She's the ______ to my ______.

I decided not to like her the moment we met.

Her appearance completely clashed with my shallow friendship guidelines. I didn’t want to be seen with a pint sized brunette that wore studded belts with giant mouth shaped buckles and said insanely inappropriate things at inappropriate times. I didn’t want the other servers to dislike me either. I had a lot of bad habits at that time, but being a people pleaser was perhaps my worst. The girls that looked like “my kind” called her weird, though they had no problem laughing at her antics.

She didn’t seem to care that the female staff didn’t want much to do with her. She smiled, did the robot or the worm across the floor, flashed the kitchen boys, and went about her business. Occasionally I would have a section next to hers and watching and listening to her handle her tables was a learning experience. I’d been a waitress before, and I was a good one, but she could wipe the floor with me. By the time a group finished eating they weren’t just her customers, they were her friends, and they would come back and ask for her again and again.

Most of the serving staff was over 21 or damn near, but I’d only just turned 18. There was a bar right around the corner owned by a lecherous foreign guy that would let us in no questions asked. It became a ritual: Work till around 10-12, get off, sometimes change clothes, go to the bar with the others, get wasted, and go home around dawn. She never came with us, though I’m sure the guys probably invited her.

One Sunday morning, after a particularly rough all-nighter at the bar, I decided to call in to work. I was living alone at the time and hadn’t yet gotten a phone hooked up, so I drove the five minutes into town and called my manager from a payphone to beg off.

There were two managers, Brad and Ronnie. Brad was the GM and though he could be fun and had a mouth like a sailor, he didn’t tolerate any bullshit. Ronnie, on the other hand, was a lackadaisical pot head that liked to hide in the staff bathroom and smoke. If we ever needed anything while he was in charge, we had to hunt him down...follow the smell, as it were. They would both go out drinking with us occasionally.

I knew that I couldn’t use the “I’m sick” excuse because they were all well aware that I hadn’t left the bar until 6am. So when Brad answered, I said the first thing I could think of, “Dude, my car won’t start.”

“What the fuck!”

He bitched and moaned at increasing volume and I held the phone away from my ear.

“I had to walk to the payphone to call and tell you.”

After a few more seconds of swearing, he suddenly became quiet. I was terrified that he was going to fire me, but instead he shouted “RACHEL!”

“Rachel, can you go pick Alyson up? Her car won’t start!”

I heard a chirpy “Sure!” and then Brad said to me, “Here! Give Rachel directions to your house, she’s coming to pick you up!”

“But Brad”, I stuttered, “I live over half an hour away...”

“Can’t be that far”, he boomed, and handed the phone to her.

I reluctantly gave the girl I’d pretty much managed to avoid, until that moment, directions to my house. I warned her that it was a “long way”, but she said she was ok with that. I hung up, heaved a great sigh, and drove back home to get ready. In reality it was a 25 minute drive, but I was hoping she’d get lost. Most people did.

She made it in no time at all. I answered the door, said a sullen hello, and plopped down on the couch to put on my sneakers. She stood in the doorway and silently looked around. I was just finishing with the knot on my second shoe when she said, “There’s nothing wrong with your car, is there?”

I stared at her and she stared back, a small smile on her face. It was plainly obvious that I was miserably hungover so rather than deny it, even though I wasn’t yet sure of what she’d do with the information, I simply said, “No.”

Her grin got a little bigger, but all she said was “Ok”.

I grabbed my purse and apron and followed her out the door. She had a black Dodge Neon and I had a blue one, though hers was covered in band stickers and the like. We climbed in, she started the car, and heavy metal came blasting out of the speakers. I winced and she immediately turned it down, but even at low volume the squealing and wailing was enough to make my head pound.

I was trying to decide if I should suggest she turn it off or switch it to a pop friendly radio station, but I was worried that either option would be met with a disagreeable reaction. If we turned the radio off, the silence would be awkward; we’d have nothing to talk about. And the pop station route might make her laugh at me. Whether I liked someone or not, I still didn’t want them laughing at me and I had a feeling she would.

While I was having this internal battle she was pulling out of my driveway. My stomach growled. I hadn’t had time to eat before I left. Some people can’t eat when they’re hungover. I HAVE to. Even if it makes me feel worse.

I don’t know if she heard my stomach chewing on itself or not, but she turned toward me and said, “Hey, do you wanna go to Wendy’s?”

She was smiling at me in a mischievous way and I understood what she meant before she even explained. I grinned back at her. “Hell yes.”

And then we had an actual conversation. We talked about work, my hangover, how hungry we were, and the story we’d tell Brad when we returned. She would claim that she got lost on the way there and as added ammunition I would throw in that I had tried to tell him it was a long drive to begin with.

