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L unch with Cindy

“I just don’t know what to think about him, you know?” Helena asked as she held onto her glass of water. The cool condensation on the surface made the texture glass slick. It was very sunny for a winter day, though there was no snow on the ground to let anyone know it was winter other than the time of year. She had left Rafferty at her place so she could run to the office for a weekend meeting that came up at the last minute, which she could not have imagined doing before her p romotion.

Luckily, Cindy was just getting off from work herself, so they were meeting f or lunch.

After the … events of last night, she thought she and Rafferty needed a little space from ea ch other.

“If I’m honest, Chris is more your friend than mine,” Cindy said, taking a long drag from her o wn glass.

“Yeah, but you know him enough. Do you think I’m misreading the situation?” Helena asked, hoping her friend could see how since she really couldn’t.

“Here—just let me repeat it back to you to make sure I understand. You were out on a dinner date at Tower Top restaurant, and you saw Chris there … with a woman … and they were ma king out.”

“Strictly, I only saw them kiss once,” Helena declared. “But it wasn’t a very chaste kiss. And by that I mean, it wasn’t pornographic, but I wouldn’t kiss my mother t hat way.”

“Got it. Picture crystal clear,” Cindy said as she brought her hands together in a prayer position that she pressed against her lips while she thought. “And then after that, he spotted you, came over and confronted you, and had to be chased off by th e waiter.”

“Yeah, before Rafferty and him came to blows, and I really thought it might happen there for a moment,” Hel ena added.

Cindy nodded. “Mmm-hmmm, mmm-hmmm, okay. One question: Who is Rafferty?”

Helena felt the bottom drop out of her stomach. “Oh, right. Who is Rafferty,” she repeated in a tone of voice that she recognized meant that anything she said after would immediately sound li ke a lie.

“He… is…” She sighed. There was no help for it. “You remember a few weeks ago I had that dinn er party?”

“You mean that dinner party that changed the course of my life with its food and made me change my orientation to foodie? No, doesn’t ring a bell. Continue,” Cindy quipped.

“Well, you remember the guy I had over who helped me get the dinner together after I had bombed it i nitially?”

Cindy’s eyebrows puckered. “The caterer? I thought his name w as Lares.”

At the sound of that name, Helena felt like she had been used as a clapper inside an enormous bell. “Lares?” she repeated. Even as she said the name, she realized it sounded familiar and at the same time felt like it was the first time she was hearing it. He told me he ate his name so I couldn’t summon him with it, she re membered.

“Uh, yeah. Lares Rafferty, but he prefers to be called Rafferty,” she said, adjusting the lie to fit t he truth.

“Oh weird. That’s very old world of him,” Cindy said, wrinkling her nose.

“Well, when your name is Lares Rafferty, I can understand wanting to minimize the weird,” Hele na joked.

“I suppose that’s fair,” Cindy allowed, then leaned forward to rest her chin on her fingers joined like a little platform. “So tell me, you guys have been making sparks in the kitch en since?”

No power in the world could have stopped Helena from both blushing and smiling like an idiot. She was forced to hide her face while Cindy squealed.

“No, no, no! It’s not like that,” Helena tried to say, but it was useless and made her friend’s hooting worse. “We’re just friends!”

“The best relationships are with your friend! It’s like you’ve not watched the literal show on the subject Friends or s omething!”

“Okay, Monica and Chandler aside, Rafferty and I, we’re just enjoying each other’s company right now. He’s … got a lot going on in his life right now and…”

“Do you like him?” Cindy asked, slapping her hand dramatically down on the table, which was thankfully clear of dishes except for their water glasses. “The court demands answers!”

“Dammit, Cindy, you’re a doctor, not a lawyer.” Helena laughed. “And I barely know h im, okay?”

“You just took him out on a date to a very fancy and very romantic French re staurant.”

“It was on the company dime,” she defended.

“Just because you did it the smart way doesn’t mean it wasn’t romantic,” Cindy countered. “What did you hav e to eat?”

“Quail, actually,” Helena said, grinning. “It was very grown up.” Then her face fell. “Which is why it is so disappointing that it had to end like that. I basically ran away after Chris got all up in my face about bei ng there.”

“What they should have done was ask Chris and his hussy to leave,” Cind y sneered.

Helena sat up a little straighter. “You did not just do that.”

“What?” Ci ndy asked.

“You just slut shamed a woman we don’t even know because of the behavior and choices of a man we do,” she said, completely serious.

Cindy’s face froze a second as she took that in, and for a half-beat of her heart, Helena thought she was going to argue about it, but then she dropped her shoulders and nodded wearily.

