When I was in third grade, my best friend was Jamie Belle.

My mom was not a fan. 

Jamie’s own mother had been a drug addict, and she’d gotten murdered by some guys who my mom said

“wanted her car.”

“They told her they’d give her money and some drugs, but they took her somewhere secluded, shot her, and

drove that car away,” my mom had told me, my eight-year-old eyes widening in fear and shock. My mother always told me too much, at least in some ways. Every time she told me the story, another element was added. I didn’t know what was true anymore.

“That girl is going to end up just like her mother, you mark my words,” my mom said repeatedly. 

I didn’t know if that was true either.​

Even though my mother didn’t approve of Jamie, who was now being raised by her grandmother, she

eventually considered that with my chubby stomach, cheap clothes, and frizzy hair, I didn’t have a lot of girls offering to be my best friend.

So, she let me invite Jamie over to our place, a small apartment I was embarrassed of.
I was in a lying phase in third grade, and I had told all the girls in my class that I was rich, that I had a

mansion and butlers. I’d bragged about it to Jamie most of all. She’d seemed the most eager to believe it, never mind that we went to an inner-city school where no one was rich or close to breaking even.

“Please, mom,” I begged, “can’t I go over to Jamie’s instead?”
“No way,” my mom said. “That girl lives over on A Street. There’s nothing but drugs and prostitutes over

there. No ma’am.”

As if our neighborhood is any better, I thought, but I didn’t say it.
I could have, though. But it wouldn’t have mattered. My mother was going to hold firm. I could tell.
Scrambling, I called up Jamie and said, “My mom says you can come over…but not to our main house. You

can come to our guest house.”

I’d heard of guest houses on TV. 
It sounded believable to me.
Everything on TV was possible, just not for me. Not here.

Jamie told me to hold on, and I could hear her talking to her grandmother in muffled tones.

Finally, she came back on, and she said, a note of pride in her voice, “My grandma says if I’m not good enough

to come over to your real house, I can’t come at all.”

“It’s not like that,” I told her.

“Well, still,” she said, stumbling, sounding confused.
“Look,” I said, “just tell your grandma it’s my real house, okay?”
“Okay,” Jamie said.

That was one of the things I liked about her. I could always get her to come around, especially if I pushed.

Her grandmother pulled up to our apartment — which was really part of the projects—the only thing my

mother could afford after my dad, who had a real wife and family now, had left her, she came up and said hi to me. I saw a knowing look in her eye.

She understood why I said what I’d said. I could tell.

She didn’t rat me out. She didn’t say a word.

And Jamie never did either…even though, eventually, she must have realized, after coming to my place again

and again, that this was no guest house.

I would have said something for sure.
We were different that way.
 

Much to my mother’s chagrin, Jamie and I did not tire of each other. In fact, by fifth grade, we were still best

friends.

My mom, after having taken a grudging liking to Jamie’s grandmother— “She’s a good woman, raising that

child at her age. Shame how it’s all going to turn out. You mark my words”—even relented and let me stay over at

Jamie’s house.

It was big and felt old and run-down, but no one hurt us in the night…except for me.

After her grandmother had gone to bed, I pulled out a VHS tape I’d pilfered from my older cousin’s house. It

was a horror movie called Night of the Demons.

“Wanna watch?” I asked, but it wasn’t really a question. 

“I don’t know,” Jamie said, eyeing the cover nervously.

“Come on,” I said. “It’ll be fun. Spooky.” I turned out her bedroom light and put the tape in.  It only took ten

minutes and just the tiniest bit of eerie music for Jamie to cover her eyes.

“Turn it off,” she whispered. “I can’t watch.”

“No,” I said. “Come on, it’s just getting good.”

I knew I could pressure her into it.

“No,” she said.

“Come on. Stop being such a baby.”

At that, she did something I’d never seen her do before. She started crying.

“I can’t,” she yelled. “I can’t watch it.” “No, no, no, no,” she said, her cries getting louder 

and more panicked as the spooky music amped up, as the first victim died.

“Okay, okay,” I said, alarmed. I pressed stop on the VCR.

“I’m sorry, okay?” I told her, putting my arm around her. “Really.”

“It’s okay,” she whispered.

“Hey,” I said. “I’ll make it up to you. We can watch anything you want.”

“Promise?”

“Promise,” I said. I felt as though I had done something wrong, though I wasn’t sure what. 

“Okay,” she said, smiling. “Grease. It’s my favorite.”

I thought it was dumb, all that smiling and singing. Jamie loved every second. I fell asleep halfway through,

waking up for only a moment to find her rewinding the tape, pressing play again.
 

