A Eulogy For My Still-Living Best Friend

        “I feel like I’m writing a eulogy,” I say, off-handed, the moment after Eloise takes a sip of her coffee.

              Predictably, Eloise snorts, then rushes to cover her surely-stinging nose. I laugh, and she flips me off. When she walks up to the counter to get more napkins, though, I feel my smile slipping. I was only half-kidding, after all. I’m aware of the notebook in my purse like it’s a loaded gun I don’t know how to use. I’d be embarrassed to show her the pages and pages of half-written speeches, crossed out jokes, blacked out lines so corny they could never see the light of day. My maid of honor speech for her wedding. Not quite the same as a eulogy, but still – it’s the end of something, isn’t it?

              Eloise makes her way back to our favorite table in the back of the café. As teenagers, we used to hide back here and whisper behind the large indoor plants that blocked it from most of the other tables. She always said she wanted a little coffee nook like it when she had a house one day, and now she does. A sort of bittersweet, nostalgic feeling nestles in my chest, and I feel it settling in my expression against my will. Eloise crinkles her nose.

              “Why are you looking at me like that?” she asks.

              I feign confusion.

              “Like what?” I ask. I take a very innocent sip of my frappe, just for good measure.

              “Like my mom used to look at us on the first day of school every year,” she says. Then she reaches across the table to pinch my cheek. “’I can’t believe how grown-up you girls are getting. It seems like just yesterday you were—'”

              “Stop,” I groan.

              She pinches a little harder.

              “’—stealing each other’s pacifiers—‘”

              “’—and terrorizing the cat,’” I finish for her, giving her hand a light smack to make her let go. “Don’t think I don’t know your mom’s back-to-school speech by heart, too. And I wasn’t looking at you like that.”

              “Uh-huh,” Eloise says. “So how’s the ‘eulogy’ coming along?”

              I roll my eyes. As I do, they catch on a pair of teenagers across the café, dressed in clothes we would have worn in middle school. I know fashion cycles repeat, but Jesus.

              “God, are we old?!” I exclaim, grateful for the chance to change the topic.

              Eloise laughs, and I know she’s letting the topic change slide. She’s good about things like that. It’s how we’ve stayed best friends for so long.

              “What clued you in?” she asks. “The PhD? The engagement? The fact that no one asks to see your ID when you go to bars anymore?”

              “The bartender at O’Brien’s still does,” I say. “And I don’t have my PhD.”

              “The bartender at O’Brien’s is flirting with you, and you’re finishing your doctorate in two months,” Eloise says. “Try again.”

              She thinks she’s won, and I let her have it. That’s the kind of thing I’m good about.

              “It just doesn’t feel… real,” I say. “I mean, how long have we been coming to this place? Ten years? Twelve?”

              “Try fifteen,” she says.

Eloise leans back in her chair and smiles as she surveys the place. It still has the potted plants and mismatched chairs and cozy, squashy couch that drew us to it when we were kids. Only the posters on the corkboard by the door have changed.

              I take a moment to study Eloise against a backdrop of this constant in our lives. She has the same long, thick hair and aquiline nose, the same scar on her chin from when I knocked her off her bike in third grade. She still likes to wear baggy clothes in bright colors and paint her nails different colors on her right and left hand. I was there the first time she did that. I was there while she grew out her hair, when she got scars and bumps and bruises as a kid. And I like to think I was a part of creating the laugh lines forming around her mouth.

              But I wasn’t there when she got her belly button pierced in college, or when she broke her pinky so bad in a game of volleyball that it’s still a little crooked to this day. She wasn’t there when I shaved my head after a bad breakup – or I probably wouldn’t have done it. She hasn’t been next to me in a class since undergrad; she’ll listen for hours if I want to rant about my dissertation, but she’ll only comprehend about half of it. There are parts of my life where she doesn’t quite fit anymore, and vice versa.

              I feel that bittersweet feeling in my chest again, like something tugging on my ribs whenever I breathe in. Eloise is my best friend, and always will be. I don’t need to be a part of every chapter of her life, just like she doesn’t need to be a part of every chapter in mine. But when I remember how I used to be on every page, it’s hard not to miss that closeness.

              I think about all the crossed-out lines in my notebook. None of them do her justice. And I haven’t even started trying to write about her fiancé, Jeff, who might be the only person in the world who could have ever deserved Eloise. I owe them both better than this.

              I’m snapped out of my thoughts by Eloise grabbing my hand.

              “Do you remember that time I almost married Alex Mitchell under the slide during recess in first grade?” she asks.

              The memory startles a laugh out of me.

              “Of course, I do,” I say. “You spent, like, two weeks chasing the poor kid around the playground trying to kiss him. Then when he finally decided to tie the knot, I blew it for you! What was I, the flower girl?”

              “You were the officiate!” Eloise says, pressing a hand to her chest like an old lady clutching her pearls. “How could you forget?”

              “And I tripped and fell and all the boys saw up my skirt.” I put my face in my hands. “God, it was years before I stopped being embarrassed about that.”

              “It wouldn’t have been so bad if that little jerk hadn’t told everyone,” she says. Eloise glares, and for a moment I can see her before me, six-years-old and full of righteous fury. “You remember what I said?”

              “I remember what you did. You kicked him right between the legs and said…” I trail off, feeling my throat tighten for a moment. “You said ‘Nobody does that to my favorite person.’”

              Jeff, I knew the moment I met you that you’d be her new favorite person. I hope you know what a lucky thing it is to be Eloise’s favorite person. But I can’t think of anyone more deserving.

              The words occur to me in a flash, whole and complete. For once, the right words to say, in roughly the right order. For the moment, though, I don’t care. I squeeze Eloise’s hand back.

              “You know you’re always going to be my best friend, right?” she asks.

              “You too, Eloise,” I say.

              One of the teens nearby bursts into laughter, and I remember where we are. I hastily brush away a tear threatening to spill over.

              “Quit making me cry, or I’m saying mean things about you in your eulogy,” I say.

              But I watch the teenagers out of the corner of my eyes as I say it. They’re whispering over the table, giggling between words, and occasionally shushing each other. It’s like a scene from my memories. I smother a smile and look away when they notice me, but I make a wish for them that maybe in fifteen years they’ll still be teasing each other and laughing like kids. Then I turn back to my own best friend and ask her about wedding planning, as thoughts and ideas for my speech slowly begin to trickle in.