When Friends Lie . . .

I'm not crazy. Kiki was pretending to be unwell.

"Kiran, I'm soooo, soooo sorry. I just can't come. I have a fever and the BIGGEST migraine ever. I hope you understand," Kiki* said.

"Of course I understand," I said, as I could hear my friend coughing up a lung.

"Well," trying my best not to panic about my already too-high credit card bill. "You need to focus on feeling better. Make sure you get some rest, Kiki."

I hung up the phone wondering how to fix this. I felt bad about my friend being sick but I was also worried about how I was going to cover the cost of the $50 ticket. Since it was only a few hours before the concert, I could end up eating the cost since my friend had gotten sick only a few hours before sound check.

I was in my mid-twenties and things like $50 concert tickets were a hard thing to swallow. They still would be to me. I don't like to throw money away like that.

John, please be quiet. I know what you are thinking, husband. (we talked about that - it's an investment, ok?)

Anyway.

I had gotten 3 tickets to the Matchbox 20/Sugar Ray concert. It was the spring of 2003 and some unheard of band named Maroon 5 was opening. It was at the Verizon center (then known as the MCI center).

She will be a liar, She will be a liar . . .

I just want to lie

As for it being a Matchbox 20 concert - please don't throw stones. I could be lying and saying it was something way cooler but I really want you to understand me better.

I had expected my friends Amee and Kiki to come to the concert with me - they had both jumped at the opportunity when I told them about the ticket pre-sale event I heard about. So I splurged and took a leap of faith and put it all on my credit card, which was pretty much how I rolled when I was in my twenties.

The thing was - Amee was still in. Kiki had a migraine.



Now, I met Kiki at a telecommunications company we both consulted at. She was new to the area and amidst a sea of nerdy "telecommy" dorks, two party girls saw each other across a crowded room and recognized each other as comrades.

A few years older than me, Kiki was a cool chick. She always had the best clothes and drove the nicest cars and drank drink swankier cocktails than I could afford at the time. I was excited to meet her and as was also common in my twenties, pronounced her one of my "new best friends" and introduced her to everybody I knew as a "salt of the earth" kind of girl.

Or really, more like a "salt with her margarita" kind of girl.

But as I got to know Kiki more and helped bring her social status on the rise, I noticed that she wasn't "quite as friendly." And that's cool - I had my own things going on and my own circles I ran in.

But you know that episode of Brady Bunch, where Marsha helps this nerdy girl up the social ladder by giving her a makeover and somehow Davey Jones from the Monkees is also involved in the episode and then the girl becomes hot and starts dating Greg. And now that she is all that, she tells Marsha that she doesn't need her anymore?

And as Marsha looks devastated in all her blonde glory, the girl says "It's not how I got here Marsha. The point is, I'm here."

That made Marsha sad

I guess that's a little bit of what Kiki was like. You would go to a club with her, leave for the bathroom and she would be gone, on to a cooler club. If you asked her about it later, it was always something like "Oh, I thought you left and I was just meeting you there!" or "No, honey! Don't you remember we agreed to meet there after I told you about the hot bartender I wanted to introduce you to?"

"We did?" Scratching my head. Sucker written all over me.

"Oh darling, I would never leave you! How could you even think something like that?"

I don't know. Maybe it was the fact that she never seemed happy just hanging out at a club. It was always about going somewhere "better" where the guys were "hotter" and the drinks were "swankier" and our dating prospects were more in line with her expectations.

I suspected that Kiki had blown me off a few times before - I'd seen her do it to others so I knew it was possible I was also in the way of her campaign towards social domination. One time, she made a big deal about me meeting up with her in a bar in Georgetown - Cafe Milano. I got there ten minutes later and could not find her. She was nowhere to be found. No messages on my phone and I couldn't reach her. I spent another 20 dollars on a cab to take me home, feeling pretty bad. When I would ask her about it (she now decided to answer the phone) , "Oh honey - I never left! You just didn't see me! Cutie, pie!"

I am pretty sure unless she became a hairy greek man, she was not there - the bar was dead (which explains why she would want to leave) but couldn't she have waited 5 minutes till I got there?

But sometimes these feelings are just that. Feelings. And you don't always know what to trust. As far as I was concerned, Kiki and I just had a habit of getting into misunderstandings that were mainly my fault and I would need to do a better job at reading her full memo before we embarked on the evening as I was obviously missing something.

