I met her in 2004

I met her in 2004, the year that Cecily graduate from college. I remember watching her in my thesis writing class. The first day she came in late, her hair blown in from the wind, wispy, brown hair in a crazy mess. There was something about her, that you couldn’t put your finger on, something ethereal that she carried with her in those days. With her books in her hands, she breezed into the small classroom and sat down in one of the tiny desks.

During the semester we got to know each other slightly better, sitting in the hallways before class gossiping about our professors, discussing the theories of anthropology, film, and bullshitting, giggling about the handsome teacher’s assistances that would troop to down the halls noses high. But we didn’t really get to know each other. I was always so mesmerized I forgot that she was a person sometimes, rather a mystical being that has some how managed to sail into our uncharted territory.

It was in graduate school that I really got to know Cecily, began to see the beginning and the end of the beautiful nymph. Although we weren’t in the same programs, we went to the same school. One day in the bathroom, we ran into each other. We mused about the old days, the halls of Berkeley, the professors, the theories, the teacher’s assistances. She was magical still, but like a picked flower, slowly wilting. Before she went in the stall, she handed me a piece of paper, with her number scribbled on it. “Call me,” She whispered, “I missed you.”

A few months later I was cleaning off my desk preparing to do some work on a twenty-page paper for my class when I came across her number again. Crumpled up and the ink had run, but her number was still legible. I remember her from that day in the bathroom. My friend was less like a nymph and more like a deer with her hair wet from the rain, plastered to her forehead, large brown eyes, and a meek face.

I picked up the phone. I had never talked to her outside of school. The thoughts tumbled through my mind. Did she really want me to call? Or did she give me her number out of pity? After a few seconds of debate I dialed the number and listened to the rings echo on the other side. I held my breath. The answering machine picked up. “Cecily here, leave a message.”

A few hours later, the phone rang and I heard her voice tiny on the other end. She sounded smaller than she did in person. “I didn’t think you would ever call.” I explained that I had lost her number. Maybe I had misplaced it or been too frightened to call her, but I didn’t tell her that. We chatted a while and arranged a coffee rendezvous’ for the next week.

At the coffee shop, I waited for Cecily while twisting my purses handles between my fingers. I didn’t know why I was so nervous. We had known each other for a long time, but never as one on one friend, always as acquaintances that pass by each other and say hi. When she came through the door late, I let a sigh out with the gust of wind. She sat down next to me with her coffee. Her face was tired. We talked. No giggling, just serious one on one talking. She told me, her mother had died last year, and her boyfriend had broken off her engagement. She was in the German program but she didn’t know anymore what her purpose was. “I feel like a leaf, just floating around where ever the wind takes me, with no direction.” She said softly. I asked how I could help and took a sip of the bitter coffee.

After that coffee meeting we began meeting every week for coffee. She would talk and I would listen. And then sometimes we would switch roles. The chit-chat wasn’t always depressing, but our friendship brought us closer, she became more earthly, more sullen, and I became stronger and slowly we fell in love with each other.