THE BEST OF FRENEMIES

Everyone probably has a childhood memory of a friend—or an enemy – that remains with them despite the passage of time. For me, that person was Ann. Ann was what my mother called a wild child and for some reason, she hated me. I only discovered why decades later.

Although we both belonged to the Eel River Beach Club and took swimming and diving classes together, we didn’t spend time together outside of school until junior high, when we played sports. Her closest friends were her sisters and friends that lived in an area known as Chiltonville, several miles from where I lived.

In junior high, Ann went out of her way to be nasty to me, forcefully bumping into me whenever we met and making snide remarks. “Little Miss Smarty Pants. You think you’re better than me.” The usual kid stuff, to which I never responded because I wasn’t a fighter. But I did wonder why she hated me.

Ann loved to challenge authority. One day in middle school, she mashed herself inside her full length locker and had a friend shut the door. The bell rang, and we all went inside our home room – without Ann, of course. The teacher took attendance and noted the absent Ann.

            “Ann. Where is Ann?”

            “Outside in the hall,” several of us replied.

 The teacher went out of the room, ostensibly to look for Ann in the corridor, then came back in, saying, “No she’s not.”

            “She’s in her locker.”

            Another visit to the hall. “No, she’s not.”

            “She’s IN her locker.”

            We heard the locker door open, and then, “GO DRECTLY TO THE PRINCIPALS OFFICE.”

  That is the Ann I remember.

 Ann was especially mean to me on the school bus. She and a cadre of other kids from Chiltonville were the first to be picked up by the bus in the morning. I was one of the last pick-ups and drop-offs on that route. Ann made a habit of moving her friends around in the bus so she could sit next to me on the way home. This allowed her to kick me in the legs and elbow me in the side at will. I took it, and eventually, not getting a response, she would stop. Still, I had bruises and my fuse got shorter. Frenchy Roubidoux drove the Chiltonville bus for all my years in junior and senior high, a man who always wore a newsboy cap and who came up to my shoulder on a good day. He’d fought in World War II – or at least that was the student rumor. Frenchy always had a smile and greeted us by name, and I knew he knew what Ann was doing but figured we would work it out. One day, on the way home, my fuse lit. When Ann kicked me, I hauled off and kicked and pushed her so hard she fell on the floor. Frenchy stopped the bus and walked back to where Ann laid sprawled in the aisle.  

            “She kicked me!” Anne whined, bringing up some real tears and looking a little surprised.

            “And well-deserved,” replied Frenchie. “Do you think I don’t know what you’ve been doing to her?” He pulled her up and marched her to the front of the bus. “Get off. You can walk home.”

The bus riders gave an audible gasp, since we were more than two miles from her house. I remember looking back and seeing her standing forlornly by the side of the road. Silence reigned in the bus for the rest of route. We’d never seen Frenchy lose his temper. I quietly thanked him when I got off.

Ann never hit or kicked me again, and we played amicably as teammates on the high school field hockey and basketball teams. We even occasionally exchanged words. I found that I admired her wildness, her athletic ability, and I loved listening to her adventures, things I would never, or could never, dare do.

I remember being at a slumber party with her and some other friends during our junior year. Sometime after midnight, she exited via a second story window, climbing down an outside trellis, in order to spend the night with her boyfriend. She climbed back in around seven AM. No one said a word. Soon after, her parents sent her away to a boarding school, but apparently she was just as willful there, because she was back for her senior year.

My mother told me many years later that Ann had stolen some money when she was at our house for a day when we were both very young, something I didn’t remember at all. Ann’s mother made her come back and apologize, and Mom said that might have been why she hated me. That and the fact her mother held me up as an example of the girl she wanted Ann to be – polite with good grades and little trouble. In other words, a nerd. Too bad for Ann, because I was actually far from perfect. In retrospect, I don’t blame Ann for feeling the way she did, but I sure wish I’d known at the time. Maybe we could have been friends instead of frenemies.

Anne developed cancer in her forties, and, after what my classmates said was a brave fight, died. On a whim, I went to see her mother when I was in Plymouth for my fiftieth high school reunion. We had a nice chat about Ann and I asked where she was buried. He mother gestured to the barn where they kept their horses. I drove down and found a stone bench with her name on it.

I sat on the bench for a moment, thinking about our troubled relationship, and realized why I had fashioned the main character in my mystery books after her, the feisty, challenging frenemy of my childhood.