White Sand

She was from the coast. We all had wide eyes when she showed off her seashells and bird feathers with a smug grin, laying them out on the carpet in a perfect line. The dusty red, alphabet-letter-speckled carpet made for a shocking background; the contrast was like that of a diamond ring lying on a fast food counter. I felt ashamed suddenly of the tattered sweater I wore three times a week, its comfort melting away like snow in the Southern sun. 

We all sat criss-cross-applesauce while she told us stories about deep-sea fishing with her grandpa and smelling the ocean salt on her walk to school. It was unfathomable to us that our state had an ocean, a body of water large enough to house sharks and whales. We clung to her every word. She had an audience—small but greatly attentive— from the start. 

I was never jealous—I only wanted to be her friend in a desperate way. I had dark brown hair that lacked the shine that hers did, and my stories were never as vivid and full of exotic aquatic animals along our state’s mysterious seashore. She was not unlike the fascinating creatures she described to me; I saw her as an enigma, a character from a fairytale I so admired. That distance that was created between us from the start only made me long to to know her more. 

For the rest of elementary school and the majority of middle school, she never appeared on my class list, and so, as children do, I forgot about her. I forgot about her like I forgot about the activities I did in class each year, and slowly her memory was blurred and packaged into a distant place in my cortex. Annabelle wasn’t around for my major milestones. She wasn’t there when I did my first audition for a musical, my voice cracking with each high note. I managed to score a part in the chorus. She wasn’t there when I had to bury my very first pet. I wrote about it in my journal and cried myself to sleep. No, it was 9th grade when she drifted back into my life. 

“I realized that I don’t really have to do all the drinking and partying,” she confided in me during a rehearsal, holding a crumbled Cheetos bag in front of her knees. “I can be more like you.”

It stung a little bit because I didn't want to be seen as this boring nerd who enjoyed reading in her free time. But I smiled and nodded along with her. 

“How do you do it?” She narrowed her eyes at me and smiled in a way that made me feel complimented and appreciated. Seen, even. 

As a chronic observer, this was something I craved more than anything. I was that kid who was forgotten about during student of the month for three years of the row and the girl who never got asked to prom.

“Oh, I don’t know,” I said lamely. “I guess I just feel like there are so many things you can do that don’t involve drugs or alcohol.” I cringed at myself.

She laughed and smiled in a way that felt a bit condescending. “Yeah,” she said, narrowing her eyes and smiling again. 

She leaned over to finish her Cheetos, and I turned away, embarrassed of my own immaturity. 

I wasn’t sure what it was that she was drawn to, but she kept coming back and sitting with me at rehearsals. Maybe it was the fact that our characters were supposed to be acquaintances in the play. Maybe she just pitied me for sitting alone and working on geometry homework while I half-watched the leads rehearse their parts. She began to open up to me, more and more each time. 

I guess eventually she decided I was worth befriending because she invited me to spend the summer with her at her family’s beach house in Pass Christian. I was thrilled to be able to meet the family she displayed in pictures. I wanted so badly to be a part of one of those pictures, to squeeze in like a ray of light and only make my presence known in a gentle kind of way.

I was so nervous about what her family would think of me. I spent hours shopping with my mom for outfits I was sure they couldn't critique— all sweet, floral patterns and high necklines. My mom was reluctant to buy the clothes for me; she lectured me on the dangers of changing for someone else. 

Riding down in our old Honda Pilot with its fading bumper stickers, I felt embarrassed. Annabelle’s parents had BMWs —new ones, too. The sides were sleek, the bumper was free of advertisements or slogans, and it moved through the wind discreetly, while our SUV clunked and clanged, sputtering and gasping for air.

“Why couldn't we have driven Dad’s car?” I complained, staring out the window at the ominous billboards. Most of them contained slightly threatening Christian themes or giant phone numbers with plastered faces of trial lawyers. A light-up sign on the lawn of a Baptist church flashed, “Book of Revelations: playing on your TV now.”

“April, there’s nothing wrong with this car,” my mom said, laughing. “And, the crash ratings are superb.”

I thought for a while about how I hated that she said things like “superb” and the fact that she thought about crash ratings over style and physique. 

It was a long ride full of staring at dull grey two-lane roads that desperately needed to be paved and making a game out of counting the number of times I saw the word “Jesus.” It all felt very much like the Mississippi I knew and had grown to despise—that is, until we reached Gulfport. The air just smelled different, and the world suddenly seemed to open right up. Any time I came near the ocean— which wasn’t often— I felt as if the box of a world I lived in opened up one of its sides, letting me go free.

