It was, by any traditional measure, an exciting year for the two of us: both set to be married in a matter of months, both freshly astonished to be accelerating toward the happily-ever-after portion of our lives. But this thing between us, too, was a kind of romance, with its own breathless thrill, its own private language of affection. No one before had commented on the dignity of my posture as I sat at a computer, or marveled at how completely my handwriting captured my essence. I had not known, until she mentioned it, that I had an essence, let alone one worthy of being transmitted to paper. For her birthday that winter, I wrote her a sonnet. For no particular occasion that spring, I crocheted her a scarf. Never before had I been inspired to write someone a sonnet. Never before had I wanted to make anyone a scarf. We laughed constantly, our laughter merging between us like a song in stereo. We laughed, especially at times when laughter was inappropriate, clamping our hands over our mouths during professional development meetings, slinking down in our seats during Cum Laude award assemblies. The things we found funny tended toward the absurd, like the time we used a stale fruitcake a parent had regifted me as a volleyball at the faculty holiday party, or the time she hid — and in the nick of time produced — my copy of “Crime and Punishment” right before class. “Crime and Punishment” was a serious and profound and daunting book to teach — but also an excellent prop for a practical joke. The summer after our first year of teaching, we attended a conference together at an International Baccalaureate high school in New Mexico. After long morning sessions, we would step out of the air-conditioned library onto a sunny courtyard shared by the school’s working farm, with its corral of friendly alpacas. They were a sight to see, these alpacas, blithely munching hay in the middle of campus. But on the other hand, it was lunchtime. While she stood beside me murmuring Look at those eyes! Look at that fluff! I silently imagined how long the cafeteria line was getting. It was, and still is, like this with her at times, the extremes of her wonder stretching me to the edges of my patience. But when I look back on that week now, what I remember above all are those creatures: the prick of their ears in the heat, the burst of their fur between my fingers. And I remember this: On the final evening of the conference, at a picnic table under a purpling sky, we revealed to each other the most shameful thing we’d ever done, the thing about us nearly no one knew. It doesn’t matter what she shared with me, or what I shared with her. What matters is what she told me after, as we walked the moonlit pathway back to the dorm. “It means so much to me,” she said, “that I can tell you anything and trust that you won’t be shocked.” Was this true? Possibly it was. But it was also possible that it was she who had made me this way, spacious enough to admit life’s darkest shadows. We become ourselves, in part, through the women we befriend. They imagine us a little better than we are, and what they picture comes true. I think there should be more movies about the transformative magic of female friendship, epics with sweeping landscapes and orchestral soundtracks. I first had this thought a few weeks ago, while watching the movie “Mean Girls” with my 12-year-old, Leigh, who couldn’t get over the fact that I’d never seen it. She warned me that it contained some “inappropriate” moments, and so I’d settled onto the couch with a bowl of popcorn, prepared to be cringingly entertained. Instead, between occasional funny parts, I was bored. While Rachel McAdams’s character spread rumors about Lindsay Lohan’s character, and Lindsay Lohan’s character ridiculed Amanda Seyfried’s character, and Amanda Seyfried’s character backstabbed Rachel McAdams character, I stole glances at my email behind a throw pillow. The problem was that I’d seen this story so many times before — not this exact story, with this exact script, but ones with the same basic message: that girls and women are wired for rivalry and the bonds between us can’t be trusted. When I was Leigh’s age, I learned this from “Heathers” and “Beverly Hills 90210”; in my 20s, from “Clueless” and “Cruel Intentions”; and in the decades since, from every reality TV show with the word “Housewives” or “Bride” in the title. A year ago, for five upsetting minutes, I thought Leigh might be a “mean girl.” The reason I thought this was that the director of her sleepaway camp was on the phone from Maine telling me as much. He reported that she and three girls from her bunk had formed a clique, and other girls were getting left out. A behavior contract had been drawn up. “I sat them down and explained to them,” he told me matter-of-factly, “that I won’t put up with any of that mean girl stuff here.” My first reaction was shock, because while Leigh certainly isn’t perfect, treating others kindly has never been her particular challenge. I pressed the director for examples of her meanness. Was she bullying other campers? No, he said. Was she mocking them, saying cruel things to them, talking about them behind their backs? No, he said. In the end, the only data he could provide was that Leigh and these three girls were constantly together, and that they wore their baseball hats backward, and that they called each other by funny insider names. I can see how funny insider names go against the “one for all and all for one” spirit of summer camp — really, I can. But there’s a vast difference between holding tight to the people you adore and maliciously excluding others. This difference should be obvious. But it occurred to me later that night, as I lay in bed realizing I had a right to feel angry, how often these things are conflated when it comes to girls. The very word “clique,” with its negative connotations, is a gendered word — like “coven.” A coven of witches . A clique of girls . Female alliances have a long, precarious history of being twisted into something sinister. Leigh’s younger brother Jacob has two best friends. They spend every recess together doing yo-yo tricks; they sit together at every lunch; they have lots of insider jokes — but no one has ever described them to me as a “clique” or accused them of being “mean boys.” They are best buds, partners in crime, the three musketeers. I can imagine, in a different world — one less threatened by what can brew inside a circle of women — receiving another sort of call from my daughter’s camp director. I have some good news! he might say. Leigh has formed deep friendships with three girls in particular. She’s experiencing what it means to choose and be chosen, to know and be known. It’s a beautiful thing to see.
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