Girl Growing
Elise is standing in front of her dresser mirror, a tangerine in one hand, a wad of Kleenex tissue in the other. Her dark-eyed reflection stares back at me beneath a fringe of stylish blond-brown bangs. In our fifth-grade class, Elise is a golden goose amid the rest of us awkward ducks, with her pert nose and movie star mole at the corner of her mouth.
“Tangerine or Kleenex?”
“I don’t know,” I tell her. “Try both.”
Elise is already eleven. I have another six months to go until my birthday. Though I am a head taller than Elise (than everyone), when it comes to sophistication, I am Elise’s diminutive sidekick, which is okay by me. Elise is my best friend and right now she needs my advice.
Pulling at the neckline of her cotton T-shirt, Elise drops the tangerine into her waiting training bra. Once the fruit is sequestered in its designated cup, the wad of Kleenex is similarly applied to the opposing cup. Hands on her hips, Elise rotates her body as she surveys her uneven profile. Squishing her mouth to one side so that her mole punctuates the center of her face, she glances back at me wanting to know which of the two implants looks better. I stifle a giggle and answer honestly, “Neither.”
Undaunted Elise pulls out the tissue, grabs the spare tangerine off the dresser and stuffs it down her shirt. With the tangerines orbiting her chest like minor planets, Elise announces we are ready to meet the boys waiting in the cul-de-sac to play kick the can.
***
It’s Valentine’s Day. Elise and I are back in her bedroom, this time consoling one another over the last-minute cancellation of our first ever coed dance. Not all is lost: the two boys we were supposed to rendezvous with at the dance are now meeting us at the pizza parlor instead.
Elise thinks the outing constitutes a date. I’m not so sure. As with the tangerines, she ignores my opinion, and decides—yes, this is a date, the first of many. Before we leave, Elise, who is the least sensitive person I know, surprises me with a sappy Hallmark Valentine’s card. Depicted on the front is a snowman surrounded by four doe-eyed children. Across the top are the words: “Time doesn’t fade, but only endears, true friendships made throughout the years.” At the bottom, in handwritten letters are the words: “Example Holly & Elise.”
I spend the night with Elise, and the next morning we part ways for the long Presidents’ weekend, promising to see one another the following Tuesday. Both of us are headed on ski trips. I’d been invited to go with Elise but my parents said no. Elise’s father, who is divorced from her mother, has a private plane. That morning, he is flying up from Southern California in order to pick up Elise and her little brother, Rick, for the trip to Big Bear. On the way, Elise’s dad will stop for her friend Kerri, which makes me jealous.
***
The Tuesday after Presidents’ weekend arrives. Under overcast skies, I go to school. Elise never shows. That afternoon, I’m in my room doing homework when my mother walks in and takes a seat on my twin bed. She has something to tell me and asks me to sit down beside her.
I am tracing a chenille flower on my white bedspread when my mother tells me Elise is dead. There was a plane crash. Everyone on board died. It happened the day before when Elise’s father, piloting the plane alone, struck a mountain after takeoff. My father, who knows about aviation, told my mother to tell me Elise didn’t suffer. Crashes like this one, he said, kill on impact.
This is of little consolation to me as sit on my bed, stunned.
“What do you mean she’s dead?” I ask, explaining to my mother that Elise and I had plans for the next weekend, and sixth grade to finish. Elise was going to teach me to skateboard. I was going to lighten her hair with lemon.
Elise couldn’t be gone, not forever. When I tell my mother this she doesn’t argue, nor does she agree. Instead she tries to me hug me, which makes things worse. I tell her to leave me alone. When I start throwing my stuffed animals against the wall, Mom stands up and leaves, closing the door behind her. Grief and I will have to battle it out on our own—Mom can’t do it for me.
***
I am seated on one of the two twin beds in her room, eating stale Halloween candy, waiting for her mother to arrive. I’d reached out to Elise’s mom after the memorial service to see if I could come for a visit. We’d agreed that I would take the school bus to her house and that we’d spend the afternoon together. When I arrived, the door was open but Elise’s mom wasn’t there. Hungry, I went to the pantry Elise and I frequently raided for snacks and found the green apple taffy her mom had handed out while we readied ourselves for trick-or-treating a few months before.
The candy hurts my teeth but I eat it anyway. I’ve never been in a dead person’s room before. I’m not sure what to feel. The stale candy is somehow comforting, though I’m not sure why. Scanning the room, I take note of Elise’s skateboard in the corner and her favorite stuffed animal, Fluffy Dog, on the bed. I finger the purple leather shoelace tied around the dog’s furry white neck and remember how Elise, in a prescient moment, told me that if she died her best friend should have Fluffy Dog. I wonder if I should tell Elise’s mom about this when she arrives.
I pick up Fluffy Dog, expecting Elise to walk through the door any minute and take him from me. I know she won’t, but that doesn’t erase the feeling that she could.
I wait another forty-five minutes, leave Elise’s mom a note, and walk home. Much as I want to take Fluffy Dog with me, I leave him behind for now. I don’t blame Elise’s mom for forgetting our meeting. If I were she, I’d want to forget anyone associated with the loss of my children, too.
***
It’s raining outside the window of my son, Jack’s two-story bedroom where I freewrite first thing in the morning before heading into the office. Jack is the middle child of three, bookended by two sisters. As with his siblings, Jack lives on his own. Though his things still occupy the bookshelf beside me, the room is a shell of its former self. At some point soon it will be renovated with guests in mind—to quote my husband, “No one wants to maintain shrines to our children.” I agree, though I wouldn’t fault the parent who did, particularly one who lost a child.
It can happen to any of us, as I well know. There’s never been a time in all my years of parenting when I haven’t been mindful, and also guided by, thoughts of mortality—my own and also that of my children. Of everyone, really.
Some forty-plus years have passed since Elise’s death. Not a week goes by that I don’t think of her. That sappy Hallmark card she gave me was right: time has endeared our friendship. Though it’s mostly one-sided, I’d like to think I’ve upheld my end as far as Elise is concerned. By holding her memory close, I’ve extended her short life across decades. I have friends who have passed out of my life that my children will never know, but all three kids are keenly aware of Elise and how her death shaped their mother.
Elise’s death disrupted my childhood, if not terminated it entirely. It was not long after her death that I lost my virginity. Had I not been so numb from her passing, I might have fought harder to protect that last childhood vestige, but I didn’t. No longer innocent of death or sex, I struggled my way into adulthood. Though at times I didn’t like who I was or the choices I’d made, losing Elise had taught me that nothing was so bad that a new day couldn’t change.
As I sit at my son’s desk, I am reminded how fortunate I am for this new day that was not guaranteed when I went to sleep last night. I picture Elise seated beside me. It is February again. We are surveying the bare-branched persimmon tree on the other side of the fence with its lingering fruit. I ask if maybe the oblate persimmons would have been a more suitable choice for inside her training bra and the two of us have a laugh.
-Holly Hubbard Preston
Holly Hubbard Preston is a freelance journalist, radio/print essayist, and, most recently, published fiction writer. Her work has appeared in various mainstream publications, including the New York Times International Edition where she was a regular contributor for fourteen years, and also on NPR, through its San Francisco affiliate, KQED. A native Northern Californian, she lives in the Napa Valley where she raised three children while completing her debut novel, What Birds Know. To read/listen to other personal essays by the author please visit her website at hollyhubbardpreston.com. Twitter: @HollyHubbardPr2.