The last day of ninth grade was when we finally received our school pictures. Ashley Hilton, Professional Photographer (schools, weddings, civic organizations, single and group portraits), had taken them in September, but had since served stints as the assistant manager of a grocery store, and as the full-fledged manager of a rock band that never made it out of the lead singer's parents' garage, and was at that time right in the middle of his latest career as a pretend real estate agent/developer/mogul when someone on our school's faculty convinced him he needed to deliver those long-promised and prepaid portraits or face legal action. So he did.

Our teachers distributed them during first period. On any other day this might have been a mistake, virtually guaranteeing the entire school day would revolve around students trading photographs. The last day of school, however, was the ultimate "goof-off" day; there were few serious tasks to interrupt. Furthermore, everybody was looking forward to summer but also feeling just a little bit nostalgic and already missing some of their fellow classmates, so the mood was perfect for these sentimental exchanges.

By the end of the day, I had collected about two dozen photos of my schoolmates. On the back of each was a personal message. Actually, most of the boys simply signed their names or maybe wrote something short and meaningless like Keep up the good work or Take it easy. Others wrote something short and obnoxious that was meant to be funny like Remember everybody must get stoned or I don't have time to write you a note because I have to go take a leak. Inevitably, every boy who wrote a message did so in big letters so the short note would fill the entire back of the picture and, thus, appear to be more substantial. Not that I, or any other male recipient, cared. We just did this on all the photos because we were in the habit of doing so on the ones we gave the girls so we would not have to hear, "Is that all you could say?"

They (the girls) took the opposite approach, squeezing as many words as possible onto the back of these miniature photos. The pictures were only about half as big as a regular wallet-sized photo, but somehow the girls managed to fit about five times as much on the back of each as the boys did. Of course, this did not make their messages any more relevant but it seemed like it did with their tiny little letters forming words separated by less than normal spacing flowing uninterrupted by punctuation unnecessary or otherwise until stopping exactly at the bottom right hand corner except sometimes needing even a little more space and looping back around the outside margins framing what they had already written and faithfully transmitting no real thought or sentiment other than they cared enough to write so much. Their creed seemed to be "quantity over quality," whereas ours was "size matters."

I was rereading the back of Elizabeth's photo as I sat on the bus waiting for it to take me home one final time that year. Elizabeth's message was a little more substantial than most I had received because she and I were going steady. It was also more substantial because she had more space on which to write. She had given me a full wallet-sized photo, putting me above the level of mere friend and on par with family--not, of course, with parents or grandparents who were in the eight-by-ten and five-by-seven tier, but more along the lines of a cousin. She did not think of me as a cousin, but that, I hope, goes without saying.

Elizabeth's message was more personal and more than a little exciting because between the lines she might have been hinting she was ready to take our relationship to the level all teenaged boys wished all teenaged girls would, or at least beyond where we were, which was right at home plate, not meaning I had belted a home run and rounded all the bases, but that I had not even taken a swing yet, or more precisely, had taken a couple that had entered the stat book as strikes. To the most special guy in the world, it began, which both thrilled me and irked me because I indeed yearned to be the most special guy in the world to her, but suspected her father already filled the position. I'm going to miss you so much this summer, but at least you don't live to far away. I know I'm not going to get to see you everyday, but we'll have to see each other as much as we can, okay? Then we'll have to make up for lost time. Please don't--

"Can I sit here?" asked Pills Carkix, interrupting both my reading and the agreeable fantasy it was beginning to evoke. I jerked the photo to my chest reflexively.

"Of course you can, Pills," I said in the overly polite way I always had of addressing her. As I nonchalantly placed Elizabeth's photograph in one of my notebooks, I scooted over.

She sat down beside me as she usually did when she was one of the last people to get on the bus, because she knew nobody else wanted her to sit beside them. When she was one of the first to board, she would take an empty seat and would usually get to sit alone all the way home because nobody wanted to sit by her even if the alternative was standing. At the beginning of the school year, the bus routes had been redrawn and Pills and I rode together for the first time. I do not know who might have been civil to her on those long trips to and from school before, but I suspect it was nobody.

