Conversation with a new Friend

“I’m going to step outside for a cigarette before it gets crazy,” Stacy said as she put her coat on.

“Okay,” I said, leaning on the counter of the concession stand. “Enjoy your cancer!”

Only after I said it did I realize how that might sound to someone I had met less than an hour earlier. Stacy and I were the volunteers for Saturday’s show, tasked with selling drinks and snacks during the intermission of the night’s show, “Christmas in Akron.” Stacy’s response to my glib comment surprised me.

“I do have cancer,” she said without changing her expression. “But I have brain cancer, not lung cancer, so it’s okay.”

My stomach dropped a little at the thought of having offended her. Then she chuckled.

“I’m so sorry,” I said. Then I put my hand to the corner of my mouth as if sharing a big secret. “You should be smoking something else, then.”

Her eyes seemed to take me in anew. “Oh, I do that, too.”

She didn’t seem in much of a hurry to get outside for her cigarette. The realization of a mutual interest in weed always makes a new person more intriguing. Some of my very best friendships were forged over this kind of recognition.

We spent the rest of the evening in close proximity to each other. The half hour before curtain, we sold a couple cups of coffee and figured out how to track the sales and the money. When JT was beginning his address to the audience, the box office manager told me I could go into the theater and find a seat for the show. I went up the three stairs to the elevated back row and took the seat at the very end. The theater is tiny, and I wanted not only a good vantage point but a little space between myself and the paying customers.

Just before the show began, Stacy came and sat next to me. She showed me pictures of her scars from two brain surgeries and the hair loss during her radiation treatments. At one point, half her head was bald and half hairy because of the precise radiation application. In a shot taken from above, her half-bald scalp looked like a yin-yang symbol. The opposite side of her head — the side not targeted by radiation treatments — burned a heart-shaped area out of its hair.

She was funny and sweet. There were lots of pictures of her cats and dogs. I didn’t mind that. We both laughed out loud a few times during the show. At intermission, we were a well-oiled machine with those concessions. I tracked sales on a paper she had prepared; she helped the couple that bought one of the charity ornaments; we sold all of the “nostalgic” snowball cookies.

After the show, we had a bit more time to talk, as traffic at the counter was much slower. She told me about her girlfriend of 12 years leaving her suddenly, via text.

“Women are bitches,” she said. Then she reached across the counter and touched my hand. “Present company excluded, of course.”

She touched my hand. I wondered how she was going to react when I told her about the break-up of my own marriage. Would I still be excluded from that group?

The box office manager asked if we were interested in joining some of the others for a drink somewhere. Stacy said it depended on where. This was her first night driving alone since the onset of her brain cancer, the first symptom of which was a two-month headache followed by a massive seizure. He disappeared into the theater to drum up arrangements. I didn’t see him again before I left.

Stacy told me she lived in North Hill. I said I was two minutes up North Portage Path. It’s really three minutes. I didn’t want to go out for a drink. I had overindulged Friday night. I needed a break.

“What bar do you generally go to?” I asked.

“Tear-Ez downtown,” she said. “Yeah, I’m a rock star down there. Because of my illness.”

On that last bit, she pointed to the stocking cap that had replaced her Santa cap from earlier. I rather liked her Santa cap. She had brought her own and not had to borrow one of the “volunteer loaners” as I had. I admired that about her.

“I want to walk in there with a rock star!” I was putting on my coat and felt that tingle of mutual attraction, that first hint that something might be beginning.

“You’re going to be here next week?” She was up the few stars near the door to the theater, already in her coat.

“Yep,” I said. “I’ll be here every Saturday. It’s all I can do.”

“I’ll see you next week then. It was really great talking with you, Sharon.”

“Likewise, Stacy. Maybe we’ll go out for that drink afterward next week.”

She gave me her phone number, and I texted her mine. When I got home, I friended her on Facebook. We’ll see.