not just bitches

1. a good long life

At this very moment, my real high school reunion is happening. Or I should say, my official high school reunion is happening, because the real thing, as far as I’m concerned, happened last night.

Instead of paying $55 per person, we had a potluck at Bonnie’s apartment. I arrived second, apologizing for my burnt brownies as I walked through the door. Amy said, “Yeah, I was supposed to make a vegetable dish, but I ran out of time and just ended up buying something.” Then Jenessa called, saying she was running late and did we still really want her to bring a salad?

Our gathering reaffirmed what I observed at last year’s mini-reunion—that we’re very much still our high school selves: over-achievers with slacker tendencies (or maybe vice versa), self-deprecating, sarcastic, creative.

And that we’re also not—the sarcasm that we honed making fun of people for ridiculous reasons (“Remember how we used to make fun of Shannon Christiansen?” Bonnie said. “Why?” Angie asked. “She said her name weird,” said Bonnie. “Like Shunn-un”) has softened as we’ve grown more confident and discovered better uses of our time and talents. When I recounted how Monica offered me a scholarship to the official reunion, I could hear the gossipy edge creep into my voice—it’s like a drug, the cheap high of inviting others to bond with you over shared judgment.

“That sounds like Monica,” Angie laughed. “But she really is so nice. I heard she gave her dad a kidney.”

“I ran into Isaac the other day, and I was telling him about that, and he was like, ‘Yeah, I’d never do that for my dad,’” said Bonnie. “I thought he was joking. I kept saying, ‘Sure you would.’ But he was like, ‘No, man, he’s lived a good long life.’”

“Wow,” said Amy. “I’m estranged from my dad and I’d still give him a kidney.”

We agreed: kidneys for all our dads.

2. upon closer examination

Not too long ago, AK told me about an LA Times article she read, about a club that Mira Costa students started to encourage friendships between developmentally disabled kids and mainstream students. “It was the most positive, heartwarming story you could possibly imagine,” she said. “And it was so funny, because the way you described your high school, I imagined it being nothing but bitches.”

We watched the video Bonnie made at the end of our senior year. The last time we’d watched it, it was our hamminess that stood out to me. We were constantly putting on a show. We never met a driveway that didn’t need to be turned into a stage.

But this time—maybe because I’ve been in a bit of a melancholy mood off and on this weekend—I noticed how we grew and grew apart between eighth grade and senior year. How Bonnie’s clothes started to skew hip-hop and Amy and Jenessa’s veered toward skater, and I went from anorexic to distinctly overweight.

We were never a completely cohesive group—we always used to joke, for example, that Heather had a secret life, mainly because she had a couple of friends who went to Chadwick. But by the end of high school it was becoming clear that there were all sorts of different places—entirely different cultures—where we might land as adults. That we were hungry for it and terrified by it.

3. still different, less scared

After dinner, we decided to go out. It had to be somewhere close, because Bonnie’s mom was only going to baby-sit her son for another 45 minutes.

“I’m curious about South Bay dive bars,” I said. “All those places I’ve driven by my whole life but never gone in. Like the Dolphin, that gay bar on Artesia.”

Bonnie perked up. “Yeah, let’s go there. I love gay guys.”

Heather, who lives in West Hollywood now, said, “I don’t know…I think it might be kind of weird if five girls walked in all of a sudden.”

We settled on the Hangar, a vaguely airplane-themed bar on Aviation Boulevard. They only served beer, in giant goblets that made us giggle. Bonnie and Angie didn’t like beer, so they borrowed mine and Jenessa’s and Heather’s to take pictures with. I’d ordered a Hefeweizen and repeated what I’d recently heard on NPR, that it was a less bitter beer because it had a lot of malt and not very much hops. I felt half cool, half alcoholic.

Soon, Angie and Bonnie left, and Jenessa’s boyfriend Sam joined us and did a spot-on impression of Jenessa’s mom that sounded just like the impressions she’s been doing since she was eight.

Do people really change? When I look at all of us, it seems entirely believable that we are who we turned out to be. Jenessa once marched into the school library and demanded to see all the scary books (which her mom had warned her not to read). Now she’s looking for a job working with gang members and won’t hesitate to tell you about the time she got arrested. Bonnie was always bossy and goofy around her friends and painfully shy around adults. Now she teaches third grade.

But we’ve all muddled through a lot to become the selves that seem so obvious. Breakups, babies, rehab, half-finished grad programs, a few thousand dollars worth of therapy. More than anything, I think we all had to shed a lot of insecurity to become the nice (yet gently sarcastic, partially tattooed and occasionally bitchy) young ladies we are today.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, beer at the Hangar: $4.50 plus tip. Eleven-year reunion with people I’d still do a kick line with: priceless.