Me, laughing off the praise as though it makes me uncomfortable: "Oh, I don't know about impressive, but-ha ha ha-I get by. What are you doing now?"

Them, looking actually uncomfortable and ashamed: "Oh? Me? Well . . . I pick through trash outside people's homes looking for recycled materials to take to the dump."

It didn't matter if they were a materials scavenger or a train-hopping hobo, in my fantasies they were always less successful than I was.

But mostly I wanted to go to my reunion because I now had boobs. Like, a C cup on the third week of the month.

In high school I was both short and impressively scrawny. Add to that my belligerent personality, and I was a double dose of teenage girl fail. When I was fifteen most people thought I was an eleven- or twelve-year-old boy; my nickname-Skinny Finney-didn't help matters. New kids thought Finney was my first name.

Now, I had boobs. I was enormously proud of my boobs. I'd waited so long for them. But, when they finally arrived with a vengeance after my sixteenth birthday, the summer before my senior year of high school, I was too despondent to notice or to care.

I couldn't tell Sandra the true reasons without sounding like the raging, self-absorbed, shallow twit that I actually was at that moment.

Instead I said, "And I wasn't really into that stuff-group activities, team sports, and popularity contests."

"Well what stuff were you into? Living under a rock?"

"I was-" I wrinkled my nose. "I was a tomboy in high school."

"Well no shit Sherlock. You're still a tomboy now except that you listen to tween music and have long hair. You're lucky you don't need to wear makeup. But you must've noticed which cheerleaders were ho's and which guys to put into your Spank Naughty and Spank Nice list."

I rested an elbow along the door to my left and tugged at my bottom lip. If I were with Janie I wouldn't need to explain the reason I was detached during my last two years of high school-and any Days of Their Lives drama from ten years ago. I was detached because of Garrett. Janie was the only person I knew in Chicago that was aware of my story.

Perhaps now was a solid time to test the sharing waters with Sandra.

I cleared my throat and repositioned my hands on the steering wheel; "So, there was this boy . . ."

"Okay, okay-good-good-this sounds promising." Sandra put her knitting aside again and rubbed her hands together.

A small, saddish smile tugged one side of my mouth upward. "There was this boy, his name was Garrett and he had big brown eyes and blond hair and just the best, warmest smile. He moved to my town when I was in fifth grade, right after my mother died, and I just-I just-" I swallowed. "I just fell for him."

"I didn't know your mother died."

"It happened when I was nine. Garrett really helped me through it."

"In fifth grade?"

I nodded once. "This isn't a happy story."

Sandra was quiet for a moment, and when she spoke next her voice was softer. "Go on."

I recognized it as her shrink voice, the one she used when speaking to someone upset, emotionally fragile, or with whom she was trying to reason. During one of our knit nights out on the town she used the voice to convince a hoity-toity matre d' that he, indeed, lost our reservation and that he, indeed, needed to set the thing to rights as soon as was humanly possible.

It worked.

We were impressed.

I was impressed.

She was using the voice on me now, and it was working.

"I think I fell in love with Garrett within three months of meeting him. I skipped a grade in elementary school, so he was a year older. But he was so easy to be around, made me feel good, like I was important to him-you know? So gentle and kind, sensitive. He was really there for me-you know? I just always wanted to be around him. We were childhood sweethearts, just like my parents, and were going to get married. But when he was sixteen, he . . ."

I started tugging at my bottom lip again. "We went to a party and both of us drank. He only had, like, two drinks; but, afterward, he had severe pains in his neck and sides. So his friend-uh-Nico-drove Garrett to the hospital. They discharged him almost immediately after he was admitted. I think they thought he just had too much to drink. But," I sighed. "A few months later, at the end of summer break, he was getting sick a lot-fevers with no other accompanying symptoms, that kind of thing."

I paused, waited for the sting of tears that previously accompanied this part of the story; but-to my surprise-I felt capable of continuing without fear of a chin wobble or voice waver.

"The doctor ran a complete blood panel, and he was diagnosed with Hodgkin's Lymphoma. He was sick our entire junior year, at first going through chemo, surgeries, then-later-just succumbing to the disease. He died in April, April thirteenth. He was stage-stage-" I cleared my throat. "It had progressed too far by the time he was diagnosed."

I heard Sandra exhale, and I exhaled with her. We were both silent for a long while. The World's Largest Truck Stop came and went. Miles of barren cornfields passed us by. I thought about the day Garrett died, compared and contrasted that day's weather with the present.

At last Sandra spoke. "Well . . . that is some depressing and tragic shit, Elizabeth." Her voice was watery.

