Elizabeth, Carla's friend wrote this remembrance of friendship.
My first memory is seeing Allison as an infant. My second is seeing Carla. These memories couldn't have been too far apart, since they were babies at the same time. When I met Carla, I was 2 years old. I was besotted with Carla, and named my doll after her---naturally, Marisa, who was closer to my age and wildly jealous of my love of her little sister, never really forgave me for it. She still brings it up occasionally. I believed that Carla the doll could see at night, and although she was silent around other people, she did speak to me when she had something to say.
As a mostly silent child, the real Carla also spoke when she had something to say. Sometimes she had a patch on one eye, like a baby pirate; for a while she had Smurf's on her glasses (which was very impressive to me); always she was sucking on her fingers and paying close attention to what was going on around her. But when Carla had something to say, we all leaned in real close and listened. More often than not, Marisa was her voice----"Carla wants to stop playing this now," or "Carla says she's hungry and we have to go home."
I loved my three friends---they were my sisters, my constant companions, and I was theirs. Any two of us could have fun, but three was weird (someone was always left out) and the four of us all together was what felt right. Marisa and I were constantly rolling our eyes at the foolishness and naivete of Allison and Carla, who were in turn usually annoyed at our bossy older-sister attitudes.
We did ridiculous things together, like buying 2 pounds of candy corn and eating it until we were sick, dropping Cadbury eggs off bridges onto moving trains, and lying on our backs in the field across the street, looking at the stars and listening to "Tennessee" on a walkman with a splitter for the headphones---one ear apiece. We saw our first PG-13 movie together---"Peggy Sue Got Married"--- and our first R-rated ones too---"The Shining," and "Do the Right Thing," because we were film snobs even then.
And when we went to high school, we were still there---down one, the year Marisa went to college, but I still picked Allison and Carla up every morning for school (Allison always late, Carla always on time). We got together, all four of us, every time Marisa came home, and compared notes on how and why we were different. How things had changed. But we were still all there.
I look at my daughter, and I think, with whom will she catch fireflies? With whom will she play Spit and Bullshit for endless hours, and whom will she call first on snow days? Will her childhood friends be the kind that mine are---the kind whose lives may follow different paths---but whose loyalty and commitment is never ever in doubt, even 30 years later?
It's unlikely. I know that. Most people don't make their friends for life at 2 years old. And yet I keep hoping, because Saidy is young and because we don't live far from where Marisa, Carla, Allison and I made up a quartet of friends who faced things together: bullies and sneaking candy, bad haircuts, stupid arguments and ones that really hurt.
We are not ACME any more. Our C is gone. But in my memory, which will have to suffice, Carla will always be with us. My three friends and I will be eternally diving under bushes when the UPS truck is spotted, because Marisa has convinced us that it stands for United People Snatchers and we are pretty sure that it doesn't, but not totally.
The view from the Impalli front porch will never be the same.
