"More than a stunning debut. It is the announcement of a bold new literary voice"
—Stephen Chbosky, author of The Perks of Being a Wallflower

You were my first best friend. I remember your big reckless smile and the way your mother put your hair in pigtails tied with those soft yarn ribbons, a different colored set for each outfit. By the end of the day, they were always slipping out. You weren’t a ribbons girl, really.

On Spring evenings, you would knock on our door and call, ” Can Joy come out and play?” My mother smugly said you were always finished first becuase your mother served you sandwiches for dinner. My mother was far from a chef, but she believed in a hot supper. Shake-n-Bake chicken or Kraft Macaroni and Cheese or maybe a Mama Celeste frozen pizza.

We would ride our Big Wheels around the neighborhood, the unapologetic sound of crunching gravel roared in our ears. You taught me to turn mine upside down and pedal the wheels with my hands to turn it into an ice cream truck. Now that makes no sense at all, but back then, it was perfect.

With the other kids in the neighborhood, Kevin and Pam and Bernadette and Chris and sometimes even the big boys like Brian and Shawn, we played Freeze Tag and TV Tag and Red Light/Green Light, and Red Rover until the sky dimmed and our mothers called us to come in. When it was just you and me, we would climb the giant rock in the Brenners’ backyard. You taugtht me the best side to climb up, the one with indentations in the rock like stairs.

What I remember most is how we would play near the stream that ran behind all of our houses. It was really good behind your house becuase the water was widest. The water was so clear we could see straight through to the crushed leaves beneath . We would walk back and forth across the stream on little rocks, and something we would fall in–maybe on purpose– and then we would take off our shoes and socks and hang them to dry on tree branches.

The stream is dry behind my house now, but it still runs behind yours. I went there on a visit home a year or two ago. While our mothers talked inside your house, still with its heavy dark green velvet curtains on the front windows, I brought my son to see the water. I wanted him to be where I had been my most free. He’s named for you, you know. His middle name. And I tell him about you, about us, about what we did when we were little. Recently he said, “My friend Elyse died in a boat accident.” “She was my friend,” I told him. “Oh, yeah,” he said. “You’re right.”

Whenever I see a stream, whenever I hear its stream sounds, I think of you, Elyse. I hear you whispering to me, telling me all the things you knew that I didn’t know becuase you were two years older than me. I’m older now that you’ll ever be, but it doesn’t matter. You still know so much.