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Equator,
Equator, You Said You Would Be There PAGE
TWO: I still have the photographs of what she wore for Halloween every year of junior high and high school. I know for instance she loved practicing her clarinet in the bath so that nobody could hear her even if the steam was rough on the reeds. I know that we spent a ridiculous amount of hours writing stories together about strange little creatures that lived in the mud and sweet peas in the field above Bayside School. And I was right beside her when we went with her other best friend -- the one who had the kind of father who would drive three thirteen-year-olds wherever they wanted to go --so I know that she went to a Star Trek convention in Anaheim dressed up as a Vulcan. I also know that she made me up as a rather stylish Klingon. I know she loved The Sparks, Genesis, The Ramones, Tom Petty, and Sid Vicious. I know she hated Paul from the Beatles and didn't like the idea of cheerleaders even though she was friends with them. I know all the roles she played in the Tam High Drama department. And although she hated cross country skiing and snow-shoeing, I know she joined the Mountain Club because of me. In exchange I marched with her to support the farm workers. During those years, in protest, we didn't eat a single green grape or drink Gallo wine and we spent our Sundays picketing the Safeway in Mill Valley across the street from our high school. I know she didn't go to college but rather slept all day. At night she could be found dancing in the mosh pit at a notorious punk club in the City. Eventually she ended up in Seattle with an abusive alcoholic grunge rocker. She fled his violence to shelter in my Berkeley student apartment. I know because I was there when that creep came after her, promising her everything and I know that she believed him. It was then, before they left together, that we had our first fight, so terrible we stopped talking for two years. But even so, we still sent each other Christmas cards. I know that five years later, she phoned from a phone booth to say she was coming through town with a new boyfriend "in a Silver Stream, just like the one Lucy and Ricky Ricardo had in I Love Lucy…" and wanted me to join them for lunch to see it. I know that within three days of rekindling our friendship, I couldn't handle her new and improved abusive boyfriend and found their druggy lifestyle overwhelming and scary. And when she suggested I join their fairy circle in some desert in Nevada, a place she described in ten pages of clear psychotic detail, I know I had reached the boundaries of our friendship. I wrote her an angry letter telling her that if she found herself without the guy and wanted to get help with the drugs, I was there. Otherwise, never contact me again. It took us fifteen years to talk again. And yet, every year, even though we weren't talking, we exchanged Christmas cards. There were years when her return address was care of general delivery and there were years when I was a single mom with three kids battling a serious illness with no money and little energy to write. This is how you can lose some friendships. I know that too. And then one summer, almost exactly a year before Hurricane Katrina, she called and left a message that she was flying out to Southern California for the weekend and would like to celebrate our birthdays. I got the message too late so we made plans over the phone to try again for next summer. It was our first conversation in fifteen years. I told her I was still living in the same house in Topanga Canyon, that I had just gotten out of the abusive relationship with an alcoholic musician and we laughed at the irony. I told her that I was dating a handsome rocket scientist. She asked me where she could find her one of those. That was the last time we spoke. There were other summer days long ago. Her dad would take us on his yacht and anchor out on the bay near Angel's Island. He would tie thick ropes around our waists so we wouldn't get swept away by the strong current and there, we would float on the waves like mermaids, swimming in the deep rough water until our skin turned blue and when we sang, our teeth chattered. I know that she drew a heart around a photograph of us in my high school yearbook and above the heart, she wrote "Equator, Equator, you said you would be there…." I just don't know where her there is now.
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I
was with her so I could tell you when she first kissed a boy (also
noted in my diary for that day, was that I too had officially kissed
a boy). I noted the 'how' and the 'where' - we were playing spin-the-bottle
in Danny B's basement. I even know the 'who' - Dougie F. 
