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Janel Randle
Twelve year old Kendra glanced quickly up at the clock, and hurriedly tucked a few loose curls in with a pin. She smoothed her long silk dress, and took in a nervous breath. "Kendra!" She ran out the door and nearly collided with her best friend.They stopped, looked at each other, and smiled. "Are you coming?" "Of course," She grabbed her friend's hand, and they ran down the hall. The two were wearing similar pink dresses, had their hair up in the same twist, and as they ran their laughter echoed down the empty hall. Kendra and Allison had lived next door to each other since they were six. They were inseparable. "Come dance, I love this song!" Allison bobbed her head with her usual enthusiasm. "Do you think he's looking at me?" Kendra answered, not even paying attention. Her eyes were glued to a tall blonde boy on the other side of the room. "Well he is now, stop staring, he's going to think you're a dork. Come on, you can show him you're cool, come and dance with me." Allison jumped up and down on one foot, while making up hand movements to the words. Kendra glanced around quickly to see if anyone noticed her friend's odd behavior. She was surprised that not only did people notice, but a few of them were following along with Allison's dance, smiling and laughing. "Come on, it's fun!" She grabbed Kendra's hands and started jumping again. Kendra could feel her face turning red, and as she looked around, she could imagine everyone laughing at her. "I, I can't, remember, I twisted my ankle yesterday, " she knew she was mumbling, hopefully Allison would get the point. Her friend dropped her hands quickly, and gave her a hug. "You're right, I forgot about that. You know, I think he is looking at you, wait, don't look, play hard to get." Kendra smiled, she knew that was her way of apologizing. Finally the song ended and the music slowed. Kendra took her normal place, in the same chair she sat in every time when a slow song came on. Allison joined her, out of breath, and still laughing. "Ali, look, is he, do you think, look, he's coming over here! How do I look? Do you think he'll ask me to dance? I've always wanted to dance with a guy, look look, he's coming!" Allison swept the room with her eyes, cool, calm. "You're right he is, I'm so happy for you, good luck! Don't touch your hair, it looks perfect." They were right, the blond was walking toward them, in fact, seemed to looking directly at them. Kendra's stomach went into her throat, it was the moment she'd dreamed of for so long. "Care to dance?" He sounded so cool, so carefree, so wonderful. It was just like in her dreams. Only, one thing was different than she'd imagined. He was looking at Ali instead of her. Allison bit her lip slowly, and looked sympathetically at her friend. Kendra just gave her an encouraging nod. "I'm sorry, I don't think I can this song." She answered calmly. "You see, I just twisted my ankle, and I'm not sure if I can walk on it, I'm sorry." The boy nodded and left, rejection never looked cool, but Kendra thought he looked really good anyway. "Why did you do that?" She punched her lightly in the arm. "My ankle hurts, come on now, you didn't expect me to risk further injury for a guy?" "But that's my excuse." "It works better when I use it." The music changed, and Allison jumped onto the dance floor, grabbing the nearest guy. Soon she was hopping and singing along. She didn't even seem to notice that everyone in the room was watching her. Three hours later the girls sat giggling on Kendra's bed as they talked about their perfect future, and what kind of dog they wanted when they were married. Kendra ran a brush through the tangled dark curls that covered her shoulders. She looked at Allison's long, straight blond hair, that matched her perfect blue eyes. She wondered why one person would have everything so easy, and why things like beauty never came easily to her. ". . . and I'm going to have a little poodle named Penelope, and she's going to have her own room in my giant mansion. But I'm not going to have any kids, I won't get married. I'll live all alone in my giant house with my little poodle." Allison was laughing uncontrollably as she spoke, but Kendra was more serious, "But won't you get lonely? Don't you want a husband and kids and Christmas with a big family?" "No, I just want my dog. I won't be lonely. I don't need people. You can come and visit me for Christmas." "What if I'm busy, will you come see me?" "Of course, so are you already planning to be too busy for me?" "No, we're going to live next door anyway, remember? We'll live in a little neighborhood, with lots of other kids for our kids to play with." "But I'm not having kids." "Well, your dog can play with my kids." Kendra smiled at her future plans.She had everything worked out. She could see Allison and her drinking tea in the backyard, watching the kids, and the dog or whatever, play on their swings. They would have a big backyard, with grass. At nights their husbands would come home from work, and they would all barbecue in the backyard, like one big, happy family. Allison interrupted her dreaming, "we're going to live in Chicago, then right? So I can work, and live in a big city." "We can't live in Chicago. Chicago doesn't have neighborhoods." "Yes it does, every city has neighborhoods, besides how