Remembering Nicole

How old were you when the first person who was really close to you passed away? I don't mean a relative you didn't know that well, a Facebook friend that you exchanged happy birthdays with or other associates of little or no consequence; I mean an honest, clean connection that was unexpectedly severed. I hope you haven't experienced this yet. It messes you up. Even at the ripe old age of 43 it gives you this dull, indescribable ache that you can't seem to shake accompanied by an army of unanswerable questions. Was I there for her like I should have been? Where is she now? Does she know what an impact she had on me? People cope with grief in many different ways. Me, I'm choosing delusion. I pretend that I said something to Nicole that really pissed her off and now we're not speaking. At any moment I can call her, eat crow for what I said and fix this horrible ache. I just don't feel like doing it right now. Probably not the healthiest way to go but for now it's working. Another thing that's helping is clinging with ferocity to some of the great memories I have of her. I want to share some of them here, to write them out in detail so I have a historical record to look back on anytime I want. 20 years we were friends and I don't have a single photo of us together. That's really sad.

How We Met

She was dating a friend of mine. We met for the first time at a party. A party wherein none of the attendees was sober, we'll leave it at that. Techno music blaring, flashing lights, people talking way too loud. Anyone who's been at a party with me will know I have a really bad habit. Once things get going and start to progress towards that peak party moment I like to think of "Maximum Fun" I like to find myself a dark corner, stand there alone and observe (judge) everyone. It's always been fascinating to me the kind of behavior humans get up to when they think no one is watching. If you remove yourself from being an active participant in Maximum Fun you can see things that were invisible just an hour ago. Oh, those two girls really don't like each other. Oh, that dude is really into that girl and he's been drinking to summon the courage to tell her about it, but he overdid it and now he's too wasted to actually do it. That guy is overcompensating for something, no one ever needs to raise their voice to that octave. Fascinating.

At this party I was standing in my corner getting my creep on. In my peripheral vision I saw a short shadow slink through the strobe lights around the crowd and take a spot standing next to me. I kind of knew who she was but no idea what she was doing. My watching thing was a solo sport. I was watching her out of the corner of my eye. She took a tentative step towards me, seemed to think better of it and took a step back. Several seconds later she did this again. Five times she did this. I had a bizarre fear that she was preparing to attack me. And attack me she did. Finally, after five minutes of this dance she didn't think I was watching, she rushed forward and threw her arms around me, hugging me so tight I could feel her little fingers digging into my back. Fascinating. "Hi," she mumbled into my chest. "What's up? Nicole, is it?" I asked hugging her back and attempting to sound cheerful. "You know my name. And you looked lonely," she said. She wasn't wrong.

My Place

We had two hours or so to kill before the next event and decided to just watch TV in my crappy little apartment. Colorado, in the summer, it was hot. She plopped down on the couch, sat there for about five minutes and then said. "I'm baking. Don't you have a fan or something?" I was in the process of making us drinks and said "Yeah, in the bedr.... NO WAIT DON'T GO IN THERE!!!" I said, seeing that she had already gotten up and was about to put eyes on my horrifying bachelor bedroom. She walked in my room grabbed the fan and came back out. After plugging in the fan and accepting the Hennesy and Coke I made her, she takes a sip of her drink and said "Sooo.... when was the last time you did laundry?" Ashamed, I said "A couple of weeks. I just haven't been in the mood." She shrugged. "It happens. But we should do your laundry. Like right now," she said. I started to protest but she was already headed back to my room. Since it was clear she had her mind set and I wasn't going to change it, I at least dashed in front of her so I could pick up the socks and draws, because gross. We ended up skipping that group outing. We sat in my apartment, did my laundry across the hall and watched Harry Potter movies while we got drunk. Then we had eggs and toast. It was all I had in the house.

Her Place

Green Tree Village Apartments. This is where Nicole lived. She shared an apartment with a roommate and was a convenient walk away from Stephy's apartment, where I would typically would start my party nights. Trust me, you didn't want to end your nights at Stephy and Brenda's, I'd mistakenly done so several times and always regretted it. Maximum Fun in that apartment was... American Pie wild. So, I'd party with them and then mosey through the parking lot to Nicole's to close out the night, typically just sitting on her couch and chatting quietly while TV played in the background. On one such occasion she looked at me with a mischievous grin and said "Got the munchies?" I told her I did but I knew she was out of snacks so it was fine. She grabbed me by the wrist, dragged me over to her pantry and finally revealed something that almost no one else knew about. The decorative wicker thing at the bottom of the pantry was hollow, and she kept a stash of treats in there, hidden from the eyes and hands of all the other potheads that came through her house on a regular basis. She tossed me a bag of double stuff Oreos and we went back to the couch.