To my relief, Annabelle didn’t seem to notice our car and all of its scuffs and scratches. She squealed as she ran down the stone steps of her house barefoot, nearly tripping over the family golden retriever. 

“April!” She yelled. “You’re here!”

Annabelle’s mom came out of the house with a wide-brimmed hat and a light green cover-up. She had a wine glass in her hand, and she swayed as she walked down the steps. She laughed, and her whole body seemed to radiate sunshine. She seemed to take my mother aback, a woman who rarely drank and thought her free time was better spent curling up with a nonfiction book. 

“Annabelle talks about April so much,” Annabelle’s mom said nicely. “We’re excited to have her here.”

“Thank you for inviting her!” My mom replied, on her best behavior. 

“We’re excited to show her what we’re all about here on the coast,” Annabelle’s mom replied, winking at me.

I suddenly became too shy to say anything, so I smiled in return. Though Annabelle’s presence was a relief in the midst of all the unfamiliarity, I couldn't shake the unease I felt at a stranger’s house. That night at dinner, I struggled to get my words out as her family asked me questions about my family and my home. 

Over the weekend, I did what I always have done best: I observed. I processed the spotless white walls and the seamless decorations. According to Annabelle’s mom, it was “minimalistic.” According to my mom, it was “trying too hard.” I fought to take sides on this. I noticed how much more laid-back her family seemed to be about rules. Her family kept Cocoa Puffs and Lucky Charms on deck at all times, they had a cabinet dedicated to alcoholic beverages, and they had a soda-only fridge in the garage. 

Annabelle’s father was a prominent preacher in the gulf region, and he was often featured on radio shows and even local news networks. His church was one of the largest I’d ever seen. We went to look at it the second day I was at Annabelle’s house. 

“Wow,” I said, stunned at the elaborate interior of the church. The pews were outlined in gold and silver, and the ceilings were high. The biggest TV I’d ever seen was in the center of the altar. What’s the TV for? I was thinking. Are all churches decorated this way? I had so many questions. It was only natural for a child who hadn’t grown up with any kind of religion. 

“It cost a pretty penny,” said Annabelle’s dad, flashing me a grin. “But we have some real God-fearing folks here who would do just about anything to help us out.”

I had never understood that expression: God-fearing. And I certainly didn’t understand how it applied here. But I kept my mouth shut.

The parking lot was filled with cars like Lincolns and BMWs that I was in awe of. The collection basket was not a collection basket for stray ones and fives but rather a portable debit-credit card machine held by the ushers. Though I found it unusual, I felt like I was finally part of what I’d been excluded from for so long. The kids at school always “invited” me to youth group but spoke like they were taking pity on me. My mom shot down the idea any time I brought it up. 

Annabelle and I had the idea later that night to go back to the church because she told me about the beautiful sunset that we could see if we could get to the roof. I was hesitant about the idea, mostly due to safety concerns, but I wasn't about to tell her no. When we got there, we made it up to the roof and heard some strange moaning noises coming from inside the church. 

“It sounds like my dad,” she said, panicking. “It sounds like he’s screaming. We have to call 911.”

“What if we make a mistake and everything’s okay?” I asked, always erring on the side of caution.

“And what if we make a mistake and don’t call and it turns out he’s having a heart attack?” 

We dialed 911 and, minutes later, we saw the blinding lights. 

“Girls, hold tight,” yelled one. 

“We’re getting a ladder,” cried another one. 

We shook our heads and waved our arms in the best “no” gesture we could think of. We didn’t want her dad to come out and see us. But then he emerged from the church with a woman that Annabelle seemed to know. Annabelle narrowed her eyes at them and screamed. 

“You!” She pointed at the woman. “You’re trying to destroy my family!”

She jumped off of the roof before I could stop her. For the rest of the summer, I wheeled her around and helped her find people to sign her cast. I never minded; a large part of me felt special that she had chosen me. Why had she chosen me?

***

“I am a sinner,” boomed Annabelle’s father to the congregation the following Sunday after news had spread around town that he was having an affair. His head was lowered, and his hands were clasped tightly together. “I am a sinner, and I have an almighty God who forgives!”

Everyone cheered. I glanced at Annabelle and tried to read her facial expression, but it was blank. I never forgot the emptiness that I saw on her face that day. Her face was flushed, and her blue eyes contrasted sharply with the bright pink of her eyelids.

