8

When I was 8, my social life really took off.

I was a second grader in Mrs. Pearce's class at Harrison Elementary School in Disputana, Virginia. It was a 45 minute bus ride one way. My tiny elementary school was in the middle of nowhere.

There was my friend Christi who lived around the corner from me on the military base. She and I rode bikes around the neighborhood. We invented secret languages. We sold lemonade on the golf course. One of our customers gave us $20 because he admired our entrepreneurial spirit. We danced to Paula Abdul at our sleepovers.

There was my friend Christine. Her house was the last stop on our bus route, although she didn't live on the base. She lived in a shabby, run-down cabin in the woods. Her socks usually had holes in them and her hair wasn't always brushed. There were other girls in our class who didn't want to be friends with her. I won't tell you that I was always nice to her, either. But I really wish I had been.

There was a boy named Joey. I do believe that he was the first boy who ever flirted with me. He gave me these sly grins while we played checkers in the back of the classroom during free time. He would tease me and say things like, "Don't break my heart, Julie." Where in the world an 8 year old boy learned such moves I will never know. His family moved away in the middle of the school year and I felt the first pangs of wondering what might have been.

There was my friend Jessica. She wore very large hearing aids, which frightened me when I first met her. But it turned out that she was just a normal girl. She liked pink leggings and big baggy sweaters just as much as the rest of us 1990 fashion slaves did. Plus, she and I had the same glasses.

There was Chris LeMule, whose full name I will never forget since he scarred me for life. One day in the hallway, on a return trip from the library, he turned to me and said, "Girls who wear glasses can never be models because wearing them will permanently alter and de-form the bridge of your nose." I was crushed. Because, to me, that really meant, "You're not that pretty."

Then there was my friend Morgan. I think I liked her the best. She was a no nonsense kind of gal. You didn't have to worry about what you were wearing or who you talked to. She really was just nice to everybody.

There were only 21 of us in that class. I remember feeling so grown up at the end of second grade, feeling like I had really learned a thing or two.