Friends And Fate

Friends And Fate(Tom Di Roma) Friends And Fate


“I think I might have found the perfect girl for you,” Charlie said as I stuffed my laptop into my backpack.
I glanced sideways at him. “I’ve heard that one before.”
“No, it’s not like that. She’s not looking for a date. She wants someone to help her with her writing.”
Once again, I raised my eyebrows at him. “I think you may be barking up the wrong side of the tree with that one. I can barely fix my own writing, let alone try and fix someone elses. That’s one of the reasons I’m going to this conference.” It was going to be a four day affair at a hotel complex about two hours away.
“Well, you can at least call her up, can’t you?”
I narrowed my eyes. “You’re sounding awfully desperate all of a sudden. What’s up?”
Charlie refused to look at me directly. “Well, you see,” he said hesitanly, “I hear she’s really, really cute, so I figured, if you help with her writing, and I happen to come along with you—”
“Then maybe she’d fall for you,” I finished for him. Charlie nodded. “How did you find out about her, anyway?”
“She’s the sister of someone at work.” Then after a moment of silence, he asked, “So what do you say?”
I sighed. “Yeah, okay, after I get back from the conference, you can give me her number and we’ll go from there.”
Charlie beamed. “Great!”
Suddenly, a car horn blared outside. “That’s my ride,” I told Charlie and headed for the door. Charlie followed me. “I left you a beer in the fridge,” I told him. “Lock up for me when you leave, will you?” Charlie had a key to my place. Not only had we grown up together, we were bowling buddies.
Since my car was in the shop, I had to find a ride to the conference. Luckily, the original ad listed a couple of people who wouldn’t mind giving someone a ride as long as they paid for gas and food. My chaufeurs turned out to be a brother and sister duo—Brad and Cindy Cohen.
I sat in the back while Brad and Cindy took turns driving. It took us three hours instead of two. Really slow traffic. Once we got there, all three of us went straight to the pre-conference coctail hour. That’s where I met Bonny.
A really cute, twenty-something looking brunette, she was standing next to the Hors d’oeuvre table talking to a much older dude. Watching them, I wished it was me she was talking to, but I knew that probably would never happen—not the way I looked.
Where Charlie was your typical handsome jock type, I was the short, slightly soft-looking nerd with glasses. But the one thing I was proud of was my writing, even though I hadn’t had anything published yet.
Heading for the Hors d’oeuvre table, I decided to hover near the girl and the older dude and pretend I wasn’t listen in on their conversation. But that’s when I heard her say, “I’m mostly into science fiction and fantasy type stories.”
My enthusiasm got the better of me, which was the reason I blurted out without thinking, “So am I!” Both turned to look at me.
I was just about to excuse myself for bothering them when I saw the girl’s eyes light up. Did that mean she was interested in what I might have to say? Evidently she was, because she said with undisguised enthusiasm, “Oh, yeah! Who are your favorite authors?”
I stared at her a little dumbfounded. No one that pretty had ever said anything like that to me. Thinking fast, I rattled off several names.
“Wow!” she exclaimed. “We like the same authors!”
From then on, our conversation continued with the both of us talking about which stories from which authors we liked the best. In fact, we were so focused on each other’s interest, we didn’t even realize the old dude had slipped away.
From the coctail hour, everyone headed for one of the hotel’s autitoriums where a famous mystery author was giving a keynote speech. Bonny sat next to me as we listened intently. Then I did something I would not normally have done—I asked her if she wanted to join me for supper. When she said yes, I became so deleriously happy, you could have knocked me over with the swish of a feather.
Reluctanly, I left her behind so I could check in at the front desk and then, after retrieving my backpack from the car, headed to my room. After unpacking most of my stuff, I rested a while then went to meet Bonny at one of the hotel restaurants for dinner.
It was like we were never separated; our conversation picked up almost exactly where it had left off earlier. After supper, we took a short walk around the hotel complex. That’s when I found out a little more about her.
Like me, she was in her mid twenties. Unlike me, she was still living with her parents. She said it helped her to stay focused on her writing instead of going out and partying all the time. At the moment, she was working as a receptionist for an electronic’s firm.
Then came “my question” to her. What did her boyfriend think of her writing?
