Chapter 5 Annie

CHAPTER 5 ANNIE

1999

Bolton Landing

The night before junior prom, my mom and I were sitting in the green plastic Adirondack chairs that were outside our apartment.

As the seasons changed, I used those chairs to gauge how close we were to warm weather. In the winter, even though they were tucked beneath an overhang, the wind whipped the snow and stacked it high on the seats and armrests. There was always one week when the chairs became wet from pools of melted snow, and each night I’d get impatient and wipe them down with paper towels. I’d just done that and was sitting, tucked into a ball, my oversized gray hoodie stretched over my knees, when I spotted my mom walking down the street. Even in the dark, I knew it was her; I’d know her silhouette anywhere. I’d spent my childhood looking for her.

“Hi,” I said softly as she approached.

“Hi, you.” She dropped herself into the chair next to me before I could stop her, then she yelped as the cold wetness soaked her jeans. I cursed the water, prayed it wouldn’t keep her from staying. “Damn,” she said without getting up, and I slowly exhaled.

“How was your day?” I asked, glancing over. Her head was back against the chair, her eyes closed. The light—a soft glow from the main office—was beautiful in that Americana way, glancing just so off her cheekbones. Amanda and I had become obsessed with movies, and sometimes I pretended I was inside one.

Her eyes popped open and mine darted away.

“So,” she said. “How old do I look?”

Even then, I knew this question had nothing to do with me. I pinned my chin to my knees and looked out across the wet grass, then the street beyond. The lake was just a football field away, maybe less, and you could always sense it. Ominous, in some ways, mystical, in others, creating miles of open space, the air above the water waiting for me to fill it, but I didn’t know how, or with what words.

“I had the craziest day,” my mom said eventually. When she didn’t continue, I looked at her and she was glaring. “Well, do you care to hear… Anne Marie ?”

My arms tensed around my knees. “Mmhmm,” was all I could manage.

“I walked in on these dykes in bed,” she said, then shivered dramatically before continuing. “Guess they didn’t hear me knocking.” A beat later, she added, “It was sickening.”

I froze, eyes fixed on the air above the lake. Why had she told me this story? Because Amanda and I were so close? The chemistry between us seemed palpable (to me), so maybe she had sensed something. Then again, I had thought my yearning for my mom’s love was unmistakable, yet she’d never seemed to pick up on that.

I didn’t respond, and after a minute she stood and said, “I just don’t know about you, Anne Marie.” I flinched as she went inside, closing the door harder than necessary.

The next night, the high school gymnasium was dripping with yellow streamers. Amanda spent the evening dancing with her date, Ben, who was named prom king, which we laughed about for weeks—the cliché of it all. My date’s name was Joe, and that seemed to represent him perfectly.

After the final note of some slow dance song, Amanda grabbed me by the arm, pausing to look at Joe and asking—the exchange ironic to Amanda, earnest to Joe—“May I borrow your lady for a moment?” Joe stammered out a yeah, and Amanda curtsied before whisking me to the back corner of the gym, an area cast in shadow by the closed bleachers.

“I thought you’d never,” I whispered to her, smiling. “Those fucking idiots.”

“I’m just imagining we’re starring in a movie,” she said. “Isn’t that what you’re doing?”

“Um, yeah, of course,” I said. “The kind of blockbuster script that features two hours of awkward shuffling and a cast of boys who can barely communicate. It’s a great movie, really.”

“Agreed. I mean, maybe we even bring”—she whipped her head back to the dance floor—“Joe? Is it Joe? Maybe we bring him with us to LA.”

“I would absolutely love a cross-country drive with Joe.”

She wrapped me in a hug and squeezed, and I knew exactly why. She was in love with us. With our wit, our back-and-forth, our inside jokes—with everything that made us, us.

I pulled my head away so I could see her fully. “I need to ask you a question.”

“Well now’s the perfect time, obviously,” she said, laughing, her eyes gleaming in that way that makes you know, for sure, that the person in front of you isn’t thinking about anything else. Our eyes looked like this a lot when we were talking to each other.

