Chapter 3 Annie

CHAPTER 3 ANNIE

1995

Bolton Landing

Amanda was seventy-three days older than me. She would hit milestones first, report back from the front lines. I was a professional overthinker, so it was a relief to have her beta-test life, work out the kinks before I arrived. For example, I might have thought turning thirteen was a big deal. We were so excited for that second syllable!

“You don’t feel different at all?” I asked. We were in her garage looking for a Nerf football (don’t ask). She paused, closed her eyes. An internal scan was being performed. A few seconds later, eyes still closed, she said, “No, not at all. Feels like twelve years old plus a day.”

I grabbed her shoulders and groaned, “We’re going to be kids forever!”

“For-ev-er,” she said like a robot.

Even then we were impatient for the freedoms of adulthood. Then finally, finally, Amanda’s sixteenth birthday arrived. We scheduled her driver’s test for that same day—no time to waste. It was early spring, the first warm day, and the testing location was down the street from her dad’s garage, so he drove us over, kissed her on the forehead and wished her luck, then walked back to work. Once he was gone, she turned to me and made her eyes big, jingled the keys like it’s happening .

I said, “Oh my god Amanda, nail this thing, okay?”

“Hand-eye coordination, spatial relationships—c’mon, it’s a done deal,” she said. She was a confident person. But like all confident people, it was only about 87 percent authentic. Doubt just lived on the outskirts of town instead of in the center, like it does for everyone else.

“Amanda Kent?” called a man, clipboard in hand, walking toward us. I mouthed Good luck and jogged across the street to wait, impatiently. I hopped onto the low-slung cobblestone wall in front of the Methodist church, my feet skimming the ground. In my pocket were watermelon Jolly Ranchers—the only flavor worth eating—and I popped one in my mouth. I loved using the sticky candy as cement between my upper and lower molars. Sometimes it really felt like my teeth were glued together.

I was still doing this an hour later when Amanda, behind the wheel of her dad’s truck, reappeared up the road with the test supervisor in the passenger seat. That faded blue truck. I’d always loved the sight of it, a dopamine release—Amanda, close.

I watched as she came more into focus, then finally I could see her clearly through the windshield. She grinned and waved, and mentally I was telling her to Please stop ; what if he flunked her now for carelessness?

But he didn’t. She parked the car, shook the man’s hand—this felt very adult—and strode across the street, perched next to me on the wall. She tossed the keys a few inches in the air, caught them. She was really loving this moment. A performance, but also not, which was the best kind.

“Let’s go to Tommy’s party tonight,” she said, eyebrows raised. Amanda knew that Tommy—aka Mr. High School Quarterback—was into her, but she said it was my imagination. I wasn’t a fan.

Going to a party was not exactly what I wanted to do with our new freedom, but Amanda’s excitement was contagious. I touched my pocket, felt the bulky outline of the mixtape I’d made as a congratulations present. I’d titled it “Merry Go Freedom.” I’d even made cover art from construction paper. My plan for the night had been us going for a drive, listening through together. I had wanted to watch her reaction to each song. But I guess we could do that tomorrow.

“I’m in,” I said, dropping off the wall and crossing the street. “Chauffeur me.”

She jogged to catch up, called out, “Get ready at my place?” I didn’t answer. The question was rhetorical: her closet was way better.

We spent most of the party on the deck at Tommy’s house, in and out of groups, laughing and talking. Amanda was drinking; I was taking imaginary sips from an empty red Solo cup, really practicing my stagecraft with each movement. At the end of the night, while watching Amanda take shot number I don’t know what, I suddenly realized we didn’t have a ride home, that she was our driver. I was mad at myself; logistics were usually my specialty. I walked into the kitchen and pulled her into the hallway.

“Hi,” I said.

“Hi.” She hugged me. “It’s a good day.”

“It has definitely been a good day,” I said. “But we have a problem.”

“Rut-ro,” she said, frowning. On the scale of one to wasted, she appeared to be about a seven. Right then, Tommy walked past, grabbing my arm and pulling me away, spinning me back into the kitchen where suddenly I was facing a group of classmates. “Truth or dare?” one of them asked, and since I liked an audience, I was instantly invested. “Dare,” I said, moving with the crowd back to the deck. I was out there for a few minutes—the dare was embarrassingly lame—before I remembered Amanda and leaned back inside to catch her eye. She was gone.

I was chill about it at first. But when she wasn’t in the first-floor bathroom or the living room, a sense of urgency arrived. I darted upstairs, opening each closed door and finding empty, dark rooms, until there was only one left at the end of the hall. I pushed through, stumbling into a bathroom, and there was Amanda, sitting with her back against the tub. She looked at me, shrugged, then leaned over and vomited into the toilet.

I was relieved, actually. I’d expected to find her with Tommy.

“Sorry,” she said, spitting into the bowl. “Not very attractive.”

I knelt, collected her hair into a ponytail.

“That last shot Tommy gave me,” she slurred. “Not a good idea.”

“Let’s get out of here,” I said. “Can you walk?”

She nodded. I gripped her hand as we walked down the stairs and out to the car. I helped her into the passenger seat, then reached across and pulled on her seat belt.

I climbed behind the wheel and grabbed it with both hands, steadied myself. “Okay, yeah, I can do this,” I said aloud, looking over at Amanda: her eyes were closed, her head against the doorframe. Maybe she was more of an eight or nine on the wasted scale.

I’d hidden the mixtape in the console for the drive home, and now I retrieved it, popping the cassette into the deck and cranking the volume.

