Mary Moorhead became my best friend the day I arrived at Maroon Bells School for Girls in Aspen, Colorado, last September.
Normally Mom would have driven me, but she'd gotten into a fight with her most recent ex-husband, George, the night before, and he ended up taking the Subaru. I thought that after the divorce he would be out of the picture but what do I know about relationships.
So instead, it had taken me six hours and two bus transfers to get there from Denver, and then ten minutes to lug my three overstuffed duffel bags up the two flights of stairs and across the wood-planked hallway floors to my assigned dorm room in Crawford Hall. The door was open when I got there.
A girl stood with her back to me in front of a floor-to-ceiling framed photograph of the Venus de Milo. You know, that ancient Greek statue that's so famous? The half-naked one with no arms and big boobs. The framed photograph, at least eight feet tall, was stark. It only revealed the statue against a white background. The frame leaned against the wall directly opposite the doorway.
The girl had a roll of paper towels in one hand and a bottle of Windex in the other.
She was talking. "At first, I thought it was a black-and-white picture. But look." She leaned in, practically pressing her nose against the glass. "When you get really close, you see the color: gray and green and brown streaks and shadows in the marble. There's a pattern to them. My boyfriend, Stephen, showed me that."
She stepped back and squirted the glass with Windex, still not turning around. She was barefoot, in faded jeans and a chocolate brown V-neck.
"You know, it really should be called the Aphrodite of Melos, not Venus de Milo," said the girl. "They're pretty much the same person, I mean, they're pretty much the same goddess. The goddess of love. Most people call her Venus, like the Romans. But the Greeks called her Aphrodite and this is a Greek statue, so, I'm just saying. Her name should be Aphrodite of Melos." She swept her paper towel across the glass with a squeak. "It's the only print of this photograph in the world."
I slowly lowered my bags to the floor.
"My boyfriend gave it to me," she said.
The girl gave a final swipe, then spun around, tossing her honey blond bangs out of her face and shaking her head. "I know, I'm crazy. I'm sorry. I just love this picture. You must be Peggy Nakamura." She held out her hand. "I'm Mary. Welcome to MBSG."
I took Mary's hand and shook it. A really sparkly bracelet peeked out from the sleeve of her V-neck. I wondered if they were diamonds in it. Probably. This was Aspen. "Hi," I said. "I, um. Nice to meet you." I looked at the floor, or more precisely, at my Pumas.
"Pumas!" Mary said. "Clydes? I love them."
"Thanks," I said, embarrassed by how dusty they were. I'd had this pair of old-school Puma Clydes for just a few months, but I wore them every day. "They're old, but…" I shrugged and reached up to pull my ponytail tight. I remember wondering, at that moment, why I hadn't gotten a haircut before leaving Denver. It was halfway down my back, and I had split ends.
"Don't worry," Mary said. "You'll be fine here. Venus, I mean Aphrodite, is on your side." She blew her bangs out of her face and smiled. "And I'm your friend now." It was a soft soul-smile, the real kind.
My granny used to tell me about different kinds of smiles. Margaret, she said, they say the eyes are the window to the soul, but it is the smile that tells the truth. I hadn't heard her voice since she died last spring, but I could remember exactly the slow, deliberate way she talked. A soul-smile cannot be faked.
Right away, I trusted Mary's smile. But it's what she said next that really made me decide to like her.
"Want to go get a latte?"
That was five months ago, the first day of my junior year at Maroon Bells School for Girls in Aspen, Colorado.