“Hello.”

It was a simple word, short, nothing that can suddenly attach your name to something instantly. I always liked ‘hello’ better than ‘hi’ or ‘hey’. I didn’t know why but obviously personal preference. I think it sounded more suave and refined. It was funny, because back then, I was the most unrefined seven year old in the history of Alton.

So naturally, it caught my attention.

“Hello,” I said. The lady was pretty, much prettier than the women I saw everyday, though frankly, I was lucky if I ever saw one other human being everyday. Beside infrequent excursions to the city, my mother didn’t take me many places.

I sat on the bumpy and rocky ground about a quarter mile from my house. The lady kept on watching me.

“Are you looking for my mother, Ms. Silver?” I asked.

The lady didn’t answer, only shook her head no. I was young, seven I’ll say again, and I didn’t seem to mind much that a stranger was watching over me. I went right on back to drawing images in the dirt. I hummed Nocturne in my sweet insolence.

“I just moved in. I’ve got a daughter just about your age and some cookies from a bakery,” she said, her voice all sweet and all. It reminded me of the honey I spread onto my toast every morning. Gooey, sickly sweet, sticky. Her voice stuck to you in a weird sort of way, like it drenched you in sweetness. Usually those things make me puke.

Anyways, at mention of a possible acquaintance, I nearly jumped into her arms. It was the summer, and I was a deprived kid in need of some friends.

“What’s her name?” I was always saying things like that, where the context has not been fully established, but I was taking off with our without you. I tended to talk without fully explaining things, and the thing was that I knew it, but I still didn’t do anything about it.

“Renny,” the pretty lady said.

“Can I play with her?” I asked.

“If you’d like to.” There it went again, all sickly sweet. I don’t think she did it on purpose. Her mouth must have been formed that way.

“Ok.” The sun beat down my back, and I was thirsting for some water, but I agreed anyway. I knew my mother wouldn’t be mad. All she’d ask when I got back, no matter the time, would be if I had fun. I always told her yes even if I hadn’t. It was easier that way. I was never much of a talker to her.

But to strangers, I just couldn’t shut up. “How far away do you live? Is it a new house? Because the closest house is the Gringbacks, and they’ve lived there for millions and millions of years. I mean, even longer than my family has lived here. And that’s a long time.” See what I mean?

“Our house is new. We just built it.”

“In the woods?”

“Yes, in the woods. In fact, I think it’s only a mile or two behind yours,” she said.

“A mile! That’s swell!”

“Now where do you go finding out words like that?”

I felt kind of proud at her having asked me. I mean, not like it was some super long, extravagant word or anything. But you really feel good when someone notices something about you, well, at least until it’s something bad.

“My mother.” It really was true. My mother was always using strange words like that when she talked to herself. I usually hung my feet through the banisters and listened to her late at night; she probably was on the phone, but most of the time it seemed like a heavily one-sided conversation.

“Is she at home today?”

“Today’s Sunday, right?”

“Why, I sure hope it is.” The lady gave one of those nervous chuckles, the ones meant to insight humor. I was still too young at the time to realize only people with no actual sense of humor do that.

“Yeah, she’s at home.”

“Will she be worried about where you’ve taken off to?”

“No. She lets me play all day,” I said.

“Well, good. You can play at our house all day if you’d like.”

“I sure would, ma’am. I haven’t seen my friends since school let out last month.”

“I have another child too, a son. I think you three will have fun.”

“A son? So I have two new friends?”

She laughed; it almost weighed me down the honey was so heavy. I liked her right then. I was good at that, being able to tell if people were genuine and all that. I had once met this new guy in my class at school. I remember that he walked into class the first day of second grade with his new girlfriend on his arm. I sat next to him and he repeatedly asked me for a pencil. I spread the word around that I didn’t like him. Ends up that he tried to break into the principals office to steal Mr. Oliver’s prized fountain pen. Yeah, I was good at reading people.

“Well, certainly if you all like each other.”

And so there you had it. We had new neighbors, only thing was there house wasn’t placed, it was built. And they felt more permanent that way.

“Does your Mom have any more cookies?”

“No, Renny threw them in the trash. She said she would have eaten them if she didn’t.”

“Darn her!”