“So, this is a for-real question, okay? Smart comebacks are not needed.”

She nodded her head seriously and, unable to help herself, added a salute. I frowned.

“Got it, got it.” She took a step back, did a full-body shake, then said, “Okay, I’m ready now,” and the crazy thing—I could see she was.

If I’d learned anything from my mom, beyond ordering salad dressing on the side and dipping your fork in it to save calories, it was how to dance around the truth. To be clear, my mom didn’t dance; I did. My mom shot words straight like arrows, often pointed at my heart. But me, I buried my feelings alive, just smothered them down. Then came Amanda; she seemed honored when I shared fragments of my inner chaos.

“So, we have our plan to drive to LA after graduation, right? And we’re going to audition together and, of course, we’re gonna make it big starring in best-friend comedies.”

Amanda waited patiently for me to get to my point.

“Okay,” I continued. “My question is: Do you ever think about what comes after that?”

Forever practicing her comedic timing, Amanda waited a moment, then said, “You want to know if I think about what comes after graduating high school, driving with my best friend”—she paused and winked at me—“that’s you , FYI, to Los Angeles, finding a place to live, and making it big in the movie business?”

Okay, when you put it like that , I thought. God, did I have a dysfunctional brain—one that couldn’t relax and unspooled miles and miles of scenarios and hopes and dreams, never ending. Big, juicy thoughts , Amanda sometimes called them. When my attention drifted away, she’d say, “Are you busy inside that brain of yours, with all those big, juicy thoughts?” I’d picture a fruit snack. Gushers, with a burst of juice inside. Tagline: “Don’t let anyone treat you like a regular fruit snack. You are a Gusher.”

“Buuuut,” she continued, “I’m sensing that what you’re really saying is that you have a game plan for after ALL OF THAT.” Amanda did not seem angered by this; she seemed tickled. She radiated amusement: Annie being Annie.

“What’s been going on up there?” She tapped her temple.

And there I was again, being the scary version of me. I hadn’t achieved anything and already wanted more. What was the word for that? Insatiable, perhaps. But that was so earthly, calling to mind sex, or food. What I craved was cosmic bigness.

Across the gym, the DJ started a new song, and the first beats had sent everyone into a tizzy, the girls grabbing their friends and streaking to the dance floor. But God bless Amanda, she was locked on me. “Tell me about your grand plan for us,” she said.

“I’ve been thinking about after all that—after we leave here and star in movies together, I mean. I’ve been thinking about how I’ll need to break off and do these prestige dramas—I have to win an Oscar—and then maybe write or produce and direct.”

Amanda tilted her head, so slightly, and her lips collected at the corners. She gave a little shake, then stopped. A word popped into my mind: rueful . Was I using it correctly? Sadness mixed with pity is what I was seeing. I repeated the word to myself, hoping I’d remember it later.

“Are you saying my dreams aren’t dreamy enough? Annie Callahan, I’ve never met anybody who dreams as hard as you do.”

What I remember about this moment is the way she said my name. She said it like it was a small animal she needed to keep safe, and that’s how I felt, deep down. Her understanding of me caused a pang, the sudden pounding of a drum, to reverberate once through my chest.

I stepped toward Amanda and grabbed her hand, brought it to my lips, kissed the top of it softly and said, “You know, I really, really love you.” My eyes were open containers, and I made room inside them for her to pour herself into. I inhaled deeply, exhaled like there, the unsaid thing has been said .

Unmistakably, I was telling her something a little different from anything we’d said before, and she understood because a subtle ripple of dread passed through her eyes.

Then she was tenderly collecting my hands in hers and pressing them against my heart as if to give me back to myself. The gesture was loving and kind and undeniable.

My head dropped and I toed the yellow streamer at my feet and the music came back into surround sound, the opening beats of the next song: “No Scrubs” by TLC—an irresistible bop that Amanda was always losing her mind over, and there she was losing it again, grabbing my hand and dragging me back to the dance floor.