As she sat down, I once again noticed how she took up more of the seat each time. Before long she would be carbon copy of her fat, sloppy mother. I often thought it was a shame, a real pity. Even though Pills was no beauty and was completely lacking in social graces, she had, at one time, had a very nice figure. She might have had a happier life if she would have maintained her better attributes while working to improve or eliminate her lesser ones. Instead, she seemed to be going down the road everybody, including herself, thought she was supposed to take.

Most of the way home, I did not speak to Pills. Just because I was nicer to her than everybody else did not mean I really liked her. I had once had feelings for her, though they were comprised more of lust than love, and still felt protective of her. I could defend her, I could be friendly, but I could not honestly like her. So I did not speak to her most of the way home that day. I found it a lot more comfortable to lean toward my open bus window; facing her direction and engaging in conversation meant suffering the body odor an unkempt and overweight person could produce in the ever-increasing heat of May mixed with the stale tobacco smell of her breath (she chewed). I preferred instead the fragrance of honeysuckle tainted by the dust and exhaust produced by the bus as it traveled along the gravel roads. This was the scent of spring. Tomorrow there would be no school bus kicking up dust and belching exhaust, only the honeysuckle's perfume, the splendid aroma of summer, of fun, of freedom.

We sat staring out the dingy bus window in silence until we rounded the corner that put us on the gravel stretch leading by her house. Then she asked, "Can I have a picture?"

I turned and smiled at her as I pulled out a photograph I had already prepared in the event she requested one. I had written something short and meaningless in big letters on the back. Then to complete the transaction, I asked the obligatory, "Can I have one of yours?"

She pulled out her sheet of thirty miniature photos. It was obvious she had not yet given a single one away. I saw her small house approaching the front of the bus. I began to get a little nervous, fearing she would not be able to cut a picture out fast enough. Everybody would have to sit and wait and watch me finish my business with Pills, exchange photos with Pills, be friendly once again with the most disliked person in school. However, as the bus slowed to a stop, she handed me the entire sheet and said, "These are all for you. I didn't really want to give any to nobody else. I wrote you a note on the back, too."

 

I sat speechless for a moment not knowing how to respond. I had expected to receive the usual small keepsake, but was presented with this instead. "Thanks," was all I could muster.

As the driver opened the door, Pills stood up into the aisle. She looked down at me, smiled a little smile, and said, "Well, I guess this is goodbye."

"Yeah," I said, still surprised. "I'll see ya 'round," I said, which sounded to me like, "I see you're round." I blushed and prayed she hadn't heard me say what I thought I'd heard me say. I was relieved to see that she hadn't seemed to hear me at all; she had already turned and walked to the front.

She stepped off the bus, pausing just a moment to smile another goodbye at me. I raised my hand slightly and hoped nobody else noticed this final exchange. The bus moved forward again and I watched her walk toward the rickety front porch of her house as she slowly fell away behind us, then faded out of sight. Still baffled, I turned her sheet of photos over and began reading her message to me.

To my best friend ever. The opening compounded my confusion. We were not best friends. I kept reading.

I know I wasn't really your best friend because you had lots of friends but you were mine. You were my only friend and I will always remember you. I felt sorry for her and proud of myself. I would, I decided, redouble my friendly efforts next school year.

I know that most people didn't like me or didn't even bother to feel one way or another about me so having you as my one true friend and best friend ever will always make me happy. My sorrow for her increased, but my pride in myself did not. She seemed to give me a little more credit than comfort allowed. I began to feel guilty and embarrassed. I would never let another person read this; that would be unbearable.

