natalie
We were drunk and half-high on a crumbling front porch, three hours into Saturday and talking about random, unexplained mysteries that had happened to us. Unexplained disappearances, anonymous gifts, unrevealed pranksters. Jenna, losing her glasses one morning, never to find them again; Steve, who’d one morning found a fresh blueberry pie in front of his dorm room with his name on it (which he shared with his roommate); Sora, whose life suddenly started presenting her with a small rubber duckies in random places every day for a month.
It took long before I realized everyone was now looking at me -- did I have anything weird happen to me? they asked. I couldn’t really think of anything. But as I opened my mouth to speak, a vivid memory flashed before me. I awoke with a sort of ear-ringing realization.
How could I have forgotten her?
Her name was Natalie. We met in kindergarten and immediately became best friends. We had playdates almost every day. we had the same backpack in second grade. Our moms gossiped together while we were at school. She was so cool, so fun, she was my best friend.
She always had the best games, too. During recess, she’d come up with the game of the day. Sometimes we’d play pretend and she’d rope in some other kids to play along; other times we’d explore the playground’s perimeter for any “treasures” (and of course she was the authority on what was a treasure and what wasn’t).
Then: it was in second grade. We were playing some sort of pretend game -- Family, I think it was. It must have been. It was me, Natalie, and I think Kim and Nathan. Kim was a new student who had played with us a couple of times before. Nathan was a quiet kid who always sat around alone during recess and Natalie had picked him up from the curb to make an even four.
I was the single mom (“Mom”), Natalie was the oldest sister named “Samantha,” and Kim and Nathan were twin siblings (“Tonya” and “Andrew,” respectively). That day, Natalie had decided we were to go grocery shopping while plucking grass and daisies from the field. Flowers were chips, regular grass were different types of bread (“No, mom, that’s wheat bread! I don’t like wheat bread”), and rocks were eggs (“Mom don’t crack the eggs!”).
As a family, we decided that dinner was going to have a dessert menu and that it would be pie. Natalie picked up a fistful of grass and instructed us that it was a “delectable blueberry pie” (enounced exactly as you might imagine an eight year old might). Kim immediately found another patch of grass, plucked it out of the ground, and announced that apple pie was far superior.
I suggested we buy both. Natalie immediately shot this idea down by saying we needed to budget our groceries or we’d have to go a week without showering because of the water bill. Kim was fuming; how come she never got her way? Why was she always deciding what to do and how to do it? I couldn’t tell what was in character and what wasn’t.
They began screaming and pulling each other’s hair while Nathan and I watched horrified from the sidelines. Eventually Kim stormed away. I don’t think they ever spoke to each other again. I was mostly in shock. I’d never seen Natalie behave so violently.
Then: it was in second grade. We were playing some sort of pretend game -- Family, I think it was. It must have been. It was me, Natalie, and I think Kim and Nathan. Kim was a new student who had played with us a couple of times before. Nathan was a quiet kid who always sat around alone during recess and Natalie had picked him up from the curb to make an even four.
I was the single mom (“Mom”), Natalie was the oldest sister named “Samantha,” and Kim and Nathan were twin siblings (“Tonya” and “Andrew,” respectively). That day, Natalie had decided we were to go grocery shopping while plucking grass and daisies from the field. Flowers were chips, regular grass were different types of bread (“No, mom, that’s wheat bread! I don’t like wheat bread”), and rocks were eggs (“Mom don’t crack the eggs!”).
As a family, we decided that dinner was going to have a dessert menu and that it would be pie. Natalie picked up a fistful of grass and instructed us that it was a “delectable blueberry pie” (enounced exactly as you might imagine an eight year old might). Kim immediately found another patch of grass, plucked it out of the ground, and announced that apple pie was far superior.
I suggested we buy both. Natalie immediately shot this idea down by saying we needed to budget our groceries or we’d have to go a week without showering because of the water bill. Kim was fuming; how come she never got her way? Why was she always deciding what to do and how to do it? I couldn’t tell what was in character and what wasn’t.
They began screaming and pulling each other’s hair while Nathan and I watched horrified from the sidelines. Eventually Kim stormed away. I don’t think they ever spoke to each other again. I was mostly in shock. I’d never seen Natalie behave so violently.
And then, from that day on, Natalie stopped being my friend.
I remember so vividly the guilt I felt for weeks afterwards. As if I could have done something. That I’d somehow been responsible for breaking the friendship. I was confused and stricken; had I done something wrong? Should I have defended Natalie?
