Anne

I have this fading black and white photo of my friend Anne. It is my favorite photo of her and it sits on a bookshelf but I carry it in my head as well. It was actually a picture of both of us but I cut myself out of it and then put her image alone in a frame. She was leaning up against me; in heels she came up to my shoulder. She is holding a super-sized coke with both hands from some fast food dive we were at. The straw is held in the corner of her mouth and she wears the sweetest smile, her eyebrows raised (as if she was mildly surprised by the photographer) which punctuate her glorious almond shaped eyes. She is wearing a light colored sweater and her hair is piled loose on top of her head and she looks so darling you can't help but like her instantly. She is the pixie. The best friend. The girl next door. She is 17. And without this girl, I have no story.

At 17, after having been voted "Most Talented" (and believing it), I fancied myself going straight to Broadway after high school. However, a year after graduating, I found myself sitting in a cubicle, somewhat west of New York - specifically - San Jose, California. I was punching a time clock at Montgomery Ward's Service Center, taking calls from people who's refrigerators went warm or who's washing machines stopped spinning. I may have worked my way up to "chief complaint taker" and married someone from the parts department were it not for the fact that one of the repairmen there - a guy by the name of Ron Habina (and a thespian at heart) - told me about an upcoming audition for a production of "Peter Pan" at the San Jose Civic Light Opera. I went and I was cast. As a pirate. (It was a start.) A little 16 year old girl named Anne Fallon was also cast. She played Wendy. She was perfect.

Anne had a naive enthusiasm and a childlike "wonder" about her. In truth, sometimes it was a little annoying - she giggled constantly and I would sometimes wonder if she was for real. She was a shameless flirt. She loved boys. She loved an adventure. She liked to be "just this side" of naughty. And yet she was truly an innocent. Over the years, I came to realize that Anne was completely genuine. Giggling was a natural part of who she was. We were roommates for a short period of time. We shared an apartment while we were in another show together but after that show closed, Anne moved to Hawaii to live a dream and I moved to Los Angeles to think about one. I didn't see her for several years after that.

When Anne and I did meet up again, about 8 years later, we were surprised to learn that we lived within blocks of each other. I don't remember how we found each other again but as soon as we spoke on the phone, we agreed to have lunch the next day. I couldn't wait to see her and as I walked up to her house I tried to imagine how much she might have changed. She opened the door and I'm quite sure my jaw dropped to the ground. She had re-fashioned herself into a mini Dolly Parton, complete with extraordinary "Parton-esque" enhancements. Her hair was teased up a full half foot above her scalp. Her mini skirt was skin tight and she wore fish net stockings, stiletto heels, lots of eyeliner and long false eyelashes. All this at high noon in the mid 80's. I am ashamed now to say that I was embarrassed to go out to lunch with her that day but it is completely true that as she walked by, people stared. She looked like a "working girl". It is also completely true that she thought she looked beautiful. Anne became my absolute dearest friend. Fish net stockings and all. She knew what she was about and she didn't give a flip what anyone she didn't care about thought of her.

She threw a party one night for all of us who had moved from San Jose to Los Angeles. She called to ask me if she should invite some guy named Bob Smith. She couldn't remember him but she had been told he was part of the circle of friends. I told her that yes, I knew him from other parties I had been to (in fact, he had been in Peter Pan with us!) I told her that she should invite him but that she should also expect him to arrive very late. I was married at the time and my husband and I left Anne's party before Bob arrived but from all accounts - sparks flew the minute they saw each other and Anne called the next day to tell me Bob had sent roses.

Two years later they married. She toned her look way down to reflect a more conservative lifestyle. After a year, Anne became pregnant and gave birth to Amanda Marie. A little less than a year later, she became pregnant with twin girls - Christine and Jennifer. All Anne was interested in was being Bob's doting wife and being a mother. Her aspirations included someday being yard duty mom at their school. She had found her purpose. She took it seriously. She was going to live her dream.