“Hold your horse, Jane,” Sal said. “I would have thought you’d had your fill. Mom’s been buying them, well, since the first day I met you.” He had a toothy grin, one he displayed proudly in the fact he had never had a need for braces. I hated him for it during the days my mouth was wired shut. I still kind of did; his were so white they almost blinded you.

I rolled my eyes. “That’s the point.”

“Oh.” Sal shut it after that. He knew how I got all sentimental over stuff. Hell, I wouldn’t let him through away his blanket that he’d had for approximately three months when he was eight, and it wasn’t even mine. You should have seen how possessive I got over the last lone tree that housed our tree house as kids. His Dad wanted to tear it down in the process of building a pool. I nearly tied myself to that tree, even bought the rope and all. Mr. Isle ended up building the pool one more foot to the east, not west.

“Do you want to head to your house? Dad’s getting home soon and Mom’s been drinking. That won’t be a pretty sight.” We both shuddered at the thought. It was scary how our mannerisms were so in-tuned to each others. I could practically feel his shudder, pain, movement, or whatever the heck it was all the way from my house. Thing was though, that was rare. We were usually together every second of the day.

“Is my crazy mother really a better idea?”

“Eccentric is better. Your Mom’s cool. I’ve told you that before. At least she doesn’t go around asking new kids she’s never met to come over.” Sal never let his mother live down the fact that she had all but kidnapped me that one day. He shut up about it though when I reminded him I maybe would have never met him then.

I buried my head in his shoulder. We’d been friends since age seven, the day his Mom brought me over. Ten years made you brother and sister. “Please, don’t tell me you’re falling love with her!”

“Are you falling in love with my Dad because he likes John Steinbeck?”

I abruptly sat up and punched his shoulder. “Let’s go.”

He took my hand as we walked. Our relationship was weird. We weren’t really together, but we were always doing couple stuff. We had been each others first kiss simply because we were bored one night. We’d done some other stuff too, but I won’t get into the details.

“What cake will she have today?”

“It was lemon yesterday and it’s the third week of March, so . . . dark chocolate with vanilla frosting.”

“That’s freaky stuff,” Sal said.

“What’s freaky is how your Mom cooks the exact same dinners in the exact same order every single week. Your having pork roast tonight.”

“And your having german chocolate cake tomorrow.” He winked at me.

I rubbed my forehead roughly. I had never understood why people would do that, you know, rub their forehead like they just didn’t know what to do. Then I had started getting my period.

“We spend way to much time together. Is this normal?” I asked.

“Husbands and wives spend this much time together.”

“How do you know? It’s not like we have cookie cutter examples right in front of us.”

Sal gripped my hand tighter, a warning. He was touchy about his parents.Thing was though, he could say anything he wanted about them and then the second anyone else made a comment he got all defensive.

“Hey, hey now,” I said. “I meant my mother.”

He shrugged. He was like that too. He could be all sore about something one second and then you’d take a breath and he’d be back to normal. It drove me crazy sometimes. I take a long time to get over things.

“Just go a little farther, Jane,” Sal said. He kept on poking my back with the long stick we had found the day before in his Mom’s garden. I tried not to think that we had already killed six bugs with that stick. It was touching my clothes. “How much farther?” I tried to feign disinterest, but I’ll never forget that day. I would have sworn on my life I was having a heart attack. “To the edge. I want to see.” “I told you. Don’t you believe me? Isn’t that enough?” There was silence. I would have looked back but he’d got to me with the blindfold and tape. Made me think we were going to play some kind of new game. Yeah, a sick new game. “Stop,” he said. “Do I have a choice?” “You could jump right now.” Sal had already acquired his bluntness. I’ll never forget the good old days when he lived by the mantra of ‘Do unto other as you would have done unto you’, or something of that s**t. His parents were churchgoing people, but unfortunately, that didn’t last too long. “Couldn’t we have just done this in your pool?” “No. You know why.” “No, I don’t,” I said. I was buying time. It was a good thing he couldn’t see my face. My face always gave everything away. “You said you can’t turn in regular water. It has to be here.” Oh yeah, I had said those words, and now every inch of my nine year old body was wishing to take them back. For how much my face showed, I could really lie well. I mean really well once I got into the mood or swing of it. Other thing was, I was full of pride. Way too much for a nine year old. It’s always been sort of a blessing and a curse. And that day, I couldn’t admit that I was a liar. And with one extremely hard push from the stick - I still have the pink scar to prove it - I fell of the tall ledge and into the unnaturally deep river. Sal expected me to turn into a mermaid. But I didn’t, obviously. Instead, I hit the water, warm for the September day, and hit my head on the large rock that protruded out of the middle of the river. It was big and round, not sharp and steep, and that’s what saved my life that day. After he’d jumped in to save me and dragged my back to my mother’s house, blood spewing out of my forehead, I didn’t speak to him for a month. And that was to only get over him tying me up in the first place. Yeah, the whole ordeal with almost killing me took an extra two months. I knew he felt really bad. I used it to guilt trip him into things a lot of times after it. He’d do it unflinchingly. I think that’s what made me drop it so quickly. The fact that it looked like he’d kiss my feet just to have me alive, not even to forgive him. Yeah, I dropped it mighty fast. That kind of stuff makes me real uncomfortable.

