B and I go to gymnastics on Tuesdays and Thursdays at an amazing kid’s gym called Bounce.

Hoops must be jumped through, color blocks navigated, summersaults attempted and ladders must be crawled upon. There isn’t much time to be social—I’m usually too busy corralling my son, who is both the youngest and easily the most enthusiastic. He likes to make a break for the trampoline room when he suspects no one is watching. So at any point in the forty-five minute class, you can expect to see me sprinting after my 16 month old, B giggling madly as he careens down the gym floor, other parents throwing themselves onto mats or color blocks to get out of the way, with me breathless, running after B, my fingertips just out of reach of his green “Stompin’ Dinos” t-shirt. The entire operation is nonstop action so that in between launching B over the large red hexagon thingamajig and holding his trunk at my shoulder height so he can practice swinging and kicking on the bars, sweat rivulets slide down my back and unkempt strands of hair stick to my face in clumps. At least three or four times each class you can here me shouting, “Get back here, you monkey. Tramps are pretty soon, right now we’re doing tunnel (or balance beam or hula hoop).”

Recently I found myself underneath the rainbow parachute, thankful for the break but wondering how long it was that I was expected to stay inside, pocketed in that musty, stale air. A guy I’d seen before was in there too, sitting Indian style, opening and closing the parachute flaps to allow air and his son to pass freely. Long, ashe blonde dreadlocks sprouted out from the dad’s head and intricate tattoos lined his arms and shoulders. His earlobes were elongated with holes as big as quarters.
It was his hands, though, that caught my eye. He had tattooed one letter on the knuckle of each finger. F-R-E-E, I read on the right. H-U-G-S, it said on the left. I grinned and quickly averted my eyes, hoping he hadn’t noticed me noticing. B pushed through the green flap and settled in my lap and dad pulled himself out from under our fort.

Later, near the bars, there was a break in the action so I tried to be social.

“Hi, I’m Emily. What’s your name?”
“Splat.”
“Nice to meet you Splat. And your son’s name, is it Free?” (I had heard him say his name before but couldn’t decipher whether it was Free or Creed)
“It’s Free.”
His son is a beautiful, white-blonde two-year-old who’s mighty skilled at the uneven parallel bars.

Later, at the end of the class, the kids fall into a pile in the middle of the springy gym floor waiting expectantly for Nasha, the teacher, to give them their stamps and glitter. She picks a cat stamp and starts branding. Some kids are organized--they’ve got their legs out in a pike. In other cases, feet are dangling haphazardly or skewed at uncomfortable angles and arms are crossed in front of chests so that Nasha must contort her body and reposition small limbs to do the stamping. My son, the smallest, quietly watches while Nasha rubs glitter on a little girl’s forearm. B’s patience surprises me-it is out of character for my agro little boy and I’m momentarily proud that he’s managing such good social manners. Free is on the other side of the girl and he’s also waiting patiently for his glitter. Nasha gets to Free last, but she is quick and in moments the kids are all branded and the smell of strawberry-scented glitter stick wafts through the gym. The pile disperses, each child running off in a different direction to show their parents the new look. But Free stays put. He wiggles on his knees and smiles shyly at Nasha with his father looking on right behind him.

“Where’s the Magic, Free?” his father cajoles. Dad isn’t condescending. There’s this nice, loving lilt to his voice.
“Come on now, let’s here the Magic.” A long pause ensues while all of us wait to see how the small boy will respond.
“T’ank youuuuu,” Free whispers while assessing his kitty stamp. His voice is so light and sweet.
“That’s right, Free. That’s the Magic.”

Indeed.

It’s been awhile and much has happened. I am not pregnant, my Evil Friend moved out, my mom, who lives 9 hours away, visited us and informed me that I need to discipline my son more often (“Don’t let him get away with throwing that banana”) and my grandfather is, at 87, finally taking a downward turn health-wise and my uncle, who is closest to my grandfather both emotionally and proximally, is moving. My Dad and this uncle are selling the family business started by Gramps and going their separate ways (my Dad to Mexico and my uncle to Florida) leaving Gramps with no relatives in the state and as the only woman in the family and the youngest of our small, dwindling clan, I volunteered to find him the best in-home care millions can buy. Oh, and about two hours ago, I broke up with the Evil Best Friend.

