The Boston Girl(66)
And it was amazing how well they got along. Miss Green, who had been to Ireland, talked to Irene about the town where she was born. Katherine and Betty had a debate about who was funnier: Harold Lloyd or Buster Keaton. I could have told them it was Charlie Chaplin, but I didn’t want to butt in.
I asked Helen where Gussie was. “She’s just a little late,” Helen said. Gussie gave me so much grief if I was even two minutes late, I looked forward to giving her a little of her own medicine. When she finally got there, she put up one hand like a stop sign. Then Irene sang, “Ta-da,” and Filomena appeared.
I don’t know if I shrieked or just stood there with my mouth open, but everyone clapped and Betty shouted, “She didn’t have a clue!”
As soon as we’d set a date for the wedding, I wrote to Filomena to ask if she could come. She wrote back that she couldn’t because that was the week she had promised to take her teacher to a powwow in the mountains and she couldn’t go back on her word or that would be the end of their friendship. I had figured it was a long shot and I could tell how bad she felt because it was the longest letter I ever got from her. Betty was there when I got her wedding present, which came with the note saying not to open it until the wedding day.
They were all in on it: my friends, my sister, even my new in-laws. It might have been the only secret Betty ever kept. She’d rummaged around in my room for Filomena’s address, Gussie sent a telegram, and everyone chipped in for the train tickets.
It had been more than ten years since I’d seen my best friend. Filomena still wore a long braid. Her hair wasn’t pure black anymore, but the streak of white next to her cheek made her look glamorous—not old. It was the same face, though, darker and a little weathered by the sun, but just as beautiful.
She was dressed in a long skirt and a striped shawl, like the Indian girls in her picture postcards. There were stacks of turquoise and silver bracelets on both wrists and she smelled like something fresh and woody. She told me that it was sage, something the Indians used for health and good fortune. I’m making her sound like a cartoon hippie from the 1960s, but she didn’t look messy. No matter what she was wearing, Filomena carried herself like a queen.
When she saw Miss Green, Filomena took both of her teacher’s hands in hers and said, “Thank you for giving me my life.”
It was such a sweet moment. Katherine said it reminded her of how students in India honored their teachers by touching the ground at their feet. I didn’t feel quite up to that, but before the afternoon was over I thanked Miss Chevalier for everything she had done for me since I was a girl.
I wish I’d had a camera. Not that I need pictures to remember that day.
I’ve forgotten a lot more than I like to admit, but I have all the details memorized: the pink icing, Katherine’s beautiful yellow shoes, the lilacs, and the sound of Filomena’s bracelets when she threw her arms around me. Like a wind chime.
You never looked at me with anything but love.
Sometimes friends grow apart. You tell each other everything and you’re sure this is a person you’ll know the rest of your life but then she stops writing or calling, or you realize she’s really not so nice, or she turns into a right-winger. Remember your friend Suzie?
But sometimes, it doesn’t matter how far apart you live or how little you talk—it’s still there. That was Filomena and me.
The day after the wedding shower we got together in the North End. She had to go to a big family lunch after church so she wasn’t sure exactly what time she’d get away, but I didn’t mind waiting. I was sitting on a bench in front of St. Leonard’s in the North End on a beautiful day and people were strolling on Hanover Street. Old ladies in black dresses were feeding the pigeons and watching their grandchildren play. It was exactly how I remembered it from when I was growing up, except the hats were different.
There isn’t enough room to say much on a postcard, so I had a hundred questions for Filomena. I knew that some of her New Mexico friends were painters and that she spent a lot of time with an Indian potter named Virginia. I knew she was living by herself and watched the sunset every day. She was selling enough of her pottery to scrape by. But that was about it. It was like I had an empty coloring book for her to fill in.
At first, I didn’t recognize the frumpy woman in a baggy black dress who was waving at me. Filomena’s sisters had made her take off her “costume” before church and dressed her like a grandmother. They were furious at her. How could she come to Boston for a friend’s wedding when she hadn’t bothered to make it to her own nieces’ and nephews’ first communions and graduations? They calmed down a little when she told them her friends had paid for her tickets. I guess they forgot she’d been sending them money ever since she moved to Taos, and believe me, she never had much to spare.
Filomena unpinned her braid, pulled a woven sash and some bracelets out of her bag, and in one minute was back to looking beautiful. She said she was dying for an espresso. “I’ve been dreaming about coffee ever since I got on the train.”
We went to a café where not even the hats had changed. I never saw a person enjoy anything more than Filomena enjoyed that espresso. The waiter must have noticed, too, because he brought over a second cup before she could ask.
She said, “Grazie,” and it was like they were long-lost cousins, talking with their hands and interrupting each other, just like Jews, except everything sounds better in Italian.