The day after the broadcast that thrust me unwillingly into the spotlight, I did what I always did on a weekday.  I woke up, took a shower, got dressed and went to work.  It was important to me to pick up the thread of my life and move forward…not as if nothing had happened…but in spite of it.  I just wanted some normalcy…

It also made it more difficult for the gossip-mongers to talk about me. 

I can be stoic when I have to be and on this particular morning, it took every ounce of self-control to walk into the office.  Animated conversations held within the confines of various cubicles inexplicably died as I walked past.  It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that I was probably the topic. 

It was almost a relief to finally reach the sanctuary of my own little cubicle.  But once I had, I couldn’t figure out why I’d felt compelled to actually be there.  The paperwork before me could have been written in Hindu for all it made sense to me.  As I sat there blankly staring at a page for the hundredth time, reshuffling a few sheets and staring again, the company’s comptroller and a good personal friend, Wiggett, strolled up purposefully and popped his head in.

“Laurie,” he said with concern on his face, “what are you doing here?”  And then he did the only thing that could have fractured my self-control.  He placed his hand on my shoulder. 

“Are you okay?” he asked.

I smiled wanly and tried to say that I was fine…but my head was shaking back and forth indicating that I was not fine at all.  Tears suddenly threatened to spill and I clenched my fists tightly to avoid an emotional scene.

“Come to my office,” he said looking over the tops of the cubicles as he realized how very little privacy there was on the main floor.  With that he turned on his heel and strode off knowing that I would follow at my own pace.

I took several gulps of air and blew out one long breath, dashing the tears from my eyes.  It took some effort to maintain this tough image that I had cultivated.  Once again, I walked past the whispers to the comptroller’s corner office.

Wiggett and I had been friends now for several years, courtesy of the company’s bowling league that  had thrown us together on the same team by chance along with Paul in informational tech support, Wayne, a foreman for the Manchester line division and Jim, a non-company person who somehow stumbled into the league accidentally and just fit in.  Each of us had hit it off immediately and although the director of our league tried several times to separate us, we were all adamant in our refusal to bowl without each other.  It was friendship…but it was also because we took the first place trophy every year as well.

So while Wiggett’s corner office with the amazing view of downtown Manchester might have seemed intimidating to some…it wasn’t to me.  He was my team mate. 

Still, I wasn’t quite prepared for his initial words.

As he closed the door behind me to insure privacy and then took a relaxed posture sitting on the corner of his desk, he laughed and said, “I have to hand it to you lady…you have balls of steel coming in here today.  I stand in awe.” 

That sent me off into a jag of hysterical laughter and tears that had me hiccupping for about fifteen minutes. 

It takes a disaster of monumental proportion to find out who your friends really are.  There were some, before that day in September, I would have trusted with my life…only to find out afterward as they widened the distance between us that they didn’t even want to be associated with me.  Some would see this as a twisted opportunity to satisfy their curiosity and craving for sensationalism, attempting to suck me into their social circles as a status symbol.

And then there were friends like Wiggett…and Paul, Wayne and Jim…and so many others that I truly lost count, who remained constant in their support throughout the entire sordid affair.  True friends don’t have to ask you to call them if there is anything they can do…they realize you are too fucked up to make any rational decisions on your own as to what is best for you and so they simply step in and do.  They don’t treat you any differently, they know how to make you laugh and when you try to play the hermit, they slam their foot in the door and tell you that they need you, even though it’s the opposite that’s true.  

What truly shocked me though was the number of friends that I had.  Real friends.  Even now, I shake my head in amazement remembering how they seemed to come out of the woodwork in my time of need and all I can do is be incredibly thankful.  I might not have survived this if it hadn’t been for their love and caring.

Still…even good friends want to understand.

“Do you think he did it?” Wiggett asked.

How do you answer a question like that?  It was more like…did I want to believe he was capable of doing such a thing?  No.  But wanting not to believe something doesn’t wish it out of existence.  I gave the only truthful answer I was capable of…

“I don’t know.”

Things were difficult enough given the current circumstances, but once the body of Kimberly Goss was discovered, the answer to that question was all that mattered.