“You are right. I did just do that, and I am ashamed. The programming runs deep,” Cindy said formally.

Helena nodded. “For all we know, he could have lied to her about being single or just hasn’t even told her yet, and as far as she knows, they are dating legi timately.”

Cindy winced. “I’m sorry, Hel. I forgot abou t Shawna.”

Needles pressed into Helena’s throat, but she ignored them. “And we’re not going to talk about Shawna. We’re talking about Chris and what you think I should do with regard to what I saw and what I should or shouldn’t tell Charlie. Because I know I would have liked to know when it had been me, but I…” She stopped and huffed. “But at the same time, I know there were several points I wouldn’t have listened…” She stopped herself and corrected again. “I didn’t listen, and I own that, but it also cost me several friends.”

“Not all of them,” Cindy said, reaching out to squeeze her hand.

Helena squeezed it back. “And I’m grateful for that every day of my life, Cin,” she assured.

“And now I’m going to ask you…” Cindy warned. “Are these the reasons you aren’t giving yourself a shot with Lares… Rafferty?” she added b elatedly.

“No, sincerely.” Helena shook her head. “He can’t stay and so it would be a short fling anyway.”

“And what’s wrong with a short fling?” Cindy ch allenged.

“I have had plenty of them to know it’s not what I want,” Hel ena said.

Cindy’s face became grave. “Hellie, I … had a patient die the ot her day.”

That surprised Helena. “ Cin, I’m—”

“He was a young guy like us,” Cindy continued as if she didn’t hear her. “He had just gotten married, like a month ago or something. He was fine last week and then he got bacterial meningitis. Killed him within hours. Even after we did everything we could to save him, we just couldn’t. I was the one who talked to hi s widow.”

She took a drink of water to clear her thickening voice. Helena squeezed Cindy’s hand to let her know she was still there, still present.

She continued, “I can’t honestly remember much of what we said, or even how this came up, but one of the things this woman said while we talked was … she didn’t regret marrying him, even though their time together was so short. That even if she had known this would happen, it was better than never having spent any of that time with him at all. Because then she would have lost that as well.”

Cindy cleared her throat. “I think what I’m trying to say is, no matter how long or short your time with anybody is, it’s never forever. You’re going to have to let them go eventually, so that shouldn’t stop you from being with t hem now.”

They sat in silence with that for a long while until the waiter finally returned with their lunc h plates.

“I’m sorry that happened to you, Cin,” Helena said as she laid her napkin on her lap, feeling her words were totally inadequate and yet having nothing else to offer.

Cindy perked up and flashed a pained smile. “It’s the job I chose. It has its good days and bad days, but if I wasn’t there to do it, they would all be bad days.”

“Okay, well that makes lunch on me,” Helena said, trying to lift up the heavy mood as she made adjustments to her turkey BLT and French onion soup plate. It seemed perfect after all the rich food she’d had the night before. “And let me ask you this: how would you feel if a guy li cked you?”

Cindy eyed her as she chewed around a full mouth of her Greek sandwich. “I guess I would need to know the context.”

“It was something…” Helena hesitated. “Sorry, I don’t know how I feel about it myself, but…” She sighed. Too late to back out now. “It happened last night. With Rafferty.”

“Oh,” Cindy said, her eyes twinkling now. “You were holding out on me. And now I need all the gory details. Spill it.”

“We were trying to enjoy the desserts from the restaurant at home, and we had this layered thing with chocolate and cream, and we were about to eat, and we were talking about … food and sexy play, and then he sort of slapped some of his dessert, you know, on my cheek and then licke d it off.”

Cindy’s eyebrows kept rising as Helena spoke. “Oh. Wow. Okay, that’s a lot to br eak down.”

“Like I said, I just don’t know how to feel about it. I think he was teasing me because you know we were talking about it and being silly, but it sort of threw me off because I was suddenly uncomfortable, but I know that wasn’t what he intended, and now it all feels funny, and I don’t know… I don’t know… I just do n’t know.”

Before Cindy could answer, Helena’s eyes landed on the last person she wanted to see, just before he walked up to the table.

“Hi Yosef,” Helena said, forcing h er smile.

“Cityside catering called. They want an appointment today,” he stated, holding out the messa ge to her.

“Did … you come to find me?” she asked, taking it.

“No, I just happened to see you,” he said, acknowledging Cindy. “You better get going if you want to make it.” Then he was gone.

Cindy’s beeper went off. “And just like that, there’s lunch. Well good luck with that. I’ll call later and we can finish talking.” Then she too was gone.

That left Helena no choice but to run too.