Carissa was my best friend growing up in Monticello. \u201cThe littlest town in Iowa,\u201d we used to call it. We were neighbors back then; right smack in the middle of town.<\/p>\n
Her parents owned the only restaurant in town until the McDonald\u2019s opened up along the highway. Nostra Casa<\/em> they called it. They served a combination of Italian pasta and pizza and Midwestern meat and potatoes. All through grade school, Carissa and I would sneak into the kitchen after school and make off with cheese and salami to snack on.<\/p>\n My parents owned the one general store in town until they built the Safeway. We had tools for the farm and fabric for pretty dresses. If we didn\u2019t have it, or your neighbors didn\u2019t grow it, you just didn\u2019t need it. Nobody had the time or the money to drive three hours to the Wal-Mart in Ames to get stuff. You only did that if you needed an operation or something. Even birthing and dying you could do at home. Though when we got old enough, we\u2019d borrow Carissa\u2019 daddy\u2019s car and drive those three hours to flirt with the college boys. But that was a long time ago.<\/p>\n Now, here we both are. Far from that sad little town kids just can\u2019t wait to get away from. Two sophisticated, grown women living and working in the big city; like Mary Tyler Moore on that show back in the seventies.<\/p>\n I ran into Carissa at the post office, of all places. We were queuing up for something or other; send a package, get a package, something. It was close to the holidays and all, so it was crowded. Carissa was way back in a line full of men who let her move ahead if she smiled pretty at them. Other women kept looking at her, sucking their teeth and rolling their eyes in disgust. But Carissa just kept moving on ahead up the line, swishing her hips back and forth, and whispering thank you demurely, though she had never been demure a day in her life. I watched her for a while thinking, Who is that?<\/em> Then it dawned on me. Carissa Bustamante from Monticello! The girl all the boys at County High chased after because the word bust <\/em>in her name wasn\u2019t the only bust that attracted attention.<\/p>\n Carissa had striking long black hair so dark it looked blue in the light. She always wore it long and loose. I don\u2019t know how she kept it clean and shiny like that with all that dust in the air all year long. All the rest of us had yellow hair that looked filthy as soon as you stepped out of the house. But not Carissa.<\/p>\n I hadn\u2019t seen Carissa since the night of our high school graduation. She had made quite a scene at the big party in the school gym. She made out with every boy in our class, even Mary Jane Milligan\u2019s boyfriend Bill. Then she gave a grand speech about how she was leaving town in the morning and never looking back. As far as I know, she never did look back. I certainly hadn\u2019t seen neither hide nor hair of her since then.<\/p>\n Now we get together every couple of weeks after work. The first time, Carissa recommended the Chapel Room, a bar and restaurant at the St. Regis Hotel downtown. She said it was between our jobs and very convenient. Convenient<\/em>, that was her word. It\u2019s a nice place too, though it\u2019s too classy for my taste and very exclusive about its clientele. The first time I went, I got there early, and the headwaiter wouldn\u2019t seat me because he didn\u2019t know me. But when Carissa got there, he greeted her like they were best of buddies and apologized for his mistake.<\/p>\n \u201cOh, Helen. Next time, tell him you\u2019re with me,\u201d she said matter-of-factly.<\/p>\n But the next time, it wasn\u2019t necessary to remind him. Now he gives us the same table every week\u2014a little booth way back in a quiet corner. It\u2019s so intimate, you know.<\/p>\n We sat and talked and drank for hours that first night. We had a lot of catching up to do. Carissa told me about her moves to Chicago and Philadelphia and New York and then back here; as close to home as she wanted to get. Her parents weren\u2019t satisfied that she wasn\u2019t in the same state as them at least. They come to visit her a couple times a year, and pretend to be happy. I told Carissa about my years with the Peace Corps in Cape Verde and getting my degree in Social Work and my job with the Department of Human and Health Services and my continued search for Mister Right.<\/p>\n \u201cForget about Mr. Right,\u201d she scolded me. \u201cHe doesn\u2019t exist. It\u2019s like Happily Ever After. What a load of bullshit!\u201d<\/p>\n Carissa always had a foul. Did I mention that? Another thing the boys loved about her. She was trying to act<\/em> older, be<\/em> older. All the grownups around us swore like there was no other way to talk, so she did too. But even at thirteen she was more sophisticated at it than anybody we knew.<\/p>\n Anyway, as I was saying, Carissa kept saying, \u201cForget about Mr. Right. You need Mr. Right Now.\u201d<\/p>\n We talked about people back home some. Old Lady Markesan, the wicked old lady who used to set traps in her fields so we wouldn\u2019t run across her property to get to the creek finally died. A stroke, I think. And Jimmy and Suzanne Willis, the homecoming king and queen our senior year at County High, they just had their sixth kid. Jimmy is pulling double shifts at the factory in the next town over to support the brood. It\u2019s a wonder he has time to make more of \u2019em.<\/p>\n Carissa had lain with him once back in high school. \u201cNothing special,\u201d she\u2019d said, as though she had a point of comparison at age 16.<\/p>\n I used to wonder back then what she wanted from those boys. What they <\/em>wanted was clear as the sky after a good hard rain. But Carissa was never satisfied with a one of them lackluster boys. \u201cUnambitious,\u201d she used to call them. I guess that\u2019s what soured her to small-town living.<\/p>\n \u201cI bet boys in the big city don\u2019t behave like these fools,\u201d she would say.<\/p>\n And maybe the big city fellas were <\/em>different; like the one who came over to our table late that first night. He sent over a couple of drinks first.<\/p>\n \u201cFrom the gentleman at the bar,\u201d the waiter said, nodding toward him.<\/p>\n It was just like in the movies! He sent us two more drinks a while later, then came over and sat next to Carissa. She wasn\u2019t too happy about that, and she really lost her temper when he put his hand on her thigh and asked if we\u2019d join him in a room upstairs. I think Carissa was going to slap him, or toss her drink in his face, or something. The headwaiter <\/em>came by just in time and showed him the door.<\/p>\n That\u2019s when I noticed the time. It was going on 11 o\u2019clock! We had drunk our dinner, and I for one was in no condition to make my way home. I couldn\u2019t even remember where I\u2019d parked my car.<\/p>\n It was Carissa\u2019s idea that we get a room for the night. At the St. Regis Hotel! I couldn\u2019t wait to write home about it. I would have never had the nerve to do it. Such a fancy place! But Carissa wouldn\u2019t have it any other way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It was Carissa\u2019s idea that we get a room for the night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[31,165],"class_list":["post-87","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-oh-carissa","tag-carissa","tag-gess"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.writtenGESStures.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.writtenGESStures.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.writtenGESStures.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.writtenGESStures.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.writtenGESStures.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=87"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.writtenGESStures.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":215,"href":"http:\/\/www.writtenGESStures.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87\/revisions\/215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.writtenGESStures.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=87"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.writtenGESStures.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=87"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.writtenGESStures.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=87"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}