School was like a slow burning Hell. It was slow burning because it just got worse every single day I had to go there. I would have liked it to just eat me up in flames on the first day. You know, hit rock bottom first just to get it over with. But nothing ever happens as you hope, right? Sal made it bearable, the monotonous days. I had stellar grades, better than Sal and he was a freaky genius. So it wasn’t the academic part, it was the people I had to be around every day part. I think Hell would have been better. Sal was able to laugh about it, but I couldn’t. Things got under my skin too easily. Like how every time I went into the bathroom it smelled of smoke. And there weren’t enough chairs in the lunchroom for all the students, so Sal and I always sat in the abandoned music room. And that time someone stole my Ipod right out of my backpack, right while I was carrying it. And how some sick guy had groped me freshman year, well, that turned out pretty funny. Short Sal had kicked the hell out of him. And- Well, I suppose I could go on all day, but I’d just seem more negative than I really am. It’s true I think I see everything through a skewed view, like a dark view. No doubt about it that I get it from my mother. But I’m just not one of those bubbly people. They annoy my sanity out of me. I’ve known a few, and it’s so g-damn annoying to have a plastered smile on your face for hours and hours, because, they will never shut up. I swear to God to they never close their mouth once. Things like that drive me insane. Anyways, Sal makes it all bearable. We stick side by side. And funny thing is, Sal’s sister is the main tormentor at our school. I tease him that he must have been adopted. He’s nothing like his family. His mother’s too weak. His sister’s too mean. His father’s too careless. Sal’s just right. I really don’t know how I got so lucky. I mean, I truly in every way possible am still shocked that I have such a good friend as Sal. I remember once when we were little, I mean really little, like just a few months after he moved in, back when we still played with Renny, Sal was crying in our tree house, and Renny and I were sitting at the bottom, in the shade and grass and calling up to him since he had pulled up the ladder. We had run down to the river to do something, something I can’t remember now. And when we’d gotten back, Sal was bawling his eyes out. It was one of those cries that’s so sad. It scared the hell out of me. Anyways, Renny threatened setting his ant house on fire if he didn’t come out, so Sal peaked his head over the ledge and we asked him what was wrong. He responded that Mommy was leaving soon and wasn’t coming back. We asked him again because when you speak in all that cryptic s**t to seven year olds, they’re bound to be confused. Sal was just already leaps and bounds ahead of the rest of us, so he knew what he was talking about. Again, we asked. I remember so clearly, I mean so clearly that I can remember that one of his tears hit my forehead at that exact second. He said that Mommy was going to die. Of course, he was talking about his mother, not mine. Renny then got all upset and ran into the house. I didn’t think much of the incident until four years later when his mother told us all that she was going to die. Mrs. Isle had terminal cancer. Sal was the only one who knew she had been coming home from the Doctors that afternoon. Only thing is, she hasn’t died yet, but that’s a whole other story. So, all in all, Sal is a lot more observant than the average person. He can spot a change from a mile. You know how I can lie real good once I start? Well, with Sal, it doesn’t matter how good I’ve been doing, he can always tell. He was able to tell that I wasn’t going to stay.

“Do you believe in Santa Claus?” I asked. I was taking a big bite of ice cream simultaneously. We were pretty lucky. I mean, what with us being so far out in the country and all that to get an ice cream truck in the summer.

