best frenemies

After my great grandparents died and the summer home was sold, my grandparents bought a house in Connecticut and moved out of Manhattan. Because my grandfather had severe breathing problems, my grandparents wintered in Scottsdale in a little snowbird house. This, of course, was before greater Phoenix became polluted and humid.

My grandparents had two sets of good friends. One, a comestics heiress, had a vast estate with multiple buildings and a swimming pool. When we'd visit the grandparents, we were expected to avail ourselves of the pool as often as we wanted. The woman was very sweet. We developed a game where the kids would bark like seals and swim to one end of the pool. She'd hand-feed us little treats (not fish, something sweet usually) and we'd bark and bark our pleasure.

She was clearly an elegant woman. I don't think she'd ever get in the pool herself (though maybe when she was younger or there was noone else there); but she sure liked having other people use it. I imagine that her chauffer (she must have had one of those) would drive her into The City for opera and museum openings. Had she lived in Boston, she might have been part of the blue-haired Friday afternoon symphony crowd.

The other friend was also a lot of fun. She'd get down on the floor and play with me. She taught me to play jacks. She introduced me to cream soda, still one of the only sodas I'll drink. Her husband and I did a crafts project in his wood shop.

I loved both of these women, but it turned out they hated, hated, hated each other. It was so bad that when the seal lady would ask what we'd been doing, we could talk about playing in my grandparents' backyard, going to the animal petting zoo, or walking in the woods. But we were never to mention the cream-soda friend. Not ever.

And vice versa. We had to lie by omission to both.

And then my grandmother died when I was 10. In one of the next years after, I went to Scottsdale to visit my grandfather. I can't remember that we did much -- we probably just sat around. But by that time, I was enjoying his company.

He did take me to a very fun party. I think he had a good time; I know I did. There was a guy there playing the five-string guitar -- one string had broken and he was too lazy to fix it. He played passably well. There was a woman who told me about her adventures driving her broken-down jeep through the desert looking for rocks.

There was one of the friends from Connecticut. I was so happy to see her! And then, the second friend arrived. My stomach tensed. I drew in my breath and sat very still. Friend 2 walked over to her mortal-enemy-in-Connecticut and gave her a warm kiss. Turns out they were best of friends in Arizona; they were only enemies back east.