of people to, like, eat lunch with in the cafeteria, but I definitely never had a best friend, and I’m not sure how it works.”
“How what works?”
“Like, becoming best friends. Do you have to say something, confirming that you’re best friends?”
“Are you asking me whether we’re best friends?”
“Well, yeah. I assume you’ve had a best friend before, so you know, generally, how it goes.”
Amy thought about it for a second. “I’ve had close friends, for sure. But mostly I’ve had boyfriends. You always think they’re your best friend, but that’s obviously bullshit.”
“Yeah. If you’re having sex with someone, they’re not your best friend.”
Their cigarettes were almost done; Amy poured a little bit of wine into one of the empty plastic soy sauce cups and stubbed hers out in this makeshift ashtray so as not to further befoul her new deck. “Is this … are we having the DTR conversation?”
“The … wait, let me guess what it stands for. Determining … No. Defining? Defining The Relationship?”
“Yeah!” said Amy.
“Yeah, we are. Sorry, I just … Look, it’s okay if you don’t feel the same way. But you’re my best friend. And I guess I just wanted you to know that. No pressure! Ha!”
Bev’s tone was casual, but when Amy stole another glance in her direction, she looked pained.
“Bev, of course you’re my best friend. It wouldn’t have occurred to me to say anything, but you are, for sure. I’d be lost without you. Like tonight, for example. I would have died of starvation, or gotten a second wind and tried to unpack boxes and then died of exhaustion. Or I would have gotten paranoid and barricaded the door with my one stick of furniture. Before you came over, I was feeling so unsafe here. Not for any good reason, but just because I felt alone. And now that you’ve been here, even when you go home, I won’t feel that way. I feel safe now because I know someone knows where I am and gives a fuck.”
“And it won’t change when you get a new boyfriend?”
“No. Will it change when you get a boyfriend?”
“No, and anyway, it’s impossible to imagine that happening.”
Amy shook the wine bottle, determined that there was still a little bit left, and divided it equally between their glasses. “Well, we’re still relatively young, you know? I’m sure all kinds of unimaginable things will happen.”
9
Several years full of unimaginable things later, Bev and Amy were lazing around in a borrowed beautiful house. They woke up late, and when they began to feel bored, around noon, they went out for lunch and a hike in Balsam Lake Mountain Wild Forest.
They started at the visitors’ center, where Bev talked to the park ranger about which would be the best hike for them considering their fitness level and the amount of time they had and which of the park’s attractions they would most like to see from the scenic overlooks. The park ranger and Bev instantaneously discovered that they were both fluent speakers of the language of useful people who are accustomed to communicating a lot of information simply and effectively to strangers. Amy had known this language at one point but had mostly forgotten it, in the same way she had forgotten her high school French.
Bev and the forest ranger looked at maps, and Amy stayed out of their way, wandering around in the visitors’ center, examining a slightly threadbare taxidermied owl, a chart that explained what the national park had looked like three thousand years ago, and some rusty pieces of metal that, at some impossible-to-imagine time in the past, had been the height of technology. Reading the word “technology” caused Amy to realize that she had left her iPhone in the car. She itched for it, just slightly.
When they reached the mouth of the trail, they paused as Bev squinted at the map. “So we kind of loop around the park; it goes next to the road for a little while, and then it’s a pretty steep climb
“How what works?”
“Like, becoming best friends. Do you have to say something, confirming that you’re best friends?”
“Are you asking me whether we’re best friends?”
“Well, yeah. I assume you’ve had a best friend before, so you know, generally, how it goes.”
Amy thought about it for a second. “I’ve had close friends, for sure. But mostly I’ve had boyfriends. You always think they’re your best friend, but that’s obviously bullshit.”
“Yeah. If you’re having sex with someone, they’re not your best friend.”
Their cigarettes were almost done; Amy poured a little bit of wine into one of the empty plastic soy sauce cups and stubbed hers out in this makeshift ashtray so as not to further befoul her new deck. “Is this … are we having the DTR conversation?”
“The … wait, let me guess what it stands for. Determining … No. Defining? Defining The Relationship?”
“Yeah!” said Amy.
“Yeah, we are. Sorry, I just … Look, it’s okay if you don’t feel the same way. But you’re my best friend. And I guess I just wanted you to know that. No pressure! Ha!”
Bev’s tone was casual, but when Amy stole another glance in her direction, she looked pained.
“Bev, of course you’re my best friend. It wouldn’t have occurred to me to say anything, but you are, for sure. I’d be lost without you. Like tonight, for example. I would have died of starvation, or gotten a second wind and tried to unpack boxes and then died of exhaustion. Or I would have gotten paranoid and barricaded the door with my one stick of furniture. Before you came over, I was feeling so unsafe here. Not for any good reason, but just because I felt alone. And now that you’ve been here, even when you go home, I won’t feel that way. I feel safe now because I know someone knows where I am and gives a fuck.”
“And it won’t change when you get a new boyfriend?”
“No. Will it change when you get a boyfriend?”
“No, and anyway, it’s impossible to imagine that happening.”
Amy shook the wine bottle, determined that there was still a little bit left, and divided it equally between their glasses. “Well, we’re still relatively young, you know? I’m sure all kinds of unimaginable things will happen.”
9
Several years full of unimaginable things later, Bev and Amy were lazing around in a borrowed beautiful house. They woke up late, and when they began to feel bored, around noon, they went out for lunch and a hike in Balsam Lake Mountain Wild Forest.
They started at the visitors’ center, where Bev talked to the park ranger about which would be the best hike for them considering their fitness level and the amount of time they had and which of the park’s attractions they would most like to see from the scenic overlooks. The park ranger and Bev instantaneously discovered that they were both fluent speakers of the language of useful people who are accustomed to communicating a lot of information simply and effectively to strangers. Amy had known this language at one point but had mostly forgotten it, in the same way she had forgotten her high school French.
Bev and the forest ranger looked at maps, and Amy stayed out of their way, wandering around in the visitors’ center, examining a slightly threadbare taxidermied owl, a chart that explained what the national park had looked like three thousand years ago, and some rusty pieces of metal that, at some impossible-to-imagine time in the past, had been the height of technology. Reading the word “technology” caused Amy to realize that she had left her iPhone in the car. She itched for it, just slightly.
When they reached the mouth of the trail, they paused as Bev squinted at the map. “So we kind of loop around the park; it goes next to the road for a little while, and then it’s a pretty steep climb
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