Sixth grade came, and all a sudden I was angry at everything and everyone, and I didn’t know why. Maybe it

had something to do with the growing sense of loneliness, of wrongness inside me, a feeling that I didn’t belong. Maybe it was how my mom always seemed to criticize what I thought, what I ate, and what I wore—especially

what I wore. Short skirts and tight tops that made the boys look at the fat that had morphed into curves.

I acted out in class. I was always in trouble.

“God,” my mother said, “why can’t you dress more like Jamie?”

Jamie still wore her hair in pigtails and donned the same clothes we’d worn last year.

“I thought you didn’t like her,” I said.

“I think there’s hope for that girl after all,” my mother said.

I couldn’t believe it. I was almost jealous, which was weird. I’d always wanted my mother to like Jamie.

“My mom likes you, you know,” I told her, as we browsed through the mall on a breezy Saturday.

“She does?” Jamie looked thrilled. 

“Yeah,” I said. 

“I like her too. You’re so lucky,” Jamie said. 

“I guess,” I mumbled, not feeling lucky at all.

“Hey,” Jamie said, pulling me away from the Hot Topic, “can we go in the toy store?”

“Aw, come on, we’re too old for that,” I told her.

“Please,” she said, “do it for me.” It was so rare that Jamie tried to talk me into something that I agreed.

We strolled the aisles, Jamie gushing over Barbies. “Are you serious?” I asked her.

“I only collect them now,” she said, flushing.

“Whatever.” I rolled my eyes.

“Look at these,” she said, picking up a Ren and Stimpy doll. It farted when you squeezed it. 

“Okay,” I said, “now that is cool.”

I took it from her, squeezed it myself. “It’s queefing,” I told her, laughing, maybe a little too loudly.

“What’s queefing?” Jamie asked at the same time a stern-faced saleswoman came over.

“Girls,” she said, “can you quiet down just a little bit?”

“Oh, we’re sorr—” Jamie started, but I cut her off.

“Don’t sell the stupid toys if you don’t want people to play with them,” I spat. I felt better instantly. I had

someone to take my anger out on, as if she’d offered herself up to me.

“Young lady… the saleswoman began.

“Get a real job, dumbass,” I said.

The woman’s face went hurt, and I didn’t feel so good anymore. Her face then contorted into a round “O” of

surprise, and I felt a little better, almost like laughing, and then I was. I laughed in her face.

“Get out of here right now,” the woman said, “or I’ll call security.”

“Oooh, mall security,” I laughed. Jamie took my shoulders, started steering me toward the exit. Her voice was

sweet as she turned around and said to the lady, “I’m so sorry about her. She’s going through a rough time.”

“What’d you do that for?” I barked once we were outside the store.

“You were being kind of…mean,” she said, the words hard for her to get out.

I wanted to rage some more, but I looked at her face. My friend. A constant in my life, and I sagged.

“I guess I was,” I said. “sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Jamie said, putting her arm around my shoulder.
 

The summer before ninth grade, everything changed. My mom met a man with a lot of money, a man who

really liked her. They got married, a little fast, but she seemed happy. It wasn’t so much that she loved him, but

that she felt like she was finally getting her lot in life, the lot she’d always known she deserved. 

We moved into a nicer part of town. I went to a new school.

I was okay with a fresh start. I felt like I needed one, but I was sad Jamie couldn’t come with me.

We talked on the phone the night before our respective first days.

“I hope it’s just like on Saved by the Bell,” she said, “and that I’m popular.” She paused. “It would be easier

with you.”

“I was never popular,” I told her, all the while thinking how naive she was. Saved by the Bell was a fantasy. A

stupid show. Couldn’t she see that?

“Well,” she said, “I think you will be in high school.”

“Maybe,” I told her.

“Maybe I will be too,” she said.

“I bet you will,” I said, and I meant it. Jamie had gotten pretty in recent months, her legs long, lightened hair

from the sun. 

“I’ll miss you,” Jamie said.

“Hey,” I told her, “it’s just different high schools, not different lives.”

“Yeah,” Jamie said, “I guess.”

There was a pause.

“Jamie,” I said, “I’ll miss you too.”

 

I did end up popular in high school, at least kind of.

The school was different than our junior high, the people nicer, but in a fake way, a more stuck-up way. Still,

it was easy to blend in, to pretend like I was one of them. They were all interested in this new girl who hadn’t gone to elementary school with them. Plus, I’d learned to straighten my curls, to apply just the right amount of makeup.

“Not trashy, not flashy. Just the perfect amount to attract the right people,” my mother had instructed me

with a smile, makeup spread over the bathroom sink.

I meant to see Jamie a lot, to make things just like before, but I didn’t.

We did meet up at a coffee shop once, about halfway into freshman year. 

