Short Stories: My Celebrity Connection
For a long time, I was so caught up in this memory of when I was a freshman and this girl, Lauren, who is now "T.V. star" famous, was my friend for about a year. What luck is it that our friendship ended before she could ever sign my yearbook! For quite a while I carried around this resentment that she had intentionally dismissed me.
We were friends one moment and the next we weren't. It's one of those situations, where it's all in slow motion I'm walking down the hallway in school, on my way to class, and I see her with some girls who I know are on the pep squad, and I realize these are her new friends. "Hey, Lauren, how are you?" I say as I approach them. She gives me this nice, but bored look, and just says hi, turning her head back as soon as the words come out. Just hi, not even my name. Like I don't exist anymore.
I had lots of friends, so this didn't devastate me. And to be honest, I'm not sure I liked her that much. She always seemed to have a bit of a snooty air about her even when we were friends. But it doesn't matter who discards your friendship, it is still something that will sit around, lurking in your mind, to remind you there is some flaw that you have that is undesirable. At the time I brushed it off fairly quickly. But over time, it really bothered m. To always wonder what that flaw was. Eventually, I took the one photo I had of us together, out of my photo album and ripped it up. Naturally regretting that once she became famous. And of course the more famous she got, or recognized, the more pissed off I got about the whole situation.
So none of this would have bothered me so much later on in life, and I probably would not have given it a second thought, but she had to go and get famous. It was troublesome to be sitting on my couch in my sweat pants and no makeup just watching TV, waiting for the call from this temp agency, to be fully reminded and confronted by her continued existence. This was not how I imagined running into her again. I thought I could leave my haunts from high-school behind when I drove miles off across country to college and beyond. 
It was only some HBO promotional commercial, but it was jarring all the same. I hoped this was a one time deal. But of course, it wasn't. It wouldn't end. And thanks to my ever sensitive friends, I would get these calls out of the blue:
A Saturday night I was right in the middle of bleaching my roots. The phone rings, as I'm trying to catch the drips from getting into my eyes. It's my friend Julie, who never calls me. She's a friend from high school, one of those friends you never talk to but when your in town you see, and you get on as if time stood still between the last time you saw each other. She's calling me long distance just to tell me she had spotted Lauren on some sitcom.
"Guess What? I just saw Lauren on this new show and she plays opposite Molly Ringwald!" A long silence followed by me in a weary voice, "What-the-Fuck?!" I mean how else am I supposed to react? Here she was, working with our 80's icon, the one who represented my generation. This was unbearable. The only saving grace was that the show was canceled after one season. And once again, I was sure that Lauren would not go much further, she would disappear from my life. I didn't see the appeal or talent. But she did. She kept turning up.
Lauren eventually did land her own show. Some jewel of a show for that network. This was pretty bad, but if I didn't watch it, I didn't have to think about it. But then 2 or 3 seasons ago, I came up the stairs and out of the subway station to be confronted by a phone booth posting, with an ad for the show, featuring her bright smiling face. A bit startling, but it was small enough. I continued my walk to work, and a bus passed in front of me and there it was again, 6 times the size, taking up the whole side of the bus. It wouldn't end from there, living in Manhattan is a virtual advertisement. Everywhere, she appeared before me. On the side of buildings in midtown, and in my neighborhood downtown. She had finally invaded my home. And the more I saw her the more angry I would get. "Try to be happy for her" I would tell myself. "Why am I so upset? I don't want fame, I don't want to be an actress. Why does this piss me off so much!?"
The answer came back to me as I was preparing for my 20 year high school reunion. I was upset because she was the symbol, the reminder for me of all things wrong and spiteful about high school and being adolescent. She was the reminder of how mean girls can be to each other. She wasn't so cruel to me, really. I mean, I'm sure there were others who were worse. But they vanished neatly after school was over. And of course it didn't occur to me that I would have ever done the same thing. That is, until my reunion.
As I sat to prepare myself for the reunion, my friend Maurine and I went through every photo in our senior year book. There were lots of people I forgot about, and seeing these photos brought back memories of some I had been friends with. Some that I had been very good friends with at one point. "Hey, whatever happened to Pam", I wondered. We were friends once.
The night of the reunion, I was pretty excited. At this point it was very obvious Lauren wouldn't be there, so that took any edge off of it. I walked around as best as I could greeting people. And then at one point, I saw Pam.
"Pam", I greeted her excitedly, "Hey, wow you look great. It's so good to see you."
She smiled, and said, "Hi, Suzanne" in a skeptical sounding voice.
"We used to hang out a lot", I blurted, not really thinking what this implied. In my head, I was just finally realizing how friendships turn over.
She looked at me, with these eyebrows that arched in a way that looked kind of severe, and said flatly, "In junior high". It was said straight with no soft edges. An accusation. Of course, I did not let on that I caught that tone, I just smiled and toasted her with my wine glass, and turned to say hi to someone else.
But I did catch it, and as the night progressed, and I dealt with the over played enthusiasm from the cheerleaders, who pretended to know me, although I know they didn't remember me, I realized I must have done the same thing to Pam, that I thought Lauren did to me.
We were good friends in Junior High. Very good friends. I don't remember exactly why that ended. It was too long ago. But when I left Junior High and entered High School, it was new territory, classes with new kids, different schedules, and making new friends. I didn't mean to alienate an old friend. And I believe in all sincerity that I did not try to hurt Pam by loosening the grip on our friendship and hanging out with the kids who were in my new classes but for her, that memory might hurt.
And so, just maybe my celebrity friend, might have inadvertently just met new friends, friends and a lifestyle that I didn't fit into, in her opinion. Maybe it wasn't' because of the way I dressed, or that I wasn't cool. Maybe it was just one of those things, that I myself am guilty of.
It is interesting though, that with age, forgiveness doesn't necessarily come so easily. The logic is presented before me, but somehow for me, it's easier to think she's just a bitch. I know the right thing to do is cheer for her as the bus goes by, and her face smiles out at me, but somehow having her role be the evil celebrity is more comforting to me. And I wonder if Pam feels the same way about me. Although she has the better end of the deal, as I don't think I'll haunt her as prominently as Lauren haunts me.
thoughts and stories by Suzanne Warfield
http://www.twotall.com
Copyright Suzanne Warfield 1996-2005
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