Alright, here is the complete profile/portrait...had to be someone that I knew in person...
Please, feel free to give reader-based feedback...(ie how you feel as you are reading it.)
Thanks!
Amanda: Boston and Brown Eyed Girl
“Run!”
I didn’t look back. I did as I was told, and ran as fast as I could. Amanda ran next to me, her straight auburn hair streaming out behind her as we made our way down the rocky trail.
“I don’t see him,” I panted.
“Keep running, run to my house!” Although she was nearly out of breath, Amanda still had definite authority in her voice, and I was not about to argue with her.
We turned out from the forest path and onto the street. Now two blocks from her home, we were still unsure if we would make it to safety. I expected to see the white van turn up the street any moment, carrying within it an irate man that would surely discipline us with unspeakable punishment…
Amanda and I reached the front door to her house. As she fumbled with the keys, I kept watch to ensure that we had not been followed.
The door burst open at Amanda’s hand; we jumped inside and she slammed it. Amanda squealed.
“To my room, quick!”
As it is a young girl’s instinct to hide in her bedroom at any sign of trouble, we both ran to Amanda’s room and hid under the bed.
After a moment of silent darkness, with our faces crushed into old, smoky carpet, Amanda began laughing, and I followed suit. We were safe, and now the nervous laughter poured out of us.
When I met Amanda at 14, she had already been smoking for a few years, and her life seemed to revolve around cigarettes. In junior high school, she had been known to beat up people for smokes, and I had even been on the receiving end of her bullying, that is, before we had become friends of course.
We began to spend many a listless day together, watching TV, eating, and drawing on one another. And smoking, lots of smoking.
I could tell that there was something special and different about Amanda, but I could also tell that she seemed to lack the motivation to do much more with her life than sit around and smoke. There were those exceptional times where we would decide to go out, and those were the times that her uniqueness shone through.
When we wanted to go to the fair, Amanda would make me hitchhike. When we wanted to go on rides, Amanda would flirt with the carnies and we would get on for free. They would all call her brown eyes, and I would secretly feel a twinge of jealousy every time Amanda would get the attention that I had never had, even though it came from a carnie.
There were songs about girls like her, and even songs named after her. All I had was a stupid Christopher Cross song; she had a Boston ballad.
She seemed to possess more than me, even though her family had less. She had big, beautiful brown eyes, and she had a bigger chest, while I was just a boring-looking Laura. She had more than me in some ways, and although I at times was secretly jealous of her, I also secretly loved her for these features as well.
We saw the movie ‘Titanic’ together. At the end of the movie, as Leonardo Dicaprio sank slowly into the frozen sea, I glanced over at Amanda and our eyes met. The corner of her mouth twitched into a smile, and I let out an enormous laugh. She covered her face and tried to smother her giggles. Even in the darkness of the theatre I could feel the disapproving glances shooting towards me from the other moviegoers, but I couldn’t care. As the music swelled, and the saddest moment of one of the biggest films of all time played out on the large screen before us, Amanda and I burst into hysterical laughter. We weren’t sadistic; we just weren’t about to let a silly movie get us down.
It has been said that only men can feel the contentment of true friendship. Women are too complicated, and too prone to backstabbing, to maintain the loyalty necessary to understand and continue closeness.
Amanda and I are no longer friends. She moved away many years ago, and I have not spoken with her since. I heard that she moved to Manitoba and had a few babies. And she is probably still smoking.
But for a brief time in my life I did feel true friendship, true platonic admiration that was unmarred by the sexual tension that male acquaintance brings, and the disloyalty that usually accompanies female companionship.
The day that Amanda and I ended up hiding beneath her creaky bed, we were at the neighborhood corner store, and she had been uninhibitedly soliciting patrons of the store for cigarettes. A man in a white van had pulled up, and as he exited the store Amanda asked him for a smoke. The man obliged the smiling girl with the remainder of his pack, and then drove off.
Amanda looked as though she had struck gold. And then she opened the prized pack, and looked even happier.
“The guy left a joint in here!” Amanda was happy, and I was happy that Amanda was happy.
Still standing in front of the store, we smoked the joint and felt quite pleased with ourselves.
Then the white van returned.
The man, obviously realizing his mistake at giving away a cigarette pack filled with pot, leapt towards us from the vehicle.
That is when Amanda told me to run, and with squinted eyes and hazy minds we ran to her house and hid, paranoid but laughing, beneath her bed.
I hope Amanda quit smoking.