Tommy lived on the opposite side of the lake, so it was a long ride home. I happily discovered that driving wasn’t that difficult. Her dad’s truck was an automatic, thankfully. I stayed between the lines and went the speed limit and braked fully for every stop sign. The night was unusually bright, with yellow moonlight bouncing off the lake, and I felt like I’d springboarded into adulthood.

And with adult feelings, too, courtesy of my mixtape. For the third song, which is obviously where the best track on a mixtape goes, I’d chosen the newest from Sarah McLachlan. The song churned up everything I felt about Amanda. An ethereal blend of desire and devotion, of joy and melancholy. A nearly lethal cocktail.

When the opening chords began, I reached for the tape deck, almost hit fast-forward—to save me from myself. But I didn’t. Instead, I turned up the volume even higher, let the music own me. Let it build and build and build, a symphony of waves crashing inside me, as our goddess Sarah reached the verse that ended with letting yourself believe.

The crazy thing was, I wasn’t sure if the song was me speaking to Amanda, or the other way around. Or maybe some combination of both. When the song ended, it felt like the truck was still radiating with its afterglow. It was in this moment that Amanda, face still pressed against the window, mumbled something.

My eyes darted over. “What was that?” I asked. But she just shook her head and burrowed deeper into the door. I reached over and let my fingers rest on her knuckles, left them there for a full count of one, then quickly brought my hand back to the wheel.

For the next seventy-two days, we borrowed that blue truck whenever we could. Then, on the night of my sixteenth birthday, tipsy and without a present, my mom offered up the keys to the 1991 red Honda Civic that my older cousin had rebuilt and left parked at our apartment complex. He’d taken the train down to the city after high school and hadn’t come back, not for the car or anything else.

We nicknamed our new ride “Brando” because it had seen better days. Fresh off the lot, it must have been a sexy little thing, but its luster had faded: chipped paint, dented bumper, worn leather. And not an original flaw, but certainly our favorite: a cracked rearview mirror, as if the gods were tired of Amanda seeing her own beauty. Or the cars behind her.

It happened junior year, one brutally cold morning. We dashed out to the car during free period for a quick spin, huddling inside and blowing on our hands. Brando was covered in the thinnest dusting of snow, which I enjoyed—made me feel like we were in a cave.

Amanda loved driving, so she was behind the wheel, and she tried the engine, but it didn’t turn over. A few seconds later, she tried again and the car roared to life—she immediately cranked the heat. I was reaching for the vents, ready for their warm air. Then I heard her shriek and my head whipped to the left: she was gripping the rearview mirror, her body lifted slightly to see herself more clearly in the shattered reflection.

“What—the—fuck,” she said, drawing out each word.

I gave her an um, please explain look, and in response, she slowly turned the mirror toward me, pointing at the crack. A little yelp escaped my lips. A cracked mirror! It felt dramatic and purposeful, like in a movie when someone breaks into a house but takes nothing except a single piece of art.

“Well, the gods have spoken,” I said.

“Did someone do this?” She was squinting and looking around, even though the windows were covered with snow.

“Yeah, it was probably Vanessa,” I said. “You know how jealous she is of you and how skilled she is at intimate yet profound gestures…” I shot her one of my favorite looks—one raised eyebrow, a mock glower—before continuing, “Amanda, some one didn’t do this, some thing did—the cold.”

“Annie-baby,” she said, her tone pseudo-serious, “you need to stop reading so many books. All that knowledge is making you too smart for me.”

“Never.” I stretched the word out for a couple extra beats because I wanted to bathe in her compliment. I’d had this idea I was special, destined for big things, and yet a voice in the back of my mind would every so often terrorize me, sending a thought burning through my psyche: It’s all a lie; you’re nobody and you’ll always be nobody . Amanda’s compliments helped smother those wildfires.

“Just the cold is what you’re saying—for sure?”

“Just the cold,” I said. “Although, I’m really in love with the idea of someone breaking into Brando and doing no other damage than smashing the rearview mirror to deliver the ultimate mindfuck.”

She grinned. “Kinda genius really.”

“I’d want to be friends with them,” I said.

“But not, like, too good of friends?” Amanda frowned.

“Oh, no, no, no, just casual friends—like maybe every other week for pizza kind of friends?” I liked this repartee of ours, especially when it blended with an acknowledgment of the depth of our relationship. I didn’t need other friends like I needed her.

“Or even every third week?”

“Monthly, let’s say.” I winked at her, hoping the wink was cool and not cheesy, and it must have been because her hand left the mirror and rested on my cheek for a moment. The warmth of it was nice, and we looked at each other for a few seconds before she broke away and said, “Less than two years, then…”

“The future.” I gestured as if imagining the words on a marquee, blocking them out: The Future, starring Anne Marie Callahan and Amanda Kent . We’d talked about it all the time, nonstop, our plan to drive Brando to Los Angeles after graduation. The pitch, in our minds, was unique and unbeatable: We’d be a package deal, Amanda playing the brunette who turns heads but still possesses fantastic comedic timing, me the quirky sidekick who has acting chops and secretly steals all the scenes.

I hadn’t mentioned to Amanda that the big black hole inside me ached for more, and that my brain was constantly spinning ideas for satisfying it. Not once had I told her about my disloyal thoughts: that maybe I would need more than best-friend comedies. That maybe I would need a prestigious solo career, then maybe I would write and produce, then direct, then whatever achievement level came after that, no doubt; an endless pursuit of the golden key that would unlock the highest version of life and make me feel whole.

Listening to my brain was exhausting. Only now do I question my brain’s wisdom, wonder if it’s actually working in my best interest. But back then? A thought was reality. And how do you tell your best friend that your brain imagines outgrowing them—that it’s not even a choice; it’s a necessity.