We’d always been best friends — until I learned one secret too many

It’s always the strangest detail that attaches itself to a memory, so that when you recall it, that little thing overshadows your thinking.

When I think about Shayna’s parents, I think of my olive-green sweatshirt with those snap buckles on the cuffs.

Shayna and I were the kind of friends people referred to by one name — Shayna Libby. We were on the phone all day and all night and did practically everything together. When my alarm clock broke in the 11th grade, I didn’t bother replacing it; I knew I could rely on Shayna’s phone call every morning to wake me up. I had the cordless on speaker while I brushed my teeth, and then, to my mother’s consternation, we “had breakfast” together on the phone.

Shayna was the first to know when I lost or gained a quarter of a pound, I was in the loop about every one of her sister’s dates, we even shared some of our clothing. On Friday, we spoke all the way up to the zeman, then we got together Shabbos afternoon, and the minute Shabbos was out, we were on the phone again.

“Don’t you ever run out of things to discuss?” my mother would ask in bewilderment. I couldn’t explain it. Shayna was like one of my limbs. We supported each other through every challenge in our lives, we felt comfortable sharing our most embarrassing flaws.

But we didn’t only have DMCs. We shared e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g, every stupid thought that crossed our minds, so that some of our conversations were simply our brains thinking out loud. There was nothing I didn’t know about Shayna, and she in turn knew everything about me.

Shayna had actually been the one to pick up that olive-green sweatshirt for me. I wore it for the first time that night in Fudge, during our 12th-grade midwinter break. I remember her pointing out that I’d forgotten to tear the tag off and offering her teeth to remove it. I’d declined, tucking it in instead, because I loved the feel of “new” and preferred to keep it that way until the sweater’s first wash.

We’d ordered our treats — me, a butter pecan scoop, and Shayna her regular vanilla-chocolate mix with cookie crumbs — and found a quiet table in the back.

I innocently started eating, careful not to get my sweatshirt dirty. Of course, when you concentrate on staying clean, your ice cream will drip. I groaned and reached for some napkins.

That’s when Shayna started talking.

“You know my father is out of a job.”

I didn’t know. She’d never mentioned a word before.

Sympathy kicked in, but as she continued speaking, I realized that this revelation was the smallest of her troubles. Living without an income for so many months had taken a toll on everything — including her parents’ marriage.

I forgot about my ice cream. I forgot about the stain on my sweatshirt. My fingers settled on the snap buckles on the sweatshirt cuffs. I must have snapped and unsnapped those buckles a thousand times as my friend described the nightmare that had become her life. And that snapping, that strange, random detail, etched itself deeply in my brain cells, enmeshed with Shayna’s voice.