We both moved onto the same neighborhood block the year
before we started first grade, and before you knew it we were inseparable. I
liked her because she was brave and a good listener and had lots of interesting
things to say. When I had an untied shoelace at recess, she was the one who asked
Mrs. Fisher to tie it for me, because I was too afraid to ask. I liked her
because she was sophisticated and cosmopolitan: we listened to cassette tapes
of the Beach Boys in her bedroom and she had an aunt that lived near La Jolla
(the ‘j’ makes the “hah” sound). She
slept in the basement, and we had to pass her older brother’s room on our way
down the hall. Sometimes, his door was ajar, and I could catch sight of posters
bearing exotic cars and daring ski stunts and bikinied women.
Her family drove Saabs, spent Christmas in Hawaii, skied in
Park City and had a boat and jet skis. We didn’t have cable, but they had a satellite
dish the size of a minivan on a cement pad in their backyard. And on one
auspicious day, they installed a miniature TV set in the kitchen. They had a
Mount Olympus water dispenser and, after school, we would drink the sweet water
and spread butter on Saltine crackers and watch episodes of Small Wonder and Full House.She had beautiful hair. My sisters and I had our thin hair trimmed at Fantastic Sam’s, but she went to a stylist—a man I imagined as a Fabio-type character with linen pants and bare feet.
She knew, at my house, that my mom made popcorn with real
butter and that my dad liked to sing. She was allowed to drink from the big cup
of ice water that my mom kept filled on the kitchen counter—but not any other
friends. We took piano lessons from the same teacher and made up a song about
her incessant praise for the metronome. We both had a crush on Aaron Lingman
and we both were in the same Primary class at church.
In the summer we’d watch Overboard
and Grease and Better Off Dead. We ran lemonade stands together and rode our bikes
around the lazy, suburban streets. We had sleepovers, lots and lots of sleepovers.
We’d talk late into the night and, as we grew, the topics changed from Santa
Claus and lost teeth and Barbie dolls to training bras and periods and boys. We’d
talk and talk until one of us said “I’m going to fall asleep soon, but you keep
talking until I do.”She was the first of us to experience loss. Her maternal grandfather died, and she didn’t dare to go to his funeral service. It is the only time I remember seeing her with some of her bravery gone.
We read Anne of Green
Gables and called ourselves bosom buddies. I pictured her as Diana, the
dark-haired beauty, and myself as Anne, the awkward writer. We watched Beaches over and over and cycled through
boxes of Kleenex. I pictured her as Bette Midler – although not as brassy – and
myself as Barbara Hersey – just as quiet, but perhaps not so long-suffering. Other
girls our age moved in and out of our neighborhood, but our alliance and loyalty
were set. I’m certain we wore the “Best Friends” necklaces on more than one
occasion – the cheap dollar store kind with chains as soft as sand and jagged
broken edges. But we never needed to:
everyone knew that I was her best friend, and she was mine.
There were small resentments, too. She landed more
babysitting jobs than I did. In sixth grade, we both served on Safety Patrol,
but she was selected as captain. At
lunch, she started sitting with the girls who used words like “screw” and “condom”
and “virgin” – dark, secret words that, at the time, I found terrifying. And
then, there was always that hair of hers.
I moved the summer before we started junior high, and before
you knew it, our lives started to separate. We went to different schools, had
different friends, different interests. I suspect, if I had stayed on that same
neighborhood block, our lives would have diverged anyway. But the distance gave
us an excuse to drift apart; it allowed our friendship to adjust without any
bitterness or hurt.
She invited me to go to Lake Powell with her family just
weeks before we started high school. We were no longer best friends, but we had
kept up well enough with the occasional phone call or visit. The night before we
left, she and I climbed onto a giant red rock and laid down and gazed at the
stars. It’s been over twenty years, but I still remember that night sky —the
texture and illumination and sheer wonder of it. We were tanned and lean and on
our way to adulthood— our knees tucked up and our hair splayed out around us
like halos or supernovas. We talked and talked in that easy way we’d always had,
mostly about starting high school and friends and boys we liked. I think we
were both a little afraid of the mystery of adulthood that loomed large in
front of us. But there was a certain security in the two of us, talking side by
side, the universe of my childhood contained in the locket of her memory, and
hers in mine.
