Our Friend, Ted - Second Draft

Chapter 1 - Christi

“Hey, Christi,” Ted said, leaning forward to give me a warm hug. It had been quite a while since I last saw him.

In fact, it had been just after graduation, when parents and families were milling about among the throngs of people just outside the Bradley Center in Milwaukee. Ted had come for my graduation, congratulated me and gave me some advice and well wishes, then promptly left before my family found me among the crowd of recent Marquette graduates.

“How’s it going by you?” he said. “It’s been so long since we’ve had time to get together.”

I shut the door behind him as he walked in and plopped right down on the couch, like I had offered to let him stay there. Yeah right, Ted.

“It’s been hectic,” I said. I’ve been trying to adjust to life in Chicago, what with the move and the new job at the agency. It’s been a bit rough there, like I can never get a step ahead. I’m always playing catch up.”

“That’s not a bad thing, though,” he said.

“No, it’s not. But it seems like I’m forever going to be stuck behind everyone else, you know? Like I’m just not good enough to do my work, meet new people, and get some friends in the city. It’s a lot different in downtown Chicago than it is in the suburbs. Can I get you a drink?”

Ted nodded his approval.

“Martini?”

“You know me so well.”

I pulled out a martini glass, one of my graduation presents — single aunts are fabulous if you can get one — and grabbed the vodka. “So I’ve been trying to put my nose down at work, make sure I don’t make mistakes, keep my bosses happy. It’s working well so far, but like I said, there just doesn’t seem to be any me time anymore.”

I grabbed a couple of olives from the fridge and took out his martini — and one for me too, obviously — out to the living room. I set his martini down on my glass coffee table.

I sipped from hers, marveling at the balance between vodka and fruit. With my mixing abilities, I knew I was in for a night of more than just one fruitini.

Ted smiled back, his chiseled jawline a steady comfort. He sat forward, reached out and touched me on the shoulder. “I’ve missed you Chris. I know you’ve got a lot going on, but you have to make time for friends if that’s what you feel is missing in your life. You can recognize a problem all day every day, but if you never do anything to fix that problem, it’s never going to improve. You know what I mean?”

“Yeah, yeah, of course.” I said, demurely. Instinctively I tucked my chin in, a scolded child. Ted was always right, like he was almost my third parent sometimes. “It’s something I need to do. You’re absolutely right.”

I took a deep breath, and a long drink.

“I guess I’m just afraid. My boss, Karen, she seems like she’s nice and all, but she comes off as very demanding. Like I feel if I don’t get what I need to do done, she’s going to have my head. Like I’m Alice and she’s the Red Queen.”

Ted’s hearty laugh filled my cozy apartment. From where I was sitting on the end of the couch, you could see the kitchen and the entire hallway and entrance to the bathroom and bedroom. These tiny downtown Chicago apartments were a new world to me, and it was taking some time to get used to it.

I finished the fruitini, my head floating in the throbbing echoes of Ted’s words filling the apartment.

“You’ve got a way with words sometimes, Chris.” Again that chiseled smile. If he wasn’t so disinterested in any time of romantic relationship, I would swear that he was hitting on me. “But don’t worry about it. I know you want to do your best in your first job, right out of college, but you need to relax, rest a bit. Find that self-assurance that you’re going to do your job and you’re going to do it right, and that you have the ability to focus on other things, too. Otherwise you’re never going to have a life. You’re never going to meet anyone, any friends, any guys, and you’re never going to be truly happy.

“Sometimes it’s about sacrificing a bit in one part of your life so that you can have a much more well balanced life overall. That’s what you need to focus on, I think.”

I nodded. “I think part of it, too, is I’m a little intimidated. There’s a lot of people at work, and it’s hard to feel like I can even meet everyone.”

I reached for his fruitini, which he hadn’t even touched yet. Ted swept his arm toward me, a gesture for me to take it.

I did. And downed it quickly.

And sometime after my head began to swim and the words began to jumble, Ted left and I fell drifted off.