Cool Beans

Annie exited the interstate at the old State Street exit that would take her to her hometown of Summersville. She hadn’t been back in years, but as executrix of her grandfather’s will, she was required to go to the First National Bank of Summersville to log the contents of his safe deposit box and close it out. Her grandfather had moved to an assisted living facility near her when his health started to decline, and she was still adjusting to the idea that he was no longer alive. He was her only close family member, as she’d lost her parents in a car accident 10 years before, and her younger brother had moved to the west coast shortly thereafter.

Annie made the familiar drive to town on autopilot. She got to the bank a few minutes before her 11:00 appointment and had no trouble finding a parking space. Summersville was a small town that went about its business without too much hubbub. Most of its residents knew or knew of each other, and many had lived their entire lives there. She had a happy childhood but was glad she no longer lived there. She needed more stimulation than Summersville could offer. She intended to do what she had to do at the bank and get back to the city before rush hour. She and her husband had dinner plans that she did not want to miss.

She grabbed her bag and folder of official documents off the back seat of her SUV and headed into the bank. The estate attorney’s office had contacted the bank about the safe deposit box last week, so the bank was expecting her. She approached a teller and said, “Hi, I’m Ann Philippi. I’m here to go through my grandfather’s safe deposit box and close it out. The estate attorney, Edward Sutton, made the appointment for me last week.”

The teller smiled and said, “Let me get my supervisor, and she will take care of you.” Annie waited at the teller’s window and watched her return from one of the offices with a short, stocky woman who appeared to be struggling to straighten her suit jacket as she walked toward her. “Hello,” she said, “I’m Cindy Ford, the manager here. I just need to see your ID and a death certificate and make copies of them for the file. Then we can get started.” Annie nodded and handed the woman her ID and one of the many death certificates she had in her folder. “OK,” said Cindy, after making the copies she needed and returning the originals to Annie, “let’s go get the box and get you set up in a conference room.”

After they retrieved the box from an interior room, Cindy led Annie to a conference room and explained the procedure of logging each item on the official form. “Take your time,” she said, “you can have the room all day if you want.” Annie shook her head, “I don’t think he has a lot in there, so I don’t expect it to take that long, but thank you. I’ll let you know if I need anything.” Cindy smiled and straightened her jacket again, “OK. As we used to say at Summersville High, ‘Cool beans!’” and left the room with a giggle.

Summersville High, Annie thought. She hadn’t offered up that she also went to Summersville High, because Cindy had been on her way out the door, and Annie was not in the mood for chit chat. She had a task to complete, and Cindy didn’t look familiar, so there was no need to waste time going down that road. But as she was logging the contents of the box, she caught herself thinking that maybe she did know the woman. “She clearly doesn’t recognize me,” she thought. “My married name and the fact that Grandpop was Mom’s dad are throwing her because she doesn’t know my maiden name. Who is she? Cindy. Cindy Ford. Do I know her? She looks older. Maybe she graduated too far ahead of me for me to know her that well.” Annie closed her eyes and tried to picture the woman’s face. Then the rest of her. She tried to take a few pounds off of her, based on the too-tight jacket that kept riding up on her. “Her hair is probably different—mine’s different, so hers probably is, too,” she reasoned.

Then Annie’s eyes opened wide. Oh, God. Cindy. Not Cindy Ford, but Cindy Blackwell. Cindy Blackwell, you traitorous bitch. Annie’s mind was immediately transported back to the first weeks of 7^th grade, when students from 4 elementary schools were merged into the lowest grade of junior high school. Cindy was from another elementary school, Kennedy, where the rich kids went. She wasn’t snobby like some of them, but some of the snobby ones were her friends. Annie met Cindy the first day of science class, and they hit it off like they’d been friends for years.

In the new environment of junior high school, Annie had been thrilled with the concept of study hall, which was like a free period where you could have a break from class and do your homework or read or actually study. One option for study hall was to sign up for the library, where you could sit at tables with your friends (but you had to be quiet) instead of sitting at a desk in a classroom or in a seat in the auditorium. Annie signed up for the library one Tuesday, sat down at a table, and a few other students joined her one by one. She noticed Cindy sitting at the next table with Tracy, Amy, and Gretchen, 3 other girls from Kennedy. Cindy smiled and waved at her when she saw her. On Thursday, when Annie had that study hall again, she noticed that Cindy and her friends sat at that same table.

