Page 11 - You can't Make This Shit Up!

Ace and Spade
June 23, 2017
“We’ll be friends forever won’t we, Pooh” asked Piglet. “Even longer” Pooh answered.
Stephanie Ina Greenberger is, and has always been...MY PERSON. We grew up right next door to one another. I am 9 months older, and I never ever let her forget it. She was the baby of her family. I am the baby of mine. Those 9 months gave me the power. Those 9 months made her mine.
Stephie was a thumb-sucking, doll carrying, chubby, big eyed kid. She had a finished basement we practically lived in. We made up games like “mothers revenge” where we tied our baby dolls up. We put on plays. She had a wizard of Oz set, with all the characters (think Barbie dolls, only way cooler). We flipped baseball cards against my garage door. Climbed trees. Rode bikes. Had lemonade stands. Played bumper pool in her basement. Built snowmen. Swam in my pool till our whole bodies pruned. I called her “Spade”, she called me “Ace”. We played a game “disgusting” where we blindfolded each other and made horrible concoctions from her pantry. I would feed her peanut butter on a pickle with sprinkles. She would make me smores. She is, was, and will alway be nicer than me.
Though we were a year apart in school, every summer our moms made sure we in the same group at summer camp (and stephie has the distinction of being the youngest camper at camp Kenwall. I had just turned 3, so she was 2 years 3 months). The story goes she potty trained herself to go with me. I think it had more to do with the fact our moms loved to go to fire Island all day, and day camp was our day
care. Either way, the summers always gave us our time together to catch up. Our moms were best friends. Our dads were best friends. It was magical and I always felt safe and loved at her house.
When her Uncle David came to visit, I called him Uncle David. When her grandma Sylvia and grandpa Lester came, I considered them mine too. Her entire family was and is weaved into my being.
My dad left for California in January of my Freshman year under the guise of a new job. Steph was still in Jr. High, and being in totally different schools had put quite a wedge in our friendship. The little patch of grass between our houses that use to have track marks from us running back and forth had long since grown in. By June it was clear, my dad was not coming back and my parents 21 year marriage was over.
That summer was a blur. I worked as a councilor at the day camp at our temple, and came home every night to packing up and clearing out the only home I had ever lived in. Stephie was on my driveway crying as we drove away for the last time. We left long Island in August of 1986.
Once I left Long Island, I did not look back. I couldn’t straddle two worlds. I had to acclimate 3000 miles away. My parents divorce in essence divorced me from my life on McCulloch Drive. The internet and Facebook, those social media resources did not exist back in 1986. So I closed the New York chapter of my life. I bound those memories up and put them all on a shelf.
Flash forward. I married skee, and when I saw the 2 lines on my pregnancy test I felt totally compelled to call Stephie. When she picked up the phone, I did not even say “hello”. I said, “I need my oldest friend in the universe to know that I am going to be a mother”. We had grown apart, now lived on separate