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Authors: Drusilla Campbell
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one, not even Ty, knew Roxanne better than Elizabeth.
On the first day of student orientation at San Diego State University, a searing hot Friday blowing up a Santa Ana wind, Roxanne
met Elizabeth Banks: best friends forever, soul mates, the daring duo. If they had met a few years earlier Roxanne would have
been distracted by Simone’s demands; a few years later and their lives would have veered off in different directions. Instead
they stood next to each other in line on a day when each was carbonated with excitement, full of hope and a little scared
but eager too for new experiences and someone to share them with.
They were as different as two eighteen-year-old girls from the poles of California could be. Roxanne tall and thin, buttoned-down
and orderly, Elizabeth a blue-eyed blonde, pretty in a preppy way, but with a flamboyantly slapdash personality that completely
contradicted her appearance. She lived by a collection of New Age beliefs she seemed to make up as she went along. Her parents,
Santa Cruz academics, and her two ungoverned youngerbrothers took Roxanne in like a stray and found in her orderly ways much to amaze and amuse them.
Elizabeth persuaded Roxanne to ditch orientation. They bought sodas and sprawled on a patch of yellowing lawn outside the
Aztec Center.
“Tell me everything about your life,” Elizabeth said.
No one had ever made such a request of Roxanne. She started talking and couldn’t stop. At one point she surprised herself,
saying, “If Mom had her way, I’d stay home and babysit Simone for the rest of my life.”
“Omigod! I’d die. I’d slit my wrists.” Elizabeth fell back on the grass, arms spread wide like a sacrifice, then sat up. “What
do you do for a life?”
For a long time that question had been living in the suburbs of Roxanne’s mind, but she had only surveyed it from a distance,
never let herself visit the possibility that life might hold more than caretaking her sister. The mantra that had calmed her
down and restored her patience when it flagged was all about the future. There would be time for that when she was out of
high school, was out of college, had a job and could support herself. On that hot day Elizabeth invigorated her like a breath
of Arctic air, announcing with the one hundred percent confidence that seemed to characterize her, “Your future begins today!”
Riding the energy of her new friend’s outrage, Roxanne went that same night to her stepfather, BJ, and asked him to intervene
for her with Ellen and persuade her to letRoxanne live in a dorm on campus instead of at home as originally planned. He agreed, and following several noisy discussions
with Ellen behind closed doors, he prevailed. As if Roxanne were moving to South America and not just across town, Simone
wept and screamed; and from then on she nagged Roxanne to come home, calling at all hours of the day and night. She was relentless.
Ellen offered money and a new car if she came back. In retrospect, Roxanne was surprised she hadn’t succumbed and knew she
had Elizabeth to thank.
A sluggish waitress in a hairnet and a ruffled white apron over a uniform the color of dried blood paused to refill their
coffee mugs.
When she had moved on, Elizabeth said, “You should have gone to Chicago. If Eddie were here I wouldn’t let him out of my sight.”
Elizabeth’s husband was a Marine in Afghanistan and had been gone for seven months. Early in his deployment Elizabeth had
gone through a time when she was fragile and couldn’t speak of Eddie without tearing up; now, after months apart, she had
learned a stoic resignation unimaginable in the vibrantly impatient girl Roxanne had met the first day of orientation.
“I’m such a jackass, Liz, going on and on when you’ve got real things to worry about.”
“This morning I thought I heard him say my name. It was a dream, of course, but you’ve got to pay attention todreams. You never know what
On the first day of student orientation at San Diego State University, a searing hot Friday blowing up a Santa Ana wind, Roxanne
met Elizabeth Banks: best friends forever, soul mates, the daring duo. If they had met a few years earlier Roxanne would have
been distracted by Simone’s demands; a few years later and their lives would have veered off in different directions. Instead
they stood next to each other in line on a day when each was carbonated with excitement, full of hope and a little scared
but eager too for new experiences and someone to share them with.
They were as different as two eighteen-year-old girls from the poles of California could be. Roxanne tall and thin, buttoned-down
and orderly, Elizabeth a blue-eyed blonde, pretty in a preppy way, but with a flamboyantly slapdash personality that completely
contradicted her appearance. She lived by a collection of New Age beliefs she seemed to make up as she went along. Her parents,
Santa Cruz academics, and her two ungoverned youngerbrothers took Roxanne in like a stray and found in her orderly ways much to amaze and amuse them.
Elizabeth persuaded Roxanne to ditch orientation. They bought sodas and sprawled on a patch of yellowing lawn outside the
Aztec Center.
“Tell me everything about your life,” Elizabeth said.
No one had ever made such a request of Roxanne. She started talking and couldn’t stop. At one point she surprised herself,
saying, “If Mom had her way, I’d stay home and babysit Simone for the rest of my life.”
“Omigod! I’d die. I’d slit my wrists.” Elizabeth fell back on the grass, arms spread wide like a sacrifice, then sat up. “What
do you do for a life?”
For a long time that question had been living in the suburbs of Roxanne’s mind, but she had only surveyed it from a distance,
never let herself visit the possibility that life might hold more than caretaking her sister. The mantra that had calmed her
down and restored her patience when it flagged was all about the future. There would be time for that when she was out of
high school, was out of college, had a job and could support herself. On that hot day Elizabeth invigorated her like a breath
of Arctic air, announcing with the one hundred percent confidence that seemed to characterize her, “Your future begins today!”
Riding the energy of her new friend’s outrage, Roxanne went that same night to her stepfather, BJ, and asked him to intervene
for her with Ellen and persuade her to letRoxanne live in a dorm on campus instead of at home as originally planned. He agreed, and following several noisy discussions
with Ellen behind closed doors, he prevailed. As if Roxanne were moving to South America and not just across town, Simone
wept and screamed; and from then on she nagged Roxanne to come home, calling at all hours of the day and night. She was relentless.
Ellen offered money and a new car if she came back. In retrospect, Roxanne was surprised she hadn’t succumbed and knew she
had Elizabeth to thank.
A sluggish waitress in a hairnet and a ruffled white apron over a uniform the color of dried blood paused to refill their
coffee mugs.
When she had moved on, Elizabeth said, “You should have gone to Chicago. If Eddie were here I wouldn’t let him out of my sight.”
Elizabeth’s husband was a Marine in Afghanistan and had been gone for seven months. Early in his deployment Elizabeth had
gone through a time when she was fragile and couldn’t speak of Eddie without tearing up; now, after months apart, she had
learned a stoic resignation unimaginable in the vibrantly impatient girl Roxanne had met the first day of orientation.
“I’m such a jackass, Liz, going on and on when you’ve got real things to worry about.”
“This morning I thought I heard him say my name. It was a dream, of course, but you’ve got to pay attention todreams. You never know what
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