frenzy

The flourescent death-lighting at Payless Shoes commands me to spray my friend's face with my bottled water. Standing apart (with the bottle capped), I instead watch her cherrypick through plastic wallets, enamel butterfly clips and extra-felt-up sunglasses. "We must get these!" she clucks, baiting the hook of an extended finger with a pair of Iceman shades. I follow their hypnotic pocketwatch tick-tock and catch a fishbowlled reflection on the dirty lenses: a double-feature of my dour face.

There's so little rhythm in our girl-pairing. The hummy patter, the dressing room gossip-summits and yerba-mate micromanaging of secrets...I try it all on for size, and I'm pinched. I'm a ladyfriend impersonator, her drag-friend for hire...or maybe just a drag.

My closest girlfriends and I tend to be loners in our own snowglobes 'til Fortune gives the shelf a firm whack! and we tumble to the floorboards together, wet and surprised. Mostly, they're girls who don't wear clothes if they don't have to. Girls who ended up dating their older bro's most delicious friend...and then the ugliest bro-friend (who hid a knife in his hiking boot).

They grew up fast, these girls, and they grew up wise and pretty, too...S.S., J.F., S.T., R.C., C.D.

We circle, we nudge, and then we play. And when we part ways, it's with the knowledge that the shelf might shake at any given moment.

fell on 2005-11-13 at 4:16 p.m.

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