We went through the Wendy’s drive through and she surprised me again. “Let’s take this to the park.”

We sat on picnic benches, ate our food, and talked some more. She was funny and smart and completely different from what I imagined her to be. By the time we got to work I was ashamed of myself for the way I’d treated her before. I’d deliberately avoided her because of what she looked like and what other people said. I’d never thought of myself as a snob until that moment.

We were so late to work that I think we only had one table a piece before we left again. Poor Brad. We had a good laugh over his exasperation.

I continued to go out with the other people from work, but I started talking to Rachel a lot more. She even started coming to the bar. One of the girls that was supposedly “my kind”, Kelly, moved in with me because I was scared to be alone out in the middle of nowhere. Call it a hormone thing brought on by pregnancy (long story).

And wouldn’t you know it? “My kind” of girl turned out to be a cokehead that threw massive drug parties while I was spending the weekend at my mother’s. I kicked her out the minute I heard about it and found the evidence. (After I, at around 7 months gone, attempted to murder her at work.) Having a father that snorted your grocery and field trip money up his nose has a tendency to make you a little unforgiving in that department.

When I left the restaurant and moved back home, all those girls that I spent my nights partying and hanging out with disappeared. But Rachel didn’t. We talked on the phone and we went to lunch. When they finally induced labor, she was the only person that wasn’t family that I called.

Six years later she’s still the first person I call when anything of importance happens. She’s my daughter’s godmother, a huge part of my immediate family, and the best friend I always needed, yet never knew to ask for.

She is quirky, outspoken, honest, obnoxious, and unfailingly witty. She still wears studded belts with enormous buckles, band t-shirts, and no makeup. She’s shaved her head twice in the six years we’ve been friends – Once because she wanted to and again just recently for a very worthy cause (and she manages to pull it off, like a tiny rocker version of Demi Moore).

She’s an atheist and a self-proclaimed medical research analyst (which is a nice way of saying she’s a hypochondriac that loves Google). Her favorite author is Chuck Palahniuk and she listens to music that makes me cringe. (Yet oddly enough, also loves Britney Spears.) She collects dinosaurs and all of her dance moves are from decades past: the peewee herman, the worm, the sprinkler, etc. She’s pretty much what I used to say was the complete opposite of me.

My mother claims I’ve changed since Rachel and I became best friends, that I’m not myself anymore. She says I’m more combative and less spiritual. She’s only partially right. I have changed, but I’ve never felt more like myself. And she did that for me. She helped me be honest and original again. Being her friend allowed me to show my quirky, slightly shocking side without fear of ridicule or rejection.

Though I realized we have a good bit in common, we each have our own distinct role in the relationship. And, make no mistake, it is a relationship. (There’s nothing sexual about it, though we did make out once when we were shitfaced drunk.) She’s the dependable to my flaky, the rock to my rap, the understated elegance to my over-the-top glitz, and the reasonably grounded to my overactive imagining.

After thinking about it, just this moment in fact, it’s a wonder that I can commit myself to this person even platonically for the rest of my life yet in the past committing to a man would be giving in to the masses. We’ve had our arguments and our disputes, and I’m very much the woman in our relationship. I feel out of sorts when she’s angry at me and set out to fix it immediately. Well, unless she’s in the wrong. Which, because she’s clearly the man in our relationship, she never is. (That’s a joke. Sort of.) It’s strange, isn’t it? That women can form a bond that tight with each other and yet shy away from anything else?

My gawd. This post about my best friend has turned me into a raving lesbo.

We’re taking a trip to Alabama this weekend for her cousin’s wedding. Maybe the five hour drive will be a good time to discuss our gender roles. And that talk will be quite appropriate after I first mention that I wrote about our friendship and receive her response, which I’m 99.9% sure I already know.

She’ll flash me a coy grin and say:

“Lesbian! Wanna spoon?”

Oddity, plus one.

I’ve been told plenty of times, past and present, that I’m “odd”.

As a child, being different was largely frowned upon, or so it seemed to me.

I wasn’t the girl that carried around a smartly dressed doll, mothering it and dreaming of the day the stork would bring her a live one. I didn’t nurture anything but my waistline. Plants died on my watch, pets were known to miss meals and plastic arms and legs were often found sticking out of a freshly dug grave, tattooed with Bic pen symbols best left unexplained. My female counterparts were always a bit more caring, a bit more responsible and subdued.

I was a bookish and insolent child, a winning combination. I preferred interacting with adults because I found them more accepting. I didn’t generally like other children, whether they were male or female, and they couldn’t often tolerate me.

