Amanda
This is a picture of me and my best friend, Kristen. We've known each other since kindergarten, when our mothers ran into each other- almost literally!- in the school parking lot. Afterward, while they were waiting for us, they got to talking and realized we lived only one block apart, which meant each of them could drop us off and pick us up half the time if they car-pooled and took turns.
It was like Fate.
We were destined to be inseperabe best friends. Kristen loves my mom just as much as I love hers. It's like we both have two families.
As kids, we used to share toys; now that we're teens, we've moved on to sharing makeup. On occasion we have been known to share homework. (don't tell the teachers!) We've always shared clothes. That's one of the main reasons to have a best friend! We once even shared a boyfriend- though that, honestly, was a bit of a test of our relationship. But then we figured you can get a boyfriend- especially one of Chuckie Zarpentine's quality- anywhere. But how often are you going to find a forever friend?! So we both dumped him.
This picture is from last summer. Every year for like, the last five years, Kristen's parents have rented an RV for a week at Darien Lake and- because they know better than to try to separate two best friends!- they invite me to go with them. Camping, swimming, enjoying all-week passes at the amusement park, being together day and night: It's like one, never ending pajama party for two.
You can see the Ferris wheel in the background. Kristen and I love riding on Ferris wheels! Notice how we're wearing matching Mickey Mouse t-shirts? "You're like twins," my mother said, then laughed, when she brought them home for us "separated at birth."
Kristen and I love those t-shirts.
Kristen
I know I sound like a cold, hateful monster when I complain about about Amanda. But, oh, those retarded Mickey Mouse shirts. I don't think I ever truly hated an article of clothing as much as I hated those. I mean, c'mon, we were about to start high school, not third grade- and they were secondhand from the Volunteers of America Thrift Shop. The one Amanda gave me had some sort of anonymous stain on the front, like maybe the previous owner had a problem with getting food into her mouth in any consistent manner, or maybe she just drooled a lot.
Amanda might or might not have noticed. She could be pretty hard on clothes herself. She was always borrowing my stuff and returning it with stains or spills or snags or stretched out waistbands. But "Be nice" my mother kept telling me, "The Morrison's haven't had as easy a life as we have It wouldn't hurt you to be bighearted."
The Morrisons. Poor husbandless, friendless Mrs. Morrison, who worked at Stop and Shop in the afternoon and as a bartender in the evenings. Ever since they met, when she almost ran my mother down in the school parking lot (and any truly sane mother would have taken that as an omen), she and my mother were supposed to take turns driving us to and from school, But Mrs. Morrison was always calling to say, "Could you please drive the girls in tomorrow? I'm having to work the late shift, and morning comes around so fast when I haven't gotten home till 3 a.m. I mean, I could do it if you can't..." Or, "I know it;s my turn to pick the girls up, but I need to cover for one of the other cashiers, who didn't come in today..."
Even on days when she said she'd pick us up, Amanda's mother wasn't reliable. After she forgot us at school two or three times, my mother learned to hang around the house around the house two forty-five or three o'clock so I could call her, just in case. Don't tell me Mrs. Morrison didn't count on that.
"It's rough for her," my mother would defend her "With no husband and having to work two jobs." She didn't seem to mind Mrs. Morrison taking advantage of her, and she didn't seem to mind Amanda taking advantage of me.
Poor fatherless, friendless Amanda. Who only had me. Not counting my parents of course who always took her side.
"Ooh, I've never seen such a beautiful doll" Amanda would say, and my mother would nudge me, hard, until I would say "Oh well, I hardly ever play with her anymore. Would you like her?" Amanda never turned down anything my mother forced me to offer her, no matter how grudgingly I made that offer.
Or, "Ooh, that sweater is so soft. And it matches perfectly the stripe in that skirt my mother just got me at the consignment shop. You're so lucky. It's tough to get matching pieces secondhand." Always in front of my mother, Mrs. We-must-be-aware-of-our-standing-and-our-obligations-in-the-community. Mrs. Soft-touch. Mrs. Easy-mark.
Amanda always wanted to do whatever I was doing, be with who I was with. When we were younger, it was flattering, and there was a certain fascination for me to be at the Morrisons, since Mrs. Morrison believes the food pyramid consists of pizza, root beer, and chocolate, and in ever other way, too, is just about as apposite my mother as two people can be. But after a while, Amanda became almost a stalker. She joined the choir just because I did, and the chess club, and the volleyball team. She'd ask to copy my homework; and if I didn't let her, it meant she'd get detention; and then I'd have to stay after, too, since we rode together, so what was the point of saying no?
Last year, after Chuckie Zarpentine and I had worked together for a week on our final joint economics report, then skated together for four couples-only numbers at Nellie Michaels roller-skating birthday party, and I was waiting for him to invite me to the last-chance-before-summer dance, Amanda went ahead and asked him to go with her. Like she hadn't heard me saying "Oh, I hope he asks me" every time he walked by for about two months.