Sal and I always got the same kind each time. Weren’t too adventurous. He, one of those red, white, and blue popsicles. Me, a snow cone drenched in blueberry syrup.

“No. That’s little kid stuff.”

I rolled my eyes. I was always rolling my eyes at him nowadays. My mother had just installed a T.V. in our living room. I think she had been getting tired of me bugging her so much now that I was older. So, I began to watch T.V.

Not too much of course since we only got three channels and honestly, I didn’t like it so much. I never though it was too hot. I never understood the concept of people acting out other’s lives. Didn’t they have their own lives to live? Why did they need to play someone else? Safe to say I’d never be one of those kids that dreamed of hightailing it to Hollywood to become an actor. No, those day I wanted to be an alien. Yep, an alien. I swear I’m a freak show.

“You’re 10.”

“And so are you.” He stuck his blue tongue out at me, and I poked it with my spoon.

“I know. And I still believe on Santa.”

“I don’t. Not anymore. Renny told me he wasn’t real. She said that on Christmas aliens break into your house and give you presents.”

“Aw, come on now. I thought we weren’t talking to Renny since she pushed you in the rose bush last month?”

“Janie.” Sal was always calling me Janie when he knew he’d done something I would get mad about. I can’t remember when it started. I think it was the time he broke my window with his pogo stick. No, he didn’t actually pogo into it. He was trying to throw it into the tree right beside my house. Needless to say, he missed. An don’t even ask me why he was trying to get it into the tree in the first place. Sal was always doing stuff like that. I think he might have been trying to hide it from Renny. She was always stealing his stuff.

“I live with her! It’s hard.”

“It’s ok. At least I know you guys can share you’re coal at Christmas,” I said.

You know when you’re a kid and you get all worked about something that seems so dumb when you’re older? Us kids are always doing that because we think something’s so bad, because we don’t have anything to compare it to. We don’t know that there are infinitely worse things in the world. We’re like naive, ignorant baby chicks. Cute, yes, but dumb as hell.

So, Sal turned all pouty. So pouty in fact that it was like I had told him he was getting another sister, another sister just like Renny.

“Oh, Sal, quit it. You know I was just joking . . . but even if it is true, I’ll share my gifts with you.”
“Really?” I was surprised that cheered him up so much. Probably because he knew I was asking for a tire swing. He always wanted one.
“Really.”
He did something strange then, something he’d never done before. He hugged me. I mean, it’s not like our skin had never touched before, but this was different. Usually we just grabbed each other’s arms when we were playing tag, or we’d hoist each other up to stick our hands in his kitchen window to grab cookies from the jar on the ledge.
“Why’d you do that?”
“Because your my best friend.”
Sometimes you’d think I was the boy and Sal was the girl. Truly. He was able to talk about emotions better than I could. I always got tongue-tied while Sal just said whatever was on his mind.
“You’re my best friend too,” I said.
“Do you promise it will always be like that?”
“My mother told me not to ever promise things I don’t know that I can keep.”
“Why wouldn’t you be able to keep it?” Sal asked.
“What if you move away? What happens when we get older? Old people aren’t any fun. Who knows if we’ll still want to be friends?”
“I know I’ll always want to be your friend. And one thing we know for sure is that you’ll never move away.”
“Ok, I promise then.”
“I promise too.”
Sal took my hand then. I remember that as the beginning of when our true friendship started, the one where we held hands and had sleepovers (those didn’t last too long. Our parents made us stop when we turned 12. Thought we were going to do crazy stuff or something). Where Sal cried when my mother took me away for a whole summer to Japan. Where I cried when Sal got the chicken pox, and I seriously thought he was going to die. Where we’d swim in the creek everyday in the spring and where Sal made me a tire swing because I didn’t get one for Christmas. Where I realized Sal meant more to me than own my mother, my own flesh and blood, and where I realized one day we wouldn’t be together anymore.

