I grew up tied to my best girlfriend’s hip. Mary Johansen and I did everything
suburban Detroit girls do — Scouts, horses, skating,
drawing — and we did them all together.
A bit of it was naughty, or at least ill intended. On Troop 411’s trip to the
Northville Cider Mill, we volunteered to carry the cider back to the troop leader’s
house, believing that shaking it would make it hard, that the Scouts would drink the cider,
and we would have created a room full of drunken Juniors. But we were also good girls, just as likely to spend an afternoon sewing doll dresses as
boozing-up our fellow Scouts.
As the pubescent switch flipped in 7th grade, we changed. Each girl cultivated
a new style; I went for a homemade-angst look, while she took the classic angora-sweaters-with-tight-designer-jeans
approach.
Incessant trips to Twelve Oaks Mall replaced Scouts and sewing parties.
We did not go to the mall to shop; we went to meet boys. And boys we did
meet. Always pairs of them. We gave our numbers to pairs of boys, and pairs of
boys gave their numbers to us. Then both boys called me to ask, “Does Mary
like me?”
Once or twice we snuck off with these boys to Joe Louis Arena for a little
stadium rock and possible necking. They would fight over Mary. The alpha would
win, and the beta and I would sit in silence for the duration of the evening.
Our hormone driven-trips to Twelve Oaks and our illicit journeys to Joe Louis
lasted for a year or two. Then we drifted. I fell in with the black turtleneck
crowd, and she with the Maybelline gang.
I nursed a mild adolescent grudge about the mall trips into my thirties, enjoying
quiet vindication when I heard about her marriage to a hometown boy, their purchase
of a hometown ranch with three bedrooms. She was burdened with small children
while I was a single gal in New York City. She was probably still in Revlon, while
I was on to Chanel.
These were not daily thoughts, but they did cross my mind on trips home. At
least they did until last weekend. I was in Michigan for a quick trip to see my
mother through her last chemo treatment, and to see my cousin’s three-day-old
daughter.
Driving home from my cousin’s, I saw Mary. She was walking along the street
of our childhood neighborhood with her two little boys.
I slowed the car so we could stop and chat. But when I saw her face staring
at those boys, I knew how she was. She beamed at them like they were two little
angels. So enchanted was she, that she did not see my car slow. She did not see
me wave. And she did not see me drive off.
There was no need to stop and chat. She did not need to hear about my life,
and the little glimpse on her life was all I wanted to take away.
A few days later, I flew to my adult home in New York, leaving my mother well
on her way to recovery, and a 17-year-grudge buried in the Michigan snow.
For Catherine.