"What do you think of this one?" asked Mary Anne as she held up a plain sleveless black dress up to herself, the ruffled dress hem hitting her mid-calf.
"Are you serious?" asked Kristy. "Come on. That's way too boring."
They had been browsing at Bellaire's Department Store for about an hour, Mary Anne having already tried on 3 dresses and Kristy was already exhausted from her softball game earlier that morning.
"Since when have I ever been a flashy dresser, Kristy? I'm a librarian" Mary Anne joked before adding "besides, you aren't wearing a dress."
"Yeah, well I'm a lesbian" Kristy joked back and tgen said "but hey, what do you call this?" as she held up a silver sequined tank top that she was planning to wear under the blazer of one of her work suits. "I'm still stepping out of my comfort zone for this and I know you can do the same." she said, while simultaneously scanning the racks before spotting something blue mixed in with all the black that caught her eye. Kristy pulled it out and immediately knew that the dress was perfect for Mary Anne. "Now THIS? This is your dress, my friend" said Kristy as she held up a navy blue dress with lacy cap sleeves and that came with a matching glittery navy blue belt, which gave the simple dress just a bit of personality. "It's your favorite color and.." she quickly checked the size before excitedly saying "It's a small! You gotta try this thing on now."
Mary Anne said "I've already tried on 3 and I'm getting burned out. Maybe I can just wear something I already have."
"Just do it" ordered Kristy.
"Oh, all right" sighed Mary Anne, already knowing that it was indeed her perfect reunion dress, but not really wanting to give her bossy best friend the satisfaction of picking it out until she made sure it looked nice on her. "Dress shopping on a Saturday afternoon with Kristy Thomas. Hell must be freezing over" Mary Anne said behind her as she closed the fitting room door.
That comment put a smirk on Kristy's face and she stepped outside the fitting room to wait for Mary Anne. She had only been waiting about 60 seconds when she heard a familiar voice to her right say, "Hey Kristy." Kristy turned her head and came to face to face with Cokie Mason, her former arch enemy but yet, the woman responsible for all this current excitement in her life. Kristy didn't want her to know that of course so she responded with a simple "Oh, hey." Cokie really hadn't changed much since high school, with her brown hair in the same style, although her fashion sense seemed to be quite toned down from her teenage years and she was sporting a dark green courdoroy jacket with a wool lining over a plain white t-shirt accompanied with distressed blue jeans and some simple black converse sneakers. She was still pretty and looked younger than 28, only with some slight dark circles under her eyes, which deemed fitting since she was now the mother of a two year old son.
Cokie then asked "How are you?"
"I'm good" replied Kristy with no emotion and not sure whether to continue disliking her or give her a hug for unintentionally planning a BSC reunion. Kristy chose the former but continued to chat with her and added "just shopping for something to wear to the reunion."
"Yeah, me too" replied Cokie. "Well, actually, I'm just going to wear a dress I already have so I'm just looking for some shoes. I'm kinda on a budget so I hope I can find a decent pair."
Kristy thought that must be odd for her, considering less than two years ago, Cokie was very wealthy and living in New York City, on Park Avenue no less. She prayed for Mary Anne to hurry up so she could wrap up this too pleasant for her liking conversation when Cokie said "I've actually been meaning to talk to you. I mean, I see you walk by the leasing offfice every morning."
Not knowing what else to say, Kristy asked "Do you like working there?" referring to Cokie's job as a receptionist for her office building's management company.
"Well, I've never really worked before but it's been almost seven months now and I think I've pretty much got it down" said Cokie, inadvertently referring to her learning disability, as her job was about as easy as it gets, only answering phones, making coffee and filing papers. At that moment, Mary Anne walked out of the fitting room asking "what do you think?" saving Kristy the awkwardness of responding to that. Kristy and Cokie turned around at the same time, both stunned by how Mary Anne looked in her dress. Even with her hair in a pony tail and her wearing loafers. "Wow. You look amazing!" exclaimed Kristy.
Not responding to Kristy and instead, shocked to see the person standing next to her, said "Cokie? Oh my gosh!"
"Hey, Mary Anne" replied Cokie who paused and then said "you look really pretty in that dress."
"Thanks" said Mary Anne. "Are you here dress shopping for the reunion too?"
"Just for shoes" replied Cokie, who was looking Mary Anne up and down before saying, "you know, I have some blue heels that are the exact same color as that belt. They are awesome, all blue and glittery. What size shoe do you wear?"