The break-up was anti-climactic and stupid. She showed up with her boyfriend and the stench of trouble was in the air. (How do you tell your best friend you can’t be her best friend anymore when her Stud Boy--her divorce isn’t final-- is sitting on your couch?) They had come to pick up a sidetable, lamp, ski boots, her whips and chains, everything that she left in her quick exit a month or so ago. In trade, they brought back a five foot by four foot lithograph painting of a sultry Russian mademoiselle, an expensive 1 of 180 copies issued piece of art that cost me two months rent back in law school—a painting Evil Friend swears I gave to her. I actually told her she could borrow it while she was living in my house (I was happy to have her take it down from its high perch in the hallway and set it in front of her bed while living in the basement apartment), so imagine my surprise when I walked into her new place, 10 miles away from my home, and there it was propped up against the wall. Mademoiselle’s once come-hither stare now said, “What the fuck am I doing here, get me out or a pox on all your houses.” So naturally, I asked for the painting back. Relieved to have Mademoiselle in her rightly place, imagine my surprise when, Stud Boy stepping away from the painting and me walking forward to reclaim my feisty girl, I peered in to discover that Mademoiselle was no longer a she but a he. Someone had painted a very thick mustache just above the bow in her deliciously sensual lips—the marker thick and heavy on the glass. Evil friend and Stud Boy chuckled to themselves as I inquired whether or not it was permanent (it looked damn permanent). “It’s permanent,”they said in unison. It wasn’t of course. Evil Friend licked her index finger and rubbed hard on the glass, smudging the blackness out with her acid spit. An hour later, I relayed this story to my smart social worker/therapist friend who is kind enough to always read this blog. She was aghast by this not-so-subtle passive aggressive parting shot. “Horrible” she said. “To deface your private possessions—don’t you feel violated?” “Yes” I said. “But by now I’ve gotten quite used to it.”
The actual break-up conversation was over in less time than it takes to peel an orange. With Stud Boy hovering, I asked Evil Friend if I could speak with her for a few minutes. Alone. We walked to the deck. The sun was shining, birds were chirping and Evil Friend was standing less than a foot away. And strangely enough, that nervous energy that had been jiggling my stomach all morning just vanished.

“I’ve done a lot of thinking about our friendship in the last month or so, since things got ugly and I don’t know how to say this other than to just say it. I can’t be your friend anymore.” As I spoke, her face was so close I could see all the color gradations on her cheeks and forehead where her skin had mottled from years of sun and tanning beds. Upon hearing me, she stepped backwards and away from my body, her jaw doing spasmic maneuvers, like snakes trapped in a cloth sack writhing about, the muscles and tissue tightening, loosening and then tightening again. Lasting only for half a second, it was horror-movie creepy. Then she gave me her answer,

“I don’t want to be your friend either.” She smiled benignly as she said this, as though she were offering me coffee. And that was all she said. And then she hugged me—a short, awkward hug, like the kind two year olds act out on the playground when coaxed by their mothers. The hug was so vacant that something needed to fill the space so I started talking nervously, honestly. I said something about being relieved that we both wanted the same thing and that I was glad I wasn’t hurting her feelings. I was truthful when I said these things. And happy that I no longer had to pull out the stock, “our friendship just didn’t evolve” bullshit, stuff I had practiced the night before, empty words that, had I used them, would have sounded exactly as they were-- a polite way of telling her to go to hell.

So it was over and she and Stud Boy were making their way out the door. She wanted to get out of my house quickly, that was obvious. Usually a pokey walker, her thin legs were moving faster than I’ve ever seen them move before. Stud Boy, unaware of the giant gaping hole where our friendship used to be, meanwhile, lobbed silly filler, wishing me a happy vacation and me wishing him happiness back. Evil friend turned around at the bottom of my front porch stairs, only for a second, twisting her shoulder toward me as though she were about to say something. But she didn’t. Instead, it was me who spoke.
“Please take care of yourself.” I meant it.
“I will” she said and then muttered something that might have been “you too.” Whatever it was, it wasn’t convincing. And that was it. Five years of friendship--poof. In the immortal words of B, in his first and most used sign language, the one ex-Evil Friend knows all too well (short chopping motion in front of chest) "All done."
I doubt I’ll ever see her again.

But on a completely unrelated note and minus the drama and fanfare that goes with a best friend break-up, I find myself giggling with glee these days when my baby tries to speak—it’s this wonderful gibberish-- EXACTLY like the backwards talking midget from Twin Peaks. It’s uncanny. (Weirder still, apparently this is a cult phemonenon—my friend Emily reported that back when her son Quinn was B’s age, he too, was—and I quote her-- “the backwards talking midget from Twin Peaks.” She said this way back when I didn’t know her, so I didn’t steal her simile, swear to God. I had no idea Twin Peaks was so much a part of our vernacular—someone should study this.) Plus, with little B, there is all this tongue thrusting going on. It shoots out suddenly, like an unruly gopher popping up and out from his hole. B seems powerless to stop it, so instead he’s laughing more too at the strange sounds he’s able to create. Meanwhile, he does know some words. “Outside” is big right now. “Yogrrr” also popular at snack time. And he is, of course, my son—sometimes when I’m putting on music in the morning I’ll say “How about some Madonna?” and he’ll reply “adonna. Yes.”His yeses are very crisp, with excellent enunciation.
Yesterday morning he said “shit.” Well, almost shit. More like “sht”with the vowel left out but with the proper intonation, the correct inflection. This happened moments after I said the real shit while he flailed about on the changing table, his poop falling in clumps from the diaper onto the cover and my arms as I struggled to hold his legs down. “Shit” was bound to be an early word for him. My husband has a bad habit of saying the word and then quickly tacking on “poopie” in a misguided move to correct himself. So late afternoon, he and baby B will be enjoying peanut butter sandwiches while watching SpongeBob and B will lunge forward grabbing hold of my husband’s head (he’s fucking quick), leaving the gook on his ears and forehead. “Shit” the cry will go out and I will throw my husband a stern look that says be a good role model, you fucker. “Shit, poopie,” my husband will say sheepishly. So now B not only knows “shit,” he can define it. But it’s mainly my husband’s fault.

Kathy Griffin is coming on and I’m settling in for a fabulous night of TV. My husband is making me one of his signature vanilla milkshakes. The evening’s mood is festive, celebratory. We’re toasting “shit” and the beautiful demise of a friendship.