Going Crutchless

(This should be preceded by Crutch Removals Numbers One and Two, but I haven't written those yet.)

Crutch Removal Number Three

The phone rang. Well, it shouted, really. (Her bag was too enormous for anything short of the most annoying ring set to the highest volume to be successful.)

Frank's face flashed onto her phone, identifying her caller with one of his less attractive photos. (It's not her fault he likes to ham it up for the camera.) She answered happily, as Frank was always a delight to talk to, even when drunk, which she hoped he wouldn't be at 5:45 on a Friday -- especially since, for him, it was really 3:45 out in Nebraska.

"What's going on?" she asked, in a wild-and-crazy-guy kind of voice.

"I just got a new tire on my back."

"You what?"

"I got a new tire on my back."

She stopped, squinted her ears and tried desperately to figure out which word she was screwing up.

"Ok," she said, "your accent's getting in the way. You got a tire on your back?" Frank was Australian, and his accent (one of her many favorite things about him) occasionally made conversation with him into an audial house of mirrors. Sometimes he swapped out familiar words with foreign ones ("bloke" for "guy," etc.), but more often it was the tweaking of a pronunciation that threw her. "Weird" became "weeid," "smart" became "smot," and "party" very often became "poddy."

"No, Jane, on my bicycle. I got a new cover for the wheel of my bicycle."

"Oh, ok. I thought you were just getting fat."

Jane was browsing the aisles of Dean & Deluca aimlessly, killing time until Mallory showed up for dance class. More focused on her conversation than the high end food and wares, she periodically tuned back in to what she was seeing and was baffled. Anise salt? That sounded disgusting. What could you possibly use that for? And quinoa flour -- for all a girl's gluten-free baking needs, thank god! Balsamic jelly. Jane conjured up images of the sixty year old mint jelly in her parents' fridge and wanted to barf. Fancy food seemed like an awful lot of work these days.

"So what else is going on?"

He told her about work, about the poddy he was at last weekend where they set the backyard on fire, how his roommate with the possession conviction was faring with the prospect of pending jailtime (and how he'd gotten a little Jesus-y lately), and finally he wended his way back around to what she really wanted to know.

"So May and I have been seeing someone, you know, kind of working out our issues together."

"Oh, that's great," she said as enthusiastically as she could muster. May was his ex-girlfriend, nearly his wife, and Jane had met Frank soon after they broke up. Now, Jane was all for people working out their issues -- especially Frank-- but she wasn't 100% sold on May. The few stories he had told Jane about her were ugly -- angry, abusive and childish. Like the time she had smashed a window in his car because he didn't want to leave the bar when she did, or when she changed the locks on the front door because he didn't come back from a business trip when he said he would, even though he called to let her know.

Truth was, Jane didn't necessarily want Frank anymore, but she didn't want him to be involved with someone who mistreated him.

"Yeah, kinda."

"What do you mean, 'kinda'?"

"Well, May's got this thing about you."

Jane stopped being the bigger person for a minute and smack in the middle of the cookie cutter aisle, she flat out hated May. "Why?" she demanded, hopefully not as petulantly as she felt.

"Well, she thinks I was sneaking around on her with you."

Deep breathing keeps the nerves calm. (Jane needed periodic reminders.)

"That's ridiculous, Frank. It's nearly impossible to sneak around with someone who lives on the other side of the country." She started contemplating sending a basketload of anise salt and balsamic jelly to May, except that petty revenge should never cost over $60.

"I know, but she saw that you called me once, near the beginning, and freaked out about me seeing someone before she had moved out."

For a brief moment, the earth stopped spinning on its axis. The $14-an-ounce spices flew off their racks, the sushi got up and walked out of the case, and rolling pin after rolling pin fell from the sky to hit Jane on the head. Either Jane had not known, or she had conveniently forgotten the fact that Frank and May were still living together when Frank and Jane hit it off on the train to Boston.

"Ok."

"She wants me to not talk to you anymore."

The silence that ensued burned up all the oxygen in the store, collapsed Jane's heart and sent the sushi marching back to its refrigerated case.

Jane loved Frank. He was funny, smart, sexy, cute, and 1,662 miles away. He was also a little bit of a jerk, and if not an alcoholic, verging on it. So friendship it was for them. No more pining for him, hoping he'd say just what she needed to hear when he was sober, and only hearing it when he was drunk. No more cross-country flights to feel welcomed, yet ridiculously out of place in his world of big trucks, heavy drinking and owned property. And really, no more hoping he would just turn that corner and become the man she knew he could be, if he only tried. Just emails, phone calls, acceptance of the man as he is, and sporadic inappropriate text messages. And, of course, the understanding that if either party picked up a significant other, the party of the first part would tone it down a bit.

And that's what Jane had done when she first found out (by email-- and not in a dedicated email, either, but as a parenthetical addition to an innocuous, regular old email) that Frank and May were speaking again. Any urge she had to text him at 2 in the morning was quashed (even though it was only midnight there and he gets texts all the time and they don't sound any different on his phone than a voicemail message does, and he wouldn't have to check it if she was around).

Jane was silent as the tears welled up in her eyes.

"It's you, specifically, Janie. Not any of the other girls I dated."

Jane knew well enough to take that as a compliment. In general, women aren't threatened by unworthy opponents, and Jane knew she had had quite an impact on Frank. If the tables had been turned, and someone as fantastic as Jane had come along into Jane's (albeit imaginary) boyfriend's life, sure, she'd be threatened, but she wouldn't turn around and issue ultimatums. She learned that lesson in college: her then actually-cheating boyfriend had eventually married The Other Woman, ultimatum or no ultimatum.

"Ok."

Focus on the cheese, Jane. Count the linoleum tiles. Head down, don't let them see you cry. No one here is going to care and goddamnit, where's Mallory??