A little taken aback, Mary Anne replied, "Um, I'm a size 8."
"Really?" said an excited Cokie. "That's great cause so am I and they really would go perfectly with that dress. Would you like to borrow them?" she asked.
"Seriously?" asked Mary Anne.
"Oh yeah, for sure. I'm not going to wear them" and she turned to Kristy and asked "Can I give them to you on Monday? Maybe you can pick them up on the way to your office?"
An equally stunned Kristy said "I..guess so."
"Great" said Cokie. "Well, I better get back to shoe shopping. It was nice to see you guys."
"Likewise" replied Mary Anne.
As Cokie said "Bye" and started to walk away, Mary Anne said to Kristy, "well that was interesting."
"Uh, yeah I'll say. Was she actually being nice? Or did I just hallucinate?" asked Kristy.
Mary Anne laughed "No, that was real."
"Have you ever seen Cokie be anything other than a snobby nasty bitch?" Kristy asked.
"Not really but that was..kinda cool, wasn't it?" asked Mary Anne.
"Yeah, I guess it.." Kristy drifted off as she felt like she needed to do the right thing and ran after her, yelling, "Cokie, wait!"
Cokie turned around as Kristy ran up to her and stammered, "Cokie, I just..I..um, I just..want to thank you for putting this whole reunion together."
"Oh sure. Of course" replied Cokie.
"No, I really mean it. Stacey and Claudia are coming too and I haven't seen them in years. Actually, so is Dawn Schaefer from SMS. Do you remember her?" asked Kristy.
Cokie looked up and said slowly "Dawn..Schaefer" before looking back at Kristy and saying "from California?"
"She's my stepsister" chimed in Mary Anne, who had caught up to the both of them.
"Oh yeah, that's right" said Cokie.
"Kristy continued on, repeating herself, saying "I haven't seen them in years and if it weren't for this reunion, who knows how long we would have gone without seeing each other."
"It's really my pleasure." said Cokie. "I love throwing parties. I did it all the time when I was still married. I'm actually really good at it."
Not wanting Cokie to talk any further about her ex-husband, Kristy quickly changed the subject and said, "Well, we are all really looking forward to it."
"Me too. So..see you on Monday?" asked Cokie.
"Yep" said Kristy.
"Bye. Again" said Cokie and she walked away.
Mary Anne said to Kristy, "That was pretty awesome of you, Ms. Thomas."
"Well, she was just being so nice. What was I supposed to do?" said Kristy, adding "I don't think I've ever even seen her smile. I wonder what brought on this change in her."
Mary Anne said "Well, her husband's in jail for tax fraud, she's a single mom now, lost all her money, she's uneducated and she had to move back in with her parents in her late 20s. I think that would humble anyone, wouldn't it?"
"Yeah, I suppose" replied Kristy.
Mary Anne then put her arm around Kristy's shoulder and said softly "Life is too short to hold on to a school grudge."
Kristy didn't say anything and instead just sighed, implying that Mary Anne was right.
"Now come on" said Mary Anne. "Let's buy these clothes and get out of here."
On the drive back to Mary Anne & Jackson's, they continued their conversation about the reunion, discussing details about the girls' arrival, with Mary Anne picking up Dawn at the airport and Stacey and Claudia flying in together and renting a car but both were staying with Kristy in her apartment, with a celebratory dinner planned for everyone that first night and then a brunch and spa day on the afternoon of the reunion.
"I'm so glad you were able to talk to Claudia" said Mary Anne.
Kristy replied "Me too. I mean, I only talked to her for 20 minutes or so but man, it was intense from the start."
"I'll bet" said Mary Anne. "It had to be hard for her to come clean about all that."
"I don't doubt it but it really broke my heart to hear all of it, knowing it was because of me. Well, sorta" said Kristy.
Mary Anne said "Well, yeah but not really. Cancer is very traumatic and I'm sure she just needed a scapegoat to cope with all of it. Charlotte has opened up to me a little bit about her mom and how the cancer affected her emotionally and it's so sad."
Kristy remained silent, remembering Dr. Johanson, before asking Mary Anne, "did you ever tell Stacey that you work with her?"
"I've been meaning to" said Mary Anne "but I don't really feel like it's my place."
"You really should. I'm sure Stacey will want to see her" said Kristy.
