Then, I said, “Love you.”

Silence for a beat then, quietly, “Love you too.”

That didn’t only cause a thrill, it gave me a warm feeling in the pit of my stomach.

I hit the off button and Ally said, “You guys are kinda making me sick with all this gushy stuff.”

I stared at her. “I just said ‘love you’. That’s hardly gushy.”

“It’s gushy for you.”

This was true.

“Did Lee say it back?” she asked, squinting at me.

“Yeah.”

“It’s gushy for him too. Off-the-charts gushy.”

She wasn’t wrong.

“Girls!” We heard Kitty Sue call from inside the house, luckily saving me from the gushy conversation.

“We’re out here!” I yelled.

Kitty Sue opened the door and stuck her head out. “Come inside. I only have a minute and I have to do this now.”

Then she was gone.

Ally and I looked at each other. Kitty Sue was using her Mom No Backtalk Voice and, with years of experience, we both knew better than to argue.

Kitty Sue’s arrival was a surprise.

“Do you know what this is about?” I asked Ally.

She shook her head.

We got up, wrapped sarongs around our waists, grabbed the phone, our drinks and the egg timer and went into the house.

Kitty Sue was standing in the living room.

“What are you drinking?” she asked Ally when Ally had rounded the stairs.

“Rum and diet,” Ally answered.

Kitty Sue yanked the glass out of her hand and downed it in two gulps.

Ally and I stared at her while she did this then turned our heads to look at each other.

“What’s wrong?” I asked Kitty Sue because I knew something was wrong. Kitty Sue was no teetotaler but she wasn’t one to chug, especially not rum. I’d only seen her chug once, during an out of control, marathon game of Scattergories one Christmas Eve and she’d not been able to think of an “s” word for the food category and that was so lame, we made her chug a beer as penance.

Good times.

“I’m not good at this,” Kitty Sue answered me, breaking into my trip down memory lane.

“At what?” Ally said.

“Being… doing… I don’t know. Girls, sit down.”

Ally and I exchanged another glance, then we sat.

That’s when I noticed a small wooden chest. It had hearts and flowers painted on it and some fading glitter stuck to it as well as some old stickers. It was sitting on the ottoman between my couch and armchairs.

“What’s that?” I asked, putting my drink and the phone on the floor beside me.

Kitty Sue plonked down on my couch opposite us and put her empty glass on the ottoman beside the chest. “It’s a Best Friend Box.”

My breath left my lungs.

“What?” Ally asked quietly.

“It’s Katie and my Best Friend Box. We put all our most precious stuff in there.”

I stared at the box.

That was my Mom’s box.

Oh my God.

I felt tears hit the backs of my eyes and I started deep breathing.

Kitty Sue looked like she was deep breathing too.

I heard Ally deep breathing beside me.

Kitty Sue leaned forward and opened the box.

“Let me see…” she said and started pulling stuff out of the box, trinkets, costume jewelry, what looked like ticket stubs to concerts and movies. I watched these treasures emerge in fascinated silence.

Then, she pulled out an old, yellowed envelope.

“Here it is,” she said and without hesitation, she opened it, pulled out a piece of paper, unfolded it and started reading. “I, Katherine Maria Basore and I, Kathryn Susannah Milligan do solemnly swear to stay best friends forever. No matter what. Even if Curt Zacharus asks Kitty Sue to go with him even though Katie is in love with him and wants to kiss him with tongues. This is the strength of our Bestest Best Friendom. We will get married in a double ceremony and live in houses with white picket fences that are right next door to each other. When we have children, they will play together and one day, they will get married so we can be related for real. The End.”

I was back to not breathing and I could feel Ally was not breathing beside me.

Kitty Sue stopped reading and turned the paper around to show me the flowery, young girl script on the front. She pointed to some brown stains at the bottom.

“Katie wrote this and we signed it in blood, kind of,” Kitty Sue explained. “We poked our fingers with pins and then stuck them together in a blood pact then mushed them on the paper.”

My head slowly turned to Ally.

She was breathing again and she was smiling.

“Well!” Kitty Sue said sharply and jumped up, “that’s done then.” She was rushing through putting the paper back in the envelope and she laid it on the ottoman. “Gotta go. Things to do. I’ll leave the box.”