"It's not what I want, Jane."

"I know. It's not what I want either. But I don't seem to have a say in the matter."

"Well, then maybe it doesn't have to happen." And he changed the subject completely, babbling on about his truck, how it needed to take it to the shop because it was squeaking so badly, but it was going to be expensive and blah blah blah. All Jane could hear was the resounding echo of the stamp of her inner six year old's foot. It's not fair.

This is retarded, thought Jane. I don't want him as a boyfriend, so why should it hurt so bad to lose him as a friend? She counted the reasons: Maybe it was because May was almost ten years younger than she was. Maybe it's because May represented acceptance of everything Jane could never find her way around. Maybe it's because Jane held out hope that Frank would come around. Maybe it's that Jane was just lonely and didn't want to lose another friend. Maybe it's because May was being a selfish little bitch, and that's what Jane wanted to be.

"... and the acceleration's busted so I really need to --"

"Frank? I have to go to dance class now."

"Oh, ok."

Silence.

"Talk to you soon, then, Jane."

"Ok, bye."

She snapped the phone shut before he could reply and the tears spilled down her cheeks. When Jane was younger, her sister got in trouble for something minor, and stormed off to her room. Moments later there was a sign hanging from her sister's door, made from a dry cleaner's hanger that read "NON-FIANK!" in multi-colored crayon. When flipped to the other side, it read simply, "FIANK." When asked what the sign meant, Jane's sister replied that when something wasn't fair, it was NON-FIANK. Jane hung her imaginary NON-FIANK sign on the doorknob of life, and waited for Mallory.

All things considered, Jane reminded herself, I'm doing very well with this. No scene, no big dramatic climax, not much of anything at all. And then she cried all over again.

Jane positioned herself by the window, mostly to distract herself from her thoughts (which got progressively more negative and tended towards the ever-present you're not good enough) and moments later Mallory bustled in, carrying three bags and a jacket.

"I'm sorry I'm late!" she said, hugging Jane in a oh-my-god-I'm-sweaty-but-you-really-look-like-you-need-a-hug kind of way. "What's the matter?"

"Frank just told me that he and May are getting back together and May doesn't want him to talk to me."

"That's stupid!" said Mallory, adding some finality to the situation.

"That's what I said. Well, I didn't really say it, but I implied it by not saying it."

Mallory grabbed some sushi and they sat by the window while she ate it. She regaled Jane with stories of shoe shopping and her latest crush and did a fairly excellent job of taking Jane's mind off of things. One of Mallory's greatest strengths was cheerleading for Jane, and Jane had come to rely on it over the last few years. Oh, and Mallory was really great at smooching boys.

"So then I told him that he was NOT coming in my house, and he was all annoyed, like I hadn't said so when I got in the car. He knew what he was doing, driving me all the way out there. Nobody put a gun to his head and made him do it. So I just made out with him in the car for a bit and went home. Alone. Not bad, huh?"

"No, not bad at all."

"Jane, don't worry about it. Either he'll work things out with her and find a way to stay friends with you, or he won't. There's nothing you can do about it. Brooding won't help."

"You're right. But ginger will." And she stole half of Mallory's pile.

The next day, when Jane got into work, there was an email waiting there from Frank. It had two pictures, one of him in a t-shirt she had bought for him months ago, and another of his truck. The text of the email was, "One good looking thing and one expensive one. You tell me which is which."

Jane was tempted to fire back a witty response, remind him of how much fun she was, how great it was to be friends with her, how worth it she was to make changes for, but instead, she stepped up to become the change she wanted to be in the world. (You're welcome, Gandhi, or Buddha, or whoever, she thought.)

She took close to an hour to compose the following:

Hey Frank,

You know I love to hear from you, but this is getting complicated for me. I don't think May's demands are reasonable, but I'm willing to respect them (albeit reluctantly) because if I were her, I would want that same respect from me. And, more importantly, from you.

If you really do want to work things out with May, I think it's important that you figure out the sacrifices you will have to make to make that happen, and the rewards you will get in return. Are the compromises worth it for you? (And I'm not just talking about me here.) What are you getting in return? More of the same, or something new? While I respect May's wishes, my main concern is you, of course, and it's generally a red flag to me when a woman makes restrictive demands on the man she's with.

The long and the short of it is that I'm fine (not happy, but fine) with parting ways if it's what YOU want -- not just what May wants. If working it out with her will make you happy and give you what you deserve, then I will back silently out of the picture.

But in true Janetastic fashion, I would really like you to think about it. Because I lose something, too, and don't really get to have a say about it.

The parting party of the second part,
Jane

She sent it off, and that was it. She didn't hear back for the rest of the day.

For the week, really. And then, before she knew it, a month had gone by.

She called Mallory one night with a sizeable realization.

"You know I'm crutchless these days, right?"

"What?"

"I mean that when Frank left, I realized that he was the last of my crutches. That I no longer have some guy to call when I feel crappy, who I know will tell me just what I want to hear. I have nobody to fall back on if I start to get really old and lonely and more willing to make compromises. I mean that, as of about a month ago, I am Totally Alone."

"Well, not really. You still have me."

"Well, duh. And my family, and Sheila, and Robin and Bruce, and tons of others. But no crutches."

"So... how's it feel?"

"It sucks." They both laughed. "No, it's not that bad, really. I mean, there's a big, Frank-shaped emptiness in my heart, but every day, it gets a little smaller, like an ear piercing closing up on itself. Maybe by the time this all closes over, I'll be ready to get my ears pierced again!"

"Um, Jane, you don't have pierced ears."

"I know, Mal, it was a metaphor. Now what are we doing Friday night? I was thinking that, since I have no crutches, we should go dancing."