The Life List (The List Trilogy) - By Chrissy Anderson
Inhale
February, 2001
I’m standing in front of hundreds of people giving her eulogy. Even though I’m the one doing all the talking, I’m not standing up here all by myself. My two remaining best friends are on either side of me holding firmly onto my hands. For once, I’m the strong one in the middle, and they’re counting on me to hold them up. I had three best friends, but one is in the casket behind me. She died when she was only thirty-one years old.
I begin by describing the relationship the four of us had, what each of us offered to the other, how the three of us will never be the same after suffering such a tragic loss, blah blah blah. I’m keeping the eulogy lighthearted and short because in the audience sits a scattering of schmucks from my high school days, and I don’t want to ruin my makeup in front of them. I haven’t seen most of these people for nearly fifteen years, and I know that a few of them are just dying (no pun intended) to get a glimpse of me and my two remaining best friends in all of our pain and agony. You see, back in the day, we were “the shit,” and I’m sure there are more than a handful of folks in the pews who we pissed off, humiliated, dissed… you name the crime, and I’m sure we committed it.
I look up and see several of those familiar faces, and relief washes over me as I confirm, one by one, that I look better than all of them. My friend in Heaven is most likely laughing her ass off because this is exactly the kind of moment she and I got the most enjoyment out of. No, we wouldn’t enjoy the funeral part, but after the service we would’ve driven straight to a bar, hunkered down with a bottle of wine, and picked every single person apart. Had our old classmates brought their children, we would’ve criticized them too. No one would’ve been off limits. She and I have been each other’s best source of gossip and useless information for eighteen years, and the thought of living without that connection suddenly makes me want to launch into full blown tears-exactly what I didn’t want to happen in front of these people!
All of the sudden, my eulogy comes to a halt and the grip I have on my two friends’ hands tightens as I try to process the questions that are shooting through my brain. Who will I call when my favorite person gets voted off of that new show Survivor? Who’s gonna help me determine the next body part to have surgically altered? Who am I going to call when Angelina Jolie and Billy Bob Thornton expectedly split up? There is no one. I tell myself to breathe, just keep breathing.
I turn slightly to look at her shiny pearl white casket, which I’ve done an exceptional job of ignoring until this very moment, and I can hear the collective gasp from the crowd in front of me as they anticipate one of my classic meltdowns.
I try to gain control of myself, but it’s nearly impossible. She’s in that box! How am I breathing and she’s not? This is not right. Oh shit, Oh shit, I have to breathe. I feel my facial muscles tighten, and I can’t find a drop of moisture in my mouth. What’s she wearing? Is her skin shriveling away? Is my letter in there with her? Would it be horrible if I walked over and took a peek?
Choking back tears, my focus turns back to the crowd when, thank God, I notice the one guy from high school I regret not having made out with. Wow, he got really fat. I instantly regain my composure. I’m not about to give him or any of these other people the satisfaction of seeing me flub this moment, her moment…our moment. It’s what they would expect. I want to be everything they hope I’m not: articulate, admirable, classy. I want to wipe away their confused looks as they wonder why I’m the one speaking. Mostly, I want them to see that despite my seemingly colossal screw ups, I’m extraordinary.
To maintain my composure, I channel Patsy. You know, that glamorous friend of Debra Winger from the movie Terms of Endearment.
Debra Winger plays a woman named Emma and she gets cancer. Emma ends up dying from the disease, and it’s all very sad, but that’s not the point. Emma’s best friend, Patsy, is the point. Patsy was beautiful, independent and smart. She fled her stupid small town to go make something of herself in New York, and despite how opposite their lifestyles became, Emma and Patsy managed to stay best friends. I’m a Patsy. Unlike my friend in Heaven, right after high school, I left our crappy city of Fremont, California, or as I refer to it “Freakmont,” to live in the more exciting city of Palo Alto. Palo Alto was no New York, but it was a huge step up from Freakmont. There was a bridge separating the two cities, and the water between provided a wide enough gap for me to feel like I was a world away from my roots. Palo Alto is home to smart people, over priced retail stores, fancy restaurants, and humungous houses that I still dream of living in. Freakmont has row after row of cement grey strip malls housing stores like Beedazzled, TJ Maxx, and Miller’s Outpost. It also has more Jack-in-the-Boxes than I can count, and it’s home to street after street of low income apartment complexes. Okay, okay, I stand corrected. Most of them aren’t low income, but any apartment complex outside of Manhattan is low income to me. I used to love Freakmont…when I was in high school. Many of my best (although drunk) memories are from those years. But to remain in Freakmont after graduation would have resulted in me becoming either a teacher, a hair stylist, or if I really applied myself, a manager at Albertson’s. In retrospect, two out of the three of those careers would’ve afforded me a comfy retirement package and medical coverage for life, but I would’ve rather been a homeless, toothless geriatric begging for money and peeing herself while roaming the streets of a cool city than take the safe route and stay in Freakmont post high school.