A few weeks later Amanda and I were killing time by walking back and forth through town. Suddenly she veered off the main sidewalk toward the lake, calling over her shoulder for me to follow her. Soon we were standing on a spongy dock, which seemed on its way to disintegrating into the water. Amanda spun herself in a full circle, said, “I know it’s somewhere around here,” then put her hands on her hips and looked at me.

“The boat,” she said, “the one I told you about?” This was ringing some faraway bell for me, and I squinted as if maybe that would help me remember.

Amanda and I had never been on the lake. We’d been in the lake, of course, but never on it. Some of the richer kids at the high school, their families had boats, but even if we sometimes partied with them, we never got invitations to the fancier things. The inevitable clash of class was too anxiety-inducing for the rich kids. Probably even more so for their parents.

“Yeah,” I snapped my fingers. “Yeah, yeah, yeah—the one your dad was building or something?”

“Yup,” she said, spinning now toward the thin trees and grass that surrounded the cabins. “I think I see it.”

We dragged the boat into the water, and after much debate, Amanda and I sat facing each other, figuring that would keep the boat better balanced. We started rowing but paused every few minutes to acknowledge how awkward we were.

“What are we even doing?” Amanda laughed.

“It’s possible, maybe, that boat life isn’t our thing,” I said, shrugging.

“What would you say is our thing? Other than theater, obviously.”

“We have many things,” I said. “We have, for example, Sarah McLachlan.”

“Ah, yes, good one,” she said. “We are definitely Sarah experts. Oh, and, we also have clothes—though that’s more my thing, I guess.”

“Still counts,” I said, feeling generous.

“Hmm, well, we’re also into movies.” She tilted her head to the sky. A moment later, a thought seemed to tickle her, and she added, “Let’s not forget—each other.”

“Awww,” I said, putting my hand over my heart. “So cute.”

“Yes, I am adorable,” she said. “And—oh, oh, oh… we know pies!”

An unexpected addition to the list, but accurate. We did consider ourselves pie connoisseurs, specifically of key lime pie, which was Amanda’s favorite dessert and my second-favorite. (Team Oatmeal Raisin: the underdog’s cookie of choice.) In the land of apples, loving key lime was contrarian, signaling us as independent thinkers. Also, it felt exotic.

After school dances, we’d stop by the local diner to get a slice, then walk with the little Styrofoam box and plastic fork to a bench around the corner. We savored each bite. Whenever either of us showed up holding a fork and pie box, the other was obliged to say, “That better not be some apple bullshit.”

That first time being out on the lake was magic. The colors felt make-believe—the blue of the sky, the navy of the water, the green of the trees and mountainside.

Amanda must have been thinking something similar because she said, “I kind of get it now,” and when I looked at her for more, she said, leaning her head back, “how obsessed some people are with nature.” When her eyes came level, we looked at each other for a few seconds before we both started laughing and couldn’t stop until we got hit with some other boat’s wake. Startled, we both grabbed for the sides.

We drifted for a while, the sun making its way toward the horizon. We didn’t say much to each other. Just took it all in, letting the day stretch before us. Then the yellow of the sun was colliding with the mountain and the sky was filling with pink and purple. As the colors were spreading, Amanda said, “Wow, this sunset.” It was pretty, so I said, “I know.”

And a minute or two later, Amanda, who as far as I knew had never watched a sunset in her life, said, “New York doesn’t get enough credit for its sunsets,” as if she’d spent a lifetime assessing their quality and ranking in the public consciousness.

I giggled and said, “Are you a sunset expert now?”

She shot me a look— fuck off —then said, “Kerri goes out to watch the sunset every Sunday night, did you know that? And almost every time she comes back inside and says, ‘New York has the best sunsets.’ It’s like a family joke at this point.”

Family . Suddenly I felt like crying but didn’t want to ruin the otherwise perfect day.