Noelle could have been very special to me. Different place, different time...a different life altogether, I suppose. Noelle was mysterious. She had a voice that was quiet and great. Maybe she wasn't so mysterious, maybe I just never got to know her very well. I certainly never got to know her as well as I would have liked. She was very popular and always had people around, so it was pretty hard to get to know her. You had to get her alone, because her friends were awful. She ran with that pushy crowd, the loud ones who always get a little too drunk but never seem to regret it, the ones who always seem that they are whispering to one another, maybe about you, maybe not. Who knows what they whisper about? Or if they are even whispering? As I said, it may only seem as if they are whispering to one another.
Anyway, there was this one girl, Elizabeth, that was around a lot. Elizabeth was terrible. I should know. We went to the same high school, two years apart. She was a sophomore when I was a senior. She was terrible then, but she became even worse. She was dating my best friend's sister's friend. I don't know when she became gay; she wasn't gay in high school. Anyway, she would sit at a table with Noel and some other girls and it was like they were all whispering about you, sizing you up and cutting you down. Honestly, I don't know how Noelle stood it. She wasn't like that at all; she was nice and had ice blue eyes that were somehow confident and shy at the same time.
Elizabeth, however, was almost evil. She had a way of repeating things she said, stupid things. For instance, if you were talking to her, she would say something vague like, "Things are not what they seem, no, they are not what they seem at all." She said this a lot, just to make you feel stupid, like only she knew what was happening in the world and that you, being ordinary, would never be able to understand all that was happening. Or if you were talking to her at a party, she would excuse herself by saying, Well, Elizabeth needs another drink. Yes, Elizabeth needs another drink." I hate people that replace the first-person with the third. I just hate it.
Anyway, my friend's sister still hears news about her from time to time. Last I understood, she had married - a man! - and they had become missionaries or something and lived in Ecuador or somewhere like that. I hope she is attacked by monkeys. Noelle still lives in my town. We went out a few times after college, but it was awkward for me. What do you say to a girl like that? We became friends, I suppose, but not the type of friends that I could just call whenever I had a clever thought or idea, which is sad because whenever I do have a clever thought or idea, I often think of Noelle and imagine that it would make her laugh or impress her somehow and slowly she would have gotten to know me and admire me and maybe even develop a crush on me or something. That's how it usually works. Most of the time.