I’m about to continue speaking and then uh-oh…I see some of my old high school teachers. There’s the one who said I would never amount to anything, the one who recommended I become a flight attendant, and the big a*shole who threatened to delay the graduation of our entire senior class because… Well, this is actually a funny story and I’m gonna deviate from the eulogy for a moment to tell it to you…
I have a brother who’s two years older than I am, and back in high school I would study off of his old exams to prepare for mine. Clever, right? Well I got even cleverer when I decided to sell copies of one of those old tests. And it wasn’t just any old test; it was a copy of his senior year economics final. I charged $3 for a copy of the test if I liked you, $5 if I didn’t, and $7 if I had never heard of you before. I also created an elaborate system to protect myself in case someone got caught with a copy. I chose two people I trusted with my life. Isn’t it amusing how you think you can trust someone with your life when you’re in high school? Anyway, those two people, my middlemen, were the only ones who knew I was the originator of the test, and I relied on them to keep my identity a secret. I gave them 20 tests at a time to sell so it was easy for me to track cash flow. Let’s be real, I trusted them with my life but not my cash! I let my middlemen choose two of their own people, the distributors, to sell the test and handle all of the cash transactions. I’m not sure how essential the distributors were, but I really enjoyed having a staff. I even promised everyone a bonus of movie theatre tickets if at least 250 tests were sold, because I’m a firm believer in incentives to keep people motivated!
And then something so wonderful, so miraculous, so beyond every senior’s imagination happened! The test administered to us was THE EXACT SAME ONE AS THE TEST I SOLD! I was already a popular girl, but in one hour I became a legend. I ended up making over a grand in cold hard cash. The team and I were happy and rich and hundreds of seniors were skipping around in jubilation… for about a week. The jig was up once the economics teacher realized 265 out of 300 seniors got an A on the final. That bastard (who’s now sitting four pews back, second from the left) interrogated every single senior one by one; eventually one of my middlemen fell victim to his tactics and narked me out. I was in big trouble, but I fought back. I argued that I shouldn’t be blamed because his lazy ass couldn’t come up with any new test material in the last two years. I contended that he should’ve praised me as a savvy young business woman with an entrepreneurial spirit. For f*ck sake, didn’t he see the economics in what I was doing?! Nope, it became a big to-do. He turned the fate of the entire senior class over to the administration, and they threatened to delay our graduation until the issue got resolved. Didn’t they care that we already had graduation parties lined up, relatives flying in, and kegs hiding in the trunks of our cars? I felt an intense need to protect my staff, my payroll, and my quality customers, so I regrouped and used the proceeds of the sale of the test to distribute fliers and make posters that explained my side of the story. I screamed from my megaphone that it’s the work ethic and creativity of clever Americans like me who drive our elite economy, and I warned the economics teacher that he was in for the fight of his pathetic life. After I threatened to take the situation to the media, the administration became eager to do away with the whole mess. The decided punishment was that the senior class had to retake the final. I got a C- on the second test, but who cares. The valuable lesson I learned at a young age was to never back down to a bully. That, and to always state in fine print that all sales are final, and no refunds will be provided under any circumstances.
