IDEALISM

   There was a girl I knew whose fingers were long and slender and who complained that her thighs touched when she walked. She was a good friend, and believed that you could reveal a person’s true spirit simply by sharing cups of coffee, a weekday afternoon and a long debate on politics. Yes, she was a good friend, though she did not take her own advice and let a very few into secrets of her own sprit, her own strange and breathtaking realm of philosophies and experiences.

   She would babble on when she became nervous and swung her slender arms and fingers, taking short sips of cold, black coffee and running out of breaths between sentences. I could sometimes block her out and focus on the dimple in her right cheek, and imagine her in twenty years—would we ever see the places we envisioned, or would we become stuck in suburban destinies? I imagined her in Paris with the platform shoes and cigarette, her long brown curls and dazzle. /Dazzle them with your wit,” she would whisper, taking my arms as we entered those stereotypical adventures of teenage party scenes and crowded, late night coffee shops, armed with mini skirts, black mascara, deep red lipstick, the fearlessness of knowing we were young.

   She had an ageless presence, an intrigue, a mystery, an unreachable idealism, a glow about her when she entered rooms and turned heads for an instant. That was all she ever wanted, was that instant, to know that she was noticed and that she didn’t have to try. She laughed loudly in crowds; not too loud, though she was heard, recognizable above the music and shuffle of heels on floors and chairs, glasses and talk that filled smoky, dimmed rooms.

   It was Paris to her, and among the rough and raw beauty it all represented, she promised something–the way she walked, she winked, she never said goodbye but waved and smiled and sighed.

   It was some rainy night that I remember above them all. The room was loud and smelled of sweat and tears and wet sidewalk stuck to the bottom of our shoes. The scene was typical, typical to our expectations, hinting briefly and slightly at our youth, and what would be ahead.

   I saw her from across the room, at a black tabletop as she crossed her legs, arms, her brown curls limp and light, and she motioned me to sit. Our talks were always long and sometimes complicated and important to our existence. But our silence was critical, and now we sat silent for a while.

³I wonder what they are trying to prove S ² she spoke bluntly, looking out into the faces that sparkled and laughed and knew very little about each other before the night was gone. I sat, studying them­their expressions, motions, language that strangely seemed juvenile and contrived. We were just young, I wanted to say. We were young and foolish and didn¹t know who we were or where we were going. Though she did, and I looked back, admired and envied her.

   ³ S Proving to who?² she asked, whispered, her chin resting on the palm of her hand and curls shielding the dimple in her cheek. She looked thinner to me than most days; her plate empty, coffee cold, eyes intense and sunken, fingers long, slender and always slightly trembling.

   I sat, rigid and uncomfortable, out of place in my chair, as I stared at her, this figure I saw and for an instant did not recognize. What were you trying to prove?

   She died two months later, in a hospital far from anything we had ever wished to know. Tubes through her nose and into her stomach; trying desperately to save youth, dreams, the stereotypical idealism she had owed the world.

For a long time I felt angry, betrayed, guilty and alone before all that she had promised and left undone. Angry at the world as it turned and twisted and wore her into something I no longer knew. Betrayed by my dear friend as she laughed and let me believe that there was a future, that kids always grow old and that everything was fine. Guilty for whatever I hadn¹t done, I didn¹t know, I never asked; guilty because I never saw her for what she was and she always met my admiration. Alone, now, with very little realism to cling to, disillusioned and confused at life, at strength, at innocence and youth. For a long time I did not understand, and eventually learned I did not need to.

   On most days we had not discussed our profundity, our tears, our disappointments, our courage; though we knew they existed in each other and in ourselves. We were teenage girls, kindred sprits, young and vulnerable and disappearing slowly, profoundly and without our own knowledge. On most days I remember us laughing; I laughed at her slender arms, rather than her disease, her babble rather than her self-consciousness, her strange and scholarly statements rather than her dreams. We had needed that. ³Thank you,² I now whisper to her, whisper to those cups of coffee, those rhythms of muted jazz and hip hop, the reflection in the mirror­places I know she is, and will live forever.

- Rachel Patall-David