I'm sure this happens to everybody. Right?

So I called Amee and told her about the ticket and we figured out who we could sell it to. Things started to look up and once again, we were excited to make it to the concert.

When we got to the stadium, we ran into several groups of people we knew. That's the norm in this area - for a big city - its a lot of small overlapping social circles.

Me and Amee - in happier days. We were still so naive.

We got situated in our seats which were AWESOME - we were so ridiculously close to the stage and the walkways the musicians came across - they were within touching distance. We really lucked out. I felt bad that Kiki was going to miss this!

A few minutes before the show was set to start, some stragglers came in to claim their seats. And in the seat right in from of mine sat . . . hmmm. No, that can't be . . .

Kiki.

The funniest thing was that as she walked to her seat and saw me, she first had the immediate reaction of "hey - kiran!' and did that fake arms in there air "oh, you know you're getting hugged girl" kind of thing that we do in DC. And there was actually joy to see me. But then realization, awkwardness and a whole lot of other things took over and replaced the joy as she realized she had just stepped into some really stinky dog poop.

And it wasn't mine.

I of course was mute and was pretty sure my mouth was left hanging open for several minutes. Amee tried to help, I think. It was very blurry. I was kind of devastated.

I mean, what could I say?

1) You didn't want to come with me to the concert
2) You got what you thought were better seats from someone else
3) You LIED to me about being sick and were ok with me taking on a new $50 debt
4) you had the audacity and disrespect to show up - just never expecting to see me.


Well I'll tell you something about that day at the MCI center where over 20,000 fans came to the venue. The fact that Kiki ended up in the seat RIGHT IN FRONT OF MINE was no accident. It is called KARMA and I believe everything played out exactly as it was meant to. I could think of no better way for me to realize that yes, the doubts I was having about my so-called friend were not just in my head. They had been legit.

So, unlike most people, who have some of those doubtful situations with their friends, I don't know how many get their questions resolved by some ultimate bitch-slap that confirms all those doubts.

I got the bitch-slap and I am so very grateful it happened and ended things at once, rather than years of more prolonged doubt provoking events.

The good thing? I don't think Kiki enjoyed ONE SECOND OF THAT CONCERT. After my initial sadness and anger abated, I felt a strange relief for ever doubting myself and those feelings I had dismissed for so long.

I enjoyed every song and sang as loud and as possibly off key as I possibly could manage, as close to her ear as I could.

I never received an apology. So I didn't apologize when I spilled half my Miller Light down her shirt by accident.

I never received an explanation. So I also didn't explain why I spilled the other half of my Miller Light down her shirt on purpose.

Whenever I hear a Matchbox 20 song, I remember her mortified face and I laugh and laugh and laugh. (and they are not funny songs, so people may think that's odd.)

I hear Kiki married some guy with four kids up in NJ and just had a kid of her own. I am guessing she is not clubbing anymore, but who the heck knows? She's probably trying to get on to the next round of "The Housewives of NJ." She would fit in well.

Some of you who read this know her and may still be friends with her. Every friendship has a story, a balance and an integrity of its own.

Our story sucked, the balance was all hers and there was no integrity, so it's safe to say she is probably investing more in her relationships with you.

I would ask you to never hurt your relationship with her because of me, but for anybody who ever tried to excuse what happened above, and my own reaction to it and to tell ME, ME that I was the one with the problem.

You get a big fat, "Seriously"?

A Meredith Gray, from Gray's Anatomy "Seriously? Seriously?"

Seriously?

A resounding, "Are you on crack, Seriously?"

So, let's just not plan to go there EVER AGAIN.

She had a migraine. Sheesh. I should have GIVEN her a migraine.

* Not her name. But I have never been a fan of this name and so today I shall call her Kiki.

SO FRIENDS TELL ME. AM I ALONE? HAS ANYTHING LIKE THIS EVER HAPPENED TO YOU? PLEASE SHARE? I WOULD LOVE TO KNOW HOW YOU HANDLED IT AND GOT OVER IT, ESPECIALLY WHEN YOU SHARED FRIENDS.

Thanks,
Kiran

(I am in training all week and may not be able to answer emails/comments till late at night. But my posts will auto-publish every day). Have a great week!