After graduation she high-tailed it to New York City & took a job as a flight attendant for Pan Am, traveled the world, & lived in an East 72nd Street walkup with 3 of her co-workers. After succumbing to pressure from her parents, she quit flying several years later & took a low-paying job as a DA. We met shortly after she'd gotten her first 'real' job, as had Pam — also a lawyer.

I don't remember exactly how we bonded, other than it probably happened because the girl Charmaine had taken a share with — Cathy — turned out to be a nightmare from hell who hogged the only available bathroom to set up her Ernest Laszlo cosmetics & indulge in a long routine while the rest of us were forced to run, cross-legged, across the road to pee in the bushes.

The house was beautiful, but the share was a sham. Pam & I often lamented that we might as well have stood on the roofs of our respective apartment buildings with a stack of 3,000 $1 bills & let them blow with the four winds. The owners had failed to tell us they had sole use of the 2nd bathroom, which happened to be on the 2nd floor adjacent to their bedroom — the only other room up there. They'd also failed to tell us that, one of the owners aside, all of the shareholders were women — a 'worst-nightmare' scenario since we were all out there hoping our mega-bucks summer shares would at least mean having some cute guys around & maybe getting laid...or lucking out & finding the love of our life.

But no such luck. My almost-date with child-murder-to-be Joel Steinberg aside, the most excitement we had at all summer was dodging the same boors we dodged back in the City, & watching Cathy drag her beauty routine into the bathroom & lock the door... Charmaine quickly cut the strings on that friendship & aligned herself with Pam & me since, in her opinion, we were the only interesting people in the house or, for that matter, in the entire Hamptons. Sad, but it was probably true... Thus began a friendship that has lasted an extraordinary 20 years — the longest relationship I've had outside of my ex-husband, with whom I shared a 17 year on-again-off-again liaison, & a gay guy-pal in Baltimore who I've now been best buds with for 27 years...

Charmaine is an admittedly difficult person — opinionated, intellectual & more than a bit of a snob — who at the time drank & caroused as much as I did, which led to more than one drunken fight where one left screaming at & berating the other, or calling 911 & having the other arrested for driving under the influence. A lesser friendship could never have stood up to such self-serving abuse of the other... But survive we did. Somehow. Only God knows how or why...

Throughout the years we did ski shares, even buying a house in Vermont so we could be on the profit-making end of the share phenomenon that gripped the City from the mid-80s to early 90s. We extended ski shares into year-round shares, attracting not only folks who skiied but also golfed and played tennis. Our circle came to emcompass roughly 3+ dozen other 30- & 40-something best friends in 4 or 5 other houses as well as our own... This year-long lifestyle of skiing, golfing, playing tennis, drinking & partying with our 'little' group lasted nearly 10 years until marriage & babies, in-fighting & being pushed out by new groups of 20- & 30-somethings took its toll. We sold our house, as did the other sharehouse owners in our circle, & satisfied ourselves with trips to Aspen in the winter and sailing charters in the summer.

Then came 9/11, & life as all we New Yorkers knew it abruptly came to an end... It was the most traumatic day of any of our [otherwise rather strangely sheltered] lives. Charmaine, now a litigator with Con Ed, was on her way to WTC 1 for a deposition at the time of the attack. Late for work as usual I was in my living room, watching as it happened. Any thought of her — or the numerous friends who worked at or around Wall Street — never entered my mind until several hours later, after the initial shock had worn off. Then I went into full panic mode. Sleep evaded me until I was finally able to reach her around 1AM the next morning. She'd blessedly been stuck in traffic on the FDR, but had been close enough to see the 2nd plane hit, then bodies falling or jumping from the windows.

Being somewhat more resilient than me, she stayed in the City but never found the courage to venture south of Houston. I left 6 months after the attack — my government contract had been cancelled as a result, I was suffering from PTSS & not emotionally stable enough to look for or land another. Thus, I took my mother up on her suggestion to relocate.

After I moved, our friendship took an obvious twist — instead of living 4 blocks apart & being able to hook up to go to brunch, out for dinner, take in events at the Met & Lincoln Center, watch the marathon, go to the gym or any of the other myriad activities proximity allowed — we have met up at destinations as diverse as the Newport Jazz Festival & the InStyle event in Miami Beach. We talk on the phone as though we were still right around the corner. I envy her being there in City with all its energy & everything one could ever hope for within the confines of just a few miles. She envies me the new life I've found, complete with real flesh & blood boyfriends.

We still get angry & hang up on each other, still get drunk & make fools of ourselves or get pissy when we're together on vacation, but one thing is certain — we've been through it all & our friendship is rock solid. We've always been there for each other, good times & bad, & have even (somewhat reluctantly) come to realize that even if I do manage to get married again we'll probably end up together anyway — two old ladies in rocking chairs cackling about all our wild, half-assed adventures & how, once, we rocked Manhattan...

Archives
06.16.2006 — Her 50 is the new 30?!?...
06.09.2006 — Laughing my ass off...
05.31.2006 — The quarterback, the linebacker...& me....
04.21.2006 — Two loves...
03.15.2006 — Farewell, dear Maxie...
12.31.2005 — Adios & farewell, '05...
07.03.2005 — I'll be seeing you...
06.26.2005 — He had me from 'hello'...
05.30.2005 — New York City Grrls...
05.18.2005 — The blog that started it all...
Love's Illusions — poetic musings from the past...