She hesitated before answering. “I don’t have a boyfriend . . . at least not at the moment.”
“Why not?” I asked, not realizing I might have been digging a little too deeply into her personal life.
“Well, I did have one for a while, but we broke up.” She became quiet before asking me, “Do you know what it’s like trying to talk with someone about your writing and seeing their eyes glaze over?”
“Actually, I do.”
Bonny went on to explain. “We got along great most of the time, but when it came to my writing, he was clueless.”
Later after we separated, we met once again in the hotel bar area so we could exchange a short story each of us had brought with us. We had decided to look over the other’s story and say what we thought about it. This could be dangerous, which was why I said to her, “You can be as rough on me as you want. I’m a big boy; I can take it.”
“Me too,” she said, but her eyes didn’t reach mine. And so we took each other’s story back to our rooms to read over and make notes.
The next morning, we met for breakfast in the same restaurant as the night before. That’s when the fireworks began. Well, maybe not fireworks exactly, but there was definitely some tension.
If an author tells you he or she doesn’t mind what you say about their story, they’re lying. They do care. They want you to say you loved it. So when she started looking over my notes, I could immediately see she was getting upset, so I jumped in. “Now, you have to understand something,” I said right away. “These are only my first impressions, so a lot of what I said might be wrong. With my own stories, it takes me several readings and several drafts before I’m satisfied with what I’ve written.” She still didn’t look at me directly. That’s when I added. “Even with what I said, I really liked your story. You have a great way with words.”
Finally, she smiled. “Thanks,” she said. Then asked, “Aren’t you going to see what I said about your story?” I hadn’t opened the envelope containing my story yet.
I waved away her question. “I’ll do it later. Right now, what do you want for breakfast?” I was hoping our little confrontation had not spoiled our budding friendship.
I was wrong, because that’s when she said, “You know what? My stomach has been bothering me all night. I think I’ll skip breakfast for now and maybe have something a little later.” Then I watched her get up from the table and take her stuff with her. I felt like a boat dead in the water. All my hopes for continuing with our friendship had been dashed.
The rest of the conference, we pretty much kind of avoided each other, even though we were in the same group of writers who were trying to produce science fiction and fantasy stuff. But then on the last day, she approached me.
“I’m sorry I got so upset with you,” she said, her eyes focused on my sweater instead of on my face.
“No problem,” I told her. “Besides, you really are a good writer; everyone in our group thought so.” That brought a little smile to her lips.
Each day our little group of fantasy scribes had been given assignments by our instructor to come up with something we could read and talk about the next day. Bonny got way more compliments on her stuff than I did. “So are we still friends?” I asked her.
This time, she did look up at me and smiled. “Friends,” she replied, shaking my hand. That’s when I gave her my name and number. I had been hoping we could become friends again. She surprised me with a slip of her own. Obviously, she had been thinking the same thing.
All the way home, I kept thinking about Bonny, and how I never would have met her had I not gone to the conference. Plus there was the fact she lived only two towns away from me.
We both promised to keep in touch. I got a thrill just thinking about it. And then the first time I saw Charlie, he said he had something to give me. “It’s that girl’s name and telephone number I was telling you about.”
When I looked at the slip of paper he handed me, I barked out a laugh. Confused, he asked, “What’s the matter?” That’s when I told him about Bonny. “You mean, you spent four whole days with her!”
“Yep!” Of course, I wasn’t going to tell him about our disagreement.
“Did you . . .?” he pumped his fist in an obsene manner.
I frowned. “NO! This was a writing conference, not a trip to Club Med!”
“But still . . .”
“Cut it out!” I scolded him.
“So when are you going to see her again?”
“I’ll call her tonight and see if she wants to meet us at Scarpino’s?” That was Charlie and I’s favorite Italian restaurant.
He beamed. “Great! Let me know what she says.”
“I will.”
But things didn’t go quite as Charlie had planned. It turned out Bonny had forgiven me, and even brought other stories for me to look over and comment on. It didn’t take Charlie long to figure out she wasn’t interested in him and so he stopped coming along when Bonny and I would get together.
Eventually, Bonny and I became more than just writing buddies . . .
But that’s another story for another time.