Remembering a Friend

Across Brooklyn Bridge

And then I remembered the time we cut a Washington DC demonstration to go to the mall. I’m not sure how it happened.  We were committed to the cause but somehow we ended up in the mall eating fast food and looking at sterling silver jewelry together. You bought me a snake ring.

Further back, I remember that amazing walk we took on the Campus of Brown University. It was Winter at the time and the campus completely covered with snow, was like a wonderland. And we were lost in it for a bit like two of the only people left in the world. We had no idea how extensive Brown’s campus was.  It was the first College town we had ever visited. I remember we bought matching chartreuse colored hoodies at the Gap. It was nighttime when we entered a record store and I bought the album “Make it Big” by Wham on cassette tape. For a long time whenever I heard the song “What she wants” I thought of you and the way you smelled on that trip. 

We went to see “Mississippi Masala” together at a campus theater. There was not a lot of attention paid to that film. There was a lot of touching and kissing and hickeys, which garnered their share of teasing from our classmates. But I never felt ashamed. I felt very lucky to be there with you although I felt you were very forward and your affection put a significant amount of pressure on me, because you thought so much more of me than I felt I could take responsibility for. 

I remember us all being in the gymnasium pool together. How skinny we both were then and how I let my long legs entangle with yours under the water. How I enjoyed the feel of your skin on mine. I was careful to get out of the pool in a certain way so that no one would notice my flaws. Outside in the night air I remember you touching the skin of my back under my green denim jacket. I was still wearing my backless one piece bathing suit. Was it my old Eva Joia Gitano bathing suit? Probably. The same one I wore to Barbados one summer, the summer I almost drowned.

I remember you touched my back very gently, very lovingly as if it was more than just my back. We were standing on the steps of some building in a student campus quad, just out of the swimming pool at night and into dry clothes. I went to the dorm of a young woman whose face I can never recall who hosted me for a weekend. I sat on the corner of the bed and listened to Wham and I could smell you.