First Best Friend

Dear Nana - In my writing class last week we spoke about important relationships we'd had with people. We were asked to write about one. I've written so much about you lately, and I thought it would be cliche to write about mom and dad and Graham. Or about Jim. Of course those are important relationships. But I began to think about friends. About old friends. Do you remember my best friend Jessica in Michigan? I know you met her. She was my first true best friend. I wish I knew who yours was. I wonder if you still remember her after all these years. Perhaps we never forget. I hope not...

As you know I moved to Michigan from New York City at the tail end of 2nd grade, so it wasn’t until 3rd grade that I made any true friends. When September rolled around and it was time to begin a new year, I was still the shy, awkward new girl in school. If it hadn’t been for Jessica, it might have been a difficult year.

Jessica was new too. She sat behind me and wasn’t shy at all. She was hyperactive and tomboyish and talked a lot. She was my opposite in many ways. She was reckless on the playground and dressed in jeans and three-quarter length sleeve baseball tees. I was cautious on the monkey bars and wore braided pigtails with patent leather shoes. The first time we had a “play date” we went bike riding after school. Jessica was in front and several bike lengths ahead of me riding with one hand on the handlebars, black hair flying out behind her. I was trying to catch up, fearful that she would get too far ahead and I would never find my way to her house. There was a sprinkler making its arch toward the sidewalk so I tried to beat it, but as I flew down the sidewalk, pedaling as fast as I could, the bike’s front tire skidded on the wet concrete, and I flew over the handlebars, landing face first on the dark gray cement. Jessica must have looked back to see where I was, and then, realizing I was no longer behind her, but rather crumpled beneath my bicycle with my face in my palm, she bee-lined back for me. “Are you okay?” she asked, frightened but in control. Jessica was always in control.. I looked up at her through my tears, hands and lips bloodied, and shook my head “no.” She told me to hold on. She hopped on her bike and raced home. Within minutes her mother, a woman whom I’d never met before appeared beside me in her beige car. She got out of the car and helped me to my feet. Only then did I notice that she was wearing her robe and a pair of slippers. She put my bike in her trunk and me in the back seat beside Jessica and we headed off to my house where we collected my mom and sped to the nearest dentist. The dentist informed me that, while I had a nasty fat lip and a few loose teeth, no permanent damage had been done.

I spent the next three weeks at school with my hand cupped around my unsightly mouth at all times. I was mortified about my fat lip and scabbed mouth. Except around Jessica. Around her, I let my hand fall from my face. She didn’t seem to notice and, because of this, we became inseparable.

Jessica and I both fell madly in love with the same boy, John. At that age, there was no competition. Our young minds and hearts hadn’t quite grasped monogamy and because John didn’t seem to know either of us existed, it didn’t really matter. We wrote him a joint love letter, my first, and rode our bikes to his house. Jessica, always the braver one, ran up to his front door and stuffed it into his mailbox. She came barreling back down the walkway, mounted her bike, and we sped off, careful to avoid sprinklers, and we made it off the block without being noticed. He never mentioned the note, but it didn’t seem to matter. The fact that we’d written it was enough.

Jessica brought out the performer in me. We spent hours watching Grease and mooning over Kenicki. We knew every word and took turns playing Sandy and Danny. We used her father’s video camera to film I Dream of Jeanie spots. It would go something like this: “Hmm, I’d really love a glass of water.” Then I’d blink my eyes just like Barbara Eden, Jessica would stop the camera and place a glass in my hand. Then we’d start the camera again and there I was drinking the water, as if it had magically appeared. We thought we were brilliant. We spent afternoons in her basement watching Annie and reenacting “Hard Knock Life”, singing our hearts out and cursing at Carol Burnett for her evilness. We even wrote a pilot episode for a new sitcom.

Jessica moved during 4th grade. It was one of the saddest days of my life. I remember standing in her driveway, her family car packed full, and Jessica and I weeping as we said good-bye. She was my first true best friend. And she was moving all the way to California . I was inconsolable.

Despite the distance, we remained best friends for many years after the move. I even flew on my own to California when I was 14 to visit. There was initial awkwardness after so much time had passed, but through letters we knew enough about one another’s lives to move past that within a few short hours. By day two, we had already choreographed an entire video to the Bangles’ “Manic Monday”. When I left after two weeks, I came home with a bad case of sunburn, a massive crush on her friend Marcus, and a renewed belief in our best-friendship.

Yet, as the years passed, Jessica and I, as teenagers do, moved on. We replaced each other with new best friends. We sadly lost touch.

And then, a few months ago, something appeared in my mailbox. When I saw Jessica’s name and the return address, I stared at the envelope. I couldn’t imagine what would be inside. I tore it open, pulled the papers out of the envelope, and unfolded them. There, in my hands, was our script for our sitcom written in our nine-year-old handwriting. “You’ll never guess what I found,” the note said.

I read our script right there in the mailroom. I’d remembered it as being brilliant and far beyond our years. But upon reading it again, it was just as juvenile as something one of my students would write. The supposedly half-hour show, in which we had cast not only ourselves, but also John Fleckenstein, would have run maybe 7 minutes. And the plot was a clear rip-off of the Punky Brewster episode in which she promises Henry that she’s cleaned her room and then, to her surprise, Henry opens the closet and gets pinned beneath all of her belongings as they come tumbling out. Very original.

I folded the script and placed it back in the envelope, a silly grin on my face. Once in my apartment, I tucked the envelope into a drawer where I keep the things that are important to me. I sent Jessica an email, telling her what fun it was to read the script. I told her to please look me up the next time she comes to New York . I haven’t seen her yet. But I hope I do. Until then I’ll keep checking my mailbox. Perhaps that “I Dream of Jeanie” tape might just show up.

Love, Katie