“Creek?”
“Are you kidding me? It’s 30 degrees outside.”
“Movies?”
“Might see someone we know.”
“Pizza?”
“How about the ice cream parlor. I’ve been meaning to check up on Rick.”
“Ice cream it is,” Sal said.
He was lucky enough to have a car even if he did have to share it with his sister, but tonight was Sal’s night and we were in luck.
Our rule was that he got to choose the music on the weekdays and I got to on the weekends. His taste in music was atrocious. He thought mine was a crime.
Today was Saturday.
I had my collection of CDs in his car, a build up two years in the making, ever since he turned 16 and got the car for his birthday.
I turned up the volume loud. We liked to annoy each other. And started signing loudly. I really was a horrible singer, but it just made it all the more fun.
“You’re still very lovable, Jane. You can’t change that.”
“Who says I’m trying to change that? I know you just adore me, screeching voice included.”
I was joking just a bit. I always got nervous and antsy when Sal said stuff about why he liked me. I didn’t know if he was just talking liking me as a friend or more. I was always too scared to ask.
“I actually think you have a rather nice voice,” he said. It was dark out, and I couldn’t see his face. I didn’t like that. Sal never gave anything away, and only if I was studying him very very closely could I ever actually tell if he truly meant something or not.
“Exactly. Just like I think your cooking skills could get Satan to turn Hell into a second heaven.”
Sal was a horrible cook. He knew I thought he was joking.
“How do you know about Satan?” Sal asked. He was always very impromptu.
“I thought that was common knowledge.”
“Knowing about the Devil is common knowledge. How does my atheist sidekick know that? You never watch TV.”
You know when you know that there is no point in even trying to hide something because you’ll just start bawling or laughing? Yep, I knew it right then. And I was going to bawl.
“I was curious and researched some religions on the internet,” I said. I flicked my finger against the cool glass, the nail making a tap, tap, tap. Three more minutes until we’d be there.
1 mississippi, 2 mississippi , 3 mississippi, 4 mississippi...
“Really?” He was nearly bouncing out of his seat. He was a religion fanatic. I mean, not like in the sense that he went to church or temple, or whatever the heck it was called everyday, but that he loved reading about them. Sal was like a walking encyclopedia for every religion ever known to man.
“And just so you know, I’ve read that too. People still read,” I said.
He just sat there, all smug and all. Like he just discovered life on Mars. Sal takes a lot of pride in everything he does. I mean, even if it’s just clipping his toenails. The smirk he wears when he’s done is probably equivalent to what a normal person would wear when they’ve come in first place in the Boston Marathon. I swear that boy is prideful as hell.
Rick was still there when we got to the parlor. It was just a bunch of little kids in the booth besides us. A birthday party or something.
Looking at that stuff makes me so depressed. I mean, not because the kid or whatever is having a crap party or something, but because I know deep down inside of me I never want to do that. It makes me real sad because Sal will never shut up about being a Dad. And I just sit there, trying to make sense of all this very-hard-to-believe desire people have for sleepless nights, running noses, dirty diapers, dressing up as a fairy for your kids darn fairy party, and so much more it makes me recoil and retract my ovaries. I know, sick, but so darn ideal for me.
Sal and I shared a banana split, the parlor’s specialty, but I didn’t eat much. I was still feeling all dismal and down about those kids in the corner. Then they left, and I perked up. I was really good about pushing things from my mind.
“Rick?” Sal called. “How did you and Lucy meet?”
Lucy was Ricks’s sweet, sweet wife he worked all day for in order to provide for. If that’s not chivalry at age 78, I don’t know what is. But the two bites of ice scream swirled in my stomach. I knew what Sal was getting at and it made me all wishy-washy on the inside.
“Oh, boy, that was a long time ago now.” He didn’t really mean that he didn’t want to explain, it was just his way of gearing up the story.
“C’mon, please? I’ve heard you tell Jane about it before.”
He eyed Sal through wrinkles and heavy eyebrows. I don’t think Sal realized how stupid he sounded. Because apparently he wanted to hear a story he’d already heard before.
I just smirked and rolled my eyes. That equaled a hard pinch in the stomach from Sal who ignored my shouts. I shut my mouth then and waited for the story.
“I’ve known Lucy ever since we were born. Although as far back as my memories take me is when we were five or six. I can’t remember farther back. Our parents lived side by side, with only a picture-perfect white picket fence keeping our two worlds apart. Our mother’s claim that when they put us together to play on a blanket in our backyard, we’d cry and scream the second either of them tried to brings us inside, apart. It wasn’t until high school that I really started to see her.”
