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Never The Same Again
Part 6
By: Ashley

She stood there for quite sometime before she actually knocked on the door.  Lenny answered.  Well, she thought, that’s awkward.  She didn’t know he was thinking the same thing about her.  Shirley was huge.  He was used to seeing her weigh about 105 pounds.         

            “Hi, Lenny.”

            “Hiya, Shirl.”

            She paused for a moment, looked upward, and took a deep breath.  “You’re looking well,” she said with a faint smile.

            “Thanks.  You’re lookin’…” he searched for the words, “like you eat real good.”

            She didn’t know quite how to take that last comment, but she decided upon dismissing it entirely.  “How is she,” she asked. 

            “She’s … Laverne.”

            Shirley nodded.  “Stubborn and pig-headed.  What’s going on, Lenny?”

            “She won’t go to the police.  She won’t let me take her to the doctor.  She won’t tell her father.”

            “What about Edna?  Edna’s always been like a mother to Laverne.”

            She doesn’t know, Lenny realized.  “Shirley, Edna … left.”

            Her eyes grew bluer and wider.  “Left?!”

            “Yeah, she just … up and walked out.  No one really knows what happened, but…” he stopped himself.  He was in disbelief.  “You mean, nobody ever told you?”

            “No!” she exclaimed, almost in a shriek.  He could tell she was very upset by this news – partially because no one had ever expected Edna to leave Frank, and partially because she wondered why on earth her best friend of decades had never bothered to tell her.  Never in one of their infrequent phone conversations or letters had she even mentioned it.  What was going on in her head not to tell her a thing like that?

            Her moment of shock was buffered a bit by Lenny asking her if she wanted to come in and sit down.  She willingly obliged; her feet were killing her, but, “Where is she?”

            “Upstairs.  In the bed.”

            “Well, I suppose that’s where she needs to be.”

            “Yeah, except she ain’t been out of there in 48 hours.”

            Shirley frowned.  “Well, she’s been through quite an ordeal, Lenny.”

            He sat down beside her on the couch.  “I know, Shirl.  I know.  I found her.”

            Shirley’s head was spinning.  Edna left?  Lenny found her?  What was going on in her world?  “You what?”

            “I found her.”

            “Where?!”

            “In some deserted parking lot.  I was driving back from New York and…”

            “Wait, wait, wait.  You went to New York?”

            “Yeah, and…”

            “Why did you go to New York?”
            “We’ll talk about that later.  I was driving back through, saw this body lying in this parking lot, decided to stop, and…” she thought she saw him fight back a tear.  “It was her.”

            Shirley put her hands to her mouth.  Tears had begun to well in her eyes.  “And I wasn’t here.” 

            “Shirl…”

            “No, no, Lenny.  I should have been here, and I wasn’t.”

            “You can’t blame yourself, Shirley.”

            She quickly stood up, her face crimson with fury.  “Yes, yes I can!  I wasn’t here!  You don’t understand.”

            He shot up.  “Yes, I do!  I do understand!”

            “Leonard Kosnowski, how can you stand there and look me in the eye and say you understand?  You haven’t been her best friend since you were in the…”

            He overlapped her sentence.  “No, but I’ve loved her since we were in the…”

            “Wait, what did you say?”

            There was a pause.  He started into the kitchen.  “Look, Laverne’s upstairs.  Why dontcha go see her?”

            For a moment, she couldn’t speak.  She wasn’t sure if she had heard him correctly.  After all, all of that was over years ago.  Wasn’t it?  Finally, she said, “Yes.  Yes, I think I’ll go up and see her.”

            She ascended the stairwell, keeping an eye on Lenny, who was silently sitting at the kitchen table, the entire way.