Today, Pen took me to lunch at one of her favorite restaurants in Tucson. Pen has been a constant in my life since I was fourteen. We shared a room at a boarding school she was attending. I was attending it too but only because my mom taught art at the school and part of her employment contract was to have me enrolled as a day student. But even as a day student, I had to have a place to change my uniform and do homework. So they put me with Pen.

When I first knocked on Pen’s dorm room, my palms were sweating. I had never met a rich person before. I expected her to open the door wearing a mink and dripping diamonds. Instead, she was wearing gray boxer shorts and a black T-shirt. 

“And you are?” Her voice was a little gruff.

“Lilly.” Mine was a little breathless. I had a stack of books in my arms and had to brush past her to unload them on the desk.

“That’s my desk.”

“Okay,” I said as I looked around and saw one desk, one chair, one closet, and one bed. “Then I guess we have to share.” I tried to sound blasé. One of the many things my mother taught me was to assume I was equal to anyone at any time. It wasn’t until that moment that I realized I had actually listened to something she had said. Pen smiled.

It took me and Pen quite a few weeks to warm up to each other, but once we did, we were inseparable for the next four years, and best friends for the next sixty. ( To get a fuller introduction to Pen, see my who’s who section.)

Usually, when Pen and I go out for a meal, we have a lot to talk about. Pen absorbs life moment by moment which she then distills into a treasure she carefully saves in some recess of her being. As a result, being with her can be a very intense experience.

But not today. Today she wanted me to pick a table and tell her what was happening in the relationship of the diners. Embarrassingly enough, we do this a lot.

“I see a man and woman sitting side by side in a booth.” I studied them for a moment. “They are a couple. I’m sure of it. A new couple.”

“How do you know that?” She asked.

“She is paying attention to everything he says. And he seems to be a little shy about her attention.”

“Maybe any attention makes him uncomfortable.”

I slowly shook my head. “Nope. He’s enjoying it.”

“What’s he wearing?”

“Jeans. Faded. A blue tailored long-sleeve shirt and a baseball cap.”

“And her?”

“Kaki pants and a mustard-colored knit top.”

Pen resisted the urge to turn around and look at them. “So I assume they are young. Maybe late twenties, early thirties?”

I laughed. “More like late sixties, early seventies.”

Pen protested. “You said they were a young couple.”

“I said they were a new couple.”

“Shit,” Pen said, sitting back against the bench. “Why did I assume that new meant young?”