Biff and Muffy

Biff was sitting in his kitchen drinking a soda. He’d recently gotten his own one bedroom/one-bathroom house. He had tried to get a house with his best friend Muffy, but the realtor wouldn’t sell to a bachelor and a bachelorette who wanted to live together. Biff didn’t make a lot, but he made enough. As he was sitting in the kitchen, with the radio on, there was a knock at the door. He knew that it was Muffy.

“Hey Muffy!” Biff said, getting up, “want something to drink?”

“Sure!” Muffy said, taking a soda out of the fridge.

“How was work?” Biff asked.

Muffy worked as a receptionist at a firm in town. She didn’t love it, but it paid her bills. She was saving up to go to night school. “It was fine,” she said, taking a sip of her drink, “How about you?”

Biff worked as an apprentice at the shop his dad worked at, “About the same. My dad always asks me when I’m going to go back to school.”

“When are you going to go back to school?”

“I’m not going to school on his second mortgage, Muffy.”

Biff and Muffy had had this conversation a million times. Biff had studied at college for a semester, hated it, and came home. He didn’t know what he wanted to major in, and he didn’t want money being spent on him aimlessly. It was a sore subject because Muffy wanted to go to school to be a writer. She wanted to get an English degree and then maybe a Master’s in creative writing. Her dad couldn’t get anyone to approve one mortgage, let alone a second mortgage. She had no option but to try to save up. “Well, when I sell my first novel, I’ll pay for you to go back, if you ever want to.”

“I appreciate it,” Biff said.

“So, what’s the plan?” Muffy asked.

“I dunno,” Biff said, “We could go down to the drive in? When are you seeing that girlfriend of yours again?”

Muffy gave Biff a look, “Whenever I can make it back to the city,” she said.

Muffy had been seeing this girl on and off for a while now, but she lived in the city and Muffy, well, didn’t. Muffy knew that she had other girls that she saw, but she tried not to let it bother her. It wasn’t that she was possessive. She was jealous, but she tried to work through that in healthy ways. Mostly she was envious that she didn’t live in the city where she might be able to date more than one woman at a time. She was so lonely. She didn’t know what she’d do without Biff.

“So, a movie or even a double feature sounds good then!” Biff said, trying to change the subject.

Muffy gave a half-smile, “Yeah, that sounds great!”

Biff had a car, Muffy didn’t. Most of the time when Muffy made it into the city it was through the generosity of Biff. Once or twice she’d taken the bus, but it took an hour by bus to get into the city and it often didn’t feel worth it. Most nights Biff and Muffy hung out. Weekends too. They’d go to movies together, to the VFW to see shows, they’d sit in Biff’s kitchen and Muffy would write or read to Biff, they’d hold hands, hold each other. They got each other through their loneliness.

Biff got the paper from the living room and they looked at the times. They picked a movie that would give them time to go get dinner first. They had a friend at the diner who would give them two meals for the price of one. Driving down to the diner Muffy stuck her feet out of the window. The radio played and the wind rushed in the car. Muffy thought she’d like to write this scene. She worried that was her worst tendency as a writer. She wrote the most mundane scenes from her life. She had trouble building characters or developing plots because she just wanted to write scene after scene of listless youths driving around, listening to music, and eating at diners. She wondered if anyone would want to read stuff like that. Biff always said that he enjoyed her stuff, but the worst parts of herself wouldn’t let her believe his compliments were genuine.

At the diner Biff and Muffy were greeted by someone new, but their friend rushed over when they noticed that they had arrived, “Don’t worry about it Nate, I’ve got it! Could you go check on table 3?”

Nate shrugged and went off to table 3. “The usual you two?”

“Thanks, Leon,” Muffy said. “How are you?”

“I’m good! It’s been busy today, but I’m doing ok! What are y’all doing later?”

“We were thinking about going to the drive-in. How about you?”

Leon led the two to their table, where they sat down. “Gotta go check in on my ma after work.”

