8-4-02, Side Streets, Kimra Traynor Herb
I Promised Never to Marry Him
By Kimra Traynor Herb
IPS Features
This is what my
best friend from high school remembers about me: "You had decided that it
would be a great idea to put clear nail polish on your lips."
I shake my head.
This memory eludes me. Perhaps I have blocked it out; I don't like the sound of
the fifteen year old me advocating such dumb beauty maneuvers.
"Then,"
Jenny, I mean, JENNIFER, continues, "you were admiring yourself in the
mirror; showing me how shiny your lips were; a great big smile on your
face."
I still cannot,
for the life of me, remember this incident, though my lips seem to twitch with
the burn of the nail polish, empathetically. "When
the nail polish started to harden....." Jennifer pauses dramatically,
"you freaked out. Your lips started to crack and you ran around the house
screaming until your parents got mad at me- I guess they thought it was my idea
or something- and told me that I had better go home."
"Hmmmm."
I laugh. "Sounds like me." I am reunited with my best buddy from high
school, and there is none of the awkwardness that normally s attached to such
reunions. Though it has been 21 years (I cannot get my ind around that figure;
not really; I still feel 21 YEARS OLD) since we ave seen each other; our
conversation is not stilted; it is like we have tored up all the really good
gossip until the next time we saw each other.
I cannot
remember why it is that we have allowed such a time expanse to elapse before
coming back together. During this awesome span of time; we have both given birth
three times (she to three girls; myself to three boys); she has gone from Jenny,
my unofficial teen psychiatrist, to Jennifer, actual Dr. extraordiaire;
pediatrician to families in the far off land of Utah. I, on the other hand,
having survived a grueling career in journalism, am now at work on my first
novel, juggling the ferrying of my three busy sons with the omnipresent call of
the written word.
"Do you
remember," Jennifer continues, as we watch our children frolic in the pool,
"how we used to lay out in my back yard; our bikinis would stretch from hip
bone to hip bone, both of us, and we would say," she remembers, "our
bathing suits will ALWAYS do this; we'll never gain an ounce."
I look over at
the really quite glamorous Dr. Jennifer who, I swear, looks like her bathing
suit would still stretch from hip bone to hip bone, unbroken by the
"bag" of flesh that my three sons have left as their mark between my
hips. I laugh to think of the presumptuous young me; certain that time would not
ravage my body in any way or manner.
I decide to
share my favorite memory of her: "You once told me, when I was wearing dark
underwear under a pair of white pants, never, ever to do so again; that they
showed through and people would notice." Jennifer doesn't realize how
pivotal this advice was in my life. It was so important, that not once, ever, in
the years since, had I put on a pair of white pants or shorts without thinking
of her good fashion advice. It was Jenny who had introduced me to Bonne Belle
lipgloss, Ten-O-Six lotion, VCR's, cheese popcorn, and the mellow tones of James
Taylor. Together we had experimented with new looks (both of us hopelessly late
bloomers in a world of buxom, overripe Southern girls), and talked though the
night about which boys were "cute" and which boys we'd like to kiss.
I think, as I
ponder this, that the reason we lost touch so quickly post high school is just
this: I fell in love very early with the boy who turned out to be the man who is
the love of my life. It was this boy that Jenny made me solemnly swear, my hand
held up, to "never marry Raymond Herb."
"Promise me
you'll never marry Raymond Herb." She said, her large, beautiful, bright
blue eyes as earnest as I had ever seen them. "Promise me."
"Oh, you're so silly." I said, laughing. "I am not going to marry
ANYBODY! You know that!"
Of course, I
unwittingly lied that day, and several years later was off to Maryland to finish
my college career and start a new life with a young Ensign by the name I had
promised to never take as my own.
I remind
Jennifer of that promise she sought from me as we reminisce, nearly a quarter of
a century later, and she waves her hand around us. "It seems to have worked
out okay for you." She laughs, and I join her. The years have softened the
horror of my broken promise; and our separate lives have stemmed from a common
friendship. We promise not to lose touch this time, really, and stare with
amazement at the collection of offspring we have managed to create. I am hopeful
as we become reconnected, that this time I can leave her with more important
memories than the time I wore nail polish on my young teenaged lips.