Just Like Me, Part 1 (mostly make believe)

Grown ups love to tell little girls with even a slight resemblance that they look exactly alike.

You look just like sisters! they exclaim.

And little girls love to pretend that their best friend is a secret sister. They imagine alternate lives with wonderful parents or no parents at all. I had three Just Like Me friends in my life: the first was my cousin Carrie.

Carrie was two years older than me and two years younger than my real sister. She could have connected with either of us but, in addition to the physical resemblance, we were both more adventurous, loud and goofy than my sister. Carrie was a tomboy, the youngest of seven, and was always covered in bruises from wrestling with her brothers. I was a tomboy too, I always had a scab on my knee and stubbed toes all summer long, bu my family had just the two girls and my sister was shy and serious. I don't think she ever gave me a bruise. Whenever my aunt and uncle came to visit, Carrie and I would play until it was time for them to go home and then beg and plead for her stay the night. The next day, when it was time for her to go home, we’d beg and plead for another night. Sometimes I stayed at Carrie's house, but my house was always Carrie's first choice. It was less crowded and quieter, in the summertime we had a pool in the back yard, no one was ever borrowing or breaking my toys, and my mom always found time to come play with us and make special bedtime treats.

As we got older, the two years age difference became more important. We made new best friends in our own schools in our own towns. The death of a sister in her family and the divorce in mine brought about big changes too. The last family event I remember at Carrie's house is my cousin Tami's funeral. No one was really talking about Tami's or even saying her name: for years I thought she took LSD and jumped off a building thinking she could fly. I think that came from a movie, an episode of Starsky and Hutch, or a Just-Say-No to LSD campaign that spread an urban legend though. These days, I know she overdosed and I think it was heroin, but I still don't know for sure. Within six months of the funeral, my mom and dad split up. My mom didn't go to family events and my dad also cut himself off from his family members who “took my mom’s side.”

I didn't see much of Carrie during the 80s and then, during my senior year of high school, she got married. The groom smashed cake all over the her face and dress. Several years and a baby later, Carrie left him. It turned out that he gave her lots more bruises than wrestling with brothers ever did. At the same time, I was away at school, reading Welsh poetry and studying collage. I last saw Carrie at a family baby shower. She talked about how happy those memories of my house and that time in her life still were to her. It was almost as hard to see the old physical resemblance between us as it was to comprehend the different paths our lives had taken.