Another pair of deific shoes was bequeathed to her pampered undeserving hands, before she actually fell into the pond of exhilaration. The Stuart Weitzman shoes were luxurious enough to ratchet her up to the role of recherché queen. She was totally steered into the sky of unutterable rhapsody. Her small delicate fingers accepted the present from her friend without much hesitation as her eyes glanced all over it. Her feet exactly fit the shoes; a 99 was swiftly transmuted to 100. She herself metamorphosed to Giselle with the shoes. After a few seconds, she pulled them off and kiss them with her luscious, ruby lips, as if they gave her a resistless voyeuristic pleasure. It was a fantastic feat for her feet to be fed up with the shoes. She said she liked the shoes, wore them back, and walked home with them. Yes, she did not say thank you to Maria; typical Hannah.
Hannah took Maria for granted and that was not something that Maria was aware of. She always believed Hannah was her best friend; the one who would dive into the ocean of hydragyrum and give any chest discovered for her, and save her from the fangs of tigers whenever she lost in the jungle. She had this perception simply because of Hannah’s constant feedback for her stories. She always thought Hannah would willingly be the ears for her stupendous shopping experiences at Harrods and unheralded encounters with Janice Dickinson and Andre Leon Talley at Sunset Boulevard. She even recorded her boyfriend’s booty calls for Hannah to enjoy with. Not just that, she even booked Hannah’s flight to Aspen when that particular ‘friend’ of hers needed to impress her bimbo boss. She never asked for the reimbursement of that.
She had the unproven thoughts that Hannah’s presence was irreplaceable and and no one could be a better BFF than her. Hannah was quite awkward to reciprocate at first. People with normal eyes would have actually sense that. Her face was full of confusion, and her eyes were widely breached. Nevertheless, Maria’s superficiality pressed her sensitivity down. Like possessed, she took that as some physical experiences driven by a transcendental, psychological motivation. Maria always got back to immaturely decorated room which was full of Miley’s posters on the walls and convinced herself that Hannah took her as her BFF too. Never came across her mind that Hannah had been the self-absorbed, full-of-herself slut who would happily poison her son to death. Maria believed that Hannah had always been the fairy godmother who had encouraged mother Theresa to be an evangelical religionist.
Hannah never failed to give Maria her full, fake attention when stories of forbidden cities were told to her. She always listened, and grimaced when needed. Never had she given something to Maria other than that. Maria never realized that friendship was not all about talking and listening. If friendship ever was, than what would be the difference between a psychologist and a friend? Maria certainly did not know the answer. Maria gave Hannah a piece of Bvlgari necklace after the girl was fired by her Anna Wintour wannabe boss. Maria also took Hannah for twenty free scoops at a Häagen-Dazs franchise after Hannah’s promotion. Maria never gave up on Hannah. There was once she actually almost did, but found that lunatic thought of hers too inconsiderate, thus got it entirely murdered and minced into pieces. Maria always asked Hannah out for parties. She thought that would have made her see the other side of Hannah; the unseen side she thought existed.
Maria finally had a baby delivered. Marion, the baby, had the uniquely azure eyes that her mother inherited from her Swedish grandma. Then, pilfered from her father were her tiny nose and little mouth. Maria tried to reach Hannah before the delivery, but only left with a number of rejected calls. The last one was picked up by a Verizon’s operator who mechanically informed her that the line was busy. Hannah, being naive as ever, did not take that personally. America, Italy, Turkey, and Thailand were all the same for her. They all were just some portions in her narrowly scoped La la Land world. People would never be harsh to her regardless of disasters unceasingly chasing them. She believed in the natural good will of human beings. Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow altogether would not be able to treat this particular disease of hers. Her stupidity was too thick to be thinned by any bleach or powerful sandpaper.
Two nights after the baby was delivered, Maria received a Twitter message from Hannah. Hannah nonchalantly told Maria that she was too tired after her business trip to Rio de Janeiro thus she could not make it during the delivery. Maria felt pitiful to Hannah, yes, pitiful, not pissed off as she should have been, and replied Hannah with an unnecessarily lengthy cheerful message full of babyish exuberance. She had a feeling that Hannah would be overly intrigued to know about the baby. ‘Childish’ and ‘verbose’ her reply was, but she never noticed that. She even told Hannah that the baby’s back was little bit too dark like hers. What could be more repulsive than that? God knows.
A month passed and a visit was paid to Hannah’s house. Up to her surprise, the gate was locked. So was the door. The ‘TO LET’ board which was the only embellishment of the front yard furthered dug out Maria’s horror. Maria, with Marion on her hand walked to the back door looking for answers. It was locked too, of course. The gray windows added on the mysterious effects with the intensely inky-colored curtains. She was bewildered. Her cave of suspicion was completely darkened by the bloody enigmatic question marks. She was thoroughly vacuumed into the Black Hole of Hannah’s galaxy. The tower of inquiry was heightened, empowered by the news hurled by Hannah’s neighbor.
“Hannah had moved to Dubai to get married with a Bahraini oil tycoon”. A moment of silence. Maria was immediately buried with a sudden avalanche. Then, the old, wrinkled, hungry-for-gossip neighbor of Hannah curved a crook smile upon Maria’s blank face. The hideous last dress was finally displayed. Maria was told of Hannah’s true feelings to her. Hannah had actually planned to ditch her since the third time they went out at Soho together. Hannah was extremely annoyed by Maria’s excitement over her second hand, Guess watch. Hannah was also pissed off by Maria’s childish reaction upon seeing Vietnamese food. She later found about “Iowa’s Britney”- the nickname used by Hannah to bash Maria in the gossip circle.
Maria reached her handbag and made a phone call to Helen, her colleague, who happened to be one of Hannah’s neighbors too. They spent hours at Starbucks talking about trust, loyalty, and other friendship issues. Groundbreaking headlines of unpublished newspaper were catapulted directly to Maria’s thin mental defense. Never she knew that Hannah actually hated her that much, bitched about her to everyone, sold the Bvlgari necklace for cash, imitated her walking style for laughter, and even stole her clothes out of jealousy. Maria cried for countless hours. Marion could only stare back at her with extreme vacancy. A baby could not help much as a friend, but not necessarily an adult could. Hannah obviously could not, though she was 30. Maria’s metrosexual boyfriend managed to force her to directly ask Hannah about that.
Maria called twenty numbers and emailed thirty friends to reach to Hannah. Once the place was known, a flight to Korea was booked. She did not allow her boyfriend to follow her. She began to take this as her personal journey; her own, personal version of the revenge of the fallen. She traversed half way around the globe before she finally saw Hannah chuckling with her old, creepy-but-wealthy husband. She patted at her and asked, “How could you do this to your best friend?”. Hannah was petrified. She was struck by a thunder from the past. She never imagined that Maria could actually find her. She could not have spoken for a while. Only after 90 seconds she actually could. Then she uttered, with class and confidence, “I was you best friend, but you were not mine, and I certainly never agreed to be your best friend”. Maria slapped her with wrath and started a scene of verbal defamation. She was later asked to leave. After ten years of friendship. She finally learnt something. Hannah actually never did.<
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