Annie decided that the next Tuesday, she would sign up for library, get there early, and sit at Cindy’s table. Sure, she would be taking someone’s seat, but Gretchen had been the last one to get there on both days, and none of them seemed to be very friendly with her anyway, so she would sit in her chair. Cindy was Annie’s new friend, and it would be fun to sit with her. Maybe she’d make friends with Tracy and Amy, too.

Annie showed up early that next Tuesday, according to her plan. She was the first one at the table, so she sat in Gretchen’s chair. Cindy was the next to arrive. She sat down gingerly next to Annie, smiled, and said, “Hey, Annie,” although it came out like the question, “What are you doing here?” was attached. Annie tried to ignore that, and instead smiled back and asked, “Are you going to work on your science homework? Maybe we could work on it together.” She pulled her science notebook out of her backpack and took out the worksheet they’d been given earlier that morning for homework. Before Cindy could answer, Tracy and Amy came into the library and sat down in their usual seats at the table. Annie said hi to them, but they made her nervous, so she quickly turned her attention to her worksheet. She could see the heads of the 3 girls moving out of the corner of her eye, but no one said anything.

Then Gretchen showed up and stopped short when she saw the full table. She walked over to the empty table beside it, slammed her books down, and sat down. Annie remained focused on her worksheet, thinking, “Well, Gretchen, no one likes you anyway, so you can sit over there today.” But she noticed out of the corner of her eye that the 3 heads at her table continued to move. The 3 mouths formed (almost) silent words, but they were quiet enough to be undiscernible to Annie. Suddenly, Cindy, Tracy, and Amy stood up simultaneously, grabbed their books, and moved to the other table to sit with Gretchen. Annie was crushed. She kept her head down and tried to act like she didn’t notice. Her face was burning. She felt humiliated, and she wanted to cry, but she was determined not to let them see that she was upset. She continued to try to work on her science homework for the rest of the period and bolted from the library as soon as the bell rang.

The next morning, she got to science class early and asked Mr. Walker if she could move to a front-row seat because she was having trouble seeing over the tall kid who sat in front of her. Mr. Walker said that was not a problem, since there was an empty seat in the front row by the window, so she quickly headed to it and sat down before Cindy arrived. So much for having to deal with Cindy. If Cindy asked, Annie would tell her that she moved because she couldn’t see over John’s head, but Annie was pretty sure Cindy wouldn’t ask.

Annie snapped her mind back to the present day in the conference room and the task at hand with the safe deposit box. Jesus. Cindy Blackwell. No, Ford. Ford? She married Joe Ford? Interesting. A middle-class, non-Kennedy boy. How did that happen? Cindy never asked Annie why she changed seats in science, and after that year, their paths rarely crossed, as Annie continued with science classes, and Cindy opted for business classes. They weren’t enemies, but they weren’t friends. The message received by Annie that day in the library was that she wasn’t good enough, and she had not realized until today that the incident was still buried in her mind. “Well,” she thought sitting in the conference room, “I moved on, and you’re still here, so cool beans, indeed!”

Meanwhile, when Cindy left Annie the conference room, she walked away thinking that although she didn’t know an Ann Philippi, the woman’s face looked familiar. Ann seemed to react somewhat to her mention of Summersville High, but she didn’t say she went there. She was wearing a wedding band, so Philippi was likely her married name. Ann Philippi was there to go through the safe deposit box of her grandfather, Martin Woods, but Cindy didn’t know an Ann Woods, either. Ann looked younger, Cindy thought, so maybe she didn’t know Ann because she’d graduated too far ahead of Ann. “Wait a minute,” she thought. She had the photocopy of Ann’s ID, so she could check her birthdate on that.

Cindy went to her desk and picked up the file. The birth year on the ID was 1970, the same as hers! “She looks good for her age, whoever she is,” Cindy thought. “So who is she? If she’s from here, we were in the same class. Ann. Ann…who? Oh, SHIT!” She dropped the file. Annie! Annie Burton! She used to have really long hair and glasses, and now her hair barely touches her shoulders, and she must be wearing contacts. She used to be timid, and now she's a woman on a mission. “Oh my God,” she thought, “I will never forget what asses we were to her in the junior high library that day. What was I thinking?” Unlike Annie, Cindy had reminded herself of that incident many times over the years, wondering why she’d behaved the way she did and hating herself for it. All to be in stupid Gretchen’s good graces. She’d lost track of Annie before they got to high school, and she had not heard where Annie ended up after they graduated. She hated herself for losing what probably could have been a good friend over her own insecurity and stupidity.

