I met Mindy in college. We were in the same major, born exactly one month apart. Mindy’s big dream was to someday become a podiatrist, a doctor of feet, and she was obsessed with my toes.
At the time, I was working nights as a bartender at a place in Dupont Circle, spending hours racing up and down behind the counter, pulling pints, trying to keep up with the drunken men and their drunken orders. I was also really into running for sport (Mindy and I both were), and so my feet were taking a beating every day. I would complain about my heels after a long shift, and Mindy would examine them gently, peering at the pair of them under the glow of a desk lamp.
“Plantar fasciitis,” she would say, grave and certain of her diagnosis. “We need to get you some foot cushions. Stat.”
Mindy’s own feet were a miracle of nature. Size five, if you can imagine such a thing. Having tiny feet meant she could be guaranteed a bargain whenever we went shoe shopping, would be sure to find something in the “last size in this style,” discount-bin.
Mindy worked at the Cheesecake Factory inside White Flint Mall, and I would often take the subway out there to see her. One day, I arrived to find Mindy crying by the ice machine. When she told me one of her customers was giving her a hard time, I stared at him, silently, predatorily, from across the restaurant, like some kind of creature of the savannah, eyeing her prey.
It was Mindy who taught me to drive. When she found out I didn’t know how to, she was incredulous.
“You don’t know how to drive?” she said, and I had to remind her, once again, that I was a teenager in Saudi Arabia, where women aren’t trusted to eat a sandwich by themselves, let alone operate a motor vehicle.
Mindy had this ancient, beige Toyota Camry. It must have been from the early eighties or something, at least. The day after our conversation, Mindy appeared outside my place at five in the morning, inside the Camry, tapping on the horn lightly, the car’s motor running.
For the next few weeks, this became our ritual: pick-up at five, drive around, and then up the Potomac, sometimes all the way into Virginia. We would usually stop for breakfast at Tastee Diner, a hole in the wall where JFK Jr. was rumored to have brought his girlfriend, Caroline Bissett, at least one time, possibly more. Mindy and I would always get the same thing: a large serving of hot oatmeal, splitting the oatmeal between us, eating it from the same bowl.
Years later, when we both decided to move to Philly, we stuffed all of our worldly belongings into that Camry, and its back sagged like a low-rider. We drove up US-1, windows rolled down all the way, singing at the top of our lungs, alternating between No Doubt’s Don’t Speak (her favorite), and Macy Gray’s I Try (mine), the anthems that would soundtrack our break-ups from boyfriends, both real and imagined.
Earlier that same summer, we had driven the Camry up the coast, to the Jersey Shore, to be with Mindy’s mom and sister. We were bums, Mindy and I, in that we didn’t help out around the house or anything, just spent our days working out and sunbathing, and being outraged when boys noticed us working out and sunbathing.
“GO FUCK YOURSELVES!” I’d shout at them when they whistled.
“YEAH! GO FUCK YOURSELVES!” Mindy would echo. And together we’d make obscene gestures in their general direction.
One day, Mindy asked me to teach her some Turkish. “Just teach me the swear words,” she said, “so we can cuss guys out in two languages,” and so I did. But Mindy would often get things mixed up, switch one insult for another.
I remember one night, we were jogging very slowly down Wisconsin Avenue in Friendship Heights when I overheard two Turkish dudes commenting on our bodies. “They’re talking about us in Turkish, Mindy,” I said, and she spun around and shouted at them, the swearwords I had taught her flying right out of her mouth. The boys’ jaws dropped, and so did mine.
“What did I say?” Mindy asked me.
“You threatened intercourse,” I said, “with their mothers.”
Mindy’s own mother was a competitive line dancer, and we were forever teasing her about it. That summer, out on the Jersey Shore, Auntie Lisa would dress up each night in these cowgirl outfits before kissing us both on the cheeks, and disappearing into the night.
“Someone ought to make a documentary movie about you, mom,” Mindy said once. “About the only Jewish woman in history who enjoys square dancing.”
After her mom would leave, Mindy and I were free to return to the beach, to lie on the cold sand for hours, talking, staring up at the sky, out at all that nothing.
“I love you, Hilal,” Mindy said one night. “You know that, right?”
“I know,” I said. “I love you, too.”
Mindy’s mom was hopeful that both of her daughters would settle down with “nice Jewish boys.” Eventually, one of them did. It was Mindy.
I remember how it all started, I remember the phone call vividly.
“I’ve met someone,” Mindy said, down the line. “And I want you to meet him, too.”
His name was Ethan, he was in foot doctor school, just like she was, and I didn’t like him. Immediately, I didn’t. He was too cocky, too loud, too tall. He wasn’t good enough for my Mindy.
But I did my best to hide my true feelings, as you do in such circumstances, until one day, at Starbucks, Ethan made an insensitive comment about my boyfriend.
“That’s IT!” I hissed at Ethan. I slammed my palm on the table. “I’ve had it with you, Ethan. You’re the WORST. YOU’VE RUINED EVERYTHING.”
I ran outside, Mindy on my heels.
“He didn’t mean it,” she said. “He’s just stressed about finals.”
I think I already knew by then, that things had changed, that this was the beginning of the end, that there was no going back. I was starting to understand Mindy had someone new now, someone else. Someone who wasn’t me.
“I love you, Hilal,” she said that day again, on the sidewalk. “You know that, right?”
“I know,” I said, sadly. “I love you too, Mindy.”
*Some details and names have been changed, to protect the innocent.
