When my best friend and I were 19, we made a promise that sounded almost silly at the time: if we were both still single at 60, we would find each other again.
I turned 60 last Tuesday.
That night, the old landline in my childhood home rang. Almost nobody called that number anymore, and for a moment, I nearly let it ring out.
I’m glad I didn’t.
Because the man on the other end was calling about Russell Hayes, the boy I had loved for most of my life and hadn’t seen in 41 years.
Russell and I became best friends when we were 17. We were never boyfriend and girlfriend, although almost everyone around us seemed convinced that was where we were headed.
He dated other girls, and I went out with other boys. I even went to prom with someone else, though Russell ended up driving me there after my date’s car broke down.
My mother used to watch us sitting at the kitchen table, arguing over homework or reaching across each other for food, and smile as though she knew something we didn’t.
“One day, Sylvia, you two are going to figure it out.”
Russell would always grin. “Figure out what?”
“You know perfectly well what.”
I would roll my eyes and remind her that we were friends.
And that was true.
The problem was that our friendship meant so much to me that the idea of risking it felt terrifying. Russell was the person I called when something went wrong, the person I wanted beside me when something went right, and the only person who seemed to understand my moods before I explained them.
What if we dated and ruined all of that?
So we stayed safely on one side of the line, even though sometimes I wondered whether both of us knew there was something waiting on the other side.
Then came one summer night when we were 19.
Russell and I had both gone on terrible dates. Mine had spent dinner talking almost entirely about himself, while Russell’s date had left early after an argument that he later described as “two hours of my life I’d like returned.”
We met afterward at our old high school football field.
The gates were still open, so we went inside and sat beneath the bleachers, where we had spent plenty of evenings talking about everything and nothing.
Russell leaned back against the metal support and sighed.
“We are terrible at this.”
“At what?”
“Dating.”
I laughed. “Speak for yourself.”
He looked at me pointedly. “You’re sitting under football bleachers with me after another awful date.”
“That doesn’t prove anything.”
“It proves your judgment isn’t much better than mine.”
I nudged his shoulder, and he laughed. Then his expression slowly changed.
“What if we never get it right?” he asked.
I thought he was still joking. “We’ll survive.”
“What if we’re both single forever?”
Before I could answer, Russell held out his pinky.
“If we’re both still single at 60, we stop being idiots and find each other.”
I stared at him.
“Sixty?”
“Seems like enough time to admit everyone else might have been right.”
“We’ll be ancient.”
“You’ll still be bossy.”
“And you’ll probably be bald.”
“I’ll buy a hat.”
I laughed, but Russell wasn’t laughing anymore.