My Best Friend Introduced Me As Newly Retired—Eleven Days After I Was Laid Off And Started Looking For Work
PART 12
By spring, Carol’s paper planner had become ugly.
She considered that a success.
Blue ink for Mason Field. Black for appointments. Green for personal plans. There were blank squares too, and Carol had stopped seeing them as threats or opportunities that needed immediate ownership.
One Monday morning she sat at the kitchen table with the faded conference mug and reviewed the week.
Tuesday: branch call at nine, dentist at two.
Wednesday: remote work, no evening plan.
Thursday: headquarters.
Friday: lunch with Diane.
Saturday: Melissa was coming over to help move a bookcase, which Carol suspected was code for preventing her mother from moving it alone.
Her phone buzzed.
Diane had sent a picture from Louisville. She and Nancy were standing in front of an enormous quilt patterned with red squares.
I have developed opinions about stitching. Send help.
Carol typed: Employment may be your only escape.
Diane replied: Too late. I’m retired.
Carol laughed out loud.
The word no longer felt like a net thrown in her direction. It belonged to Diane again.
Friday, they met at the same cafe where the whole argument had started. One of the watercolor women recognized Carol and stopped beside the table.
“How is retirement treating you?” she asked.
Diane opened her mouth, looked at Carol, and closed it again.
Carol smiled. “I’m working thirty hours a week at Mason Field Equipment.”
“Oh. I thought you retired.”
“No. I got laid off last fall.”
“That must have been hard.”
“It was.”
“And you found something good?”
“I found something that fits now.”
The woman smiled and moved on.
Diane leaned across the table. “I showed heroic restraint.”
“You did.”
“I want credit.”
“You may have half a point.”
“That is insulting.”
Their server brought coffee.
Carol had left the corporate mug at home. Not because she was done with that life or ashamed of wanting work. It was simply too large for the cup holder in her car, and at some point symbolism had to yield to engineering.
Diane pulled out her smaller planner.
“I have a proposition.”
Carol narrowed her eyes. “Dangerous opening.”
“Two nights in Charleston in October.”
Carol did not answer immediately.
Diane held up one hand. “I have not reserved anything. I have not researched hotels. I do not know whether prices are good. I am barely aware October exists.”
Carol laughed.
“My extension decision is in July.”
“I know.”
“If I extend, October might be busy.”
“I know.”
“If I don’t, I might be doing something else.”
“I know.”
Diane looked pleased with herself.
Carol said, “Ask me in August.”
“Okay.”
No backup date. No wounded silence. No promise that friendship would finally get the years back.
They ordered lunch.
Halfway through, Diane told Carol she was considering joining the library’s literacy tutoring program in the fall.
“That would be two mornings a week,” Carol said.
“Yes.”
“What if I retire in September and need you?”
Diane stared at her.
Carol kept a straight face for almost three seconds. Then they both laughed.
Outside, the weekday street was busy with people going somewhere for reasons neither woman knew.
Carol had once imagined retirement as a door: work on one side, freedom on the other. Diane had imagined it as a room with enough time for the people she loved to finally enter.
Neither picture had survived contact with real life.
Carol preferred what remained.
She had work she chose, free time she chose, and a friendship that no longer needed the same answer from both women.
When they finished lunch, Diane went to watercolor.
Carol went home to prepare for Monday’s branch workshop.
They did not walk in the same direction.
They did not need to.
