Transparent Tuesdays

Issue 195

You guys,

One of my oldest childhood friends invited me to her 40th birthday party in Nashville with ten other people and I didn’t want to go.

Did that make me a bad friend? 

Lonnie and I have been friends since we sat next to each other in Mr. Lindner’s science class in sixth grade. I slept at her house every other weekend and watched our favorite SNL Spartan Cheerleaders or Mary Catherine Gallagher skits over and over, then performed them in front of a video camera. 

She was there for my first kiss with Phil Jintee. We had just become boyfriend/girlfriend that week so I knew the kiss was looming. A huge group of us met in one of the neighbors’ yards, where couples took turns going behind the shed to French kiss. Lonnie gave me a pep talk in the street, her hands on my shoulders, telling me it would be fun, like it was no big deal. I felt like I couldn’t breathe. When she pushed me back there, Phil was waiting. I didn’t know what to do with my mouth so I opened it as he brought his face close to mine. His lips were closed, though, so I quickly closed mine. We kissed on the lips, like a normal kiss, and then he slowly opened his lips and stuck his tongue in my mouth. Lonnie peeked her head around the shed then ran away yelling, “They’re kissing!!” 

At my 16th birthday party Lonnie sat on my parent’s kitchen counter and performed her best “Ask Ashley” improv from the show All That. Twenty-three years later it’s still one of the funniest things I’ve ever witnessed. 

When I moved to California she left me a voicemail and sang the entire song of White Christmas but replaced the word “Christmas” with “California.” 

And every time I call to vent about family members, she tells me they suck and makes a joke and I laugh and don’t feel so shitty anymore. 

I tried to convince myself that the party would be fun. Sure, the other girls will be drunk and there will be a Trolley pub which sounds like pure hell but there will certainly be some fun moments. I told myself I owed it to our relationship. Remember when you didn’t ask Lonnie to be in your wedding? Maybe you can make it up to her with this trip. 

I called Lonnie on my drive to pick up the kids from daycare. My armpits were sweating through my Christmas sweatshirt and white ski jacket. 

I started slow and chose my words carefully. “So I’ve been struggling with whether or not…” 

“Oh, Nashville? You can’t come?” Lonnie said.

It would have been easy to say I couldn’t come. I could always use my kids as an excuse and say it was too hard to get away. But that wasn’t the truth. 

“Well I can come, but… I don’t really want to,” I said. “I want to be there for you and celebrate your birthday and hang out, but Nashville is not really my scene right now and I would much rather just hang out with you and maybe like two other people.” 

“Char, ME TOO,” Lonnie said. “My mom planned this and I was like, ‘Mom, who is this for?’ But then she paid for the house and there’s plenty of bedrooms so we’ll all have space… I’m not saying this to convince you, I’m just saying why I came around to it. I totally get why you don’t want to come.”

Lonnie went on to say that when her kids were little she never wanted to do anything. There’s no way she would have gone to Nashville at that stage of her life. I told her I still felt bad that I didn’t ask her to be in my wedding, and instead asked one of my LA girlfriends who I rarely speak to now. Lonnie cut me off:

“Oh my God, Charlie, I do not care about that,” she said. “I got the best of both worlds at your wedding. I got to just go and have fun.”

I never imagined the conversation with Lonnie going as well as it did. I could have said yes and gone to the party and done my duty as a friend. But I feel even closer to her because I didn’t. 

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Bleecker Bombs

In this episode’s memoir deep dive, I learned one HUGE takeaway from The Liars’ Club by Mary Karr:

How to write my stories when they include family members… especially if those family members disagree with my version of things. 

Listen to the episode on overcast.fm, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or Google Podcasts.

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7 more days of Christmas!!!

Charlie