At night, it was like nothing had every happened. Her mom and dad seemed to be disconnected from the world we lived in as they sat on the couch and read through highlighted Bible pages together in the dim light. I kept quiet and waited for Annabelle to tell me how she felt about it all, but she never said a word.

Still, the summer wasn’t over. We collected seashells in every color we could find, stringing them into necklaces at night. We stayed up late and watched the neighbor boys take out their dogs for walks. Sometimes they were fresh out of the shower, their wet hair glistening in the moonlight. Annabelle would laugh a little louder until they looked our way. I hated it when she did that. I wasn’t much to look at, unlike her. 

We ran down the boardwalk and hopped over empty beer cans like it was a game. We soaked our hair in lemon juice and laid out in the sun, invincible. We took sips of sweet, lukewarm, orange sodas and grimaced a the sourness. Each Sunday, we went to church. Everything was ordinary. It still seemed like a Hallmark movie. Somehow, her family had managed to shove its exposed skeletons back into the closet, and I had yet to hear even a creaky joint. 

When August 3rd came, I didn’t want to leave. The thought of leaving the coast and returning to land-locked suburbia was depressing. I shoved my clothes and souvenirs into my tattered, hand-me-down suitcase, sitting glumly and watching the sailboats glide through the calm waters. When I waved goodbye to our state’s coastline, I didn’t realize it would be the last time I’d see it for a decade.

Annabelle didn’t talk to me when school started again. She pretended she didn’t know me. At first, I thought it was some game she was playing for fun. She had her share of bad days the summer I spent with her, but I’d grown accustomed to it. I knew when to take a step back and walk down to the pier to skip rocks by myself. The cold shoulder was lasting for days now, though. 

When I finally approached her, she said plainly, “We’re just too different, April.”

I begged and pleaded with her to give me more of an explanation, but she turned her back to me and walked off, laughing with her new friends, two new girls from New Orleans. I guess their stories of Mardi Gras and the beignets they brought to class were more interesting than my family game night and annual trips to Little Rock, Arkansas.

Tenth grade was lonely, to say the least. Each day was a clone of the other: I was ignored by boys, I was silent in class, and I had stomachaches and headaches constantly. Worse, Annabelle and her friends ridiculed me each chance they got. I received nasty messages from anonymous numbers telling me that my ears and nose were too big and vague threats to spill my “biggest secrets.” Tenth and eleventh grade passed me by, and life wasn’t much different, although I had made two new friends. It was senior year, though, when my life turned upside down.

Whispers spread around school that Annabelle had attempted suicide. At first, I thought it was a stupid rumor, but then I didn’t see her with her posse. In fact, I didn’t see her friend group at all. 

I ended up getting the information from our gossipy guidance counselor, who I overheard talking to one of the secretaries. Annabelle had overdosed on Tylenol, but it hadn’t killed her. Instead, it sent her into liver failure, and she was in the ICU. Apparently, her parents had recently filed for divorce and she hadn’t taken it well. Now, she needed a transplant but wasn’t eligible because her liver failure was caused by a suicide attempt.

How could this have happened to the Annabelle I knew, whose bright eyes were always searching for her next lofty goal? How could she have slipped so far through the cracks into this darkness that had consumed her? Her family was perfect. She was perfect. 

Annabelle died one month before graduation on a sunny, breezy day in April, the kind with endless blue sky and distant hum of airplanes. The kind of day a tragedy like that doesn’t make sense. 

A lot of life happened between high school graduation and my 28th birthday. There was college, where I grew into my own two feet and poured my heart into my literature classes in a brand new city hundreds of miles away from Mississippi. I started my first job as a middle school English teacher, after thinking I’d never step foot in a school building again. I had a couple of boyfriends and adopted a cat. I thought about Annabelle sometimes, and it always stung. But I never went back to my home state’s coast until my cousin’s wedding in Pass Christian.

Going back to the coast ten years after the summer I spent with Annabelle was harder than I thought it would be. Our family rented out an AirBnB just a short walk from the water. I sat and stared at the calm shoreline, watching young kids show off their sandcastles and chase sand crabs. Two girls who were around 13 and wearing matching orange flip-flops sat with their backs to one another about 10 feet from me, obviously fighting. I could tell that they were best friends, though, by the way their faces briefly softened and flickered back at the other one’s when three older high school-aged boys raced down the beach, shoving one another and falling in the dirty water.

I wished I could tell them it didn’t matter. None of it mattered. Girlhood was temporary and precious and magical like the movies, and I wanted to tell them to soak up every minute of it.

Annabelle was gone forever. But I found her again here, in her hometown, for a fleeting moment.