I glanced over at her and realized that she was crying; or, rather, she was trying not to cry. My eyes widened in surprise. "Did I just make you cry?"

"No, I'm crying because we missed the World's Largest Truck Stop-" Her voice was thick with sarcasm until she continued, "Yes, you did just make me cry."

I felt the first tingling of tears behind my eyes, and the chin wobble I'd been expecting earlier made its appearance.

"Oh no-don't you cry-" Her tone became authoritative, "If you cry I will be forced to beat you with my shoe and you will not like it. I'm not wearing any socks, and my feet seriously stink."

I couldn't help it. I started to laugh. After I told Janie about Garrett she didn't cry, but she held me while I did. It felt good to be held. It also felt good to laugh.

"Well, no wonder you weren't paying attention to high school dynamics or creating spank tanks. You were dealing with real life issues. I can't fathom what it was like for you, losing your mom then your first love like that."

I shrugged, but her words made an impact.

"Is that why you decided to become a doctor?"

"It's one of the reasons, yes. But also I really like it, like the work."

"Why emergency medicine? Why not oncology?"

"Because both my mom and Garrett were misdiagnosed in an emergency room. If they'd been diagnosed correctly. . ."

"Ah." She nodded her understanding. "After Garrett's death, did you get some help? Did you go to therapy after?"

I shook my head. "Afterward, that summer, I just kind of floated through stuff, not really noticing or paying attention. My dad decided to take me to Ireland at the end of the summer, and I completed the first half of my senior year there-which helped."

"He probably wanted to remove you from a place filled with reminders."

I nodded. "Yeah. He took an adjunct teaching position at Trinity-or their version of an adjunct position-and I discovered an abiding passion for Guinness since the place we stayed was basically down the road from the Guinness factory. I think I did that brewery tour seventy times."

"Guinness is good."

Our apparent shared love for Guinness warmed my heart, and I glanced over at Sandra. She was watching me with a look that I could only define as restrained.

"What? What is it?"

"Do you-" She catapulted the words at me, paused, scratched her chin then turned as far in her seat as the seatbelt would allow. "Did you two-before he-did you . . .?"

"You're asking me if we had sex?"

She nodded.

"No. Garrett and I never had sex. I was only fifteen when he was diagnosed and almost sixteen when he died. Besides, we wanted to wait until we were married and-then-when he got sick-I never thought he wouldn't get well until it was too late."

She expelled a loud breath. "That sucks."

"Yeah." I frowned. "Yeah, it sucks."

I soon discovered that Sandra was a badass.

Road trips can either suck monkey balls or, with the right person, they can be awesomesauce with cheesy fries. Sandra was that right person. She regulated the car to make certain a constant comfortable temperature was maintained; her music selection-although not my typical preference-was high quality; she ensured conversation flowed and waned at appropriate intervals.

And she was very skilled in the art of unwrapping my sandwich and arranging my French fries/ketchup such that I could effortlessly eat while driving.

Yes, we'd been knitting together for going on two years, and yes, I infrequently met her for lunch at the hospital. But our interactions until this trip rarely deviated beyond those situations. I'd been operating under, and interacting with Sandra based on, my initial superficial impressions: funny, smart, loud, and opinionated.

I should've known better, that a person is never just funny, smart, loud, and opinionated without a whole lot of awesome behind it.

Furthermore, something about being trapped in a car together for five hours-the shared experience of synchronized pit-stop peeing and suffering through roadside fast food-will bond two people for life.

By the time we arrived at my childhood home virtually all of my earlier missing Janie melancholy was replaced with self-recrimination for being so narrow-minded. I was also experiencing newly minted good-friend euphoria.

Sandra noted with a squeal that we were late as we exited the car and rushed into my childhood home. We hurried through showering and dressing; I realized I was excited about going to the reunion, because I was going with Sandra, and Sandra was badass.

I still missed Janie. I still lamented that she wasn't able to come. But I found I didn't need to be so diligent and determined about having a good time with Sandra. I was just, simply, having a good time with Sandra.

With Sandra's insistence and help, I wore my hair down in impressive loose curls over my shoulders which were left bare in my black and white polka-dot strapless dress. I loved this dress even though it wasn't at all my typical haphazard style. I wore a wicked black petticoat under the full skirt so it flared above the knee. I rounded out the look with red lipstick and borrowed-from Janie-black and white zebra print stilettos.

Sandra-always a bombshell-wore a long, clingy blue and white maxi dress and turquoise sequenced high heels. She left her short red hair down, falling in soft waves to her chin. Her eye shadow was also sparkly blue and I coveted her ability to apply makeup. All my attempts at eye makeup-other than mascara-left me looking like the loser in a bar fight.

