pact
/pak(t)/ noun
- a formal agreement between individuals or parties.
“So you know how we made that pact at 15 that when we lived in the same city again we’d go on our road trip?”
Rhea just stared at the woman standing across from her on the front doorstep, trekking dirt onto the otherwise clean welcome mat. The woman wore boots that could have been a homeless man’s second-to-worst pair of shoes and sunglasses that were more expensive than any pair Rhea owned.
“Well, I’m back!”
Rhea looked past the stranger on her doorstep. It was a pretty regular Sunday in May — hot but not unbearable, green but not forest green. More like the-drought-hit but-it rained-at-least-twice-this-month green.
Her husband had been complaining about the ban on excessive sprinklers for a couple weeks now, and she could understand his point, even if it just so happened to doing so would lead to fines and public shunning from the rest of the neighbors, who had all already switched to “desert fauna”. Well fuck them. Rhea could have a bush or two if she wanted. Plants allowed the world to breathe, after all.
“What?” Rhea allowed herself to say.
“I’m back!” The woman repeated, a smile pasted on her face.
“I’m sorry, we really don’t want anything that you are selling.” Rhea made to close the door, but the woman stepped directly on top of the door frame, hands on hips.
“You forgot your BFF — Baby-faced friend?” The woman pouted in a joking manner, protruding her elbows out even further from her hips.
“Samantha?” Rhea wondered aloud, and then she saw it. The wide, gray-blue eyes, now with laugh lines in the creases. The round cheeks. The perky mouth, now covered in a dark maroon lipstick. Back in 5th grade, Samantha would get out of any trouble just by making this same pout; on a 10 year old, it was sweet and endearing, exuding naivete. On this woman, it was a little concerning.
“Yes Rhea, god! Please tell me you didn’t forget me!”
“It’s been 12 years, Samantha.”
“I know, time flies, right?”
“I don’t think we talked in person since a month after you moved. Like, the last time I heard you on the phone, your voice sounded like one of the girls on the Disney Channel.”
“You still watch that?”
“I don’t even see you on my Facebook feed.”
“I’m not an avid poster. So, can I come in?” Samantha motioned to take off her boots, and Rhea felt a hint of recognition of how her mom always reprimanded Samantha when she forgot. When they’d hang out practically everyday at one another’s houses. 12 years ago.
Rhea stepped aside, nearly immobilized by the improbability of it all. As she moved to close the door behind Samantha, she noticed the neighbor couple across the street surveying their desert landscape, all rocks and sand and plants that never get thirsty. One of them, was it Dan or Dominic, she could never remember the two apart, gave a mad side-eye to her bushes. She closed the door briskly in their faces.
When she turned around again, Samantha had become at home on the couch, feet cross-legged under her, head up against a giant pillow. She was staring out at the miniature racetrack on the other side of the room.
“You’ve been busy,” she smirked.
“That’s my step-daughter’s. She’s six. And very into racecars, ever since she went on the bumper car ride at the fair.”
“What’s her name?” Samantha asked.
“Becca.”
“Cute,” Samantha noted. “So is there a husband in the picture?”
“Of course,” Rhea replied. Neither of them looked at each other. “Can you explain why you just so happened to drop by.”
“Right, right!” Samantha exclaimed a little too excitedly. “I totally get that you didn’t hear me the first time. This is a bit crazy, after all.”
Understatement of the year, Rhea thought, but she kept her mouth shut and just nodded.
Samantha had jumped off the couch, practically leaping, and crossed the room to Rhea, now putting both her hands on Rhea’s shoulders, so that Rhea had nowhere else to look but at her estranged friend. Her strange, estranged friend.
“We made a pact at 15. I want to make good on it.”