These are the conversations that can only be properly addressed with a basket of chips and individual bowls of salsa. There might be a drink or two, but probably not mine. I'll drink some of hers during the best parts of the talking. We'll take turns adding salt to the chips, the cheese, and the words. The setting stays basically the same, like our loyalties have these past several years.


Others have hinted, pouted, asked, and just shown up at these dinners. Those members of the emotional paparazzi are now relegated to hiding in the bushes, and we no longer feel bad about our exclusion of them and insistence on being allowed enough time for a couple enchiladas and some validation from our other.


It started--as so many things have--on the pool deck. As we contorted ourselves into awkward movements to paint the numbers on the deck we also stretched the limits of our sharing and found out that we can in fact be ourselves, but only rarely and in small episodes. She asked, I told. I questioned, she knew. I'm glad I knew enough of her to realize that this was a start, and it wasn't a quick one for either of us.


Everything now is easier because of then. I've never wondered if these talks would end. I guess I believe that if they would, so would I. I can allow for loss, for friendships that I know have run their courses, and for growing beyond the people that you think will never leave. I couldn't allow for that, and so we keep meeting, and stubbornly hang on to last time until the next one arrives. The transcripts of what she said before carry me through when every other sentence offered seems empty.


We have confidence, careers, families and fears. Intelligence and regrets and frustrations and rage. Soda and water wash down tears, and tortillas fill up the hungry spots. She and I sit, with memorized menus and parallel histories. She passes her knife and I am stabbed with sentiment and pierced with protectiveness. Not only of her, and not of myself, but of these evenings where we can finally speak all of our silences and show up for one another when the universe has walked right back out.


[It's my turn to pick up the check.]