10.08.08 - 3:21 p.m.

we were sitting at the bar when she walked up behind you and covered your eyes.
i just overheard the funniest conversation about you two, she said.
you three, actually, she continued. someone in there -- a boy -- said to the person he was standing with, "all three crazy girls are here." his friend asked what he meant, and the boy was like, "the hermit, the temper and the trainwreck. stefanie, beth and anna. you know how usually crazy girls don't get along? those three are thick as thieves."
he actually used that phrase? i asked her. you said you were about to ask the same thing.
he said "thick as theives." i swear to god, she insisted.

she detailed the conversation as though she'd tape recorded it, listened to it over and over and committed it to memory. she's one of us, too, but he didn't know.

he said you, she poked a bony finger into my clavicle disappear for months on end and sneak around town with secret boyfriends.
we snickered.
she stroked the back of your hair.
and you, she said, have nervous breakdowns in public.
we shrugged. it was inarguable.
the best, though, was poor beth. he said she once threatened to put arsenic in his coffee.

but beth doesn't even have access to arsenic, i said.


wait, does she?

we laughed.