I met her during my first (or maybe second) shift at our newly opened coffee shop. Staffed entirely by girls between 18 and 30, she was the rare over-thirty one. I was twenty-six.

Back then, I always dressed like a little doll. Black or tan skirts, Mary Janes, crisp button-down blouses that somehow avoided stains. They only smelled a bit funky… like cigarettes and old milk.

She came in wearing a black apron, but I remember the ear gauges, the Doc Martens, and the casually irreverent attitude laced with confidence. Dare I accuse her of arrogance? Maybe it was something else. She was self-possessed, striking (jet black hair, the perfect long bangs), and clearly more interesting than the rest of us. I had to make her my friend.

I was… basic. Exteriorly speaking, anyway. No one would guess the interior, and I still prefer it that way. It makes my selection of people who learn who I am (and love me) feel intentional and special.

When we closed together that night, I had one goal: make her laugh. And I succeeded. At the end of the night, I said, “Wanna get a drink?” Fully expecting a polite excuse or a no. Instead, she said:

“My brother’s a bartender at this place down the road. Let’s go.”

It’s funny, I don’t remember exactly how I said it, but after the second or third pour, I told her: “We’re going to be friends for a long time. I know it.”

She laughed like I was crazy.

That same month, we went to the Strawberry Festival. We bought cowboy hats and sang loudly, laughably and passionately to The Band Perry’s “If I Die Young” live (her interior was nuanced, too). We ate fried Oreos and rode the Ferris wheel and—

I miss you, babe.

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