You look different, she’d said. And I’d said, you do too. And she did. She was starting to look like the old me,

and I more like the old her. It was as if we’d switched places somehow, like in that old Parent Trap movie she used

to make me watch. We’d argue over who got to be Sharon.

After that meeting, there were phone calls, but they got increasingly sporadic. Suddenly, it was senior year,

and she called me up out of the blue.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hi?” I wasn’t sure who it was. The voice was only vaguely familiar.

“It’s me,” she said, “Jamie.”

“Jamie.” There was a weird rush, a happiness in hearing her voice, but also a nagging curiosity about why she’d

reach out to me now. I didn’t even know her anymore.

“I was thinking about you,” she said, “about when we were younger.”

“Oh,” I said. I hadn’t thought about her in a long time. 

“I was wondering if I could come see you. I’ve never been to your new house.”

It didn’t feel like my new house anymore. It just felt like my house.

“Sure,” I said. “I’d like that.” I’d learned to be polite.

When she came, she pulled up in a loud, rattling car. She had on a lot of makeup. 

“Come on in,” I told her at the door.

She studied me for a moment.

“Nah,” she said, “I want to smoke.”

“Oh,” I said, “okay.” I was surprised. No one I knew smoked. They called it passé.

“Can we smoke on the porch?”

“Sure,” I said, “my mom’s not home.”

She smirked. I wasn’t sure why.

We stood on the wraparound porch, the one my mother had had built just last year, and Jamie shook out a

cigarette from a soft pack of Marlboros. 

“You want?” she asked as I sank down onto the porch swing.

“No thanks,” I said.

She shrugged, lit hers, sitting on the edge of the porch, her feet dangling off like a swimming pool lay

beneath her.

Silence. I wanted to fill it.

“So,” Jamie said, after a minute, “you got a boyfriend?”

“Actually, yes,” I told her. “His name is Logan. He plays tennis.”
“Nice,” she said. “I have one, a new one. His name is Mark.” She didn’t add any further details. 

“Is he cute?” I asked her. This was how I talked with my regular girlfriends. Maybe it would work on her.

Draw her out. I used to be good at that.

“He’s all right,” she said. “He’s sure as hell better than my last guy, Remy.”

“Remy,” I repeated the name like it meant something.

“Yeah,” she said, “he, I mean we, started out as fuck buddies, you know?”

I blanched. She must have noticed because she smiled, as if she liked the surprise on my face.

“What?” she said. “Surely, you and Logan…”

“No,” I said. “I haven’t, with anyone.”

“Wow,” she said, “well, when you do, you’ll see. It’s hard not to get feelings, even if you think you don’t really

like the guy.”

I couldn't imagine doing that with a guy I didn’t really like. Why would I? I just nodded.

“Anyway,” she said, “he got me hooked on…,” she paused to study my face, and then a look passed over hers, a

look like she couldn’t say what she wanted to say, like I would never understand. 

She cleared her throat.

“He got me in with some bad stuff. I’m doing better now though.”

“Good,” I said.

“Well,” she said, “it was real nice seeing you.”

For just the briefest of seconds, she sat next to me on the porch swing, wrapped her arm around me

awkwardly, and she felt like the Jamie I remembered. I found myself hugging her, missing her even though she was right there.

“Take care, Lauren,” she said.

“You too,” I told her.

As I watched her leave, I felt a blackness, like something had gone wrong, like things were not fair.
 

Deep into sophomore year of college, just before exams, my mom called me to tell me Jamie had gotten

busted.

“Trafficking drugs,” my mother said, a weird pride in her voice, “I always knew that girl would wind up no

good.”

“You liked her once, Mom,” I said, feeling an ache in my gut.

“Did I?” my mother asked. “I don’t remember that.”

But I did.

I do.

I remember fake guest houses and horror movies and coffee shops and Barbies and pressure. I remember

thinking I needed to be more like her. 

And now, almost twelve years post-college, I see her name pop up all the time, both on my Instagram feed

and in news stories from home. She’s always getting busted for something. She’s always in trouble. She has two

children. I don’t know who takes care of them between her stints in jail. I follow the daughter on Instagram, who I

think is too young to have it. At only age eleven, she posts dangerous selfies and seems desperate for love.

I write comments on her posts like, “You’re beautiful! You look just like your mother when we were kids.”

I hope for her, though it seems bleak. But then, when I think of the bleakness, I feel like my mother.

Jamie logs into Instagram only sometimes. It’s very erratic. I don’t think she’s out of jail all that often. 

One time, on my birthday, she commented on a picture of me, standing with my boyfriend—now my

husband—in a fancy restaurant, grinning like an idiot. 

She wrote, “I remember when we were kids. We’ve come so far girl! I’m so proud of you.”

The problem is, I remember when we were kids too. 

I remember the times we were different, and nothing makes sense.