I met Anne in the third grade, back when I was desperate to be chosen as the mascot for the Fort Washington Patriots cheer squad. While I knew deep down that Aimee Bruno, my main rival, would get the coveted role, I held fast to my dream. That was, until Anne told me with a humorless expression, “you don’t stand a chance.” And she was right, given that I couldn’t even do a cartwheel without kicking myself in the head.
Anne and I went to the same elementary school, the same high school, and even the same college. During our junior year, we were fortunate enough to be roommates, something that was equal parts entertaining and excruciating. I remember quite vividly one afternoon in which I was rambling on and on about Clovis West, our Alma mater, when Anne said with the same humorless expression as before, “Jaime, high school is over.” Later, when I cheated on my boyfriend and flew out to Maryland unannounced to apologize, she picked me up at the airport and said, “That took balls.”
In a way, I always viewed Anne as someone who told it like it was , whether we were eight or eighteen. In this way, I could always trust that she wasn’t going to sell me stories of puppies and kittens. Though we didn’t keep in close touch after college, I always wondered how she was doing, knowing in my heart that she was off experiencing something interesting, if not spectacular.
Turns out she is. Anne is living in New York City, where she has been residing for more than ten years. She spends her days in the hallowed halls of Juicy Couture corporate and the weekends moonlighting as a gospel singer for a local congregation. Chris and I met up with her at a bar in Manhattan called The Smith, where we all downed beers and talked about the merits of NYC. Anne shared stories of her parent’s marriage and her own relationships, which reminded me of the time she, our roommate Becki, and myself ran a little Charlie’s Angel operation to find out if her boyfriend was who she thought he was (he wasn’t.)
Anne still looks fantastic and has a lightness of being that I want to pocket and sell to the highest bidder (myself). Thankfully, she also still maintains the frankness that I treasured so much from our youth. We talked non-stop for an hour and a half and were all sad when Chris and I had to head off for our dinner meetup. Anne has promised us that she will host a bagel party if we move to the Big Apple. We just might take her up on it… in a few years*. You never know.
*Note to Beth, Chris’s boss: we’re not moving! Chris loves his job! I swear!
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