star

today it's been two years since my friend died

Here’s some of what I’ve been working on to remember the intimacy of a lifelong friendship with my friend Star. In the last couple of years I read the bulk of Annie Ernaux’s work and have been deeply inspired by her slim volumes of memory. Though in all I’ve read there has been little about female friendship. This reading of mine coincided with Star’s illness making me acutely aware, reading to try and find something that spoke to the unique bond we had. I didn’t find it, so I started to write. To write to not forget. To write about a bond I would never have again.

An Exit

It must have been Fall in Hollywood. A season made distinct by its dryness and lack of green on the hillsides. I was wearing a sweater my grandmother knit me out of scratchy acrylic yarn. It was navy blue with yellow dots and a big koala bear clinging to a tree trunk. She copied it from one Princess Diana wore. I mostly wore it because I felt an obligation to wear the things she made me with such care. Star and I were standing in the small concrete courtyard of the Girl's Club where we each went after school. I remember standing on top of a picnic table in my own kid world, and then suddenly she was there and I am looking down at her face. There was one tree with tiny leaves. She had braces and blonde hair that ended at the top of her shoulders, long bangs. She had a child’s body then, a small chest and no waist- our little girl bellies. I’m not sure how we started spending all of our time together, but something was sealed that day, in spite of the fact that we went to different schools. Recently I asked her what she knew about my mom and why I moved in with my dad in Los Angeles the year we met, as a way to learn what I might have shared or known myself at that time. She said that I told her that my mom went crazy. I wonder who had told me that, or how I already knew to easily associate that word with women.

Star had to wear a headgear after school and at night. A navy blue strapped torture device that went over her head and locked into her braces with metal hooks. It left the corners of her mouth raw and crusty. I felt sorry that she had to wear it and was so uncomfortable. Her parents were divorced. Her dad’s girlfriend was Australian and designed clothes for Esprit, so Star’s wardrobe was enviable. I couldn’t get my dad to buy me anything at that store and I coveted all of it. The store was on Santa Monica Boulevard in the building of what was an old roller disco that had formerly been Flipper's Roller Boogie Palace that attracted an eclectic mix of drag queens, punks, and disco freaks. My dad took me to the Esprit store once, it was a big grey raw concrete building with brightly colored metal railings. I wanted everything, the sweatshirt with pastel letters, the rayon prints, the tote, and we left empty handed.

Star lived mostly with her mom Pat in a small ground floor one bedroom apartment on Los Feliz Blvd. Pat slept on a daybed in the living room when I slept over and gave us the bedroom. There were fabrics on the walls. In the small kitchen there was a dining room table which we never ate on. Pat made large bowls of popcorn in a metal mixing bowl dusted with Kraft orange powdered cheddar that came in a green shaker jar. We would grab fingerfuls and swirl them around the bowl to get as much cheese as we could. Their living room was alive. We listened to records and Pat helped us make up dance routines to Bananarama and The Cadets “Stranded in the Jungle.” She wanted to get us on the TV show Puttin’ On the Hits. Pat was thin and tan and had a laugh that took over her whole body. She never second guessed herself. She liked spending time with us, a feeling I didn’t get from many other adults. Being with them was my favorite place to be. They were buzzing with life. Even as a kid I felt the heaviness of my life in my body, and I wondered if I would ever rise with their energy. It was like they had the light hollow bones of birds.

Star and I tasted Pat’s Kahlua in that apartment. We mixed it with milk in dark glasses and it was delicious, warm and thick and sweet. Like a milkshake. I didn't ever want to stop drinking it. I had tasted sips of my dad’s margaritas at El Cholo but I had never made a whole drink for myself. And then we jumped on the twin bed covered with Indian fabric in the living room. Pat didn't know we had snuck the alcohol. We were eleven. She did know when I shaved my legs, and she sat on the edge of the tub and let me do it because I was curious. Me remembering the time I did it in second grade and my mom slapping me across the face when she found out.

My dad was DJ and nightclub promoter. He had an English import record store, a bipolar boyfriend, a decaying house in the hills, and a heroin habit. My mom told me he never wanted a child. He was glad to let Pat take us out in her beat up Volkswagen Karmann Ghia to plays, ballet classes, and the beach. My dad got us free tickets to all the concerts we wanted to see and take us with him. We’d wear bike shorts and large polka dot blouses, vintage dresses, black mini skirts, tights. One night my dad drove us to Irvine Meadows to see Siouxsie and the Banshees, his boyfriend in a silver metallic wig and outfit with platform shoes. It was in Orange County, which people referred to as a place behind the orange curtain, full of white conservatives and housing developments. We parked and some skinheads hanging out in the parking lot chased us screaming faggots, my dad said to run, so we did. No one talked to Star and I about it. Inside we had backstage passes and drank sodas. My dad had known Siouxsie and her band since I was a little kid. She drew a cat on the back of my jean jacket with a sharpie. They were one of the few bands that were happy to hang out with kids and would talk to us.

