BFF: A Missing Piece of the Puzzle
Her phone call came around 5 p.m.
I was sitting in the auditorium at Radio City Music Hall during a rehearsal for yet another two hour television special when my Treo lit up. I looked at my caller i.d. and didn’t recognize the number.
I answered the phone, “Hello.”
“Is this S___ R___?” Her voice was excited.
“This is her” I replied, “Who is this?”
“Do you remember someone by the name of Kimber?”
“From high school?” My voice stuttered in disbelief. It had been fourteen years since I graduated high school and left my father’s house for college. I never turned back. Here on the phone was the best friend I had lost touch with, who still lived in the same town.
“Your grandmother gave me your number.” She continued. “I was going through all of the letters we wrote each other. You wrote her number on the back of one of the envelopes”
“I always spent the summers at her house. I can’t believe it.” I was floored. Unlike most members of my family, my grandmother always kept tabs on me, and knew where I was currently living.
I was suddenly fifteen again and talking to the one person who knew all of my secrets. We quickly started where our friendship had left off as if not a day had gone by.
“I found a clipping from a magazine in your letter as well” She continued “It said the inevitable future is closer than you think.”
I chuckled and said,”What do you think I meant by that?”
“I think we were both just focused on our glorious futures and getting out of our miserable lives.”
“Yeah, you’re right.” Kimber and I had created many imaginary stories and worlds we could live in that soothed the continuous wounds of adolescence.
“When I talked to your grandmother she told me that you lived in New York. She told me about all the celebrities you are working with. I had to find out what this was all about.”
“Oh…you know how grandmothers are. They tend to make their kid’s accomplishments seem much grander than they actually are.” I quickly retorted. It was the truth. Although I worked in the media industry, I’m one of those faceless technicians that made the production chain purr for those in front of the camera.
“You kept my letters.” I was overwhelmed.
“I kept everything we ever wrote each other.” Her voice cracked. “I was rereading them and I just remembered how much you meant to me. I don’t know why I stopped writing. I had just figured that you needed space to start your own life.” She said with regret.
She spoke the truth. I had left it all with the intension of cutting the past and everyone associated with it loose. I felt profound compassion for us both. We had been young, bitchy and insecure. We wanted nothing more than to connect with one another, yet we were unable to reach out and say the things that would have prevented our misunderstanding.
We talked throughout my dinner break and then we talked again the next day and the next. It is as if I see myself in her and her in me. More to come. This is just one of several new beginnings.
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