The Synchronicity of Stick and Red

Did I ever tell you what happened to Stella and me?

No, not the time we decided to drive through a blizzard on I-5 and almost DIED of being morons, with one pair of thin leather gloves between us.

No, not the time sat together on a newly installed hammock on her porch, toasting Corona bottles, overlooking the skyline of San Francisco and then the thing suddenly broke under our (considerable) weight, severely bruising both our asses and our egos.

No, the thing that happened 10 years ago, with Stick and Red...

I was living in Boston at the time. Stella had abandoned me to get married (even though I told her not to) and move to San Francisco, where, like everyone else she worked for a burgeoning dot-com.

I took frequent trips to Seattle, Washington and Eugene, Oregon as part of my job. On one of these trips, one of my co-workers (upon whom, it must be admitted, although it is irrelevant to this story, I had a searing crush) introduced me to his brother, Stick, who lived in Portland, Oregon.

We got along like gangbusters, Stick and I did. He is the one who introduced me to improv (which, in turn, introduced me to the dashing father of my children), to gourmet martinis at the restaurant where he worked, and to chord progressions that were considered evil in medieval times.

In retrospect, Stick had a serious drug problem, but that's beside the point.

So he became my pal. Every time I came to Oregon, I'd pop by old Stick's house and we'd have fun around town. My sister and I even made a pilgrimage from Boston just to hang out with Stick (I was hoping his brother would show up too, which he didn't).

Stick and I would go through his old photo albums together. I was scouting for cute childhood pictures of his brother, and he was proud to show off his past road trips. And he'd had some great ones! Most of them were with a pretty lady named Red. He'd dated her for years, things hadn't worked out, he said.

One night, of course, I smooched old Stick and we started a surprising little relationship. We went hiking together, exploring the southern shores of Washington, we drank wine and went to Open Mike poetry readings, where I had a good time trotting out my best little poems and he swooned and applauded the loudest.

But I always had to return to Boston. We talked on the phone, I sent him little paintings I made, and mix tapes, and he wrote me such lovely poetry I wish I'd kept it.

Soon thereafter, I was dicking around with my new cell phone. They were a novelty then.

I called Stella in San Francisco, at work. And she sounded unusually dodgy.

"Hey, what's the name of that guy you're dating in Portland?"

"You mean Stick?"

"Yeah, my new office mate says she's also his girlfriend."

Her new office mate was RED! The woman from the pictures, with whom he had allegedly broken up. But he HADN'T.

What (in the hell) are the odds that Stick's (other) girlfriend had become the office mate of my best friend?

The fact we all lived in completely different cities just exacerbates the coincidence.

"Stick, do you have another girlfriend? Red in San Francisco?"

"I don't...think...so."

"Well, could you CHECK?"

I still want to know how that happened, that crazy moment of synchronicity, with Red moving into Stella's office and talking about Stick. I think we all do.