Creative writing assignment - broken friendship

I couldn't have predicted it, even though I might have imagined the encounter many many times before. The truth is, chances of meeting her randomly, in the city we both grew up in, were actually pretty slim. We had both left the country, years before. I visited once a year, but I didn't often go to the actual city centre. As for her, I didn't even know if her family was still around that area. But still, when someone who's been in your life for 30 years suddenly cuts ties, without so much as an explanation and you come back to the very place where you spent so many hours together, year after year, you might catch yourself wondering what if. Although after over 10 years, those thoughts were starting to fade away. 

I was sitting at Martinho da Arcada under the arches of Terreiro do Paco, the big plaza down by the riverside, a walk away from the two big train stations. I sat on the tables outside, enjoying the shadow on a day that was just at the border between warm and hot and had asked for a 'pastel de nata' and a bica - Lisbon jargon for an expresso coffee. It was so rare for me to be on my own, in Lisbon, without the kids or my husband, that for a moment I just sat there, taking the city in. Lots of tourists everywhere, bright colours fighting for attention under the bright light of the sun. I was sitting with the stone wall to my right but decided to turn my chair 45 degrees backwards in order to have a wider vision of the plaza and as I did so, there she was, sitting at the table behind me, a herbal tea in front of her. Her eyes were down on her drink but in the split second it took me to recognise her, she raised her head and her eyes met mine. For a moment it felt a bit like the pause button had been pressed and we just stood there, both of us uncertain about what to say or do. Time froze for a while. Without moving my eyes or body, my brain did a double take: was it actually her or was I staring awkwardly at a perfect stranger? It was her, older, but still her. I could guess her gestures even in her then-immobile figure. Behind her, the old iron clock marked 4:01 in the afternoon and I have no idea why of all things, that was the detail that called for my attention. 

I took action first, seeing that she didn't get up and leave like she normally did in my imaginary meetings. 

-Ola, I said. 

-Ola, she replied. Was it a good sign she was replying? 

-I can see you still haven't joined the coffee team. 

She looked bewildered. I couldn't fault her for that. Eleven years and my first sentence to her is about her choice of drink at a cafe. I made an awkward nod at her tea. She responded with an awkward laugh. 

-Oh.....no, I still prefer to stay off caffeine, I don't like to consume any stimulant substances, she added after a pause. I also try not to eat too much sugar these days. 

-Oh....right.....I looked down at my bica and my oversized pastel de nata. 

-I can see you are still big on coffee. 

-Yeah, I'm still very attached to my stimulants. -Look, Silvia, I added quickly before my previous sarcastic tone had time to sink in, I'm really not sure about what happened between us but I am glad to have bumped into you. I thought about trying to contact you so many times, but I was so confused about why you disappeared. I wasn't sure if it was resentment or......

-It's ok. I'm glad we found each other again too, but I'd much rather not talk about the past. I'm not even sure I had reasons for my reactions. I was fragile, there was a lot going on, all the treatments took a toll on me. But the past is in the past.....I have no hard feelings. 

-I.....ok, cool....yeah, if you don't want to talk about the past. So how are things? How are you?

-Oh, I am wonderful. Life is really really good now. It's never been so good. 

-I'm really glad. I heard you moved to Ireland.....

-Yes, I'm doing a project there. Very interesting, lots of people involved. Those Irish are crazy. They all adore me, I have to hide, I get asked for opinion on things so many times I hardly have time to breathe. 

-Oh wow, ....so are you managing the project or......?

-No, I'm working as a volunteer. But it's a small community and I am just so well known, I need to create some boundaries to have some peace, you see?

I wasn't really seeing anything at this point, I found the conversation a bit confusing and full-on, but I was keen on rebounding. You don't just delete 30 years of friendship on a whim. Or so I thought. I tried to keep the conversation going. I was so excited to tell her all the new things about my life. So excited to tell her I had had a second child.

She carried on talking for a while about her life in Ireland and the Irish and the history of Ireland, even. I listened and asked more questions, hoping this would break the ice formed over years of distance  I had hoped that by breaking the ice our conversation would actually get a bit more personal eventually. That we could maybe overcome the nearly tangible wall that was still separating us. 

She didn't ask about Cindy. And maybe I should have taken that as a sign. Eleven years had passed since she found out she wouldn't be able to have kids after the treatments, and 12 years since my Cindy was born.

We had moved on to some memories of our past, being teenagers together, skipping classes to watch the sunset by the river. Collecting autographs from Adam Curry. Silly old memories. I said ''oh Gosh, I was at that place where Adam Curry gave us the autographs just the other day. With my kids. I have another one now. A boy!

-Oh cool. Yeah, I sometimes think about those times, we were crazy. By the way, I went to a craft workshop the other day. I thought of you. You were always artsy.

 'Oh cool?!' I thought. I had just told her I have a child she doesn't know, not that I had bought a new sofa. I stared at her dress, unable to look her in the eyes and unsure how to react to this, buying time for my feelings to settle. Could we be friends if I had to pretend I didn't have kids so as not to hurt her feelings? I noticed the pattern on her dress. It had some white shapes on it, against a dark blue background. Hills, maybe? No, actually elephants. They were definitely odd-shaped elephants, all in a row. And here was my brain again, focusing on irrelevant details.

-What's wrong, do I have anything on my clothes, a stain or something? 

-Sorry? No.....err, it's just a nice dress. 

-Oh, thanks. So as I was saying, I've been doing some art workshops. I wanted to do something different from what they were teaching. You know how much I like to be out of the box, but they wouldn't let me. They wanted me to follow the rules. 

I tried a polite laugh, but it didn't sound very convincing. 

-Sylvia, I am sorry for coming back to this, but I really feel like there are some things we should discuss, in order to clean the air a bit. I am so glad to see you again, to know about you, to know you are well. But things ended on such a weird note between us.....what happened? Maybe it would be helpful to talk about it....

-Ok, if you are not going to respect my boundaries, I'm afraid you will lose me again. I mean, I changed, you must understand that. What's the point of bringing the past back?

-I... OK, whatever. So, tell me more about your life in Ireland. 

And she did. She didn't ask much about me. At all. But I was happy to hear her speaking. We were talking about some festivals she went to when I saw a chance to share my own projects. I guess I didn't read the room. Or I didn't want to believe she had no interest in my life whatsoever. I talked about my two exhibitions, the art project involving foreigners and some ideas I had here and there waiting to be developed. We had known each other since we were 10. She knew as well as I did, what a step forward it was for me to actually manage to make things happen, to project myself into the world. I thought she'd understand the significance of it all.

I was right in the middle of a sentence when I saw her changing expression suddenly. Without any warning, she got up from her chair and with a half smile told me:

-You really haven't changed, have you? Always talking about yourself non-stop. Always showing off. 

And without any warning, she just turned and left, her elephant-printed long dress undulating slightly in the afternoon breeze.  The clock behind her marked 4:41