Two friends forever

The Boston Herald

Beverly Beckham

If I had my old high school diary, which I read and tore into a million pieces when I was in my early 20's (Why did I write only when I was miserable? And why did I write so much about boys?), I would see pages and pages of musings about Richard.

There'd be a lot of nasty stuff, I'm sure. Not because I didn't like him. I did. I do. But I was jealous of him. I didn't like that he was so important to my best friend Rosemary. I wondered whether he would be good for her and good to her, and what would happen to me if they became a permanent pair.

When Rose and I were children, we pledged that we would never let some stupid boy get between us. We'd seen the effects boys had on girls, and we wondered how, almost overnight, a perfectly smart female, could become so dopey.

Rose's older sister, for example. She used be surly and impatient and snarl at us all the time. We respected her for this. Then she started going out with a boy named Joe, and suddenly she was singing when she was ironing and pirouetting around the kitchen and patting our heads and even smiling at us.

We didn't trust her this way. It wasn't natural. We would never let some boy alter our personalities. Together, forever, that's what we declared, locking our pinkies and wishing on stars.

Sitting in the grass behind the School for the Deaf, planning our lives, I never imagined a life without Rose. We might go to different high schools and different colleges but things would never change. We would always be the people we were. We would always like each other better than we liked anyone else.

The name "Richard" first came into her conversation when we were sophomores.

I wasn't worried. Richard said this, and Richard did that, and Richard likes my hair this way, and Richard told me to read this book - these were signs of friendship, not romance, not some life-altering situation. No boy would ever become more important than we were to each other. That's what we believed.

When she went away to college and I stayed in Massachusetts, I told myself we'd write and nothing would change. And we did write - I have the letters in a box - but things changed anyway. She had her friends and I had mine. Everything changed except Rose's love for Richard. Her letters were full of him.

"Saw Richard last weekend. We fought the whole time." "Richard has been nice lately." "I know I love Richard." "Can't wait to see Richard."

They married four months after I married in May of 1968 in a small ceremony at Yale. I drank too much champagne and cried on the way home, not because I was unhappy. I wasn't. I cried because I knew that the chapter of my life, titled “Growing up” had officially ended.

Rose and Richard have been married 25 years today. We celebrated last night with champagne at her house. Next week, Rose and I will meet as we often do for dinner. We'll linger at the table and talk about our kids and work and what we've been doing. And when the conversation turns to husbands and Rose talks about Richard, “Richard said this,”and “Richard did that,” I will smile not just because I can still see the child she was sitting cross-legged in the tall grass behind the School for the Deaf, but because I can hear her, too, swearing that she would never, ever, ever like boys, a grown up now, long grown up and loving this boy, loving Richard for all these years,