I no it wasn't ever easy because I'm not popular and so being my friend was not popular. A lot of people always put me down and I know that they did the same to you for being nice to me but you did it any way because that's what you are, A NICE GUY. Was I such a nice guy? I wondered. Everything she had written so far seemed to be true enough. I was undoubtedly nicer to her than anybody else, but did I really do enough to deserve her proclaiming me a nice guy in capital letters? It seemed to me that much of what she thought was niceness was just not being mean.

Your better than nice. Your the best person I have ever known and I'm glad that I did know you. I almost stopped reading. I knew it was not her intention, but the words were making me feel I was being exposed--if only to myself--as a fraud, the byproduct of undeserved praise. I was about halfway done, though, and my curiosity was even more aroused than my feelings of inadequacy. I continued.

I guess I'm getting all funny because I no I'll never see you again. See we are moving back to Mississippi in a few days. Another surprise and bigger than the preceding ones. For a moment, I was glad she was moving because it meant we would never have to speak of this note. Not having to associate with her would also make daily life at school easier in general. Then, almost instantly, the guilt increased; A NICE GUY like me was glad the one who called him her best friend ever was moving away. I began to feel I deserved some sort of self-inflicted punishment, so I read on with the sweet misery that sometimes accompanies one's just desserts.

That's where we came from. You remember when I came here in second grade?

I did.

Nobody wanted to have anything to do with me.

This was true.

You didn't either really--

This was also true, I confessed to myself.

--but you were a lot nicer about it than everybody else. You were always a lot nicer to me than everybody else all through school and somewhere along the way all that paid off because we became friends.

Yes, this, too, was true. I was nicer to her than everybody else. And if I had not been nice enough to now satisfy my own conscience, then I would have to take consolation in knowing at least I gave more than all the others. I could not help it if I had not done all I could have, should have. That was in the past and now she was moving away. There was no way to do better by her now, so there was no need to worry myself about it. Even if I knew I had not been all I could have been, I had still been her best friend ever and she appreciated it.

I'll always be proud for that. Yes, she was proud, and so I, too, should be proud. It was an almost-convincing argument I was putting forth to myself.

I'll specially always be proud that you took me to the Sweethearts Dance last year. I wish you could be proud for that (HA HA!) but I guess that's not really possible. No, it was not, I agreed. That one date had been disastrous, and my social standing among my classmates suffered tremendously. It had been more than a year before, but the effects on my popularity still lingered. It was not yet possible for me to be proud of that, but, like her, I wished it were.

Any way I'm running out of space so I guess I should just say thank you very much for being my best friend ever and for always being nice and for always taking up for me and for always treating me like a lady. Even though we all no I'm really not (HA HA!), thanks any way. Goodbye. I'll miss you. Your best friend, Pillsbury.

Her signature was the capstone, the final and biggest surprise. I had almost let her convince me I really was as wonderful as she seemed to think. Just as she had written, I had been her best friend ever, her only friend throughout the years. Yet I never even knew her real name until that moment, until after she had left my life.

I had always assumed she had a foolish name because she and her parents were foolish people. Pillsbury, though by no means common, was not nearly as ridiculous as Pills. It might have been a traditional family name, her mother's maiden name, anything. Pillsbury was different, maybe a little eccentric, sure, but not silly, not absurd like Pills. If anything, it had a dignified ring to it, a solid Anglo-Saxon-noble-sounding-surname kind of ring.

To us she had always been just Pills, a foolish girl with a foolish name. I tried to remember which came first, our low opinion of her or of her name. If we had known earlier what her real name was, would it have made any difference? Would we have thought more of a girl named Pillsbury than we did the girl we knew as Pills? Would we have treated her the same? Would she have evolved into this slob, this trashy girl that had just left our lives? Or might that have been the untried key to bringing forth the fine person I had always suspected hid within?

In second grade a strange girl with a stranger name showed up at our school. We told her that her name was stupid, that it was not really even a name at all. We decided to hate her. So she hated us, the world and herself. But what if...?

I would never know. I could now only wish I had known her just a little better, just simply known her real name. After all, I was her best friend ever.