Invitations

There’s a difference between showing up and showing up without an invitation. I was not willing to do the latter. And it was not as if I needed to make a list of friends I might visit and then narrow it down. I don’t have that many friends, and by that I mean I knew who I wanted to see.

1. Lindy Ascoli. Hers was the house I spent the most time in growing up, her phone number still as familiar to me as my own. She has always been serious, yet smiles readily, and seems to genuinely enjoy being a stay-at-home parent to three girls.

2. Vanessa Meyers. Lindy and I met Vanessa in eighth grade. She was taller than both of us and had beautiful dark hair and eyes and a sense of fun more daring than mine or Lindy’s. The three of us became a close trio, though eventually Lindy and Vanessa became closer than I was to either of them. Lindy went to Connecticut for college, married a few years later, and has been making a home there ever since. Vanessa has lived in six different places in three different countries, recently married a divorced man, and became a stepmother to twin boys. In all the pictures I’ve seen of her lately, she is leaning to touch her head against someone—a friend, one of the stepsons—as if anchoring herself.

3. Neera Khadem is a college friend. My roommate was a disappointment, as I’m sure I was to her, and I was soon spending more time with Neera, whom I met in an introductory psychology class. A driven woman from the West Coast, she stayed up late and dated a lot. I did neither. Nevertheless, she’s my closest tie to a time in my life I remember fondly. I met her husband, Adam, before she did. I introduced them, so we have that bond, too.

4. Rose Gregory chose me. She scanned the list of graduate student names and decided we should be friends, a May and a Rose in a Landscape Architecture program. She’s assertive like that. She’s a few years younger, having come straight to the program after college, and yet focused and calm. I’m not sure what I offered her, but even after I left the program and she finished and moved back to England, she stayed in touch with me.

Lindy, Vanessa, Neera, and Rose. Through some mysterious combination of shared experience and common interest, they seem to feel something for me and I for them. There are other friends I found and lost, friends I had for a little while but couldn’t keep hold of. As a child I was, if anything, an overeager maker of friends. There is a picture of me at a swimming hole when I was nine, one arm tight around the shoulders of another girl, the other arm blurry because I am waving it up and down, joyous at having made a new friend. The word befriend is related to bind and I was clearly trying to bind her to me. That friendship didn’t stick, though. I can’t even remember her name.

Lindy, Vanessa, Neera, and Rose. I have strong images associated with each, a combination of memories and social media posts, I suppose: Lindy walking confidently across the park, bouncing on her toes to appear taller. Vanessa writing from New York about the family she’s making. Neera in Seattle buying a pot of begonias for her desk before sitting down to work. Rose walking in Clapham Common, her navy pea coat buttoned up neat and trim to go grocery shopping. These images have meaning for me, they feel like clues toward something, and I try to keep them in mind.

It’s usually not appropriate to invite yourself to anything. The one exception seems to be when you are in a town where a friend lives. You can say you’ll be in town and many times this leads to an invitation to stay. Some people will announce to a large group that they will be around on a certain date and will be at such and such a place on a given night and hope friends will join them. This scattershot approach feels foolhardy to me. Unless you are certain you are very popular, I’d rather apply the Kitty Genovese lesson to seeing friends and pinpoint one at a time.

“I wanted to pay you a visit,” I said on the phone. Why do we “pay” visits and “receive” guests? It’s the language of accounting, of ledgers and balance sheets. But no one likes to admit keeping track, good manners forbid it.

“You wanted to?”

“I do. I still do.” I’m not good on the phone.

“Really? I’d love that. When were you thinking?”

“I’m flexible. I have a lot of time off work.”

“Is everything okay?”

“Yes. It’s sort of a reward.”

“A reward? Like a vacation?”

“Sort of. It’s complicated.”

“Well, anytime, May. It would be great to see you.”

I looked at my calendar. “What about in two weeks?”

“Oh, soon. That’s great.”

“It could be later.” I flipped calendar pages.

“No, that’s fine. I’m just surprised. But we’re in town, it’s no problem. Are you thinking a weekend?”

“Maybe four or five days?”

“Okay. Are you sure everything’s all right, May? How’s your dad?”

“He’s fine.”

“Can you leave him that long?”

“He’s very independent.”

“That’s good. Are you still living—”

“Yes, still in the house.”

“Well, I can’t wait to see you. It’s just sort of sudden and . . . not really like you.”

“I’m aware of that.”

“You are?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.”

“. . .”

“So how much time are you taking off work?”

“Four weeks. The university is giving me paid leave because someone won a lot of money for a poem about a tree I planted.”

“That’s so cool! Congratulations, May.”

“Thanks. But, please, don’t think you have to entertain me at all. That’s not why I’m coming.”

“Great, we’ll just hang out and catch up. Thanks for reaching out.”

Is that what I was doing? Reaching out? It sounded desperate. The phrase made me picture someone walking blindfolded. I’m certain Amber Dwight would have managed with more flair, but I did the best I could.