I suddenly feel really good about myself and calm enough to proceed with the eulogy. I stand proud in my three-inch black patent leather Via Spiga’s. My perfectly fitting Banana Republic pencil skirt has the cutest black satin stripe down the side. It really accentuates my small hips. My crisp white Calvin Klein blouse clings to my slender 5’6” body, and my pink cable knit sweater is tied loosely around my neck. My pearls are real, my legs have a fake tan, my blond hair is highlighted to perfection, and my skin is flawless, thanks to my overpaid esthetician. My eyes are ice blue and piercing through the faces of my past, and I’m actually enjoying it until they land smack dab on the one man that consumed most of it.
I saw him earlier when he drove up in his Porsche. That damn car. I can’t help but wonder if he bought it as some kind of last-ditch effort to get me back. I doubt it, since he hardly tried (at least not the way I wanted him to) when I left him that one, no wait, two…Jesus how many times did I walk out the door? So many that I lost count. He called right after my friend died. There’s still love there or maybe it’s a need to protect. Who knows, the break up is still so fresh. Our conversation wasn’t about what we went through over our last three years, but what she went through over her last one. It was bittersweet to finally have something else to talk to him about. He didn’t mention the other woman at all, and he didn’t ask about the other man. Not out of character for him to ignore the big pink elephants in the room, but I have to admit, for once it was a relief. At the end of the phone call he told me he had some pictures of the gang- the gang being the two of us, my best friends, and their husbands. He thought I might like to have them, and why not look at them together…over coffee. I cautiously accepted his invitation.
He’s dressed too casually for a memorial service and for a second it irritates me. It’s as if I had no impact on him during the time we were together. I never would’ve allowed him to show up to something like this wearing jeans. But this is how he is, and people have always found his casual approach to things endearing. I guess I have to admit, now that I don’t feel responsible for his actions, I kinda I find him a little endearing too.
He’s excessively handsome. I mean, really, one would not think it possible to cram so many striking features onto a man unless you saw it for your own eyes. If looks were all that mattered, I might still be with him. Unfortunately it wasn’t long after we moved in together that I couldn’t even see what he looked like anymore.
Now that the dust has settled, I can see him again, standing at the back of the memorial hall, dead center between the pews. He’s concentrating on every word I say, and it almost looks like he’s in pain. He should be. She was his friend too.
I’m at the part of the eulogy where I describe the relationship my deceased friend had with her husband, and my gaze shifts to the poor guy. It’s an unbearable sight. He’s shifting around in his seat like it’s taking all of his self-control not to run to the bathroom and throw up. At sixteen they formed a bond that was intimate and deep, and from the moment they met I was no longer her closest companion. When we were younger, my other two best friends and I would criticize their relationship. It wasn’t until I grew up that I could admit to myself that I was jealous of what they shared for over 15 years. And right now, especially, it’s worth noting; If you’re lucky enough to find your soul mate, you should treat them like you would die without them. You never know when either one of you is gonna the kick the bucket.
Ahhhh, there’s my mom trying to hide in the back of the room. She’s clinging tightly to my father and, of course, she’s wearing her trademark black sunglasses. I’ll let her get away with that look today because, after all, it’s a funeral. But normally, rain or shine, indoors or outdoors, day or night, those suckers are glued to her face. She thinks she’s hiding from the world when she wears them, but they just draw more attention to her.
Those damn sunglasses have always made me sad. They’re like her outward symbol of her inward insecurities that none of us- my brother, my dad, or I- have been able to alleviate, no matter how beautiful, smart, and needed we tell her she is. She wasn’t gonna come today. Said it was because she didn’t think she could handle the pain of seeing my friend’s mother bury her daughter, but I knew it was because she was afraid her sunglasses wouldn’t be big enough to hide behind. I stood my ground and told her she had to go… for me. And look, she showed up…for me. I will always give my mom first right of refusal for kissing my boo-boos. But on the days when her sunglasses are too small to do it, I have two remaining friends who can. And with that thought, my grip on their hands tightens once again.
I conclude the eulogy and I stand at the podium for a moment longer to take it all in. I turn to look at her casket, and a tiny smile forms on my perfectly lined lips. I’m overwhelmed with the guiltless knowledge that if it wasn’t for her agonizing death and all that it taught me, I wouldn’t be as happy as I am today.