A Banana and a Condom Walk into a Workplace

It was July 1996. Seated for our 1:00 reservation, I fluffed tissue in the gift bag on the table. At 1:30 the server put this message next to it, “Can’t find a parking spot. Going home. Maybe another time, David.” That was the last I heard from my best friend.

         This lunch was my final attempt to connect. I should have known. My own research warned me. Co-workers first and friends second, was the basis of the PhD dissertation I designed a few months earlier. It explained the heartbreak of losing my best friend, David. Upended by this friendship loss, I devoted my research to it. Research picked up by The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, USA Today and many other publications.

***

         September of 1985, the Colorado school district where I was a high school Speech-Debate coach required sex-ed training for all high school teachers. Rolling condoms onto bananas was apparently discussed in committee, voted on, and chosen as “best practice” for this in-service training. The guy next to me was David, painfully thin and thoughtfully dressed. I stretched to see what he was writing in a notebook. He was designing a series of right-angled lines, precisely doodling his way through the lecture. We met when the instructor set a basket with a banana and several condoms in front of me and pointing to each of us, paired us as a team.

         The room was quiet, save the instructor’s monotone and the turning of pages as some teachers graded papers. If it is possible to dull-up sex-ed, a school district in-service can deliver.

         David slipped a couple of condoms in his back pocket. “One never knows, dear,” he said with a side glance and slight flair.

         I held the banana. David took a drink from an icy soda can and rolled the condom over the fruit. His wet hand slipped, and the little rubber circle shot up, into the hair of another teacher. She flicked it away and scowled, then raised an irritated librarian’s eyebrow toward us. David did a stage-quality spit-take, setting off a giggling jag neither of us could control.

         “This is not a laughing matter,” the instructor’s admonition fueled more silliness. We calmed when he gave us the stink-eye like my dad in church when I was ten.

         David taught Drama at a different high school. After the condom training, we noticed each other often at tournaments and performances. Eventually, we started calling on the weekends, meeting for a drink after work, dining at each other’s homes, ultimately traveling together. Co-workers called the two of us “Dianne-and-David” one person. At Christmas we’d exchange gifts at lavish restaurants we couldn’t afford. With my husband and David’s partner, Gerald, we were a comfy foursome. When the Speech Coach job opened at David’s school, I transferred.

         “Miss America tonight?” he asked, as we moved through the lunch line at school.

         “Never miss it.”

         That night in our respective homes, on our phones, we watched Miss America “together.”

         “Miss Tennessee wobbles in heels,” David commented assured and judgy.

         “Miss Alabama is a retread from last year. I recognize the hairstyle,” I was only catty with him. It was our thing. “Remember everything. I have to go to the bathroom.” It took three minutes.

         “You missed nothing. Gary Collins introduced his annoying wife, Mary Ann Mobley. She was Miss America in 1959. Nothing. You missed nothing, darling.” David reported, in one exhale.

         Since we lived about fifty miles apart, this was how we occasionally watched beauty pageants, Hill Street Blues TV episodes, and game shows in the evenings. Had we not been coupled with others we’d likely been roommates.

         At work there was gossip in the air that we were having an affair. We played along as a cover for David’s homosexuality, something not acceptable at that time for teachers. I was married and this gossip probably did nothing for my reputation, but my husband and I laughed about it during evening cocktails.

         A best friendship, even on the job, sneaks up on a person. It starts with a shared laugh, accepted routines, kept secrets, then, you need each other.

         The high school English Department would offer a college writing class the next semester. As I’d taught college writing at a nearby university in the evenings, I requested the teaching assignment. The Department Chair said, “No, I’ll assign it to Bev, our reading teacher.” That would be Bev, her best friend. Bev, who had never taught writing. Bev.

         Deflated, I flopped onto the prop-sofa in David’s theatre office. Sniffling and wiping tears, I said, “I feel unappreciated. After nine years here, maybe I need to walk away, get a Ph.D. and become a full-time college professor.”

