A Chilling Friendship - Part II

Now that she’s dead, I can write about her without fear of lawsuits or reprisals. We were best friends, almost sisters, until we weren’t. Jealousy overtook her, and as a result she intentionally and maliciously tried to sabotage my career. Revenge is a dish best served cold, they say. But my revenge was hot hot hot.  

THIS IS PART 2 of a TEN-PART FICTION STORY

with new episodes published on Tuesdays and Thursdays

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10

 

Ronnie

Caroline’s boyfriend, Ronnie, was extremely flirtatious. He was one of those men who was good at one-liners and tried to be funny all the time. From the beginning, I didn’t like him. He pretended to have a “thing” for me, and whenever I passed close to where he was sitting or standing, would feign an attraction so intense that he would practically swoon with fake desire. “Ohhh, don’t come too near,” he’d groan in a mocking voice. “I won’t be able to keep my hands off you.” Those vagina-shaped lips would form a sneer, letting me know that his so-called desire for me was pretend (or was it?) and that the last thing he wanted to do was touch me. 

How must this have affected Caroline? She would act as if she didn’t notice, or as if Ronnie were a child who needed humoring for excessive silliness. His behavior didn’t seem to impact our friendship … at least, not then.

At the time, I was the needy one, a young woman grieving a broken marriage who was on her own, with a dependent child, in an unfamiliar environment. As such, I posed zero threat to Caroline.

To the contrary, she went out of her way to assist me, showing me around Cambridge, helping me find a place to live, even introducing me to a therapist she insisted would be good for me. Our friendship was solid; we were glad to once again live in the same town.

At this point in her life, Caroline worked in the education department at Harvard. She was a tall, big-boned woman with straight, flat, corn-colored hair and a face that was wide and plain and extremely intelligent. She dressed in dowdy clothes, perhaps in keeping with her job, but her overall appearance was impressive and wherever she went people seemed to look at her, this quietly moving, professorial woman, with a kind of awe. I felt awe for her, too. When I pointed out that the therapy group she insisted I join met at an awkward time (5:30 Monday, Wednesday and Friday, just when I needed to be home feeding dinner to my daughter), she snapped: “No, no, no! You’re going through a divorce! You have to make sure you’re in good mental health in order to be the best mother you can to Sophie. This therapist is perfect.”

I’m sure she meant that sincerely. But the therapist was in Newton (along with most local therapists), a half hour drive in traffic. I had to hire a babysitter to pick Sophie up from daycare and feed her dinner. I would spend the hour in therapy – a group of eight or so people, most of them highly educated and in various stages of divorce – silent and frazzled, constantly worried about being absent for one of the most important times of my daughter’s day.