It's About Friendship

The novel I’m writing is about friendship. The main character is 12 when the story starts. It’s the first year of junior high school, 1977. Gemma meets the girl who will be her best friend because their lockers are close together. She hadn’t noticed Sylvia before, they didn’t have any classes together. 

It’s a chilly morning and Gemma has left her sweater on the bus. All she’s got on is a white T-shirt. A ninth grader cruises by with her bevvy of beautiful friends. She sees that Gemma’s nipples have hardened from the cold and announces to the crowded hall that Gemma needs a bra. Laughter. Gemma wants to crawl into her locker. 

Then from out of nowhere appears a big gray sweatshirt, handed to her by Sylvia. Some more teasing from the ninth grade Charlie’s Angels gang. And Sylvia plants a hard slap on the leader of the older-girl pack. This act lands Sylvia in the principal’s office and initiates a friendship for two girls who each reallyneed a friend at that stage.

I got the idea after re-watching one of my favorite movies. Take a look at this scene, in case you haven’t seen it. Enjoy, if you have:

One of the many things I love about the friendship in Bridesmaids is that it’s super clear that these women have known each other a long time. They have the benefit of knowing who the other person is under all the adult layers that develop over time: the career choices, partner choices and general trappings of adulthood that can often mask the essential person beneath. 

If we’re lucky we have a friend or a few friends like this. I am one of the lucky ones. I have friends who go back to junior high (yes it was called that way back then). I’m not sure when Annie (Kristen Wiig) and Lillian (Maya Rudolph) are supposed to have met, but it strikes me that, given their differences, they might not have become close friends had they met as adults. 

In the movie Lillian is about to get married to her super stable, nice boyfriend. Everything we see tells us that Lillian has her shit together. She seems happy. Annie, on the other hand, is off the rails. Her boyfriend left her after bakery failed. She’s has no-strings-attached sex with a guy who’s a real asshole to her (Jon Hamm). Throughout the movie she’s a train wreck, making one really embarrassing decision after another. It’s hilarious and sweet.

I started to wonder about Annie and Lillian, when they met, what their friendship was like in its earlier stages. They’ve got a solid bond so there’s no doubt that they’ve seen each other through some ups and downs. They trust each other. But they’re super different when we meet them. Time has passed. Life has happened. Lillian is in a good relationship. Annie is a hot mess in every way. And yet, there they are, planning Lillian’s wedding together (sort of). 

I wanted to write a story that goes back to the beginning of a friendship that will last through life’s changes, because I’m so lucky to have long-term friendships, with women and men. I see who I am through my friendships, and who I want to be. 

At this point I don’t think we’ll follow Gemma and Sylvia all the way up to a wedding—the story takes place over just a couple of years—but in writing them I can imagine who’ll they’ll become. Knowing that their unwritten futures include each other, that they’ll stay close friends through ups and downs, has helped me to figure out who they are as very young women. The fierce loyalty they have to one another will sit at the heart of their friendship for years to come.

Thanks for reading. It was fun for me to write this. (More fun than actually writing the novel…).