“Well, we’ll be down at the drive-in if you need anything,” Biff said.

Leon worked overtime most weeks at the diner and taking care of his mom was a full-time job onto itself. Biff always offered help, so did Muffy. Leon didn’t take them up on it too often though.

“Thanks, you two!” Leon smiled. “Let me get your orders in!”

“I think if I do it right, I could have enough money to start night school in the fall!”

Biff smiled, “That’s great! That’s only a few months away!”

“I’m really excited! I hope I remember how to be a student. It’s been a few years since we graduated high school.”

“I’m sure it’s like riding a bike! You’ll pick it up again in no time! Plus, you’re really smart and an amazing reader and writer, and ain’t school mostly reading and writing?”

“Mostly! I’ll have to take some math and science classes though!”

“I believe in you! And I’ll be here to help you if I can!”

Muffy wondered if Biff would be here. He always talked about taking off one day to drive across the country. And when he talked like that he didn’t say when he’d be back, or if he’d be back. She knew she’d miss him if he left. He’d asked her to come with him, but they both knew that her dream was to go to school. She just hated the thought of the distance between them. And she knew she couldn’t ask him to stay if he was able to go any more than he could ask her to go. They each tried not to think about it, it was too anxiety-inducing. They’d been friends since middle school. Muffy thought back to the day they’d met.

Middle School

Biff was sitting alone. He was reading something that Muffy later found out was Death of a Salesman. She’d seen him a few times during lunch, sitting alone. She always sat with some of the people in her English class. She was a grade ahead. She wanted to go to college to study English. She was hoping to get a scholarship. She never really knew why, but she decided one day to go and sit with Biff, “What are you reading?” She’d asked, and he looked up from his reading, a bit of anxiety on his face, and told her. “Oh, that’s a great one! Is this your first time reading it?” she didn’t want to spoil it for him by saying something like “Oh, that’s a sad one!”

It was his first time reading it, he’d said. He was enjoying it. They spent that lunch talking about Death of a Salesman and other literature. Biff’s parents had a pretty big personal library, and Biff read mostly as a form of escapism. Biff was so warm and open. At that first encounter he invited Muffy over to his house and look over his parent’s library, with the promise that she could borrow any book she wanted to. Muffy, for her part, had read her way through the local public library’s collection of greater works, same with the school library. She didn’t mind a dime novel, but they didn’t fill her the same way greater works did.

Present

“Hey, where ya at, Muff?” Biff was chewing on a big bite of his burger.

“Oh, sorry!” Muffy smiled, “I was thinking about when we first met.”

Biff smiled, “I’m so glad you came up to talk to me that day!”

“I am too!” Muffy smiled, “You’re the best friend a girl could ask for.”

They’d both spent some time feeling self-conscious, wondering why they each didn’t have better friends of the same gender. Was it harder to have best friends of the same gender because they were gay? They asked it and they knew it was completely ridiculous. But after the millions of times they’d been asked if they were dating, or going steady, or whatever, they really thought about their relationship. They never considered for a moment getting together romantically, but they wondered if their platonic love was absurd. They ultimately decided they didn’t care about the answer to that question and so they stopped trying to come up with a satisfying one.

They finished up their dinner and paid. Each thanking Leon again, and offering again to help him if he ever needed it. They got back in the car. They still had some time before the movies were going to start. They decided to head over to the grocery store to stock up on snacks for the movie. Walking into the store they were greeted by Harley, the nice woman who ran the store. “Hey you two!” Harley smiled, “Headin’ to the movies?”

Biff and Muffy smiled, “Yup! You got any plans tonight, Harley?” Muffy asked.

“Oh, I thought I might go call on Harry, see if maybe he wanted to go read together in the gazebo in the park.”

Biff’s parents judged Harley for not being married at her age, and for calling on different men, but Biff and Muffy looked up to her! She seemed happy, and so did the men she went out with, so what was wrong with that! Biff paid for the snacks and with goodbyes they were on their way to the drive-in.