Lunchtime was approaching, and Cindy decided to try to make things right. She ran over to Chris’s Deli and picked up 2 turkey and provolone subs and 2 bottles of water. She put hers in her office and took Annie’s over to the conference room. She knocked lightly on the door, then turned the knob and opened it a crack to poke her head in. “I thought you might be getting hungry, since it’s almost lunchtime,” she said. “I brought you a turkey and provolone sub and a bottle of water from Chris’s Deli across the street, and I’ll leave them here if you want them.”

Annie looked up at Cindy Blackwell Ford. Should she pretend that she didn’t know her and thank her for bringing her lunch? Should she tell her that she realized who she was, and she didn’t need her damned sub, and please get the hell out? Or should she tell her she knew who she was and thank her for bringing her lunch? Before she could decide, Cindy came over to the table and placed the sub and the water bottle next to Annie. She pulled out a chair, sat down next to her, and said, “I’m sorry to bother you. I promise I won’t take up much of your time. I just wanted to, uh, well, I didn’t recognize you at first, but you’re Annie Burton, right?” Annie nodded slowly. “You look great,” Cindy continued, “I look like shit. I’m Cindy Blackwell. I mean, Ford. I married Joe Ford. We were all in school together. I had 3 kids and gained about a million pounds, and here I am, still in Summersville, so not much to report.”

Annie replied stiffly, “Thank you for bringing me lunch. I didn’t realize who you were at first. Your hair is different, and I didn’t know you married Joe Ford, so I didn’t recognize your name, but the more I thought about it, after you said you went to Summersville High, I figured it must be you.” When she saw Cindy squirm in her chair with what seemed to be fear, she decided it wasn’t worth it to be mean after all these years, so she softened her tone and said, “So how have you been? Congratulations on your husband and kids. Joe was always such a nice guy. And it’s great that you are the manager here. That’s a lot to report!”

Cindy looked like she was going to cry. And then she did. “Oh, Annie!” she said. “How can you be so nice to me? I know it was a long time ago, but my friends and I were just awful to you one day in the junior high library, and I’ve never forgotten it. I wanted to apologize to you right after it happened, but I was too much of a coward, and after a while, so much time had gone by that I tried to tell myself it was no big deal. But I have thought of that day many times over the years, and I absolutely hate myself for behaving the way I did. I’m so, so sorry. I was friends with a bunch of controlling snobs, and I let myself be controlled by them.”

Annie was floored by Cindy’s admission of guilt and shame. She never considered that Cindy could have been upset about what she had done. “Cindy,” she said, “please stop beating yourself up. You were what, 13? To be honest, I had forgotten all about it until about 20 minutes ago, when I was sitting here trying to figure out who you were. Then it came back to me, and yes, it was hurtful and humiliating. I wanted to cry that day and for a long time after that. I didn’t understand why someone I thought was going to be my friend would do that. But we hadn’t known each other very long, and you knew the other girls from all those years at Kennedy, so I figured I just wasn’t good enough.”

“Argh!” Cindy sobbed. “Those girls lived in my neighborhood. Tracy and Amy were nice most of the time, but Gretchen was a bitch. She had to be in charge, and back then, she kind of told the rest of us how we were supposed to act. Her mother was the same way with the other moms in our neighborhood. That day, the 3 of us sat there and tried to figure out what to do when Gretchen was fuming at the next table. We didn’t want to leave you by yourself, but we didn’t want to catch hell for leaving her by herself, either. We didn’t know you very well, so we figured you wouldn’t mind. But I knew you did mind, and it was especially clear the next day when I got to science class, and you had a new seat. But you never said anything about it to any of us, so we were hoping you didn’t hate us.”

“Let’s just say that after that, I didn’t trust you or your Kennedy friends,” said Annie. “I didn’t hate you. I hated myself for not being good enough. But who knows, maybe that, among other things, motivated me to get the hell out of here after high school and move onto a place I may not have gone otherwise.”

“It had nothing to do with you; it was the 3 of us not being good enough for Gretchen unless we did what she wanted,” said Cindy. “We didn’t learn until years later that there was no pleasing her. Anyway, like I said, I don’t want to take up your time, but I did want to let you know how sorry I was.”

“Cindy,” said Annie, “are you going to eat lunch?”

“Yes,” Cindy responded, “it’s in my office. I should go eat it now.”

“Why don’t you bring it in here?” asked Annie. “We can have lunch together and catch up a little. I’ve been gone so long that I’ve lost touch with almost everyone from Summersville. It would be nice to hear what’s going on around here.”

“Oh, that would be great!” squealed Cindy. “Cool beans!”