Dear reader,
It started with a feud that took three years of friendship away from us.
I opened my inbox and saw her name sitting next to an email whose presence suddenly dropped the temperature of my otherwise overheating computer to sub-freezing degrees. A ghost had come back from the dead. One that was haunting me.
Subject: Hey.
I didn’t open it.
What does she want? I thought. My life is different now.
I fumbled through my purse, first reaching for my ChapStick—a knee-jerk reaction—then for my journal and one of the pens swimming at the bottom of the sea, brushing against loose papers and gadgets with sharp corners that had tenured their right to residence in this amorphous place, a tangled forest of superficial utility and forgotten treasures from days spent hopping from coffee shop to coffee shop, where I collected fragments of time—a business card here, a chewing gum wrapper there—until my fingers found the familiar outline of my car keys, and in that moment, I realized a drive was exactly what I needed.
It was usually during drives that the ghost of her was with me.
That is, of course, how it all began. The two of us—just children—walking from our respective schools—hers the one for grades two above mine—to our meeting place, the neighborhood bagel shop, where we’d sit in silence, waiting for one of our moms to show up and do what they had orchestrated: a carpool to tennis practice. Thirty minutes there, and thirty minutes back.
Memories of drives with her came flooding: the first time Dylan and I broke up in eighth grade, and I called her crying at 4 AM. She came to pick me up and drove me to the club, where we sat in the hot tub, and I continued to cry for the next hour or two until she finally dropped me off at school.
The drives to Easton. The drives around town, where we’d belt out Mariah Carey with the windows down and our hair flowing. The drives to different cities to compete.
The day in college when I called her and asked her to drive from Cincinnati to Oxford to pick up Dylan and take him to the airport because we’d broken up yet again and neither of us had cars. She came, no questions asked.
The drive from Naples to Miami to visit her at Nova, where I met her new teammates and felt jealous that they got to play with her while I no longer did.
The drives around Los Angeles, where she first discovered Diptyque’s scent at Rob’s house. Later, the train ride I took from Marseille to Cannes, when she asked me to pick her up a few extra boxes because shipping from France to the United States was stalled. I went, no questions asked.
Countless more. The drive to Cincinnati to meet her first baby. The drive around Columbus to buy cakes as the host of her second baby’s baby shower.
The drive to Tommy’s funeral.
And now, an email.
Subject: Hey.
Interesting how this article came into my view in a moment when I was thinking about my own friendship ghost. Wonderful written, intrigued about what comes next .
I don’t think I’m great at making friends or sustaining relationships, though I’m not entirely sure why. It hit me harder today, but then I came across your post, which made me feel even more nostalgic.