osprey_archer | On Memorial Day

I usually see Chelsea when I’m in my hometown. Usually we go to Greyhouse, which puts scarves on its chalkboards and serves lavender gelato. But it was closed on Memorial Day, so we went to Starbucks instead.

“You realize you’re better off without her, right? She’s a bad friend,” Chelsea said. “My parents cheered when I stopped hanging out with Caitlin.”

Chelsea has been my friend since second grade, more or less. We fell out of touch for a little while in sophomore year.

***

I have a tendency to view the past through rosy-colored glasses. It’s not just that I remember the good years as being even better; it’s that I look at the years that were actually kind of bad and go, “Gosh, being eleven was great!”

Like when I was eleven. I think back on eleven, and I go, “Ah, eleven. That was the year that I read all of Zilpha Keatley Snyder’s books! And Eloise Jarvis McGraw’s The Moorchild! And Tamora Pierce! Ah, eleven! The year Chelsea first lent me Harry Potter!”

Generally I continue down this stream of reverie indefinitely. (“Eleven! We went camping in Wisconsin, and I sat in the sunshine looking at the sunlight filtering through the green leaves in the forest and writing in my journal. The one with the petals in the paper.”)

Occasionally, however, a reality check intrudes. Eleven was also the year that Chelsea decided she wanted to be popular, and so I spent recess walking around the railroad ties around the edge of the playground because I had no one to play with.

“What a terrible friend,” some of you are thinking. But there is an addendum to this tale.

By the end of fifth grade, Chelsea had given up her experiments in popularity. By eighth grade, Chelsea and I became part of a group of about nine girls (of whom Caitlin was one). I met most of them in advanced math class, and our advanced biology class the next year solidified the group.

In the mornings - sometimes also at lunch - we checked our homework. Math in eighth grade, biology in ninth. When the teacher posted the test scores, we crowded around the paper as if it were cast list for a school play. In our eyes, getting a B was a failure. When we got Bs, we cried.

Chelsea wasn’t in the advanced classes. It wasn’t that we meant to exclude her; but there were eight of us and one of her and we felt we needed to check our answers. We thought our grades were the most important thing in the world.

Math in eighth grade, biology in ninth. In tenth grade, Chelsea stopped hanging out with us.

There wasn’t a fight. One day she just wasn't there.

She’d been complaining to me for years that she hated hanging out with us, that she felt so left out. I figured she’d found a more congenial group; and I was sorry, of course, because we’d been friends since second grade; but I thought she’d be happier elsewhere.

Years later, when we had discussed it, I realized that Chelsea had felt we didn’t care about her, so she left to see what reaction she’d get. It had been a test.

We failed.

***

Like a French general, I approach every new battle as if it were the last war. So when Caitlin, in that same silent way, stopped talking to us, I did not let her go.

This was not pure altruism. I was in Minnesota; I had no friends my age around. I was lonely.

You know how they talk about conditioning rats? Occasional reinforcement is the best way to train them? Caitlin responded to emails once every three months or so; and so I persisted. Because, yes, I have the dignity of a lab rat.

It turns out that if you want to make someone hate you forever, leaving them a message that says “I’m concerned about you and I hope you’re talking to someone” is a good place to start.

(“I am talking to people, thanks. Not that it’s any of your business, but I’m talking to my parents and my college friends, and I’m happy with the people on that list.”

I had overstepped my bounds. Caitlin was hoping she could ignore me into going away. She gave it up only when I called her up and shouted at her. “I’m only in town for two days, you don’t have work or school, it’s bullshit to say you’re too busy to take half an hour to get ice cream!”)

I say “hate you forever,” because it makes me feel better. Putting it that way makes it sound like Caitlin gives a damn. But I don’t think Caitlin hates me; I think, now that I have stopped thrusting my existence in her face, that at last she doesn’t have to think about me at all.

***

In eleventh grade, Chelsea invited me to go to anime club at the local university. Wednesday or Thursday, I can’t remember which; definitely a school night. We watched episodes of Oh My Goddess! and Gankutsuou and Rozen Maiden.

We failed each other, Chelsea and I. We let each other down, and yet we are still friends, because we both care enough to keep trying.