         “Me too, sugar. But then we’d never graduate, flounder until we were old enough to share a room in a nursing home and be stuck with student loans. We may as well stay.”

         That winter, I received an early morning call. “We’ve been hit with a terrible storm up here,” David called me from his mountain cabin. “I’ll miss first period. I’m digging out. Will you cover for me? I’m teaching them how to cut a ten-minute piece from Death of a Salesman.”

         “I’ll cover. Drive safely. If you aren’t here in time, I’ll also pull your second period kids into my classroom. Don’t worry, I’ll let the front office know I have your classes covered.” We supported each other on the job and made going to work easier, even during my frustration. I felt needed and special to David.

         “I have to tell you something I haven’t told anyone….” In the parking lot, after school, a gentle rain falling on us, David shared a deeply private story. As he cried, I offered to hug him. He waived me off. To protect his trust, I remember not reacting. He unloaded a personal work-related secret, relieving himself of the stress from holding it in. I could feel a catch in my throat where I help my sadness for him.

         A year later, after a couple martinis, he said, “I was so scared you wouldn’t be my friend if you knew.” But that’s the thing about best friendships, it’s when we know all the jagged stories, we love each other most.

         After working together as best friends for several years, we met for drinks after school on a fall afternoon. “It’s a long-long shot, the kind where a miracle will be invoked. Everything has to hit right, or I’m staying here.” I told him about my plan to leave my job for a college professorship.

         In early 1993, I was hired on the tenure-track at a nearby university with the caveat to complete a PhD, a PhD for which I’d applied but hadn’t started. By the end of the month, I was accepted into the program at The University of Denver. All the pieces in place, I was ready to move on. I told David the news.

         “That’s just such good news for you,” his tone made me feel judged like Miss Tennessee in heels, wobbly. I sat in his office with him. Alone. Quiet.

         “Do you want to talk about it?” I asked.

         “No, you’re leaving, girl. I get it.” He turned his back to me. “There’s nothing to talk about. I’m sure it’s right for you.” He scattered papers on his desk without reason.

         I felt rejected, redundant. I sat in his office taking up space that no longer belonged to me until the next bell rang, signaling the end of lunch. The end.

         Shared coffee breaks were canceled in lieu of paper grading. Not “a regular thing” for a high school Drama teacher. I wasn’t invited to watch Miss Universe in May that year. Was I replaced? My husband agreed to watch with me but when I asked, “What do you think of Miss Argentina’s gown?”

         He said, “I don’t know. It’s alright I guess.” Not the same.

         The school year finished with a reserved comradery. Nothing could be undone.

         For several months I’d call, and we’d do the workplace catch-up thing. What once were two-hour calls were now thirty minutes, then ten. When we talked outside the lines of our old relationship, it showed. At Christmas the cards included few personal sentiments. Then, he didn’t send a card. Without the context of work and despite my efforts, “we” dwindled to nothing in two years. Without our work-life, ultimately, we had no life together.

***

         The PhD graduation was June of 1996. The candidates individually walked on stage. The title of my Dissertation was read, “A Theory of Dual-Role Effectiveness: Friends in the Workplace.” During The Wall Street Journal interview, I wanted to tell them about David and why my research was personal. I didn’t. Crying during an interview with The Wall Street Journal is not acceptable.

         Though invited, David did not attend the graduation and never knew about my study. Ours was a friendship bound by the framework of the job. Not the vacations or dinner parties, beauty pageants or kept secrets. Nothing more.

         The dissertation assured me this is how it should end. Twenty-five years later the loss of my best friend sits in my soul and sometimes works its way up to catch in my throat, especially when I want to be catty or tell him my husband died.

***

         “Ma’am, don’t you want this?” The server followed me to the door of the restaurant holding out the gift bag I’d left on the table.

         “No, you can toss it. It’s just a banana and a condom.”