In the almost thirty years I have been on this earth, one thing I have learned is that sooner or later, something's got to give. Nothing lasts forever so when you got something good, hold on like hell to it until it's time to let go. As I sit here at the kitchen table with my coffee, I take a look around. This apartment that I have shared with Janet Wood and Jack Tripper is filled with wonderful moments with me and a heartache that has nothing to do with me. I've seen it coming for at least a year that this was how it was going to play out.
I've never seen friends love each other like Jack and Janet have. The first time that I saw them together I could have swore that they were a couple. Of course Janet told me right from the start that they were just friends and that's the way it would always be. I understood right from the get-go that Jack was not a man to be fooled with. The good news for Janet was that I never wanted to. Over time, I warmed up to Jack a lot more than I expected to which was good because I couldn't stand him at first. I remember thinking how I couldn't understand for the life of me how somebody could have their head so far up their own ass. I would be lying if I didn't admit that the thought still crossed my mind from time to time. Like all the times Jack would find a girl, get himself into trouble, and as if she were on a mission from God, Janet was right there to save him.
If I thought Jack as a person was frustrating, Janet was heartbreaking. Janet is one of the most kind-hearted people I have ever met. She would give you the shirt off her back and her last dollar if she thought someone needed it more than she did. Jack knew it, too. He wanted badly to be there for her, too, but he always seemed to blow it and show up too late.
The most heartbreaking scenario of Janet's was when Phillip showed up and Jack didn't. I wanted so badly for there to be a moment of awakening for Jack. As much as I wanted to be happy for Janet, it all happened just a little too fast for her and I was hoping Jack thought the same and maybe, just maybe, he would talk some sense into her. He never did. He cried with her, told her how much he was going to miss her, promised her everything would be all right; but he never did a goddamn thing about it until her wedding day where he gave her away. He was too preoccupied with his latest girl, Vicky, who almost made this wedding day even more traumatic than needed to be.
"I'm so sorry, I almost spoiled your wedding!" Vicky said to Janet when the ceremony was over.
"You should be, bitch," I thought.
"No, no, Vicky, your coming today was the best present I could have gotten," Janet told her.
"You're a better woman than I am, Janet," I thought.
Now that I think about it, that really was the best present she could have gotten. It must have made Janet realize how much she did need to move on from Jack. It's not that Jack couldn't have given Janet what she needed, he didn't want to at that point. I had a hard time dealing with him once Janet and Phillip left for Mexico after the wedding. He would not shut up about Vicky and I could only grin and bear it for so long. One day, I had just lost it and said probably what I should have been saying.
"You know, Vicky..." Jack said as he was over the stove, cooking scrambled eggs for breakfast.
"Jack, enough about Vicky already."
"I know," Jack turned around to serve me my breakfast. "I know I'm crazy about that girl."
"I think you're driving yourself crazy about that girl on purpose."
"What are you talking about?"
"You haven't said one word about Janet since she's been gone. That's not like you."
"Well," he said with a pause. He knew I was on to him. "What can I say about Janet? She's married now."
"So? She got married not buried."
He laughed at what I said. I didn't say it to be funny. The look on my face let him know it.
"You think Janet's wedding day wasn't the hardest day of my life? You think it didn't break my heart to give her away?"
"I'm sure it was hard."
"Oh, really, Terri, because you're sitting here trying to make it seem like I don't care about her."
"You do care, Jack."
"Then what the fuck are you trying to say to me, Terri?"
Jack was not a man who liked to swear so when he used the f-word against me, I knew to stop. It was my turn to be shook up and I wasn't about to go on any further.
"Nothing," I said while trying to catch my breath. "I'm going to eat my eggs, go to the hospital, work, and forget I ever said anything."
"Sounds good," he said as he picked up his fork and ate with me in silence until it was time to leave.
We have been civil to each other since but there is a strain. I guess I shouldn't have said anything but it drove me crazy to stay so silent. A few months ago, I got a referral to an army base hospital in Honolulu that was accepted not long before Janet met Phillip. I have arranged to leave the same day Janet is to return from Mexico. I know Jack and I will be there for her and we will get through it together. I look around for the final time and shake my head. Who knows why it's got to be this way?