When I was 13, I met someone who would be one of my best friends for the rest of my life. I mean best friends in the Anne and Diana sense. Becky and I spent three years tying our hearts around each other. All of my best friends, and there are only 4 of them, and 2 of them have slid into the ether of busy lives, were made in 3-year bursts of intensity. The first 2 were caused by my father’s Air Force move schedule, the 3rd by the vagaries of college life, and the last by the expat pull. When you only have a short time to get under someone’s skin, you learn to burrow quickly.
With our gang of girlfriends, Becky and I drew and wrote and disco danced, laughed and acted out, read and played and sang. We were queens in our little geeky world of junior high on the fringe. We weren’t popular people, but we didn’t care. We knew we were something.
When Becky moved back to the States in 1979, we had to move on to a new stage in our friendship. My family moved to Germany, and the two of us sent letters back and forth across the ocean on a weekly basis. I remember one day when FIVE letters from her arrived all together in the post. Treasure! Over the years, our correspondence slowed down a bit, but we never lost the connection. We didn’t see each other in person, with the exception of one quick weekend, for 11 years. By then, I was living in Chicago, working and making good money. I could afford to travel when and where I wanted, and first stop was Becky. We saw each other many times over the course of several years, during which she had children and her marriage fell apart, and I was betrayed in love and coated myself in a crackly layer of indifference that lasted until I met Anders. She was my Best Woman at my wedding. She knows my secrets and matches me perfectly when singing rounds.
Now, the physical distance between us is as great as it was when we were 16, but it only takes an email or a phone call or a card in the mail to make me realize that we still have a place under each other’s skin.
The time difference is 9 hours, and I tried several times to call her last night with no luck. Finally, after the clock had reached midnight here in Sweden, the phone was picked up, and I was overjoyed to hear her voice. We haven’t spoken in a long time, and she sounded exactly the same as she had when we were kids. Then, suddenly, after some confusion, I realized that it was her 13-year-old daughter who had answered, and time warped and slid.
Becky came on the line, then, and her voice snapped me fast forward into the present. They sound very much alike, she and her daughter, AND the 13-year-old in my head. So, we talked and laughed and caught up and I’m going to see her this summer and I CAN’T WAIT. Just like Martin, I’m going to be checking the calendar to see how many days are left until the party.
