My computer hummed to life within minutes of stowing my purse and partaking of the coffee pot from the company kitchen. I tapped in the password to the server and perused the contents of my ever full in-basket while my connection to the outside world consummated. Moments later, the instant message box blinks to life. “Wanna have lunch?” queries my partner’s screen name. I giggle to myself. Michelle and I are the only ones in the office with AIM, and we periodically IM each other on subjects not meant for other’s ears. Of course, we also make plans to surreptitiously sneak out for afternoon matinees, or for lunches away from the office. Partner meetings, of course, but all we really talk about on those lunches is the varying states of marital bliss and singleton solitude we each find ourselves in. I bemoan my single status, she nods sympathetically. She waxes about her ideallic life and confesses confusion as to the roots of the depression that plagues her.
Michelle and I have been friends for years. As I sat down to write this story, it occurred to me that I have been friends with her for longer than anyone else besides my sisters, and I see her and talk with her a whole lot more than them. I recruited her when I worked for Deloitte & Touche. Rexford and I took Michelle and her husband out for dinner in the fall of 1986, just after we bought our house. We went to the Grand Finale, and back to our house for coffee and more conversation. I got to give her the offer, and she countered that she had another offer with $1,000 more. I called the partner and he agreed to the higher salary. She accepted the job. Of course, there was no other offer, she was just a good negotiator.
We worked on several jobs together at Deloitte & Touche. We discovered that we had lead parallel lives; traumatic childhoods, similar stories of chasing our husbands across the country. We met our husbands on exactly the same day. I married mine a year and two months faster than she married hers.
While we had a laundry list of compatibilities, we also were on opposite sides of the fence on most religious and political issues. She was staunchly Pro-Life. I was vehemently Pro-Choice. She was a die hard Republican. I was a bleeding heart liberal democrat. We’d wave at each other from opposite sides of abortion protests and voting booths.
I referred her to my ob/gyn and as it turned out, we had babies within a week of each other, by the same doctor. Not that he fathered both babies, just delivered them. Michelle chose to stay home with her daughter, it wasn’t an option for me, although truth be told, I’d have given my eyeteeth for that opportunity now, especially with the clear vision of hindsight. Kids grow up so damn fast. One minute, you are ducking as you change their diapers, and in the blink of an eye, they are writing college entrance essays…and then they are gone.
We took Michelle’s car because I hate to drive and headed to Mt. Adams. We went to our old stomping grounds, the Mt. Adams Bar and Grill. I love their chicken breast on honey wheat toast. Parking is a problem in Mt. Adams, and we scoured the landscape for an empty space next to the curb.
“There’s one,” I pointed excitedly to a gap between two cars just ahead of us, about a block from the restaurant. Michelle eased her car into the spot. I got out of the car to survey the scene…there was about a ten foot area that looked like it aspired to be a driveway, but on closer inspection, abutted a staircase, not a parking facility. Hands on our hips, we looked up and down the street and back at the fore mentioned parking spot. The curb did flatten slightly for a few feet, but there was no cautionary yellow paint, no signs posted, no oil spots or any other evidence that cars habitated in the area.
“Its not a driveway, there’s a stairwell at the end! Somebody’s porch.” Michelle commented to no one in particular.
“Absolutely. Its fine.” I concurred. A paisley kitchen curtain quivered ever so slightly from the window over looking the porch. I saw it out of the corner of my eye, as we walked up the hill to the restaurant.
Over my grilled chicken and Michelle’s veggie burger, we lamented our lots in life, laughed at the descriptions of our children’s antics, and furrowed our brows in thoughtful repose at our respective reactions thereto. Michelle talked about the group therapy session she had where they discussed the difference between our perceptions of ourselves and other’s perceptions. On a whim, we both whipped out paper and pen and wrote ten adjectives that we thought best described ourselves, and best described the other, then we compared.
They were amazingly different, yet threaded by a common denominator. Kindness, encouragement, patience. I am passionate. Michelle is loyal. Michelle is beautiful. I am courageous. I am good in a crisis. Michelle is dependable to get what needs to get done, done. We smiled our appreciation of each other at the end of the exercise and headed out the door.
We backtracked our way to the car, rounding the corner at the stop sign.
“Betty, my car’s gone.”
I looked up from my perusal of the sidewalk vegetation and sure enough, the spot between the two trucks was empty, absent of the tan Camry. My eyes immediately flew to the paisley curtain, curiously quiet now.
“Do you think it was stolen?” I asked cautiously.
“That would be nice," Michelle quipped. "It’s a ten year old car. But unlikely,” she continued. “I’m guessing it was probably towed.”
