Saturday, December 31, 2005

Eloise Absolutely Loves

I haven't had a best friend since first grade. And then, she was my only friend. These days I have piles. I need someone to be best. Someone completely different but just like me. I need another soul that fits my skin.

So I'll tell you what we'll do. We'll go to a supermarket and buy baby carrots, ranch dressing, Capri Sun, and sugar cookies. And then we'll get on a train and go to Saint Louis. It'll take hours, but you're my best friend. Skater K said rent a car. Maybe that. But I've loved trains since I was little, platinum-blonde and blue-eyed. I always wanted to sit on the second level, hand down my ticket from above the condutor's head. They would give me boxes of Good & Plenty.

We're going to the hotel nestled in one end of Saint Louis's Union Station. It used to be the busiest train station in the country. It's a shopping mall now, huge, with marble floors and brick walls and big windows. Would they let minors check in? We can say we're older and laugh our heads off afterwards, in the elevator. You can push every button.

Here's another thing Anna loves: subways. Like trains, but dingier. Down-to-earth, as it were. We'll fix our makeup and promenade all the way back through Union Station and take the Metro to the riverfront. We'll duck into another train, the tiny tram that goes sideways and up to the top of the Arch. Don't think too hard. We're on top.

And we'll do all the normal stuff. The Historical Society. The Old Courthouse and the Old Post Office and the Old Cathedral. What makes a church a cathedral? We can walk - better, skip - to City Museum. I'm growing up too fast when I envy the little kids but wallflower for the sake of expensive jeans. Wear some that don't fit right, and we'll crawl through every tiny dark tunnel like seven-year-olds.

We'll stay up every night and have pillow fights and watch TV. We'll leave wet towels on the bedspread and nose smudges on the window and powder on the bathroom counter. We'll wash our hair and dry it and hate it and re-soak it and do it perfect. You can pick the music, because we love all the same songs.

And oh, expensive jeans! We live in a mall this week, darling, and we're going shopping and buying everything. I do wish I liked coffee, because Starbucks would be like a small heaven. But my best friend is everything I want to be, of course, so we'll sit in the window and watch all the people and I'll buy you any configuration of coffee chemistry you like.

We'll link arms and speak gibberish and laugh because we're looking at each other and fix each other's bra straps and trade clothes and trade names and you're mine. When it's time to leave we'll find the lipstick you thought you lost and my other shoe. We'll stock up on sugar cookies and Creme Savers and go home and never forget. You're my best friend and completely imaginary and we'll be young forever.

You could be my best friend,
Stay up all night long
You could my railroad,
We'd go on and on

- Oasis, "Guess God Thinks I'm Abel"

9 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Ill be your eloise friend.

December 30, 2005 11:45 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I would be too.

December 31, 2005 12:06 AM  
Blogger Danka said...

hee hee, sounds like I fun trip. Ya know, I think I've been the St. Louis before, kinda odd ain't it? Anyway, I do indeed have a best friend and there for pity you, but my shoulder will most likely always be open! :D cya 'round!

December 31, 2005 11:59 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

As much as everyone wants a best friend there is no "perfect friend" believe me i've tried it and it's not the best thing to have a friend exactly like you otherwise everything would get boring. Anyway you'll alwyas be one of my best friends. And you do have two "lessy lovers" lol. Happy New Year.

December 31, 2005 8:03 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!

January 01, 2006 3:52 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

hahaha, yeah, this is harry reporting from Spencer's house.

January 01, 2006 9:54 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

WTF? You went on my laptop? *shoots you*

January 02, 2006 10:12 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Anna...I miss you...
-Meli

January 03, 2006 7:57 PM  
Blogger Elaine said...

A note on trains to St. Louis--

I reccently (days before Xmas) took a train in and out of St. Louis.. Hell, living a hopskipjump away it's hard to escape the draw of the concrete jungle.. and I must admit that feeling the arch sway as you peer out the bitty windows at top is rather thrilling.. er, to use a terrible pun, my point has derailed.

Back to trains-- As far as Amtrak is concerned, St. Louis is only worthy of single-level airplane style black sheep of the train world. Worse off than that is the state of their train station: a lowly and drab brick box the size of a classroom offhandedly tossed under some inner-city highway overpasses tied up in a fancy knot. Imagine my shame as we choo-chooed past the once GRAND Union Station (as you have stated, now a shopping mall) merely a stone's throw away! And to arrive in Chicago's Union Station! I would've sworn I was in an airport terminal!

Do take care to perhaps try Metra on this fantastical best friendial journey of yours. I saw a few of their two-deckers and they looked quite fab. Or hell, drop the excess monopoly monies on something straight out of Harry Potter.. private booths, candy carts, and a view better than the nothingness that was Illinois!

Hope your New Years was crackalackin.

January 04, 2006 12:36 AM  

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