I refused to talk to her for a week, then showed up at our house, crying and claiming she'd had no idea I'd been interested in Chuckie, offering to break up with him, begging to be friends again. Did my father, who may be a brilliant tax auditor, a church alderman, and a world-class Scrabble master catch on that she apologized only after the dance? That was when he invited her, yet again, to Darien Lake with us.
Amanda
Now that I'm dead, I find myself kind of floating rather aimlessly. If there are other dead people around, I'm not aware of them. And living people seem totally unaware of me. The first person I tried to talk to after the accident was- of course- Kristen, since she is, was, and always will be my best friend. I was sure if any two people could connect the world of living with the world of dead, it would be us.
Nothing.
I tried my mother, not before and after she was told of my death. Nothing there either. I tried my deadbeat father. No wonder my mother left that creep. I even tried talking to the guy who had run me over with his car. What's the good of being a ghost if you can't even haunt the person who killed you on Halloween night?! There's nothing- besides me- in the world of the dead. And in the world of the living, I can pass through walls, but I also pass through anything I try to pick up- unless I give it my absolute, total, don't-even-don't-even-think-about-thinking-of-anything-else concentration.
But I can be single minded. It's one of my best attributes. I concentrated with all my being, and- eventually- I was able to pick up this picture that my mother had tucked into the coffin with me. I was able to take the picture out of my dead hands and up into my spirit hands. I am bringing it to Kristen to comfort her in her sorrow. To let her know that not even death can separate us.
Kristen
I didn't mean to kill Amanda.
We were walking home from Charlotte Olsen's Halloween party because Mrs. Morrison was supposed to pick us up, but- surprise!- she hadn't shown up. Meanwhile, my parents were at a tax auditor's Halloween party for my father's company (one can only imagine how fun that was), and it was too embarrassing- half an hour after everyone else had left and Charlotte was sitting on the couch yawning so hard her jaw was cracking- to ask her to wake up her parents so they could drive us a few blocks to our houses.
Amanda was wearing an outfit that was supposed to make her look like a rock star, because that was what I had told her I was going as. But I've known Amanda for ten years, so I saw that coming, and all along I'd been planning on dressing like an Egyptian princess, which I'd seen in the window of a costume rental place. But when I showed it to my mother, she said it was too expensive and I could put together a princess costume from some of the fabrics she had stockpiled for projects she'd never gotten to.
Princess, of course, is totally different from Egyptian princess, but my mother pretended to be oblivious to the nuances. So I went dressed as trailer-park trash, which meant, basically, I dressed like Amanda, which- I know, I know- was cruel, and I'm totally ashamed of myself. But in my own defense I can honestly say that anyone can always count on Amanda, also, to be oblivious to nuances I even wore the Mickey Mouse shirt, and my only excuse is that I was in a foul mood because of my mother's lack of Halloween spirit.
So there we were, walking home together at almost one o'clock in the morning, and Amanda was going on and on about what a great time we always have at Darien Lake. She had pulled out of her purse that snapshot she carries everywhere and was telling me- yet again- how much alike we are. As if! She said, as she does each time she shows the picture to anyone "My mother has to take my word for it which of us is which." Yeah right, Mrs. Morrison, I'm the one with the pained expression because your daughter's got her arm around my neck in a stranglehold that would make the World Wrestling Federation proud. I'm the one with the green complexion because no matter how many times I tell Amanda "Amanda, I don't like Ferris wheels because I can't stand heights" she always insists that I got over my fear of heights last time and tells me what a really great time we had, and my parents say "Oh go on with her- rides are more fun for two than alone" and she drags me on, and I spend the next two hours feeling ready to puke.
So there we were on Halloween night, walking home in the cold and dark, and I was thinking I probably should have peed before leaving Charlotte's house, and Amanda was chattering on and on and on about how great the Ferris wheel at Darien Lake is because it goes so high up you can see just about all of the park spread out below you.
"Amanda" I said, talking over her because when she gets on a roll she doesn't even stop to take breath "I hate Ferris wheels."
"No you don't" she corrected me "They're fun." She was walking on the edge of the curb, balanicng herself like a tightrope walker. She said "People need to get their adrenaline going once in a while. Ferris wheels are a good kind of scare."
"Like this?" I said. And I shoved her. I thought she'd totter on the curb, her adrenaline going. In the darkest recesses of my heart, I even suspected that, taken unawares, she might fall off,
I never saw the car.
I never, ever, saw that car.
And I'd give anything- anything- to take that moment back.
Amanda
Of course I know Kristen didn't want to hurt me. Best friends don't want to hurt each other! That's why with total, absolute concentration I've worked so hard until I've been able to move the picture from my coffin to the stairs by her bedroom. She'll bend down to see what it is, and she'll know I've forgiven her. Then with total, absolute concentration, I'll push her. And then I won't be alone anymore, We'll be together forever and always.
Just the way best friends are meant to be!