Our eyes wide in amazement, we once again, examined the suspect real estate. On closer inspection, a pale yellow hue became faintly visible. The patch in front of the window, grassy by the other houses, was paved with cobblestones. Perhaps, because there was no garage, this homeowner chose to have their driveway in their front yard. We had only been gone an hour, there was no car parked in the “driveway” now. I looked again at the still curtain shielding the kitchen window.
“Hmfph.” I sighed in disgust. “It was probably some busybody, with nothing better to do than safeguard the sanctity of Mt. Adams’ driveways.”
We called a co-worker to come and pick us up, and started the long walk back to the office. Michelle called the police, who referred her to the impound lot, confirming that her car had been towed. The cost was $102.35, cash or credit only, no checks. She knocked on my door at five, and we headed out to retrieve her car, Map Quest directions in hand.
After a few missed turns and No Outlet alleys, we finally found our way through the massive gates of the impound lot. I turned off the car and grasped my door handle. Michelle turned to me, “You don’t have to stay with me, Betty, I’ll be fine.”
I surveyed the raggedy building, the barbed wire atop the fence, the shadowy figures I imagined lurking in the bowels of the car lot. “Nah, I’ll hang with you, Michelle. I don’t have to be anywhere until 6:00.” It was 5:15 and I was twenty minutes from home.
We opened the door to the near panicked voice of an older African American woman. “You don’t take checks? But I don’t have a credit card. All I have is my checkbook.” Someone murmured something to her from behind the glass.
“I spent all my cash on the taxi taking me here. I only have $5 left. That’s not enough to get a taxi here, to a bank, and back again. Can’t you please take a check?”
Michelle and I looked on sympathetically. The woman turned to us. “Do either of you know where there’s a 5/3rd Bank nearby?”
“Yes,” I answered, eager to help, “We passed one on the way here. There’s one just a few blocks away.”
The teller behind the window nodded in agreement, but doused the woman’s flames of hope for an easy solution with, “Yes, but it closed fifteen minutes ago.”
“If there is a Kroger nearby, they have 5/3rd banks that usually stay open longer than the branches do.” Michelle offered.
“That’s right!” I said, “And there’s a Kroger just north of here at the Mitchell Avenue exit.”
The woman looked at the five dollar bill in her hand. “Would you take me there and bring me back? They will only take cash, and I need to cash a check at the bank. I can pay you $5.” She looked hopefully back and forth between Michelle and I.
I looked at my watch. I had a meeting at 6:00. It was now 5:30. I kept silent.
“Sure, I’ll take you.” Michelle offered.
I looked at Michelle in astonishment. But, but, Michelle was a REPUBLICAN! If anyone was going to be a Good Samaritan, it should be me, I’m the bleeding heart liberal democrat. I looked at my watch again and smiled at Michelle. Nope, this time, the good deed was going to be done by someone else.
Michelle and the woman started chatting as the teller behind the counter took Michelle’s credit card and processed her payment. Michelle looked steadfastly at the woman and then, to my utter surprise, she said, “Tell me, what’s your name?”
“Antonio,” the woman replied.
“Antonio, do you have a check?” Michelle continued.
“Why, yes, yes, I do. Right here.”
“Could I see it?”
“Of course. Listen, I really appreciate you taking the time to drive me up to the Kroger. I’ll just be a minute. I’m sure you are very busy.” Antonia rummaged through her purse and produced a checkbook, carbons neatly documenting her last checks, a black smudge obscuring the forward balance.
“Actually,” Michelle started, “I am busy, so what I’m thinking is that you could just write a check to me, and I’ll pay for your tow charge with my credit card, saving you the hassle of going to Kroger and saving both of us a big chunk of time.”
You could have knocked that woman over with a feather. Her mouth fell open, her purse clattered to the floor, even I took a step back to steady myself against the wall. My eyes widened and Michelle looked over at me with a knowing smile.
“Why, why, thank you!” Antonio stammered, gathering together her purse, her wallet, the lipstick that had rolled away. “Thank you! That will make things so much easier. Here, I’ll write the check out to you right now. And here’s my business card. I work for the IRS.”
Michelle and I burst out laughing. Antonio looked quizzically at us. The announcement of her employer often caused people to take a step back, but never inspired laughter.
“We are both CPA’s,” Michelle explained.
Now it was Antonio’s turn to laugh.
Michelle paid Antonio’s fine, Antonio gave Michelle a check, asked for Michelle’s business card so that she could send her a thank you note. A festive atmosphere permeated the dank, dark building. We were giggling and laughing together like we’d known each other for years, rather than fifteen minutes. Even the tellers behind the bulletproof glass were smiling. It felt a little like Christmas.
We all walked to our cars smiling.
People can surprise you. Even people you know really well. Just when you think you’ve got the corner on the kindness market, the person you’d least expect trumps your ace.
Its those kind of surprises that keep me optimistic. The universe works in mysterious ways.
Who knows what surprise she’s got waiting for me next.
