From Certain Friends for Certain Secrets

A S TO RY

BY A N N B E AT T I E

The man who worked at Kramerbooks was Dwight Whitehead. Wed recognized
each other instantly, though we didnt know each others names. Jan Dasher, I
said, shaking his hand with my mittened hand. My first name is Susan, but when
we moved to Washington, Id decided to switch to my middle name. Soon after I
was hired, another employee came to work, expanding our little group from three
to four: Susan Richardsonhardly an amazing coincidence, since Susan is a
common name, though because we were the only women in the office, I looked
up every time someone said her name. Jared Strell was our boss: red-haired;
dapper, in a slightly old-fashioned way. He actually wore a fedora. His partner
later his husbandalso worked there: Wyatt Bindle. I was a particular friend of
Wyatts, meaning that every now and then we went off for drinks on Fridays
without inviting the others, to a small bar beneath a hotel. Since we were
insomniacs, we also sometimes chatted on the phone late at night. When he had
an appendectomy, I visited him every day at Sibley Hospital. That was how I
found out, from his chart, that he was HIV positive.
Wyatt, at thirty-six, was a few years younger than me. Hed grown up in
Mississippi, then gone to BU, during which time hed come out to his parents,
though he told me his sister had been flipping her wrists in his direction for years
when their parents werent around. Hed lived in or around Boston after college,
working in banking, then as a stockbroker, before he decided it was time for a
change. Hed left his boyfriend and moved to Washington, sharing a two-
bedroom with a straight guy who became one of his closest friends: Len Brown.
Len met Jared at a late-night, high-stakes poker game run the first Monday of
each month by priests at Georgetown. He gave Jared a ride home one night after
Jared had lost big and also found that his car battery was dead in the parking lot.
Snow had started to fall, and it was bitter cold. He figured hed deal with his car
problem the next day. Driving well under the speed limit and skidding on the
streets, theyd listened to Gerry Mulligan on the radio, which led them to talk
about music, and what the best place was to hear jazz. In Jareds opinion, it was
a club in Georgetown. They decided to go there, though the snow had begun
falling more heavily. (If there was snow in Washington, it was always mentioned
in peoples accounts; sometimes it seemed to be the most important aspect of
the story.) It turned out that both had been undergraduates in New England
during almost the same years, though Jared had gone to Yale, while Len Brown
had gone to Williams. At the club, more people were entering than exiting, late
as it was, and in spite of dire predictions about the storm. Len called his
roommate, Wyatt, and told him where he was. Len said to walk over, if he was so
inclined. That was how Wyatt met Jared. Ever after, they were a couple, though
they lived separately when they were dating. Then Jared rented an apartment
with Wyatt, and Len had meanwhile had a passionate affair with Wyatts sister
(hed assumed theyd move in together) but broke it off not long after it began
because of her . . . well, because of her high expectations. Len would tell
anyone whod listen that trying to get close to her was like stalking a fly. At the
last second, it always sensed your presence and lifted off. Later, she was
diagnosed and eventually stabilized with medication, though she and Len never
got back together. She either married, or moved in with, an optometrist who
lived in Have de Grace, Maryland. Wyatt couldnt get his sister to tell him
whether they were married, but she wore a platinum band set with rubies on her
finger.
Wyatt didnt have much interest in his sister. It was as simple as that. It was
Jared who felt that family was very important, sacred(as Wyatt complained), so
for years Jared insisted that they should include Sally and her husband, or
whatever he was, even though that meant Len would have to be excluded. It
often caused Wyatt something between frustration and pain that they could only
invite Len at the last minute, because his sister rarely gave a clear answer about
whether she was coming to any holiday or event. Wyatt believed this was
spiteful, because she knew Len would be included if she wasnt there. She
blamed Len for not sticking by her, even after shed dropped the expensive
bracelet hed given her into the Tidal Basin.
Wyatt and I would sometimes talk, over drinks at Kelligans Pub, about how
frustrating this situation continued to be. Jared overreacts. He has no family.
What does he thinkthat suddenly she and I are going to have things in
common, after all these years? That the Super Bowl just cant be the same
without her? She was always trouble. She drank the old mans scotch and
watered the bottle, and she killed the family dog. (Shed done this by hitting the
gas pedal rather than the brake when she was learning to drive. Shed run it over
in the driveway.) One Halloween when they were teenagers shed thought it was
funny to make a papier-mch mask and paint it to look like their mother. Shed
worn it with a brown wig eerily reminiscent of their mothers hairstyle, and shed
stuffed her sweatshirt with pillows so shed look hugely pregnant. Sallys father
had laughed so long and hard and taken so many photographs that their mother
had torn open the enormous bag of candy corna bag that grew bigger with
every telling of the storyletting it rain down on the kitchen floor as she
stomped off to bed with dinner uncooked and nothing to give the trick-or-
treaters, either. The dog had barked and gone crazy, running everywhere,
skidding on the linoleum, acting like every bit of candy corn was a tiny animal
intruder. Obviously, that was before the dog was killed.
Wyatt was having his favorite Friday drink: Guinness draft, with its flat, foamy
top spread as thickly as whipped cream, served in its special glass. I was having
my customary Chardonnay. Only once had Wyatt and I talked about his being HIV
positive. Jared knew, Wyatt had told me; hed found out the same time Wyatt
did, soon after theyd started living together. What Jared didnt knowand of
course I didnt, eitherwas that Wyatts mother had not died as a result of her
stroke several years before. Shed been in a nursing home in Richmond, looked
after by a cousin, though that cousin now had cancer (Not that youd care) and
had called Wyatt and asked him to make other arrangements for his mothers
care. Over his second Guinness (new glass; deeper foam), Wyatt elaborated: if
Jared had known she was alive, theyd have been on the road to Richmond all the
time to see a half-blind old lady who couldnt say a word, and the last ones
she had spoken had been paranoid nonsense.

Answer the following questions.

1) In what way was the writers decision to use her middle name

instead of her first, prove to be wise decision? (1 Mark)

2) What activities would the writer and her friend enjoy together? (2

Marks)

3) In your own words, explain the kind of relationship the writer and

the friend shared.(5 Marks)

4) How does the writer present the different stages of the

relationship between the couple?

In your answer, you should write about

- Their different perspectives of life.

- Their relationship with the other people in their lives.

- Particular words, phrases and techniques

You may include brief quotations from the passage to support

your answer. (12 Marks)