“Run!”
I didn’t look back. I did as I was told, and ran as fast as I could. Amanda ran next to me, her straight auburn hair streaming out behind her as we made our way down the rocky trail.
“I don’t see him,” I panted.
“Keep running, run to my house!” Although she was nearly out of breath, Amanda still had definite authority in her voice, and I was not about to argue with her.
We turned out from the forest path and onto the street. Now two blocks from her home, we were still unsure if we would make it to safety. I expected to see the white van turn up the street any moment, carrying within it an irate man that would surely discipline us with unspeakable punishment…
Amanda and I reached the front door to her house. As she fumbled with the keys, I kept watch to ensure that we had not been followed.
The door burst open at Amanda’s hand; we jumped inside and she slammed it. Amanda squealed.
“To my room, quick!”
As it is a young girl’s instinct to hide in her bedroom at any sign of trouble, we both ran to Amanda’s room and hid under the bed.
After a moment of silent darkness, with our faces crushed into old, smoky carpet, Amanda began laughing, and I followed suit. We were safe, and now the nervous laughter poured out of us.
When I met Amanda at 14, she had already been smoking for a few years, and her life seemed to revolve around cigarettes. In junior high school, she had been known to beat up people for smokes, and I had even been on the receiving end of her bullying, that is, before we had become friends of course.
We began to spend many a listless day together, watching TV, eating, and drawing on one another. And smoking, lots of smoking.
I could tell that there was something special and different about Amanda, but I could also tell that she seemed to lack the motivation to do much more with her life than sit around and smoke. There were those exceptional times where we would decide to go out, and those were the times that her uniqueness shone through.
When we wanted to go to the fair, Amanda would make me hitchhike. When we wanted to go on rides, Amanda would flirt with the carnies and we would get on for free. They would all call her brown eyes, and I would secretly feel a twinge of jealousy every time Amanda would get the attention that I had never had, even though it came from a carnie.
There were songs about girls like her, and even songs named after her. All I had was a stupid Christopher Cross song; she had a Boston ballad.
She seemed to possess more than me, even though her family had less. She had big, beautiful brown eyes, and she had a bigger chest, while I was just a boring-looking Laura. She had more than me in some ways, and although I at times was secretly jealous of her, I also secretly loved her for these features as well.
We saw the movie ‘Titanic’ together. At the end of the movie, as Leonardo Dicaprio sank slowly into the frozen sea, I glanced over at Amanda and our eyes met. The corner of her mouth twitched into a smile, and I let out an enormous laugh. She covered her face and tried to smother her giggles. Even in the darkness of the theatre I could feel the disapproving glances shooting towards me from the other moviegoers, but I couldn’t care. As the music swelled, and the saddest moment of one of the biggest films of all time played out on the large screen before us, Amanda and I burst into hysterical laughter. We weren’t sadistic; we just weren’t about to let a silly movie get us down.
It has been said that only men can feel the contentment of true friendship. Women are too complicated, and too prone to backstabbing, to maintain the loyalty necessary to understand and continue closeness.
Amanda and I are no longer friends. She moved away many years ago, and I have not spoken with her since. I heard that she moved to Manitoba and had a few babies. And she is probably still smoking.
But for a brief time in my life I did feel true friendship, true platonic admiration that was unmarred by the sexual tension that male acquaintance brings, and the disloyalty that usually accompanies female companionship.
The day that Amanda and I ended up hiding beneath her creaky bed, we were at the neighborhood corner store, and she had been uninhibitedly soliciting patrons of the store for cigarettes. A man in a white van had pulled up, and as he exited the store Amanda asked him for a smoke. The man obliged the smiling girl with the remainder of his pack, and then drove off.
Amanda looked as though she had struck gold. And then she opened the prized pack, and looked even happier.
“The guy left a joint in here!” Amanda was happy, and I was happy that Amanda was happy.
Still standing in front of the store, we smoked the joint and felt quite pleased with ourselves.
Then the white van returned.
The man, obviously realizing his mistake at giving away a cigarette pack filled with pot, leapt towards us from the vehicle.
That is when Amanda told me to run, and with squinted eyes and hazy minds we ran to her house and hid, paranoid but laughing, beneath her bed.
I hope Amanda quit smoking.
1 comment:
Cool story!
Paints a very vivid picture. I liked the fact that you start with action and then backtrack to paint in the details.
The thought of you laughing at the end of Titanic was very funny! I would like to have been in that cinema when it happened!
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