Anda and I met when I was 5 and she, 6 years old. We moved into our house and her family, into their home next door, the same weekend. I saw her and told my Mom there was “a girl over there!” She encouraged me to introduce myself. I was scared but it was the best thing I ever did. It was June 9th.
Her Dad called her Andalee and she forever became my Andalee. We were inseparable. We told each other everything, lived life to the hilt, sorrowed together and there is no instance where we betrayed each others confidence. Both of us were born in January, almost to the day, one year apart, she being the eldest. That made us twins on our eyes. I barely spoke English, she didn’t speak French yet but that made no difference. We became best, ever bestest, bestest friends forever.
We dreamed and planed together, shared everything, even food and rarely would you see one without the other. We learned about sex together, courtesy of our neighborhood pervert Wally. We went home, arm in arm, yelling loudly at Wally, that “our parents did NOT do what he just told us they did.” So much for sex education. We resolved never to speak to him again and pitched eggs at this front door. Unfortunately, he opened the door just then and one of us, having a wicked aim, dinged him right between the eyes. We walked everywhere, hand in hand, until someone told us it wasn’t appropriate anymore.
We discussed art, skipping rope, the fine points of hopscotch, badminton, hide and seek and our big passion…music. We listened to the radio all the time and sang every song. At an assembly in grade school, we heard two girls sing a song about a brown sparrow and a white butterfly. We met up after school, going crazy over this song, and by the time we got home, we knew the whole thing, in perfect two part harmony. It became our anthem, one we sang for everyone and made my aunties cry. She had beautiful, long, dark straight hair, and with her angel voice, she was the sparrow. I became the white butterfly by virtue of my white blonde, unruly, frizzy nest that passed for hair. She used to iron my long hair on the ironing board, so I could have straight hair like hers. It never worked.
When we got older and boys were part of every second conversation, we worried that maybe Wally had been right and we got nervous. We practiced kissing by planting big passionate ones on our own hands then critiquing. I thought marrying her brother would be the ultimate way to be with her forever…except he had a girlfriend.
We dreamed of prom. It didn’t matter if we didn’t have any stinking boyfriends; we’d just go together. We’d scour the good second hand stores and find a blue satin gown Anda so loved. One with a big bow. I’d find a discarded wedding dress that I could not live without. We’d buy our corsages together, pin up our hair and one more time, we’d walk hand in hand, over to the school. It seemed there was no me, without her…
Now I was seeing Jonathan and slowly but surely, he was pushing her out of my life. I spent every spare minute with him. For the first time ever, I hurt her…For the first time since we were five, I had no more time for my best, bestest, ever bestest friend forever…
Next -> A Mother’s Heart
Tags: brown sparrow, pervert, sex education, white butterfly