I never was one to keep things simple. If I found myself in a confrontation that didn’t require I run away to avoid injury or the unwilling confiscation of my snacks, I’d purposefully make things worse (a regular heckler in the making). Rather than use an insult they’d understand like “your mom”, I’d use “that hag your (air quotes) biological father was fornicating with”, leaning forward as I air quoted with an Oh Snap! expression on my face. By gawd they might not be able to define biological or fornicating, but they could guess at hag, and air quotes were the Elementary school equivalent of a dodge ball to the genitals. Thus I ended up turning a simple argument into the very confrontation I would usually attempt to run from in the first place. But man, I loved air quotes.

I did have a few things in common with the rest of the germ breeding population, though. Imagination was one. What child didn’t like to play pretend?

While they were imagining hitting home runs, walking down aisles in white, cooing at a real live newborn or becoming a ninja turtle, I was imagining far more intricate, often strange, scenarios. A lot of it was due to reading. I didn’t watch nearly as much television as the average kid.

I used to imagine that I was Hester Prynne from The Scarlet Letter (a slightly altered version, of course). I would walk around the house in a sedate manner, quietly accepting the coldness of my family as my due. I considered her a martyr, just like myself, a slave to the indignities of social compliance. It was all very odd, I’m sure. I never actually told my parents that I was pretending to be a modern day version of a fictional adulterer. They probably just thought I’d eaten something that didn’t agree with me.

I also imagined I was an English girl. I had an affinity for accents even then and would make an effort to speak and think in an English accent at the oddest of times. (I was never very good at Irish, though I loved it too.) I would have long, random conversations with imaginary people and say thing like “jolly good” or “bloody” this or that. My cousin once caught me at it and I had to bribe him with a book report to keep his mouth shut. I could just hear the insults of my peers had he ever told. “Lookit, chee tanks cheez ferin.” (That’s southern for: Check it out, she thinks she’s foreign.)

Another thing we had in common: I was gullible.

Children are gullible creatures, no matter how smart they are. If you can’t recall being duped when you were a child, I suspect you’ve had head trauma. My spawn is only 4 ¾ years old and I’ve tricked her enough to last a lifetime, yet have no intention of stopping.

My Papa was the most prominent duper during my younger years. He could make me believe the most ludicrous stories simply because he was Papa. He was very earnest, but in the most visibly insincere way. When I watch him pull the wool over my kid’s (and my cousin’s kid’s) eyes now, I think, “How the fuck did I ever believe that fat bastard?”

He used to tell me that my mother wore combat boots, holey underwear, and didn’t love Jesus. I was very upset about it all until my grandmother (on the other side) explained that if Jesus didn’t love anybody it would be Papa and my father’s uncouth side of the family, not any daughter of hers. I was placated and resolved to set him straight when he decided to heckle me again. He did, of course, and I gave him the spiel my grandmother gave me. He laughed uproariously and went on about his business.

A few days later I was watching my mom get dressed. I was bouncing up and down on the bed, going on about something or other, when she pulled a pair of underwear out of her drawer. They were full of holes. I stopped bouncing. She pulled out another pair, looked them over, shrugged and pulled them on. They had a tiny hole on one cheek.

“You have holey underwear!”

“Yeah...so?”

I immediately burst into tears. I was horrified that my Papa knew my mother had holey underwear. Hell, I was horrified that she would wear them, much less show them to anyone. I was also sure that she was going to hell. While we hadn’t gone through our “church phase” yet, my grandmother was still a strict driller of the “you could go to hell” speech. And if my mom had holey underwear that meant she didn’t love Jesus, and that meant she was going to hell.

When I explained all that to my mom, she laughed so hard she cried. When I went to my Papa’s house (next door) shortly thereafter, she must have goaded him into saying something behind my back because he immediately shouted, “Hey artist! You know what?”

Sour expression firmly in place I replied, “What?”

“Yer mama wears holey underwear, combat boots, and don’t love Jesus.”

“BUT HOW DOES HE KNOW, MAMA”, I wailed.

My Papa still delights in telling that story to people. In truth, he delights in telling any story that makes me sound like an ass or an idiot.

Anyway, now that I’m an adult and a parent, I find I haven’t changed as much as I expected I would.

I’m still insolent, probably more so. Children still can’t stand me and the feeling is still completely mutual. I still have a tendency to egg on an argument when it’s not in my best interests. I’m still not quite the feminine nurturer I hear you’re supposed to turn into once you’ve reproduced. I’m still odd.

There’s one thing, though, that I realized has changed. Where I once was innocent, I am now guilty.

Because oddness is obviously hereditary.

*While I do air quotes, she does blowfish face. We're quite the team.