Then was the final shock. Four days eating lunch apart from Natalie. It was a Friday and I thought perhaps her anger had cooled down. I sat down next to her during lunch. Without a word, she placed her sandwich bag in the ziplock bag and stood up to walk away.
“Natalie!”
She whipped around.
“Why are you calling me Natalie?” she hissed. “My name is Samantha.”
I remember so vividly the guilt I felt for weeks afterwards. As if I could have done something. That I’d somehow been responsible for breaking the friendship. I was confused and stricken; had I done something wrong? Should I have defended Natalie?
Then was the final shock. Four days eating lunch apart from Natalie. It was a Friday and I thought perhaps her anger had cooled down. I sat down next to her during lunch. Without a word, she placed her sandwich bag in the ziplock bag and stood up to walk away.
“Natalie!”
She whipped around.
“Why are you calling me Natalie?” she hissed. “My name is Samantha.”
And from that day onwards--
"No way," Steve interrupted me in the middle of my storytelling trance. He let out an uninterested puff. “That did not fucking happen. A seven year old psychopath?”
"No way," Steve interrupted me in the middle of my storytelling trance. He let out an uninterested puff. “That did not fucking happen. A seven year old psychopath?”
"No, I'm serious--" I tried.
"Nat," Sora said kindly. She took the blunt from Steve, took a soft inhale, and looked at me, worriedly. "It's okay if you don't have a story, you know?"
Of course they wouldn’t believe me. What eight year old would randomly change her identity? I didn’t even try to defend myself.
But it was true. I promise you. Samantha. For the rest of that school year, she only responded to Samantha. The teacher probably thought it was a little quirk, maybe her middle name, and went along with it fine. But for me (and no doubt Kim and Nathan), it was a bizarre becoming that I couldn’t really make sense of. We had seen the crossing moment.
After resurfacing the decade old story via alcohol, I went to bed that night feeling strangely paranoid and unstable. I needed to find kinship with someone who had also gone through the inexplicable event and found myself opening and re-reading Nathan’s last text (a pallid “lol” to my attempt at continuing a dying conversation). He was the only person from my elementary school days I’d stayed in contact with. With some hesitation, I broke the silence to ask him whether he remembered Natalie/Samantha.
He didn’t: “wait what she never changed her name though”.
Strange. I prodded him about it, trying to stimulate his memory. It turned into several blocks of texts that I sent in sequence, trying to recall as best as I could the strange recess game that ended the four of our friendships. After I finished my recount, I could tell he was hesitating to say something from the way the ellipses appeared and disappeared at reluctant intervals. Minutes later he followed up with a dry, “idk if that’s right”.
This pissed me off -- couldn’t he at least entertain the fact that he could be wrong? That in fact he’d misremembered it? His disinterested texting made me disappointed in our friendship and I realized he was the last of my hometown connections. I guess this was why people often say your life starts anew at college.
A month after that Saturday with Jenna, Steve, and Sora, I was fully obsessed. Nathan’s disinterested refute had pushed me further into the hole. Samantha definitely was a thing that happened. I thought about her more than ever. Could I find her, maybe? Was I wrong, perhaps? Had I somehow misremembered -- or worse -- fabricated this all?
It couldn’t have been. I wouldn’t have. Why would I?
Then, like a miracle -- two months after my text with Nathan, I saw her in a Starbucks. I was working at my own table, maybe a couple of hours into work and a rapidly cooling americano, when the barista called out her name. I turned around immediately -- and though I only caught a glimpse of her profile as she swiftly took the cup and let slip a curt “thank you” before rushing out of the store, something about the nervous and dodgy energy about that woman in a beige long coat made me wonder.
It had to be her. Could I follow her? No. That would be too much. It was a sign, though -- an affirmation. She’d used her new name, after all. My story was confirmed into truth.
I looked out the window at the passing strangers, hoping that she’d return to retrieve a forgotten purse or something. The sound of her heels echoed in my head.
She’d probably matured beautifully; her childish face back in the day could have been a Disney star’s, her voice a pretty pitch that she could soothe teachers and entrance classmates. Maybe now she was into photography or a modeling, maybe she’d interned for a fashion magazine. She seemed the type.
In a surge of reddish color, I felt overwhelmed as I remembered even more -- when I was so fascinated by Samantha’s confidence and elegance. She was a force among her peers. No doubt she would be one now as well -- the way she glided out of the Starbucks commanded a similar sort of presence. Right, I’d so desperately wanted to be like her. Watching her mannerisms. Was it jealousy to want her life? To have her parents, who picked her up after school (both of them!) in their spotless white car; to have her clothes, always so colorful and cool and fashionable; to have her social skill, which managed to charm teachers despite her oft dominant playground behavior; and to have her charisma, with which she always got her way? I remember being slightly scared of her yet still wanting to be her friend, a strange emotion going on in an elementary school mind -- a fine line between reverence and fear that I tread by sticking beside her and diffusing any sign of conflict with self-sacrifice.
