I watched Edda Tompkin drive away with a heavy heart. She and I had grown up together, we'd been each other's best friend and now she was off to college while I stayed in our small burg of a town going to work for the railroad.
We'd met in second grade, dad and I moved in across the street from she and her mom, it was on that warm autumn Saturday afternoon I stood on my front porch looking at her standing on hers and waved tentatively the way kids will do to test the waters. Edda smiled and gave me a similar wave, it was the beginning of a friendship that through the years would be tested time and again, but never broken. With my brown paper bag lunch, fifteen cents in my pocket for milk, and a pat on my back from dad I stepped into a new world.
Standing on the sidewalk in front of my house was a skinny girl with strawberry blonde hair, freckles all over her face and a smile as big as life itself. A friend on my first day at a new school, I suddenly felt less out of place.
"Hi, my names Edda, it's Scandinavian because my Gram's from Iceland and I'm named after her."
"I'm Edward, I like to be called Ed and I have no idea why they named me Edward."
A friendship was solidified with two sentences and neither of us were aware of it at the time. Edda made sure I was included in all the normal class doing's until I knew enough kids on my own to find my spot in the pecking order. Adults, especially the teachers, will tell you there's no pecking order in school, but they're the only ones who espouse such drivel, every kid knows where they do and don't fit. The smart one's learn to exist within their so called *group*, the others are typically described as outcasts, kids that never seem to fit in anywhere, and every school has them, nowhere is exempt from this sad but basic truth.
I didn't fit in with Edda's group, she wasn't in with what was considered the *cool* kids, generally those with a little more money than the rest of us and of course always the newest and hippest new trend in clothing or anything else. They were also the most pernicious, arrogant and snotty people you will ever encounter. Edda was the group just below them, they were cool but still friendly to others, you would be tolerated and even allowed to hang with them if you persisted, but you were never welcomed in so to speak.
Me, I was just another geeky kid who hung out with other non-descript and un-influential kids of all walks of life. Edda would always smile and greet me, sometimes we'd talk at recess or lunch, but eventually she'd drift back to her small collection of silly giggling cute as can be friends. However, every morning and every afternoon she was mine and mine alone. We walked the half mile to school and home every day, it was only she and I, no one ever tried to walk with us and we never invited any other's.
I had no mom and she had no dad so I think we sort of adopted the other, and their respective parent. All I knew as a boy was that mom had left, all Edda knew as a girl is that her parents were divorced and her dad lived someplace in another country. She'd never met him that she could recall, I'd never met my mom that I knew of, well, beyond a baby. My dad worked for the railroad on track maintenance, those were the days before they had the machines now which will do what used to be hard manual labor. Dad wasn't a large man, but he was rock solid, and in spite of his physical bulk, he was never mean or abusive toward me.
If I'd done wrong and needed to be punished or corrected he always had me go to my room for an hour, I didn't realize until later in life it was so he had time to settle down and deal with things properly instead of in anger. Edda and I would play after school and weekends, we'd made a secret pact we vowed never to reveal to anyone else. I would play dolls with her and pretend married if she would play trucks and police/bad guy with me. She had a little play house in her back yard where we'd have *tea and crumpets* as we called it. It was really some apple juice and a few cookies we'd absconded when her mom wasn't looking.
Edda wore dresses or skirts all the time except in summer when she wore shorts, I never saw her in long pants until we were in seventh grade. When she and I would play trucks or cowboy games she would reach under her dress, grab the back hem and pull it up, then tuck it into the waistband like a pair of pants. We always played house in her backyard and trucks in mine. Without realizing it we were forming a bond that lasted throughout our entire lives. By sixth grade Edda had begun to change physically and physiologically, she wasn't as excited to play house any longer, and trucks or cowboys was unheard of.
I asked my dad about it, he smiled and told me she was growing up, I'd follow in a year or two just because boys generally matured a little later than girls. I was confused, that evening dad and I had *THE TALK*, he explained how girls matured and had menstrual cycles they called a period, that I'd soon notice pubic hair on my body and that my penis would start to feel different when I saw pretty girls. That soon Edda would begin growing breasts, if she hadn't started having periods she would soon and if I noticed subtle changes I was to be a proper gentleman and not pester her about things. Just be a gentleman and make sure she was okay.
The summer between sixth and seventh grade opened new doors for Edda and me. I was beginning puberty about the same time Edda was starting her cycles and growing breasts. It all came about quite innocently, one day she was running around playing street hockey with me and it seemed the next day she had little bumps on her chest. Her flat hips began to take shape and her little girl looks began to disappear. We spent a lot of evening's that summer either on my front porch swing or hers. The gang down the block would play hide and seek until 9 when everyone had to go in, we seldom participated, our fun was being with the other listening to the transistor radio.
On one of the evenings I mentioned I noticed she was sporting a bra. She blushed and said I wasn't supposed to speak of such things to a girl.
"Well Edda how can I not notice you're growing boobs? You look so beautiful all the time. I know I'm not your boyfriend but I still wanna hang out with you this year. Can we do that?"
"Who else would I hang out with silly, you're my best friend. Besides, the only boy I might want to go out with is Johnny Lavey and he's already going out with Esmerelda that Spanish girl, he doesn't even know I exist."
My heart was temporarily deflated, but then who was I to think I would ever be in her group of friends. As long as we walked together before and after school and sat on our front porch's I was content just to have Edda in my life. The next four years were basically a repeat of each other, we still walked together, I carried her books, she was always polite to me and never made me feel unwanted even when she was with her group. I bulked a little through puberty, nothing worth writing home about as they say, she never did grow much in the breast department, they remained small, her hips flared slightly and her butt stuck out deliciously. I loved her long hair and the freckles softened with time, our conversations became deeper and more reflective of who we were becoming within.
By our senior year she was dating Dave Wanish, the football star, somehow it didn't add up in my eyes. Sitting on the porch during one of our many nightly visits I asked her about it, wondering if she was comfortable dating the guy who could have any girl he wanted. She jabbed me in the ribs and told me I was jealous that someone other than me thought she was pretty. Following a short pause, I spoke.
"I may be jealous you're not sitting on the porch with me when you're out with him, but Edda I think he wants one thing from you, and then he'll dump you."
"Dave isn't like that, see you're making up stories."
