Some Friendships Only Work When Life Is Easy
Contains Burger King, a deathly commode, Class A's as a coping strategy, and somebody failing the second-question.
Brenda has cancelled all plans today because of the heatwave and taken to languishing in a lukewarm bath. Her phone lights up when the text lands. Her friend Leta wants to know how she is.
Not great. Ray’s in hospital and Mum’s struggling and I’ve spent all day trying to find a commode that doesn’t make the living room look like imminent death. How about you? Xx
Then she waits for her friend to act like one. You see, if Leta asks a second question, Brenda won’t feel so invisible.
Leta replies:
Oh babe, that sounds so hard💗
A few minutes later, Leta sends a photo of her Burger King meal:
still lossing weight tho xx
Brenda’s about ready to chuck the phone in the bath with her. It’s not like Jolene’s run off with my imaginary husband or sold my organs on Facebook Marketplace. But still.
Because the first question is free, isn’t it? Anyone can manage “How are you?” The second question means someone’s awake behind the eyes. Leta wasn’t.
Brenda’s become obsessed with this lately because life has gone from normal levels of regular life to clinically fucked. Every five minutes, her nervous system goes off like a fire alarm and she can’t work out how to chill the fuck out. Even pizza isn’t helping. Class A’s are starting to look like a coping strategy.
She’s also learning things she did not need to know. For example, page after page of equipment exists to make homes medically functional while preserving the illusion that nobody is dying in them. Commodes come disguised as perfectly normal chairs, provided nobody asks why the seat has a removable bucket underneath.
She’s been comparing colours online.
Does the oak effect say dignity?
Another thing she’s learned is nothing sorts a friendship faster than a medical emergency. Weddings are useless for this. Everyone looks supportive at a wedding because there’s alcohol, a speech Terry left at the hotel and had to go back for, and a free buffet to complain about.
Funerals are no good either, because only a few positions are going: Unadulterated weeper, random wake-directions lady, or Uncle Mike, self-appointed car park attendant.
Brenda has no complaints about easy-mode friendships. Leta is lovely. She thrives over dinner reservations and pink gin, and can turn one bad date into a tribunal by analysing a message containing the word “haha.” But once the bad news lasts longer than a week, Leta’s calendar fills up with engagement parties and excuse texts arriving three days late.
All this, Brenda thinks, would be useful info to have in advance. From now on, I want people to put a fucking sign on their forehead so I know whether they’ll be there for me like I’d be there for them. If they’re genuine and can take a banter, but their contribution to a family crisis is hope you’re okay babe, followed by a heart emoji and a vague plan for coffee four Sundays from now, please get the fuck out of my way, bitch.
But nobody wears a sign. The word “friend” gets handed out as though it means something on its own. It covers the friend who drives through the night with bail money stashed in their back pocket and the friend whose only qualification is shared history starting at age nine. Sixty four years of mutual hatred, and they'd still both answer to friend. See? The same word operating within wildly different departments.
Wonder if Brenda has ever told anyone what she expects from a friendship? No. Of course she hasn’t. That would require a level of emotional administration reserved for other people’s failings. She assumes everyone shares her completely private definition of a friend: Occasionally available at short notice and capable of remembering that her life exists when she’s not performing it in front of them. A very normal expectation to keep secret. Then, when someone breaches it, she’s furious. How dare you break the terms of a contract I drafted in my head and never showed you!
Still, some things shouldn’t need a PowerPoint. If someone in Brenda’s family is dying, she doesn’t expect Leta to adopt Mum or do whatever the opposite of Avada Kedavra is on Ray. She wants her to ask another question. That’s it.
What happened?
How is he today?
Are you okay?
Softball questions barely heavier than air. Yet Leta treats them as a request for a fucking liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti.
And it’s not like Leta is a bad person. Hating her would be easier if she were. Give me Joffrey Baratheon or Hitler, ffs. She could work with someone who kicks dogs. A definitive friendship ender, for sure. Instead she gets a perfectly nice friend who disappoints her little by little, but never dramatically enough to justify a feud.
The bath’s been going cold for an hour before Brenda notices. Hands all wrinkled prune and shit. Her phone’s face down on the mat, lighting up every so often, though she can’t be arsed to check who it is.
Tbf, Brenda’s a reasonable person. So she tries to build a defence. Leta is busy. Illness makes her uncomfortable. Although that didn’t stop her sending multiple screenshots of her blood results the week she convinced herself she had a thyroid problem.
Yesterday mum called at two in the morning, not making much sense. Something about the door being left open. Could someone come round? She didn’t feel like herself. Groggy and thick with whatever nightmare Ray’s third collapse left behind, Mum’s voice sliding over her words, and for the length of that call Brenda was fairly sure she was listening to the start of a stroke.
When she told Leta about the two a.m call, Leta sent back a laughing emoji. A couple hours later, she asked if “this top goes with this skirt.” Maybe she misread it. Or her outfit choice was some kind of emergency? In Brenda’s head, she’s Leta’s fucking pro bono defence barrister, because, honestly, the alternative is admitting that Leta knew she wasn’t okay and still couldn’t be bothered.
There’s also another way of looking at it, and Brenda doesn’t love where this goes. What if Brenda never noticed how lopsided their friendship was? Before all this, the friendship held several daily complaints about work, the annual debate over whether they could afford an all-inclusive, and whatever drama Leta had going on. It never occurred to Brenda to check whether Leta would be there for her too.
Then Ray and Mum happened. Now Brenda flinches every time the phone rings, waiting for a call she always knew would arrive, just never this soon. The friendship remains the same size as it always was. Doesn’t automatically make Leta cruel. She’s still great for a wine and a moan about work. Only she doesn’t know what to do once Brenda’s life contains hospitals. And Brenda shouldn’t have to tell her.
If there were rich murdered parents or a kicked dog she could point to, there’d be something to be angry at. I’d fucking block her and slam the cell door in her face! But there’s no single moment to hang it on. Just the same small absence, repeated until it became the whole friendship.
Neither of them has ever communicated any of this, of course. Nobody opens a friendship with, “Before we proceed,what’s your policy on parental decline?” Brenda gets her answer nearly thirteen years later. When the second question doesn’t come.
Still, there’s a limit to how much grace Brenda is willing to give. Yes, needs change and nobody owes unlimited access to their emotional organs, etc, etc.
Everyone is carrying things you cannot see 🙏
Beautiful. Print it on a fucking fabric canvas, hang it with drawing pins above the commode.
Leta was carrying a heart emoji. Then a cheeseburger.
Hey guys! It’s me…Kelly?
That’s the longest thing I’ve written in ages, and somehow still about a burger.
I don’t post so often. Writing bangers like this takes its toll, ya know?
If you've been here since the early stuff, thank you for not unsubscribing out of confusion. And if you just turned up by accident, welcome, sorry for the swearing.
See you soon xx
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Well written, realistic and very relatable. I've had friends like the one Brenda did and soon we fell out of contact. I genuinely try when I make connections but if I see the other person doesn't care, I stop trying after a time. Any connection is not a one-way street.
Just broke my Kelly cherry. Can you believe this is your first post I've read? No? Neither can I. I'm an idiot, what other explanation is there?
Let's face it. Who hasn't had a friend like Leta? Technically not a bad friend, but also not entirely good. I've had a couple and yeah when the going got tough for me and they were still insincerely how-are-youing me with no follow-ups, it just left a really bitter taste in my mouth, which turned sour, and so did the friendship. I just charged it to "falling apart" phenomenon. It happens.
Funny, witty, awkwardly realistic. Yeah, my kind of thing. Thanks.