My friend from A made the best damn garlic bread. She taught me how back when we were still friends. Once you know how, you realize it’s the only way to make garlic bread and it’s absolutely perfect. You mash a bunch of garlic into some butter or margarine. Then, you slice a loaf of good bread—but not quite all the way through. Make big fat slices, it’s garlic bread, you know? You stuff the mashed butter and garlic between the slices, wrap the whole thing in foil, and put it in the oven while you’re making your spaghetti. It’s delicious and reassuring and goes great with red sauce. Yeah, it’s dead simple, but I didn’t know how before my friend from A taught me.
We’re not friends any more because I couldn’t get past her boyfriend. He’s tall and handsome and funny and mean as a snake poked with a stick. When I last spent time with the two of them, I realized that every time someone walked away from a conversation, he’d make an uncharitable remark about them. She’s fat and shouldn’t be dressed in those shorts. He’s dumb as a sack of hammers. He’s short a chromosome or two, she shouldn’t be let out in public where people have to see her. “Oh no,” I thought. “He’s doing that to me, too.” Worse, I worried that he was doing it to my friend.
My friend from A and the mean boyfriend were having kind of a rough patch at the time. She asked me what I thought. I did not tell her. “I don’t like your boyfriend,” I did not say. “I can see the appeal, I mean, he’s dead handsome and clearly very smart, but he doesn’t LIKE anyone and he’s mean,” I did not say. “Of course you’re having a hard time,” I did not say. “Your boyfriend thinks he’s better than everyone else on the planet, probably you included. I’m surprised he thinks you’re good enough for him. He’s got it backwards, by the way, you are far too good for him.” I did not say any of those things. Instead I said some pale excuse, something like, “I don’t know him very well, but he doesn’t seem to be treating you any differently than anyone else.”