Mary Anne said "Yeah, you're probably right. Give me a few minutes?"
"Yeah sure." Kristy drove the rest of the way back to Mary Anne's house in silenceas Mary Anne typed out a long text to Stacey, with her finishing up just as they arrived at her house.
"All right, my dear" said Kristy.
"Thanks for helping me find that dress, Kris." said Mary Anne.
"Any time. Except for..never again?" Kristy jokingly asked.
Mary Anne laughed and said "Deal!" as she got out of Kristy's car, holding the garment bag with her new dress inside.
Making sure Mary Anne was inside her house, she drove off to her apartment and it wasn't long before she was walkin through the front door into her spotless two bedroom apartment which was decorated pretty neutral, with tan painted walls adorned with tons of framed photos of her friends, famil and adventures and also a few art pieces with similar color schemes that she had actually found at Home Goods. Her L-shaped couch was chocolate brown with a few patterned throw pillows and it all complimented her other furniture, all dark wood. Her apartment was classy, simple and cohesive, with her bedroom being no exception with a tan tufted headboard attached to her plush king mattress and dark brown comforter. Somewhat plain but it was certainly a lot more feminine than her bedroom growing up.
She walked past her bedroom and into her 2nd bedroom, also her office, pseudo gym with a treadmill in the corner and storage room, as it had a walk in closet. She went straight to the closet and opened it up. Wood shelves, which she installed herself, lined the entire closet with box after box sitting on top of them. Always neat and organized, each box was labeled with it's content. She spent a few minutes pulling boxes out and setting them on the floor before finding what she was looking for. One box labeled SMS and one labeled SHS. She placed the box from SMS on the floor and sat down right next to it, taking the lid off. Inside, it was packed to the top with mementos from their middle school days. A small photo album laid on top of the 6th, 7th and 8th grade yearbooks, which she took out of the box and placed on the floor next to revealing the Peter Pan costume she wore for the school play. The box was filled with so many things. Hers, Dawn's and Claudia's boarding passes from the cruise to Florida, as well as their Disney World tickets, a bag of confetti from her mother's wedding to Watson and her now paper thin Kristy's Krushers uniform to name a few but she directed her attention to the photo album and flipped through page after page of her fun times with her friends. Pictures of them at Disneyworld, one with her and all the babysitters with her adopted sister Emily-Michelle shortly after they brought her home, a pic of them goofing around in their hotel room when they got snowed in at Leicester Lodge in Vermont, and countless others of course, with the album concluding with several pictures of them at their 8th grade graduation. She made a mental note to try to contact Mallory and to try to see if Jessi is on Facebook she can see how the junor officers of the club were doing. After putting away the photo album and yearbooks, she started going through the SHS box, also filled to the brim with memories. Yearbooks and a photo album on top like the other one, a zip lock baggie holding the corsage that Bart gave her when they attended junior prom together and another bagged corsage from her then-boyfriend Alan Gray, from the senior prom along with the formal picture they had taken together, with her looking incredibly awkward in her formal wear and the fact that she actually had a boyfriend made her laugh a bit and say to herself "who was I kidding?" but still recalled how much fun her and all the girls had at both dances. She came across her graduation cap and tassle and a framed photo of all the girls in 11th grade sitting on Claudia's bed, all with red and puffy eyes on the day they held their final meeting of the BSC.
Everything from the bag of confetti to that graduation cap meant something to Kristy. It represented a memory. A happy memory, otherwise she wouldn't have kept it. Kristy has tons of friends, inside and outside of work and on her softball team and was in no means a creepy hoarder holding on to her childhood memories. All the girls contributed things to these memory boxes before they all left for college. They remained in Claudia's closet for years before her parents decided to turn the BSC headquarters into a guest room and Kristy gladly took possession of the boxes.
She then realized that being the president of the BSC shaped everything about her. The way she carried herself, the way she managed the HR department and even in her personal life, when she actually felt like going on a date and in so many other ways which she felt contributed to her wonderful life she's currently leading. Sure, tons of kids are in clubs growing up but the BSC was different. It was a club, a business and a sisterhood, for which she was eternally greatful.
Never much of a crier, Kristy was only a bit misty eyed as she put all the contents back in the box. As she was putting the top back on, her eye caught what was scrawled on the inside of the box lid.
"Friends Forever"
She smiled and said to herself. "Always."