This weekend I did something daring, or at least daring for me if you consider that up until recently I had a phobia of telephones and communication in general.
Anyway, I tend to be haunted by even the most mundane past unfinished business--i.e., falling out of touch with people without any closure. There were a couple of times that happened in high school, but I got back in touch with Marie and with Amy, and while we don't communicate regularly it's enough for me to put my conscience to rest. In my memory those friendships didn't end very well when I moved to Missouri, so it's good to be talking to them again.
That said, the one relationship I've always wanted closure for dates back to grade school. Her name was Anna Boskovski and she was probably the first and best friend I ever had. You really never do have friends like the friends you had in grade school. We both went to Mary C. Greer Elementary School in Charlottesville, Virginia and I think we had the same homeroom class in 4th grade. We stayed friends until the beginning of 6th grade, at which point she moved to Centerville, Ohio and I moved to Louisiana.
This was before Charlottesville became as urban as it is now. She lived near a creekbed, and whenever I went over to her house, we would walk to the Barracks Road Market (which I always romanticized in my head because of it's "standard", a rearing black horse on a white background) and bought Lil' Debbie cakes that we split down the middle. We'd walk down to the creek and "island hop" between the little sandbars dotting the water, trying to keep our footprints perfect and preserved. We may have written our names in the sand with a stick, attempting immortality for a day, but I might be imagining it. Funny the details you add to your own history the longer you think it over.
Anyway, we'd get back to her house covered in mud, our sneakers sloshing with water. Her grandmother (whom I called Baba, just like she did--or some diminutive like that, my memory's vague now) made me take my sneakers off and put them on the radiator to dry, and sent me home in an old pair of Anna's sneakers. Anna's parents were divorced; her father lived in Florida and once when Anna visited she'd brought back a beautiful conch shell that they kept on the tank of the toilet in the bathroom. I thought her mother was beautiful, or maybe I've made her beautiful in my memory: she was slightly pale, thin, wore wire-frame glasses, and had soft-looking dark hair that curled in wisps at her forehead. I think Anna didn't like her father, but I can't remember, and that could all have very well changed by now.
I thought Anna was beautiful. This I'm sure I'm not making up. She had long brown hair that she usually wore in a braid, though strands were forever escaping it, and I remember thinking at the time that she could have been a model for winter fashion. She wore a red beret to school sometimes, and a multicolored scarf with a fringe. My little sister Anji, upset on the bus one day, sat with me and Anna, and Anna cheered her up by telling Anji the names of all the individual strings on the fringe of her scarf. She was crazy and good like that.
She told me her family was crazy and good too. Supposedly her grandmother would take the time to bury roadkill, often dead deer, in the woods near their house. I was never sure if that was true or not, but I wanted to believe it, and I generally did believe everything she told me.
There was another friend we had, Kristen something-or-other, who apparently thought of Anna as her best friend. Maybe I'm making this up too to make myself feel better (but I remember it so vividly!), but I remember Anna telling me out by the creek that Kristen could be so bossy, and I was a better friend. I think that's when we "officially" became best friends? I don't know. I remember being surprised by that conversation because I always thought Anna was tough; it seemed like she was always the one coming to my rescue in social situations (yes, my ineptitude is innate and set in at an early age) and comforting me when things went wrong. And let's face it, things always go wrong when you're in fourth/fifth grade. It can be a rough time.
At one point, Anna's mother had a friend over, a punk motorcyclist (as an impressionable fifth-grader, I thought she was
so cool). The motorcyclist offered to take us on a ride. Anna went first, and then I went. I remember being so proud because the motorcyclist complimented me on my courage, saying that Anna had held on to her so tight she could barely breathe. I on the other hand was exhilarated and wanted to take the bike for another spin. I thought that it made me Anna's equal, or something.
She moved to Ohio some time after that. We called once or twice. Neither one of us was good on the phone. The last conversation I remember having with her was about music; I think she recommended an early REM CD,
Monster I think, or whichever one has "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?" on it. The next time I called her, I couldn't get through. I thought she'd moved and expected her to call, but she never did. I sent a letter once, I don't know if she ever got it, but it never came back Return-to-Sender.
After that I sort of put her in the back of my mind, not quite forgetting but never quite able to track her down. A couple of times while at Dartmouth I tried Google, but never could find her. I thought maybe she'd changed her last name to her mother's name, which was Polish and I'd never remember it in a thousand years. She's not listed on Classmates.com and she's not on The Facebook.
And then as I was fucking around yesterday, I Googled her name and found something for the first time--an interview for the University of Cincinnati campus newspaper. They quoted an Anna Boskovski, a third-year student of Fashion Design at their DAAP department (oh, I could see her as a fashion design major!) talking about all-nighters and the last weeks of school. The article was dated June 2005. I'm not sure if she's a third-year undergraduate and took a year off after high school or between years, or what the deal is with that. That made me doubt that it was really her. I searched the college directory and found nothing, either her email isn't listed or she graduated and alumni emails aren't listed. I would have killed for something like a DND look-up at that point. But then I tried a couple more places and finally found a listing for one Anna Boskovski in the entire country. Listed as a resident of Ohio.
Looking further, I found that her current age would be about 22, which seems about right, and her contact information was listed too. It took me hours to find it, so I wrote it down and then (here comes the daring deed) I called her. The answering machine came on--a guy's voice listing three names, one of which was Anna--and so I left a message and a call-back number.
That was maybe 3:00 p.m. yesterday. I don't really expect her to call me back, it's entirely possible she doesn't remember me or doesn't want to make the effort, or a number of good and valid reasons. Maybe she doesn't recognize my name. Still, I'm hoping she calls. I'm secretly hoping that one day she Googles her own name and maybe comes across this page and remembers me. I don't know what I'm hoping. I guess just for a little closure. At the same time, I hope she doesn't call--I don't know what to expect, and I'm worried she won't live up to the ideal I've crafted in my head over the past 10 years or so.
I guess a lot of people would say that this whole saga was stupid, but I feel a lot better just having called and left that message. At least now no one can say I didn't try. And if she does call back, well--that's the last ghost I have haunting me. If I can put that to rest, maybe I really can go on being (er--trying to be) a normal human being. We'll see. I'll keep you posted. Cross your fingers for me.
