ER, Emily and I had all planned to go to dinner last night, as usual (We're the Wednesday girls!). I'm working longer days this week to make up the hours I missed Tuesday taking Noodle to the vet, so I talked to both of them Tuesday night to make sure we were still going on Wednesday night. I told them whatever day we went, I'd drive to work instead of taking my normal mode of mass transportation so we could eat dinner at about 7 or so instead of 8. ER is in charge of a couple of programs for the summer and is sick of planning things, so she said she wanted simply to be told where to be and when. Emily and I worked it out that I'd get off work about 6:30 and call her to figure out where we would go. Then, we'd tell ER, and that was that.
So when ER called at 4:21 yesterday afternoon, I told her that was the plan. I told her I had realized about 15 minutes before that I'd forgotten to ask WK if she wanted to go, but she's been blowing us off the last several weeks anyway, so I figured since she hadn't gotten in touch with any of us, this week would be no different. ER said she'd get in touch with WK. She said Emily wanted to go to the gym at 6:30, so we could go to dinner about 8.
Whoa. Back up. I told ER I had driven to work so we could go to dinner before 8. If I'd known we would go so late, I would have just gone the mass transportation route. With parking, gas prices and toll roads, it costs me about $12 to drive to work. I didn't want to have driven for nothing. So even though ER and Emily were in the same house, ER said, "Well, you can call Emily and talk to her about it." I think ER was slightly frustrated, as was I, but freakin' a -- we had made plans! For a reason!
I called and talked to Emily, and she said she had forgotten that's what the plan was. I asked if she could go to the gym earlier, and she said she was going with her mom, and that's when she goes. She had already told her mom that she would go with her (doesn't matter she'd already had plans before then ...). Emily said ER and I could just go without her. I told her I'd call ER and talk to her to figure something out.
I called ER back (again, they're in the same house), and we decided I'd call her back at about 6:15 and we'd just figure it out then. When I called her back, she said she'd talked to WK and she had other plans. She told me about their conversation. She had been kind of short with WK, but it was an online conversation, so WK may not have picked up on it. ER said, "I'm sorry if that sounded rude. Actually, I'm not. But I'm just sick of being blown off. I can only take it for so long before it's like, 'Whatever.'" She said that Emily had already left for the gym. ER sounded very irritated, and she even said, "We'll just go somewhere and those two bitches can find something themselves."
It always makes me uncomfortable when a friend talks about another friend like that. Not that I'm an angel and that I haven't done my fair share of venting about a friend. But somehow it seems that what's said gets back to the person and even if you just listen, your name is tied to it. AND it always makes me think, "If she's saying that about them, what does she say about me?"
So ER and I decided to go to Olive Garden. When ER got there, she seemed very cranky. I tried starting a conversation. "Did you have a good day?" "No." "How was your parents' house last night." "Bad." "Did you guys have fun on Saturday night?" "We wound up not going out." "Did you see Dan last weekend?" "Noooooo." The way she said that let me know she was frustrated with him about that.
She wasn't in a good mood, and she was throwing off any attempts at a conversation. I was sitting there thinking, "This is going to be a looooooong dinner. I should have just gone home." Well, she eventually started telling me everything that's going on. Little by little, it started coming out.
ER's brother died when she was in high school, and the six-year anniversary is today. Her sister is engaged now, and ER feels left out of the planning and all the excitement of it. She doesn't think her sister's fiance is good enough for her, and she thinks her freshly turned-21 sister is too young to get married. She finally told her sister that she feels left out of things, and they had a good talk about everything. ER is frustrated with her boyfriend, Dan. They have a very laid back relationship. They've been together for about 7 months, I guess. They still don't talk every day, and they don't see each other every weekend, even though Dan lives just under an hour away. They were supposed to go out with Emily and a group on Saturday, but Emily was too hung over and Dan had gotten food poisoning and didn't call to tell ER that he couldn't make it until 5 p.m. By then, she was showered, dressed and ready to go. ER had gotten in a fight with her mom earlier Wednesday afternoon (and I think on Tuesday, too). And the Mavs lost on Tuesday. ER's a Dallas girl and a Mavs fan.
ER was getting a little teary eyed a few times as she slowly told me more and more about what was bothering her. But she seemed much less cranky, which was good. And by the time dinner was over, she was telling me that she feels really lucky knowing she has Emily and me in the same city because she knows if she needed to, she could call either of us at midnight and know that we'd be there for her and that we'd mean it. She said she knows not many people have that, so she wanted to thank me.
At that point, I asked her if she wanted to go back to my apartment for some chocolate ice cream. So we did. While we were eating, we played with Noodle and she made a list -- a loose script, if you will -- of what she wanted to say to Dan to tell him how she's feeling and express that she would like to seem him more. When she left, she was smiling. Definitely a much better end to the night than I thought it would be when she first sat down at the table!
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