An empty envelope - wonder if the letter is further down the stack. Return address: Mrs. Robert Goodall. This is from one of my best friends, who married right out of high school. When I saw her at the 40th reunion, she was married to someone else. I remember her as loving to have fun. She was one of the "bad" influences in my life - someone I greatly appreciated at the time. I think she was the one who first told me she had had sex, so when I finally did, she was the one I told. It was a big deal back then, when we were only seventeen.

When I showed her pictures of my life, they included picture of my current almost-ex-boyfriend, who was black, and she appeared a bit taken aback. "Is he black?" was the only question she asked, looking at the picture of this tall, very black dude with long dread locks. "Yes," was all I said, not wanting to make an issue of it. Neither did she.