Andrea Beth Blackwell

prevJul. 28, 2005 - 8:10 p.m.next

Just now I did something I have never done in my life: I read the obituary for an old friend of mine. I got the call the other night that one of my best friends/first big crush from high school died unexpectedly.

I remember where she sat in Algebra class our sophomore year (she never talked to me; she was too cool). I remember first meeting her our senior year at Young Life...I remember exactly where we were standing. It was at this meeting that I pointed out her never having talked to me before. She said, "Yeah, I was a different person then. I don't like who I was. I was always trying to impress the wrong people." We sat together with two other girls at lunch. She always sat directly across from me, Deb to her left, Allison to my right. I remember how mad at her I got the day she sat down at lunch and said, "I got a part in My Fair Lady last night at Gardner-Webb!" "There were auditions and you didn't tell me?!" "Didn't think you'd be interested." I remember the dress she wore in My Fair Lady. I remember where she stood in the "Move Your Bloody Arse" scene. We went hiking at South Mountains State Park once. We started an inside joke about icicles that we kept up for years.

I remember the night I drove her car. We had gone to the Midnight Sun Coffee Shop and she and Allison and I went to Gasland so she could get cigarettes. I stalled the car and she made me switch places with her. I remember what she was wearing the last time I saw her and where she was standing as we spoke. I remember the last song I played for her: Erasure's "River Deep, Mountain High."

Quite a few of my one acts have had the name Andrea for the lead female, including one that used a blatant rip-off of her last name...a play about a highschool guy with a crush.

We ran into each other a short time back and she gave me her phone number on a piece of paper. I put the number into my cell phone and the paper into my wallet where it still sits. It has her number and her name in her own writing: Andrea Blackwell.

I never called her. That will be one of my deepest regrets for the rest of my life.

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