Rick was far gone now. He always was at this part in this part of the story. He looked right through the dusty glass of the windows. Past the endless years and right onto him and Lucy as teenagers. I could see it in his eyes.
“She was the quietest girl in school. I was the loudest. I remember she read “The Divine Comedy”. It was the day I looked twice. My parents had always told me give a second glance to the one who was reading.
“But the thing was, I always saw Lucy reading in our backyard. I would still even go sit with her sometimes for old time’s sake. She liked it, a lot. I always knew because she’d kick her feet up into my lap and wouldn’t move until the sun had set and she couldn’t see the print anymore.
“But for some reason, a reason that is fogged in my brain at this day in age, I looked at her not once, but twice, and on that second look, I knew she would be mine forever.”
“That’s beautiful,” Sal said. Right, like I said before. Sal was able to get all choked up while just sat there like a stone wall. I think Sal had only ever seen me cry once, maybe twice. I didn’t know why. That was just the way I was.
“Hey, Kids, would you mind closing up for me tonight? I want to surprise Lucy by getting home early,” Rick asked.
“Of course we will!” I think Rick was playing with Sal’s emotions, but I’d never object. Rick worked too hard.
And we were left alone.
“Do you want to dance?” Sal asked me. He looked towards the jukebox hopefully. I had no inhibitions with him.
I got up to choose the song from an array of oldies. My favorite.
The way Sal grasped my waist and clutched my hand was very intimate, but for some reason, I held him tighter and burrowed my head in his shoulder. It didn’t even bother me that since I was a whole inch taller than him, and I had to crane my neck. It was comfortable in it’s own way.
Sal swayed us for a few moments - I had no coordination at all - before he began to talk, and I cringed my head further into his neck, bracing myself for the conversation I knew we had to have.
“So you got accepted to McGIll?” he asked as he spun us slowly across the sticky, tiled floors. Back and forth, back and forth.
“My acceptance letter is right next to yours,” I reminded him.
“And Yale?”
“My mom has it taped to the fridge.” I squeezed my eyes tight, afraid about what would overflow if I didn’t. “I saw yours in your room too. Congratulations.”
He skipped over the thanks and pushed on. “And Berkley?”
I couldn’t answer him. I was trying to hide the fact that I was having a break down.
“Right?” he asked again.
“Right,” I whispered. I lifted my head slightly to look at him. “Can we please not talk about this right now? Please? Just give me a couple minutes.” I tucked my head back into his shoulder.
“Ok.”
I sighed heavily into his shoulder as the first tear slipped out. I knew he felt it on his exposed skin when he stroked my long hair. Sal was that best friend you could ever ask for. That only made me cry harder.
“I’m going to miss the creek the most, I think,” I said, choking it out through a broken voice.
I felt the vibrations of laughter in his body. “The creek. We could write a whole novel about the creek.”
“Do you remember that time, I think we were 14 or 15, and I stripped down to my underwear and tank-top right I front of you because it was so hot? I thought you were going to have a heart attack,” I said.
He breathed in deeply before answering me. “It was only because it was right then that I realized you were the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen.”
“Love is blind,” I murmured.
“It’s not blind if you know I love you.”
“Sal?” I knew he was listening, but I just needed to make sure.
“Yeah?”
“I love you too.”
“I know you do,” he said.
The tears became a torrential downfall, and I knew I had to look at him as I said what I was going to say next. In some strange moment, when I met his eyes, we both already knew what would happen. I would leave, he would leave too, but we’d end up in different places. We’d both cry, and laugh, and love again. And he’d always be my Sal, and I’d always be his Janie, Jane, J.D. And we wouldn’t be able to go a day without thinking about each other, and maybe, just maybe, our paths would cross again, after we’d both fulfilled our dreams without hindering the others. The the broken pieces of our hearts would be reunited once more on the plains of which we now stood. Home.
“I’m going to Berkley,” I said.
“I know.” Sal smiled sadly, so sadly it broke my heart. I would have put up with a dozen kids just to fix that broken, troubled smile of his. But I couldn’t
“And your going to Yale,” I said.
“Just like we’ve both always wanted,” he said. Again, that grimace like smile. He always put up a good fight. Me? I just stood, giving up all hope of keeping the dance going, and clutched Sal as close as I could and blubbered like a baby. I had never been so lucky as to have him next to me then I did right then.