I couldn't relate at all. But I was still big in the picture. I had recently divorced and was living in a little guest house they had made for me so that I could get on my feet. I was saving money so that I could go to Europe and find my destiny. I had been carrying a growing feeling inside me that something big was about to happen. I was anxious to meet whatever that was. I thought it would be a new job or a romance. It was neither.

The night before the twins were born I got a call that woke me. Anne had gone into labor early and they needed me to come over and stay with Amanda. Once there, I crawled into their bed, went back to sleep, and had a dream that Bob and I were together, with lots of children, living in a strange industrial building. It was a weird dream because I had no romantic feelings about my friend's husband but it was one of those dreams that felt real. For that reason, it kind of stuck with me.

The babies were born that afternoon, cesarean and 2 months premature. Anne was so tiny and it had been a difficult pregnancy. I was there when the doctors told her that they had to deliver them. It was one of the few times I saw her cry. Shortly after 3:00, they were here, they were okay, and Anne and Bob were relieved. They were premies though, and when Anne was released, she came home without them.

They were still in the hospital when she died. She had developed a large swelling in her neck. She was telling me that she had "slept on it funny". I remember being at her house and reminding her that her mother had died young and telling her that while I knew she would be okay (and I did truly believe that she would), she should see a doctor. Two days later she went and she was admitted. She had an aneurysm and they scheduled her for surgery the next day - a Saturday. She called me at work from the hospital and said that she was so relieved to be there and that she knew the doctors were going to take care of her. I remember being a little irritated with her that she had waited so long. I hadn't realized that she had been worried herself.

Later that afternoon, she asked me if I would stop by the hospital. She said she wanted to talk to me. I was in a show at the time and I was exhausted. I begged off, promising to be there when she came out of surgery. I hung up the phone and that was the last time I ever spoke to her. I learned later that she had called another of her friends, Debbie, and Debbie had told her that she was afraid Anne would die - I still can't believe she said that to her! But Debbie also told me that Anne had said that she was afraid of that too. I wonder if that is what Anne wanted to tell me. For the rest of my life, I'll regret not going to see her that night. 19 years later, I still miss her.

I had Amanda the day of the surgery. Bob was with Anne right before they wheeled her in. He told me that he had started to cry and that Anne had looked him straight in the eye and told him not to. The surgery lasted hours. Too long. They couldn't save her. We learned later that she had a rare genetic disease called Vascular Ehlers Danlos. Her mother had died of it. There had been no diagnosis prior to Anne's death. It was unexpected to everyone. And that night, when Bob came home, he fell into my arms and cried and I knew that this was the "something big" I had felt was coming. I knew that somehow, I was going to be a part of this family's life. One month later, when the babies came home, they came home to Bob. And because I was living on the property, they came home to me.

In time, we became a family. Bob and I married and I have been the only mother the girls have known. Amanda remembered her for a while. One day when she was about 3, she was coloring at the table and out of the blue she said: "I remember my mommy. She be'd beautiful and she take'd me everywhere". It broke my heart. Those memories are all gone now. And oddly, while there are no life experiences to connect them, all three of them are very like her in many ways: not simply appearance but personality traits, mannerisms. Jennifer has her giggle.

I don't think about it much anymore. It is just my life. But when I do give some thought to it, it still amazes me that in 1976, a repairman told me about an audition that led me to meet a young girl. This meeting led to a seemingly ordinary friendship that set in motion a series of events that over the years dramatically altered the entire course of my life, Bob's life, three little girls' lives, and how many others? Even Grace could not have been born without Anne. Anne's dream, her life, became my dream, my life. Only God could design such a story.

Lost in my own memories, I am thinking about an assignment the twins were given in high school. They were told to make a scrapbook of their lives so far. One of the pages had to be titled: "If I could see one person one last time it would be..." I knew they would write of Anne. They didn't. They both wrote: "Grandma". I wasn't upset but I did tell them I was surprised. I asked them why they didn't choose their mother. Their reply was simple: "Mom, we didn't know her. You did."

For my story, I suppose that is all that was necessary.