With a piercing jingle a middle-aged man barged into the Starbucks. I snapped out of my daydream, slapped in the face with the winter outside. It probably hadn’t been her. The story probably didn’t even happen. It was too ridiculous to be real. Maybe I’d made it all up to decorate my childhood. Maybe there was no Natalie or Samantha. I shook my head and went back to work, and a dull pit of emptiness sunk into my stomach.
Of course they wouldn’t believe me. What eight year old would randomly change her identity? I didn’t even try to defend myself.
But it was true. I promise you. Samantha. For the rest of that school year, she only responded to Samantha. The teacher probably thought it was a little quirk, maybe her middle name, and went along with it fine. But for me (and no doubt Kim and Nathan), it was a bizarre becoming that I couldn’t really make sense of. We had seen the crossing moment.
After resurfacing the decade old story via alcohol, I went to bed that night feeling strangely paranoid and unstable. I needed to find kinship with someone who had also gone through the inexplicable event and found myself opening and re-reading Nathan’s last text (a pallid “lol” to my attempt at continuing a dying conversation). He was the only person from my elementary school days I’d stayed in contact with. With some hesitation, I broke the silence to ask him whether he remembered Natalie/Samantha.
He didn’t: “wait what she never changed her name though”.
Strange. I prodded him about it, trying to stimulate his memory. It turned into several blocks of texts that I sent in sequence, trying to recall as best as I could the strange recess game that ended the four of our friendships. After I finished my recount, I could tell he was hesitating to say something from the way the ellipses appeared and disappeared at reluctant intervals. Minutes later he followed up with a dry, “idk if that’s right”.
This pissed me off -- couldn’t he at least entertain the fact that he could be wrong? That in fact he’d misremembered it? His disinterested texting made me disappointed in our friendship and I realized he was the last of my hometown connections. I guess this was why people often say your life starts anew at college.
A month after that Saturday with Jenna, Steve, and Sora, I was fully obsessed. Nathan’s disinterested refute had pushed me further into the hole. Samantha definitely was a thing that happened. I thought about her more than ever. Could I find her, maybe? Was I wrong, perhaps? Had I somehow misremembered -- or worse -- fabricated this all?
It couldn’t have been. I wouldn’t have. Why would I?
Then, like a miracle -- two months after my text with Nathan, I saw her in a Starbucks. I was working at my own table, maybe a couple of hours into work and a rapidly cooling americano, when the barista called out her name. I turned around immediately -- and though I only caught a glimpse of her profile as she swiftly took the cup and let slip a curt “thank you” before rushing out of the store, something about the nervous and dodgy energy about that woman in a beige long coat made me wonder.
It had to be her. Could I follow her? No. That would be too much. It was a sign, though -- an affirmation. She’d used her new name, after all. My story was confirmed into truth.
I looked out the window at the passing strangers, hoping that she’d return to retrieve a forgotten purse or something. The sound of her heels echoed in my head.
She’d probably matured beautifully; her childish face back in the day could have been a Disney star’s, her voice a pretty pitch that she could soothe teachers and entrance classmates. Maybe now she was into photography or a modeling, maybe she’d interned for a fashion magazine. She seemed the type.
In a surge of reddish color, I felt overwhelmed as I remembered even more -- when I was so fascinated by Samantha’s confidence and elegance. She was a force among her peers. No doubt she would be one now as well -- the way she glided out of the Starbucks commanded a similar sort of presence. Right, I’d so desperately wanted to be like her. Watching her mannerisms. Was it jealousy to want her life? To have her parents, who picked her up after school (both of them!) in their spotless white car; to have her clothes, always so colorful and cool and fashionable; to have her social skill, which managed to charm teachers despite her oft dominant playground behavior; and to have her charisma, with which she always got her way? I remember being slightly scared of her yet still wanting to be her friend, a strange emotion going on in an elementary school mind -- a fine line between reverence and fear that I tread by sticking beside her and diffusing any sign of conflict with self-sacrifice.
With a piercing jingle a middle-aged man barged into the Starbucks. I snapped out of my daydream, slapped in the face with the winter outside. It probably hadn’t been her. The story probably didn’t even happen. It was too ridiculous to be real. Maybe I’d made it all up to decorate my childhood. Maybe there was no Natalie or Samantha. I shook my head and went back to work, and a dull pit of emptiness sunk into my stomach.