“Kitty Sue –” I said, standing up.

“Mom –” Ally stood too.

Kitty Sue was headed to the door. “Don’t forget, barbeque at Hank’s on Saturday.”

Damn.

Lee and I were never going to go to Barolo Grill.

I shook off thoughts of delicious truffle risotto and followed Kitty Sue. “Kitty Sue, wait.”

She stopped at the door and turned. Tears were shimmering in her eyes and the sight of them made me freeze. I didn’t recall ever seeing Kitty Sue cry.

Ever.

Ally halted beside me.

Everyone was silent.

“Sometimes,” Kitty Sue broke the silence, “I forget and pick up the phone to call her. Still. After all these years… it seems like just yesterday.”

I swallowed and Kitty Sue began to get fuzzy as I looked at her but I could tell she was looking at me too.

“She’d be so happy,” Fuzzy Kitty Sue whispered.

Before anyone could say anything, she opened the door and was gone.

Ally and I watched her through the window as she got in her car and took off.

“Do you think she’ll be okay driving?” I asked and my voice sounded funny so I cleared my throat.

“We’ll call her in a bit, check on her.” Ally’s voice sounded funny too.

“Good idea.”

We stood there, silent, staring out the window.

Ally broke the quiet, the first to tamp down her emotion and get on with it.

As always.

“I need a drink. Mom downed mine.”

“My ice is all melted,” I said.

“I’ll get you another one.”

“I need to call Lee. I forgot about the barbeque. Barolo Grill is off.”

“Bummer.”

Ally picked up my glass and walked to the kitchen.

I stared at the box and decided to go through it later, when I was alone and no one would be able to call me a sissy or see my ugly, blotchy, red face when I was done.

* * *

I was lying in my darkened bedroom attempting a Disco Nap.

I heard Lee (or what I hoped was Lee) come in. The house was so silent, even at the distance of the kitchen to the bedroom, I heard his keys hit the counter.

I decided we were going to have to have another talk about the keys-on-the-counter business. I had a cute, kitty-tails-as-hooks key holder on the wall by the backdoor. Keys went on one of the kitty tails. I’d already told him once, but did he listen? No. He just smiled at me like he thought I was cute.

I heard his footsteps on the stairs and put my arm over my face.

I’d gone through Kitty Sue and Mom’s box, sifted through the memories, read and reread the letter until I’d memorized my Mom’s girlish handwriting, held the treasures in my hands, touched them, turned them, even smelled some of them.

Because of this, I had been crying and no way, in hell, did I want Lee to see me post-crying-orgy.

“Indy?” Lee called my name quietly and I knew he was standing by the bed.

I feigned sleep.

The bed moved when he sat on it and moved more when he took his boots off. I heard them hit the floor, one then the other. Then the bed moved again when he settled into it, turned to me and pulled my back to his front, arm around my waist.

“Stop pretending to sleep,” he said.

“Go away. I’m taking a Disco Nap,” I told him, my voice muffled as it was coming from under my arm.

“You’ve been crying.”

What?

How on earth could he know that? He hadn’t seen my face.

“Have not,” I lied.

He sighed. “Mom told Dad about the box. Dad told me.”

Shit.

This was going to be my life. I knew it. With Malcolm and Dad best friends and Ally and me best friends and Hank and Lee super close and Kitty Sue and Malcolm married, nothing was ever going to be a secret.

I decided to keep quiet.

Lee decided he didn’t like that.

He moved me so I was facing him.

I struggled for a bit then, realizing I wouldn’t win, I ducked my head and pressed it into his chest.

“Look at me, Indy.”

“No,” I said into his chest.

“Look at me.”

“I said no.”

“Why?”

“My face is splotchy.”

His body started shaking with laughter.

“I don’t fucking care if your face is splotchy.” Amusement was heavy in his voice.

I was so sure.

Like it mattered that he didn’t care. I cared.

“Well, I do,” I snapped.

“Look at me.”

“I’m not crying about the box. I’m just pissed we’re not going to get to go to Barolo Grill and especially pissed that Dawn doesn’t have to make reservations for us,” I lied, again (though I was kinda pissed about that but, as Lee said, we had time).

“You’re lying.”

“Am not.”

His arms went around me and he pulled me into him, tight.

I waited.