When Pat moved to a two-bedroom apartment next to the 101 freeway, Star had her own room. If we really wanted to we could walk to each other’s houses now even though it was a bit too far. We were thrilled to be closer to each other. We'd stay up at night late talking in bed. Pat had bought her a mauve colored glossy lacquer bedroom set with brass hardware. It was smooth and shiny and other versions of it were seen in every furniture window on Western Ave in the 1980’s. The small pool in the courtyard was never used. We went in once and it was cold with a layer of black exhaust dust on top of the water. I would sit on the couch while Star practiced piano and watch her long thin fingers run over the keys playing Debussy and Chopin. We’d lie in bed at night and make up stories about what it would be like when she married Dave Gahan and I married Martin Gore from Depeche Mode. My dad had taken us to see them a few times, but in my memory it’s just me and Star feeling like the girls in early Beatles footage physically overtaken our fandom. We didn't scream or convulse, but our insides were. There wasn’t a lyric we hadn’t memorized. I see her fist opening, her fingers like fireworks along with the synth beats and her golden blonde hair in stark contrast to our black clothing.

We spent a lot of time at the beach with Pat. Venice, Topanga, and Malibu. Sometimes she would have the red Chevy Malibu convertible from her boss who directed music videos. She was a producer. We’d take the long way on Sunset Blvd. avoiding the freeway rolling through Beverly Hills with the top down looking at the mansions with their unnaturally green lawns, singing Tears for Fears at the top of our lungs. Pat laughing but deep down in her belly, wearing big square glasses. We laid out on the sand and had tanning contests. I would burn and Star would get golden brown with sparkly golden hair on her legs and arms. She always won.

When I went to Cheremoya Elementary in sixth grade, a bus from another school would drop off kids in front. There was a group of skater boys that would walk by everyday and I thought one was cute. I passed him a note through the fence one day. That is how Star and I met Kadu, Kai, Delaney, Felix, and Lindsay. They all lived fairly close to my school, and Felix lived on my street, in between my house and Pat’s apartment. After a while I hung out with those boys every day and Star would when she was at Pat’s and not with her dad. Delaney was our fearless leader. He would yell “Adventure!” and we all followed him as he ran through other people back yards through the hillside, or behind the curtain at the Egyptian movie theater on Hollywood Blvd., or underneath the 101 freeway where there were little doors built into the hill that he called “Bethleham.” He would mash up pieces of wonderbread around a slab of butter and throw them into the microwave for a snack, he called them wonderballs. We’d listen to New Order’s “Subculture” 7” and torment his younger brother Courtney who was a metal head. His parents had this VHS of a film called Bob that we would all watch over and over. We had never seen anything funnier in our lives. It was basically just a copy of Hercules In New York starring Arnold Schwarzenegger who is already dubbed in the 1970 original, but this guy dubbed the whole thing to make it an absurdist comedy. It was perfect for eleven year olds. Delaney was Star’s first boyfriend. One time Pat put us all in a Beach Boys video when they tried to make a comeback. We had to dance in our bathing suits on Venice Beach to their terrible song “Rock N Roll to the Rescue” all day. Star was wearing a yellow one piece. Drew Barrymore was also in the video. We buried Star and Drew in the sand and they lip synched the song while bobbing their heads back and forth. I danced uncomfortably in my turquoise bathing suit with fake Keith Haring drawings printed on it.

Star and I had tiny brown brontosaurus stuffed animals my dad bought us when he took us to the Museum of Natural History. We named them Bebe and Babette. We shared clothes. I couldn’t bear a weekend going by without seeing her. Can you beg your mom, ask again? I could never take no for an answer.

One day she was at my dad’s house. We were playing upstairs in my mint green and pink bedroom. The carpet was brown and mottled. I had posters of Depeche Mode, The Smiths, and Marilyn Monroe on my walls. There were two small windows covered in vines so there was no natural light. Clothes all over the floor. We heard the phone ring and then the answering machine picked up, Pat’s voice saying she was coming to get Star right away. My dad didn't pick up. Star and I made our way downstairs wondering what was wrong. Pat parked and walked across the terracotta tiled porch to where Star stood and embraced her. It must not have been summer, Pat was wearing a coat. She told us right away that the clinic had called back. They had given Pat the wrong results last week and her HIV test was in fact positive. Her ex-boyfriend had died just a couple weeks before, a man Star didn't like that had been an addict and had a hard and fast relationship with Pat. She didn't know he was sick until just before he passed. Pat visited him once in the hospital. I had seen enough of my dad’s friends die or get the same results. I didn't want to lose her. I think that night my dad might have asked her to come in and stay for dinner. We probably ate pasta with a red veggie marina on the thick ringed Bauer pottery my dad collected. Plates Star and I had to wash on weekends. Dishes that had built up all week and had not been cleaned. Star and I were unusually quiet. Pat cried. We sat around the thick Spanish style dining table that came with the house. A little grotto built into the wall for wine that my dad put a statue of a catholic priest wearing a robe and holding a rosary inside. My dad knew this was really bad news for Pat. The worst part was that there was nothing any of us could do. The cruelty of her getting a negative result just a few days prior was not lost on any of us. It all seemed unbelievable. They went home heavy and small. And we waited. We waited years. We waited for them to conduct clinical trials on women. We waited for her body to be overtaken with some complication from the virus. We waited for death. But she fought and it didn’t happen. She became a grandmother. She was at my wedding and my baby shower. She went to the jazz festival in New Orleans every year. She got more beautiful. She had a rule that she would plan another trip as soon as she came home from one. She worked hard. Bought a condo in Santa Monica. She had lovers, friends, and a life that kept growing.