can I be the best lawyer if we live in small town?" "Not safe neighborhoods, and they have to have lawyers in small towns too." "Girls, time for bed." Kendra's mom came in the room. "Ahh, mom, come on, we're old enough to go to bed on our own, we don't need you to tell us." "Goodnight Sweetie, goodnight Allison." She kissed them both on the forehead, and turned out the light. "You know, your mom's really nice, you shouldn't be so mean to her." Allison commented after a few minutes. "Yeah right," Kendra yawned, "she's overprotective, and she treats me like a little kid. I bet your mom doesn't make you go to bed at midnight." "No, my house is too loud at midnight, my parents are usually fighting . . . " Allison's voice drifted slowly in and out of Kendra's mind, as she fell peacefully asleep. She never knew how long Allison lay there thinking, nor how innocent and happy she looked. And as the sun was coming up, the two girls lied there sleeping, with childish dreams, and plans for a bright future together. The rain coming in through the open window woke them the next morning. Smells of food cooking drifted up the stairs, and served as a motivation to get up. The girls crawled downstairs and let Kendra's mom heap piles of food on their plates. They took turns showering, and finally settled in front of the tv, watching the newest episode of Melrose Place. By noon they were running in and out of the house chasing each other with water guns. Both were already soaked from the rain, finally they collapsed in the front yard, both laughing so hard that they couldn't breathe. After she had herself under control, Kendra glanced over at Allison to see how she was doing. She was surprised to see tears in her friend's eyes. She'd never seen her cry before, actually, she had always admired Allison for her strength. She quickly threw her arms around her. "What's wrong?" Allison wiped her eyes, and looked away, "nothing, I'm sorry, I, I . . ." She couldn't think of an excuse for the tears. "What is it?" Kendra's voice was full of concern. Allison took a deep breath. "Well, I was going to tell you this last night," she swallowed, "but that didn't seem like a good time. You have to promise not to hate me after I say this, or at least . . . try to understand, my family's not like yours." "I promise." Their eyes locked solemnly. "My parents are divorcing. My mom says she can't stand my dad anymore. We're going to Virginia in two weeks." Kendra could have sworn that she was hit by lightening, although the rain had calmed down by then. She looked deeply into her closest friend's eyes, praying that what she had just said didn't mean what she thought it did. "You, mean for a vacation, right?" Allison shook her head and the tears began to flow again. Kendra pressed her hands to her eyes, determined to stay in control of her emotions. "How long will you be gone for?" "I'm not coming back. Mom says she never wants to hear 'Nebraska' again." Allison's perfect face was now red and puffy from the tears, but Kendra could still see how beautiful she was. The girls stood in the middle of Allison's room. "Do you remember this?" Allison was laughing, holding up a picture of their 4th grade teacher that they had drawn earrings and a mustache on. Kendra wondered how Allison could be so happy, she acted like her life wasn't falling apart. Kendra only smiled at the picture, the smile making her feel more empty than she had before. Allison threw the picture in a box of stuff that most people would have considered junk. Kendra had her own box that was almost full of stuff that they had found that was hers. Allison tossed another picture into Kendra's box. This one was of them at Disney World last summer. They had just gotoff of a roller coaster, and both of them had huge smiles on their faces. "You don't want this?" Kendra asked her. "Naw, my mom says to pack light, I'm sure I don't have room. Besides, it'll keep you from forgetting me." Allison looked away, and Kendra didn't see her tears, she was too busy hiding her own. She just stared at the picture, as though nothing were wrong. That night the girls slept over at Kendra's house for one last time. They talked for hours about all their good times, and the things that they would miss. They tried to talk about the future, but neither of them really wanted to, so they just stuck with past memories. "I guess we should go to sleep now." Allison said, around 3am. They both pulled the blanket closely around them, and stared silently into space. Kendra just wondered how Allison could be so happy that she was moving. She always seemed like she was fighting against crying. She buried her face in her pillow, and cried herself silently to sleep. The next morning Kendra stood in the middle of the street watching her friend's old, beat up station wagon drive away. The sky was bright, but for a moment all the world stood still. The only thing that seemed to move was the car, farther away. And the only one she thought would ever understand her, moved slowly out of her life. She looked down at the picture Allison had given her, and wondered if she would ever see her again, if the years that they had grown together would even matter in the future. As she stood there alone, with her eyes full of unshed tears, she wondered if there was any hope for the future at all.
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