Day 23

I spent the weekend with friends. We shared thoughts and feelings and laughter and Thai food and pistachio nuts and chocolate. At this point, I am satiated, full to the brim.

Most of what I learned about friendship I learned from my mom. When I was a kid, my mom's best friend was Carol. They had a lot in common: both single parents, both working crappy jobs on the assembly line at Zenith. It was the 1970s and they were both young and pretty.

On Saturdays my mom would go to the beauty shop to have her hair shampooed, curled, teased and shaped into a great mound of cotton candy. She would come home from the beauty shop and spray it with a whole can of Aqua Net. This was all in preparation for Saturday night.

At about 6:00 my mom, my brother and I would pile into our red Pinto and drive to the trailer park on the edge of town where Carol lived with her son Mark. We would usually stop at McDonald's on the way over for hamburgers and fries. The three of us kids would sit in front of the television eating our dinner from paper bags while we watched Lawrence Welk or Hee Haw.

The real show was in the bathroom where Carol and my Mom stood side by side applying makeup in front of the mirror. They would emerge flushed with excitement and glowing, with pastel eyelids, long spidery lashes and crimson lips. They usually wore miniskirts or hot pants over pantyhose that made their legs look tan and firm. The smells that followed them out into the living room were sweet and intoxicating. My mom wore Charlie, just like the beautiful, bouncy blond in the ads.

Our babysitter would arrive and my mom would hug me before rushing out the door, headed for a singles' dance or a country music bar. I clung to her rabbit fur coat hoping that a little of the smell and the glamor would rub off on me.

I would be in Carol's bed when they got back well past midnight. I would pretend to be asleep while they whispered and laughed. They would tell funny stories like the one about my mom using the men's bathroom while Carol stood guard outside the door. They compared notes about the men who bought them drinks or took them out to breakfast, the men they always left in order to come home together where we all slept with Carol's pet pug in her gigantic king-sized bed.

In those early morning hours, just before sunrise, listening to my mom and Carol, I learned a lot about friendship and family and love and commitment. Mostly, I learned about the power of sisterhood. This weekend as I laughed and listened and shared with my girlfriends, my mom and Carol were there in the background in their hot pants and miniskirt, looking on and smiling.