We drove through the high school parking lot only one hour late and, despite my obvious bias, felt that we both looked amazing. Even though I returned home with some frequency to visit my dad-less often in recent years due to my crazy schedule at the hospital-I hadn't visited my high school since graduation.

Everything looked essentially the same except trees were taller, and the main building had recently been painted. I didn't feel much of anything, no nostalgia or twinge of apprehension, until I stepped through the doors and the smell-of pencils and bread and Glass Plus cleaner-slapped my brain backward in time.

Memories and accompanying thoughts and anxieties assailed me without warning.

I was suddenly thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, and sixteen all at once. I was short, angry, quiet, and flat chested. I was Skinny Finney trying to blend into the lockers, sitting in the back of the classroom, and avoiding eye contact with all the kids in my class who were older, bigger, and louder.

I was looking at my past self through the one-way interrogation window of my current self; this caused me to experience the strange sadness that accompanies helplessness. If only I could have told teenage Elizabeth that none of it actually mattered. It all seemed to matter so much at the time.

A half laugh, half gasp escaped my chest, and I paused just inside the door of the main entrance to catch up with the onslaught.

"What is it?"

I glanced at Sandra-her red eyebrows raised in confusion, her eyes wide with concern-and shook my head. "It's-it's nothing." I continued to shake my head as I walked a few steps forward and allowed the door to close behind me. "It's just really weird to be here."

Sandra smiled wryly. "Yeah. My reunion is this year too. I haven't decided if I'm going to my high school reunion. I don't know if I should grace those people with the gift of my presence."

"Did you have a hard time in high school? Did you hate the prom queen?" I strolled forward feeling a bit easier and acclimated. I glanced at my surroundings; blue lockers lined gray walls. The floor was white-and-blue linoleum, peeling and scuffed.

"Oh heavens no. I was the prom queen."

This revelation made my steps falter, and Sandra monopolized all my attention; "You were the prom queen?"

She nodded; her grin was immediate. "Yes. I was the prom queen. Don't look so shocked."

"I'm not shocked. I'm. . ." I waved my hands through the air trying to locate the words as my feet automatically led the way to the gym. "I'm surprised."

"You're a doofus. Shocked and surprised are synonyms."

"No, not really. Shocked means that something is hard to believe; surprised means something is unexpected."

Sandra's eyes narrowed; they were glittery green, the color intensified by her long blue-and-white patterned maxi dress. "You sounded just like Janie when you said that."

She was right. I did. The thought made me happy-sad.

"She's rubbed off on me despite my efforts to remain unaffected. I've spent all these years trying to wash off the stank of my own social ineptness-and, believe me, I had my own special brand of social incompetency-but I know I've adopted some of her mannerisms. She has this thing about words. . ."

Sandra's expression was plainly skeptical. "In what ways were you socially incompetent?"

"I was really, really shy."

Sandra pushed my shoulder. "Get out. You? The queen of hospital pranks and hot-man conquests? I call shenanigans."

"Are you surprised?"

"No. I'm shocked." She wagged her eyebrows which made me laugh. "Why were you shy?"

"Actually, I don't know if I was exactly shy. Rather, I just had this overwhelming disdain for the world and everyone in it."

Before Sandra could respond to this revelation a super-duper cheerful voice interrupted our conversation, "Hi there! How are you!?"

I hadn't noticed that we'd walked all the way to the entrance of the gym. Early decade dance music pumped through the open doors, specifically "Let's Get it Started in Here" by the Black Eyed Peas.

I blinked twice at the image in front of me. Stephanie Mayor, our class president, smiled at Sandra and me with extraordinary force as though trying to convey expediency. She stood behind a long, empty, rectangular banquet table covered in a navy blue tablecloth, and she looked exactly the same. Even the length of her hair-cut, color, and style-was identical to how it had been ten years ago.

The only difference was, instead of her usually casual cheerfulness, there seemed to be a radioactive, 1000 watt light of sunny glee radiating from her every pore.

"Hi-yes-hi." Sandra returned her smile with a bracing, unsure one of her own; like the force of Stephanie's grin had temporarily made Sandra question the intelligence of attending my high school reunion. "This is Elizabeth and I am her friendscort, Sandra. We would like our table assignment please."

Stephanie's eyes jumped to mine, and I noted a lack of recognition there. Her brow wrinkled although her smile remained firmly affixed. "Hi. . ."

"Hi." I waited a minute for some follow through-like telling me where I could find my name tag or table.