Another time, I was hanging out at another apartment where a bunch of my friends lived. When I say "a bunch" it was really closer to "a horde" or "an army". Put it this way. There were so many of those cats that they were having a party round the clock whether they wanted to or not. My cell was dead. So the landline to the guys' apartment rings (a landline is a phone that plugs directly into the wall at your house and doesn't move) and it's Nicole looking for me. "Hey! Did you eat yet?" she says. I told her I hadn't. "I'm getting ready to make dinner, come over and help." I told her I was on my way. When I hung up the phone, one of the guys is giving me a quizzical look and says "Since when have you and Nicole been best friends?"

"A couple years now. Who's got my blunt, I'm out. Everyone hit it one last time." I replied, committing the ultimate party foul and taking a blunt out of circulation (screw you, I paid for it. Moochers.) and leaving the premises completely to go make dinner with my friend.

We made penne pasta with meat and marinara sauce, garlic bread and washed it all down with 7up. Then she made Champagne Jell-O she'd been saving because in her words "it was fancy." This was the first time I'd ever made a meal and sat down to eat it with a girl. There was something so incredibly intimate and grown-up about this process, I'm glad I was able to share it with her.

Birthdays

It was Nicole's birthday and we were going to do it up big. Doing it up big in that era meant going to Denver to play games at Dave and Buster's. We were going to meet up at Chipotle and then drive up. While I was driving there, Nicole calls my cell. "Hey, I did something today and I need a favor." I said "Sure, it's your birthday, what do you need?" She explained that her boyfriend had taken her to the mall for a birthday shopping trip, and she had purchased a pair of leather pants. After some effort she had convinced her boyfriend to purchase matching pair of leather pants and he was currently wearing them and was going to wear them to Denver. She asked if I could stop the other guys from giving him the business over it, we were all to conservative in our fashion choices, this was a wild step to the left and she was afraid there would be no more risk taking if this didn't go well. "Um. This is all very sweet but I don't have the group influence that you think I do, you should really be talking to Ryan for this."

"No! Ryan would just make it worse. Could you just try? For me?"

Absolutely I could. In the parking lot of Chipotle's standing with 5 other dudes I literally said the words "Guys. Gavin (Not his real name, ain't no snitches here.) is going to be here in a few minutes and he's wearing leather pants. Can we like, just hold off on making fun of him, it's Nicole's birthday." After this shocking revelation was processed everyone agreed not to make fun of Gavin, and everyone knew it was folly. They arrive and get out of the car. Gavin looks at us, appearing self conscious in his skin tight leather pants. About five seconds go by and someone yells out "Nice pants, Ricky Martin!" Nicole gives me a glare and I mouth back at her "I tried, and I told you so."

On my birthday, the two of us went out to dinner at Texas Roadhouse. she insisted it was my birthday and she would be paying for dinner and a cocktail. I needed to use the facilities and went to do so. When I came back the server had already come and gone. We sat and had our drinks and our server comes and sets two salads down in front of us. "I didn't order this!" I said and the server just points at Nicole. "It's time to start eating vegetables, Adrian." she says, narrowing her eyes in that Nicole way that meant business. "Do I have to?" I whined. "Yes. Salad, or NO CHICKEN CRITTERS!" I ate the salad. It's the only one I've ever eaten.

Quick Odds and Ends

I had a decent collection of jewelry when I was a young man. Sometimes, when partaking in an activity that would put said jewelry at risk, Nicole was the keeper of this jewelry, watch, necklace and ring. It was only the watch I was really concerned about but she insisted that if she had to wear the watch she wanted to wear the whole set. She was the only person in my group I trusted to not make a run for the nearest pawn shop and trade all my stuff for crack. I'm just kidding, I don't kick it with crackheads and never did. Now that I'm remembering this, there was something undeniably adorable about this girl fully adorned in what could only be described as "hip hop man jewelry". Never mind a picture of the two of us, I want a picture of that.

Once, when we were the most drunk we've ever been she asked me "I want to get a personalized license plate that lets people behind me know I'm blind in one eye. Any thoughts?"

"How about NO3D4ME?"

This was the hardest I ever made her laugh.

I showed up to her apartment in the middle of the night once to tell her all about this date that I had been on that had actually went well. I tell her my story and when I finish, we both notice that "The Jerk" is playing on TV. We both yell out "I LOVE THIS MOVIE!" at the same time. Then I say how bummed I am that the movie is already half over. Without skipping a beat, Nicole stands up, walks across the room and grabs her coat off the hook, putting it on over her PJ's. "Come on. We're going to Blockbuster to rent it." And we did. This is the thing about Nicole that I will miss most. Always up for an adventure, a ride, a chat. She was a Swiss Army friend. And she approached life in this manner; if there's something you want, figure it out, get up and go get it. Maybe some of y'all think it's easy to get a job at the Mayo Clinic. Go do it then. I dare you.

I guess there's a part of me that believes once I hit publish on this she'll be able to read it, or that she's watching me write it. I miss you Nicole. There were so many roles in my life that you came and filled, and perfectly. I am forever changed because I got to meet, know and love you. Remember that bunch of unanswered questions I referenced in the beginning. Thankfully, one of those questions was not "Did she know how close she was to me?" She knew. I told her, not two months ago.