merrymuhsman

I handed Thelma a tissue from my purse. “Why is it my fault?” It took all I had to not roll my eyes and swallow down the sarcasm.

Thelma blew her nose into the tissue with all the grace of Daffy Duck. “You should know. You’re the one that told me.” She wadded up the tissue and shook it at me. “Remember the fog?” She paused, wiped her nose. “The coyote snot?”

Something bubbled from my throat, and I giggled. Totally inappropriate. I leaned in anyway and laughed. “You believed me?” I managed through giggles. Nellie snickered, tried to cover her mouth and then let out the best, most contagious laugh I’d ever heard.

Thelma pushed away from the table and rose, her chair clattering to the ground. “I knew you wouldn’t take me seriously. “You lied to me,” she roared. Her face turned red as sunburn.

Oh she was serious.

I rose from my chair and walked around the table. She backed away. I put a hand out like I was taming a stray cat, leaned down and picked up her chair. “I am sorry Thelma, I will listen to you now.”

The apology seemed to take the bite out as she eased herself into the chair.

I eased down in the chair by her. “Please go on. I remember telling you about the coyotes creating fog, but I didn’t think you took me seriously.” I put a hand on her forearm. “I am ;. I only wanted you to give me my certified mail.”

“I would have given it to you,” she said, turning on me and pulling her tissues over her eyes. “I told… oh… I told the men at the coffee shop. They laughed at me.”

Heat flared up my spine, carried by a memory to the surface that I had thought I buried deep. One that reminded me of why I hadn’t talked to Thelma in many months. She had been my friend once upon a time when we were teenagers. It had been a few years, but I remembered when every eye turned on me because of something she said. Had I done the same to her?

“Do you remember when I moved back Minnesota, Thelma?” I asked. A “I-already-know-the-answer” tone to my voice. “I tried to rekindle our friendship from high school and you started a rumor that my husband left me because I had moved back without him. Do you remember?” Thelma stilled.

Nellie stiffened across from me. “I remember that,” her eyes widened and she pointed at Themla. “You started that rumor?”

Thelma sniffled. “Yes, but I thought it was true.”

The heat seared my skin. “Now who’s telling a lie? You called me and I told you that he was staying there until we sold the house. And yet, you didn’t stop the rumor. You could have.”

She sniffed and cleared her throat. “I know, I just… I was well…jealous. You made a life for yourself and I’m just a mail lady in a small town.” She paused and looked toward the wall, avoiding my gaze. “And now the laughing stock of the town.”

I shook my head. “Thelma, they will move on.”

“No, no they won’t. They will hold onto this one.” She stopped and put a tissue to her mouth. “I… it’s why I put the spider in your mailbox.”

“You did what?” The heat turned into an inferno, and the tips of my ears prickled. “I was terrified. That spider was almost as big as my hand.” I shivered.

“You killed it when you blew up your box,” she said low.

My eyebrows shut up in such an arch my own mother would be proud. “And I would do it again and again,” I said, through my teeth.

“Ladies,” Nellie tried to soothe us. ”Must we argue over this. As I see it you’re even.”

“Even? Really? She did the one thing she knew would terrify me.” I gave Thelma my best pirate smile. “I do believe tampering with a mailbox and holding someone’s mail might be criminal. A felony even?”

Once we had been friends, best friends in high school and then we grew apart. When I moved back home, I hoped to rekindle old friendship, laugh about old times, but Thelma always did things on her time, her terms. The relationship I tried to cultivate was like throwing good seed in rocky soil. Sometimes we had good moments, funny phone calls but most, my calls were sent to voicemail. My invitations to lunch were answered with excuses of how busy she was at the post office.

After the rumors started and I realized Thelma had initiated them, there was no going back to the friendship we had. I kept Thelma at a dis

Now, I truly saw Thelma for what she had always been. A bully who grew up to be a women with such little self-esteem that she had to belittle others to raise herself up. I almost pitied her. Almost.

Thelma’s pupils turned black; it was the only color on her pale face. “You killed my spider.”

What kind of screwed up logic is this? “You tried to scare me into coming to see you!”

“She was one of my favorites, too.”

“You have more?” I was mortified as if the spiders would crawl from her purse.

“I feed them,” she said with all the pride of a mother watching her children score a goal in at soccer practice.

Nellie leaned forward. “You do? We could use some creatures to well practice with.”

Thelma softened at the attention. “Well, they aren’t my pets, necessarily. They are just well…”

“Oh we would make sure you are well compensated.” Nellie paused, tapping her finger against her lips. “Maybe you could buy food, something besides tuna.” she wrinkled her nose.

“Everyone thinks government jobs pay well, but they don’t…” Thelma kept babbling, and I stopped listening.

I pushed back from my chair and mouthed “bye” to Nellie. She nodded and waved good-bye.

I didn’t need Thelma in my life, and no matter how nostalgic I might have felt when I moved back and tried to rekindle the friendship. People change, and sometimes that change is a sign to let go.

It was growing colder, and the spiders would go back to hibernating. I had a few months to figure out my next steps with my mail. But one thing I knew, I wouldn’t be going back to the local post office.

I wonder if I could get my mail rerouted to a different post office?

Nellie and Thelma bond over shared ideas for the spider bug busting job, and I go home shaking my head. Did I just create a new friendship?