| brian douglas skinner |
a call from Ellen
excerpt from a letter to Eric, 1991I got a call from Ellen a month ago. Eric you remember Ellen, yes? I've kept in touch with Ellen since college. She's been living with Dan ever since school. Moved in together senior year and never looked back. Anyway, I called her up a year ago at Christmas, figuring that she would be in town to see her folks. She was. We got together. It was good to see her. The next day I found myself calling her on the phone, and with an almost car-crash kind of surreal time-dilated sense of frightened fascination, I listened to myself proposing to her, unable to keep the words from coming out of my mouth. And what do you suppose she said? Yup, that's right Eric. She said, “Brian, you're crazy. Not only am I in love with Dan, but I haven't hung out with you for years, and I never really was that into you.” Of course she said it more nicely, but the gist was clear. No mistaking it. I needed to give her a little more time to adjust to the idea. So I waited.
And then just last month she calls me up. All out of the blue, like. Leaves a message on my answering machine. Something about, “...just called to say hi. I might try you again later...”. Sounds harmless, doesn't it? But I knew how to read between the lines. Dan had become a menacing alcoholic. St. Louis was stifling Ellen. It was getting worse and worse. Finally one stormy winter night the shit hit the fan. They argued. She walked. Later she spent some time reflecting on her life. She realized what a mistake it had been not to go out with me. She realized that it was me she loved. She realized she had to marry me. So she called. She left a message. It said she just called to say hi, but we both knew what it meant. There was no hiding it. She needed me like a heroin addict needs a fix.
So I waited a couple days and then called her back. We made small talk for 20 minutes. Then we got down to business. There was a pause. Finally she took a deep breath and gracelessly cut to the chase, “Brian, we're getting engaged.” Yes! Psych! “Oh Ellen, I knew you'd come round. When shall we have the wedding?” Pause. “No, you nitwit! Dan and I are getting engaged. We're going to marry in September.” Oh.
So I gave her my congratulations, hung up, and had a bit of a drink. Life goes on, I guess.
...caveat emptor
Okay, so here's the deal. Yes, there really was an Ellen. To give you some background, Ellen and I had been close friends in college, and then I'd fallen in love with her, and then I'd pined over her for years, and then Junior year she finally decided she wanted to go out with me too. Unfortunately, that was right when I was going away to Scotland for six months. I went off to Scotland and dreamed of coming back and finally being with her, but then while I was in Scotland she ended up dating Dan, who was an old roommate of mine and another close friend. The excerpt above is the final chapter in the story.
I think the passage reflects how I was feeling after that phone call, but I hope it's clear that I took some poetic license when I was writing about it. I'm a little hesitant about posting this passage, mostly because it paints a distorted view of the whole thing. Actually it was really nice of Ellen to call me that day to tell me about the engagement, and it was good to talk to her. Over the years I've shared this passage with friends and family, and by and large people seem to think it's fun and funny, so with some reservations I've gone ahead and posted here. As far as I know Dan and Ellen are still living happily ever after, and, thankfully, I did eventually get over her.
