands began to shake as I read his words. I remembered so clearly the desperate tones of his voice, the pleading words that shook something deep inside of me, awakening voices that I had tried so hard to quiet. An agnoizing rush of lonliness swept over me, and I shuddered at the realization that he was gone, gone forever. I was here now, I had achieved the life that I had forever envied. I belonged.

I stared at that postcard for a good fifteen minutes, I memorized every swirl of the handwriting and I scrutinized every dotted i and crossed t. Then I crumpled it up and tossed it into the garbage can. I was happy with my life, to hell with the dreamers, to hell with Greg. He'll never see six figures, and all the Nigerian sunsets in the world will never get him a Mercedes. Tahiti. The word dripped from my mouth like the juice of a ripe fruit. Tahiti. Quickly I sat down in front of the TV to catch the tail end of the 6 o'clock news. Tomorrow's weather report forecast mild temperatures and afternoon showers. I'll have to remember my umbrella.