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Walgreens Woman

When I was in high school, I made an unintended friend. I’d known her since third grade, but even back then, I found her overbearing and off-putting. She had a syrupy sweetness that, first of all, seemed like a huge put-on (P.S.: it was!), but mainly, it didn’t blend well with my seething cauldron of rage and disappointment. Yes, I was even bitter and hate-filled back then, before I had to read A Separate Peace and When the Legend Dies. I think it started when my teacher took away a set of plastic nunchaku that had cost me a good amount of money (most likely stolen from my sister). He thought it was a weapon, even though it was hollow plastic that wouldn’t have done any more damage than throwing a carrot stick at somebody. So I had to tell my parents about it, and they had to come to school to redeem them, and also ground me.

I may be getting distracted.

The thing about this girl, who I will call Walgreens Woman for reasons that will make sense later, is that she had less institutional trauma, more familial trauma. Her dad was a stereotypical violent, misogynistic Arab who was notorious for beating his wife and his children. I seem to recall an incident of him barging into a school holiday assembly in fifth grade and dragging Walgreens Woman and her sisters out because, fuck, it was all about Christmas. Also, there was an incident (I think) in the same year when he was arrested for beating his wife with a vacuum cleaner. I assume there was some poetic justice in his choice of weapon, but…that’s harsh!

She pretty much dropped off my radar in junior high. I can’t remember if she moved and went to a different school or if we just never had a single class together, but I can’t remember ever seeing her. In high school, however, she was suddenly back. Junior year, she and I were partnered together in our school’s show choir, I think because we were the only two who couldn’t dance at all. They just stuck us in the back. We ended up becoming unintentional friends. I seem to recall, early in the year, literally hiding in a neighbor’s backyard to avoid her seeing us. By the end of the year, she didn’t seem so bad. Annoying, yes, but she had let some of her vulnerability slip through. It made her less of a Stepford wife. And, of course, we were partnered up again senior year.

But by the time graduation rolled around, I felt a little put off by…everything about her. She took our random partnership assignation a little too seriously, making far too big a deal out of it and not-so-subtly implying that this relationship was the closest a person could get to dating. I consciously avoided her during the summer, which wasn’t difficult, and hoped that with college, she’d be out of my life for good.

Not so. My roommate, one of my best friends from high school, was still involved with a girl from high school. This girl was friends with Walgreens Woman, and she “accidentally” gave Walgreens Woman our dorm-room number. I will never forget the horrific night of the X-Files season premiere, when I had to listen to my roommate talk to her for the first half hour, then I had to talk to her during the second half hour. The whole thing was a wash.

She seemed to believe the call was pretty urgent, though. Turns out, she now had a job at Walgreens, and she thought the manager there was flirting with her, but she wasn’t sure. She went through the whole story with my roommate first, then me, asking what was happening and trying to get advice. I did acknowledge that yes, he was probably flirting with her, but I refused to give advice.

Six months later, she was pregnant. Not the advice I would have given, but them’s the breaks…

(On a semi-related note, my little suburb’s most notorious mass murderer also worked at the very same Walgreens — okay, technically it’s different, but only because they demolished the original one and rebuilt a new one in the same location — and got involved with the manager there. He gave her drugs and convinced her to kill her family. Things don’t end well for Walgreens Woman, but at least she hasn’t murdered anyone. Yet.)

The last conversation I can distinctly remember was at a choir concert a year or two after high school. Lucy and I went because her boyfriend at the time was a senior, and Walgreens Woman was there, running around to all the people we used to go to school with, showing off pictures of her baby. She came to us, showed us the picture, and complained that the baby was really ugly. She…wasn’t wrong, but still — it’s her own kid!

After that, she fell off my radar screen. I heard a couple of rumors, that she married the Walgreens manager, that it turned out he was wanted in California for skipping out on a prison sentence, but after awhile, the rumors disappeared. (Turns out they were all true, too.)

Then, two weeks ago, she sent me a random message on Facebook, supporting my long-time conclusion that social networking sites are the scourge of the Internet. She wanted to know how I was doing. I figured so much time had passed, she’d certainly have stopped making such a huge deal out of our show choir partnership. She has a kid, she’s married, she’s probably grown up a little. What’s the harm in sending her a message loaded with lies to create the impression I’m doing a lot better than I am?

Then I got her response, which contained at least five references to “never forgetting” I was her partner. Good Lord. She continued with a sob story about her “psycho” husband and how she divorced him, but not before having another kid, and both of her kids are “special needs,” so she tried going to college for their benefit but it didn’t work out, and now she’s working a shit job while her mom stays home with her kids, and would I like to have dinner with her some night?

I immediately told her I was sick (which was true), and then when she asked if I was feeling better, I told her I had to go out of town (which was not). I got the advice from friends who didn’t know her, who could be objective about it (and by “objective,” I mean “listen to my highly subjective account of our friendship and her life story and feel better that they agree with me”), and they all suggested I run the fuck away.

And run the fuck away I shall, but still…a part of me feels awful because her life has been legitimately miserable, and many of the problems were caused by forces beyond her control. One night of my life wouldn’t be so bad, but that’s how it starts, right? I’ve been down this road before, so I need to get my disdain in check and not let any nostalgia or (shudder) sympathy cloud my judgment.

Posted by Stan on March 25, 2008 11:03 AM  | Permalink | Stories of Pain and Humiliation | Digg It