Rudolf’s Diner

©A.E.  Nichols, 2007

Here is a framed photo of five fifth-grade girls grinning up at the camera. The slanting summer afternoon sun turns the ditch water greenish gold, makes halos on the hair of the blond ones, and freckles the noses of this perfect birthday afternoon in the days before sun block. I am perched in my half-wet t-shirt, on the rim of the man-sized aluminum pipe that spills into the swimming hole. The four other girls are Tina, my best friend from my neighborhood, Katie and Lolly, from both the grade-schools Iíve been to, and Robin, from church. They hardly know each other, but are sharing the inner-tubes politely, and laughing at each othersí jokes.

The next photo is in an album labeled ìHigh School.î The pictures are tilting behind the yellowing acetate, which no longer sticks to the adhesive background. Witness me, on several occasions, in various groups of five. On a piece of purple vellum is my pre-art-school attempt at calligraphy: ìFive Furry Friends, Freely Frolicking on a Friday Afffffternoon.î The largest photo, taped at the top shows me with four different girlfriends, all of whom are also best friends with each other, sitting in a circle around a linen tablecloth. We are all wearing white dresses and holding up wine glasses filled with sparkling cider, toasting to our clever fabulousness and the triumph of the statement we are making. This is the final meeting of the ìSenior Ladiesí Lawn Society,î a club we have formed with the purpose of ìbringing elegance to our school.î We are invoking an aesthetic more steeped in tradition than the one our hippie/redneck Midwest town offers; our picnic pageant transports us to a life more sophisticated. Sitting with us (amidst annoyed boys trying to play football on the lawn) is our club sponsor, the band director who usually yells at us to keep in step or play in tune. Today he is wearing a tuxedo and holding up a tiny cracker spread with brie. Within a few years our lives will indeed take us to different places: Beth and Shari will become peripatetic military wives; Leslie will start as a dental assistant and end up a dentist; Rhonda will go to the big leagues as a drum corps performer, and I will expand my horizons as a liberal artist.

Rhonda is with me again in the next photo of five best friends, which used to be stuck to my refrigerator but now has a pinhole through it on the kitchen bulletin board. She and I found each other again in a later phase of life, and with our new best friends we are building a snow woman in this photo, with a crown of holly leaves on her head, and missile-cone breasts tipped with the red berries. Two things are odd about this photo: that these young women are together alone in the great outdoors, away from civilization, and that they are wearing many layers of clothing. The five of us belong to a group of performersóthe DecoBellesówho in turn belong to a greater society of bohemians. We wear lipstick everywhere, to the shops and parties and clubs. We dance on stage with gold beach balls and pose in vintage clothing and picnic in a style more elaborate and anachronistic than the Senior Ladies could ever have imagined. But within this society, so enamored of glamour, the five of us have created a circle of laughter and affection that gives us a strength below the powdered surfaces. Each of us has four best friends with whom we can take off our makeup and tell the truth. We bonded as single, troubled women in our twenties, entered our prime years together, and married each other off. We celebrated each otherís differences, originality, and style at our weddings: Rhonda wore a peach-colored gown when she said her vows at the Palace of Fine Arts; Alexa designed a magical, Snow White princess ballgown that morphed into a sleek dancing dress; Margie wore a simple white shift with embroidered white kid gloves; I wore a cocktail frock from another era, covered with spirals, and Gina re-created a gauzy evening dress from our favorite movie, The Women, in daring black taffeta.

The fourth photo opens from an email attachment. There are nineteen people in this photo, all crowded around a barely-visible couch in a vacation cabin, not twenty miles from where the third picture was taken. There are ten parents here, their nine boys dressed for sledding, their colorful snowsuits as bright as their sunburned faces. The youngest is a kindergartener, and the oldest two are the age of the girls in the first photo we saw. And yes, this is my new group of five best friends, all mothers of various numbers of boys. Our families get together regularly for potlucks, parties, and home-made summer camps (each family hosting one day per week). We parent each otherís children, having all been trained in the same techniques at a cooperative preschool. The boys named this group of families ìThe Spicy Tacos.î Once a year, during our snow trip, the mommies take a walk together and talk about men and careers and boys, of course, and the stuff of being in our prime, and I love that I can turn to any of them for anything: Lisa, who is challenging the status quo by pregnant with a girl in this picture; Gail, the queen of arts and crafts, who is now exploring Physics; easy-going Nancy, who gets us to sing together; and Mommy Liz, for whom the others used to mistake me when we enrolled our twin-like blond toddlers in the school.

Five girls in the swimming hole was a coincidence, but in hindsight I realize I created each of the subsequent circles of women myself. Each of them started with one best friend, and together the two of us invited new friends to hang out. The four furry friends would grow to like each other, seeing more and more similarities, but only when the group made a conscious decision to invite the fifth to join in its activities did it start feeling like a special club. The fifth personógentle Beth of the Senior Ladies, dazzling Alexa of the Decobelles, strong-minded Lisa of the Spicy Tacosóchanged each constellation from a square to a circle of friends.

What is it about five? The right number of friends in a group is not a universal rule. Iíve been lucky enough to belong a ìgangî of nine, a few different trios, and the odd cluster of four-to-seven pals, but these three groups of five girlfriends have grounded me. Perhaps this number means more to me because five was the number of my original family (three kids to slightly outnumber the parents), which dissolved between the first and second photos. Shari bought rings for the Senior Ladies to wear in solidarity, each sporting a small silver foot with five toes on it. There is a mathematical resonance to five that I find soothing, perhaps for no other reason than Iíve been looking at my hands since I could focus my eyes.No one feels excluded with five, like they do with three; you donít get stuck in pairs, like you do with four. When there are five friends, each one can walk in the center a while, with a friend at each corner, like I did up the aisle at my wedding. Five is a rare number of balance and beauty found in pointed stars and buttercups, a number of unity as symbolized by the Olympic rings.

If life is as perfect as pointed stars and buttercups might lead us to believe, then perhaps someday I will be fortunate enough to have another group or two of five best pals with whom to make the most of new phases of life. Lately Iíve found myself longing for a group of vital, world-changing conspirators, perhaps a literary circle, perhaps professionals, possibly even the board of a creative corporation. And farther down the road, I hope there will be a photo to display on my nanoplasma viewportal of five little old ladies with teacups, wearing gaudy jewelry, laughing, perhaps, at a heroic story of of beating a foul-mouthed young man with a weather-repelling device. I will look back at this old lady photo years after thatówhen Iím old beyond old and the image can be projected directly onto my retinasóand remember there was brandy in our teacups, and realize that this last circle of do-it-our-own-way friends had defined itself that day. My four old-lady pals and I, or whatís left of them, will still go to matinees together, speak our minds, perhaps even chain ourselves to the last three remaining redwood trees. We will laugh at our baggy ankles, complain about our diverticulitis, and hold each other close when it is time to mourn. And weíll listen to each otherís stories of the circles of friends weíve enjoyed along the way.

©Kristen Caven, 2007