In the last year of the 20^th century I lived in a beautiful apartment in a gorgeous city. I was miserable. I hated my job. It was January, and my family wouldn’t be joining me until spring. I ended my day by walking from the American Embassy in Place de la Concorde, where I worked, to the rue Jouffroy in the 17^th Arrondissement, where I lived. Even though it was a bitter day, I stopped by the merry-go-round in Parc Monceau to see the stagecoach go by. How the Texas City sticker got on the back of it, I never found out, though I tried. Paris is a champagne city, and I already had too much. I’d been there since September. I wanted to be in Texas. I wanted my family. I wanted my boss to check himself into a mental hospital.

When I got to my apartment, I hardly had my raincoat off before I booted up my PC, sure I would have e-mail from my husband, my daughter, and maybe my mother, too. I was very, very lonely.

You’ve got mail, my PC informed me in a new and thrilling voice, a voice that would go from unique to cliché in a few years.

I brightened. Three family messages. Several others, what we now call spam. The last e-mail came from an unknown address, but when I read the subject, I let out a “whoop.”

Subject: CaBeLiLa

I knew what it meant and who it was from, or at least one of two possibilities. It couldn’t be from “Ca.” A breath of sadness came and went for Carolyn, who died in 1987. The “Be” was me, Becky. So the e-mail had to be from “Li” or “La.” Linda or Lana.

I hadn’t heard from either of them in years. Before the internet, maintaining friendships over time depended on proximity, and we had gone our separate ways a long time ago. But with the internet and a little effort, reconnecting was possible. When I felt lost and far away, an old friend reached out across distance and years. It couldn’t have come at a better time. I opened it. It was from Linda.

Linda. Warm-hearted, generous, fair, daring, bossy, darling Linda.

A scene passed through my heart much faster than it happened in real time.

I was right back in a classroom at Texas City High School in the fall of 1963. I had my back to the windows, as we all did. Mr. Birkner thought the traffic on Palmer Highway distracted us, and taking into account we were teenagers in history class, I’m sure he had that right. I sat up front with Linda across the aisle on my right. She liked to laugh, often, loudly, and with a crinkly gamine grin that suited her small stature.

Mr. Birkner failed to see her charm or mine. We were two warts on his scholarly butt. He had “spoken” to us twice since class started, but when he turned to the blackboard, I whispered something to Linda that made her laugh. She got so tickled she sneezed, and the explosion sent a plump button the size of a thumb flying off her coat. It bounced once and came to rest between Mr. Birkner’s legs. I led the chorus of laughter as he peered at the turd-like thing on the floor. He didn’t see the humor.

He narrowed his eyes, extended a bony arm, and pointed toward the door. Linda, all phony devil-may-care, shrugged and gathered her things.

Then he looked at me. “You, too, Miss Long. Out.”

For both of us, it was a first, and we had no plan. We could skip out for the rest of the day, but neither of us had a car, and cutting out on foot lacked panache. Besides, she had a GRA meeting later (Girls Recreation Association), and I had an algebra test. She loved GRA, and I would rather wade through a pool of alligators than make up an algebra test. Mrs. Morton’s make-ups were notorious. We settled against the wall to wait for the bell, pretending not to give a hoot. In truth, we both gave a really big hoot. We prayed Mr. Casal, the Vice Principal, wouldn’t pick this hallway to patrol today.

Many teachers, not just Mr. Birkner, favored Casal Roulette – kick the troublemakers out of class but don’t send them to the office. Let them stand in the hall. Waiting. Mr. Casal trolled in search of miscreants, and when he found one, let alone two, they were taken to the office and punishment could escalate. We were lucky. The bell rang, and it was now a tale to tell. Wait until Lana and Carolyn heard about this.

All alone in my far-away apartment, I revisited that incident and read Linda’s e-mail again, savoring every word. She brought me up to date, told me how she found my e-mail address, and asked about my family. I tried to remember the last time I saw her. Was it 1966? Could it have been that long? And why did I feel such strong emotions at hearing from her? It wasn’t about being lonely. It was about Linda, my friend when I was young. And about CaBeLiLa.

Carolyn, first among equals, smart, focused, friendly, charming, self-aware and self-critical, sometimes a little jealous.

For all that, her droll sense of humor drew me to her, and being neighbors made it easy to become friends. She was more sociable than me, with a wider circle of friends, and early in junior year she brought Linda into her orbit. I came with Carolyn, and Lana came with Linda. We became an inseparable quartet.

When my daughter, Shannon, arrived in Paris, I told her about the e-mail from my old friend, and showed her pictures in the yearbook. It’s the truth – I really did take my yearbooks to Paris. Shannon laughed.

“What’s so funny?” I asked.

“Their hair. It’s identical.”

I knew the story of that. They lived in Wayside, and Linda walked to Lana’s house every day. Lana’s mother drove them to school. On “picture day” they met early to fix each other’s hair. Exactly the same way.

Shannon asked about Lana, and I told her I had answered Linda’s e-mail at once, and we were in touch, but she didn’t have news of Lana.

Lana. Long-legged and glamorous, intuitive, intelligent, defensive, lovely Lana.

I last saw Lana in 1989. I attended the 25-year reunion of the Class of 64. She did not, but I drove to TC and looked her up. We spent enough time together to understand we were still friends. We talked easily, speaking about kids, homes, good things and hardships, things we did, places we went. We laughed about the “pink fink,” a black panel truck belonging to Linda’s dad. The four of us – Carolyn, Linda, Lana, and me – decided to paint it pink, a decision we never implemented, but it was the only vehicle we could depend on having access to, so we loved it.

The Fink took us to Elks Club dances, and to dances in Alvin, where an odd-looking singer with thick black glasses sometimes performed. His name was Roy Orbison, and he recorded Crying in 1961, so he was known, but when he recorded Pretty Woman in 1964, he became a true pop star (and stopped appearing in Alvin).

Then there was the Alvin Stomp, a preposterous dance involving lines of six to eight teens linked arm in arm, careening around the floor trying to knock each other unconscious. We thought it was fun, in a combination football, bumper cars, break-neck kind of way.

As seniors we took Gregg shorthand, then typing to transpose our notes. Despite the phenomenal efforts of Mrs. Scruggs, Lana spoke Sanskrit better than she took shorthand, while I thought the little squiggles were pretty and easy. However, my typing looked like I used my feet on the keyboard. Every other word was garbled. Lana, though, was a typing fool. Our plan? We would hire out as a team. I would take notes, read them to her, and she would type them up.

Mostly we used our class time to discuss dating dilemmas (which could account for the unevenness of our office skills). One afternoon Lana couldn’t wait to tell me about the fight she had with her boyfriend. She told him never to call her again.

“I was so mad! He asked how he was supposed to talk to me if he couldn’t call me. I screamed at him! Send me a telegram!”

Halfway through class someone knocked and handed a telegram to Mrs. Scruggs. For Lana. From him. He would pick her up at 7 on Saturday night. So it all worked out. They got married while she was still in her teens. Then it didn’t work out, and they got divorced.

As we talked, Lana’s two daughters and her second husband moved around in the background, impatient for their mother’s attention. It was dinner time, and I was aware my visit was unplanned.

We couldn’t stop remembering. She walked me to my car talking about the time we crashed the swimming pool at the Seahorse Motel in Galveston. Carolyn, Lana, and I splashed around trying not to get our hair wet, while Linda did something tricky off the diving board. She swam up underwater and pinched two of us before we could get away, but we laughed and made a commotion. The more fun we had the more our volume ratcheted up, and we drew the attention of a hotel employee.

He stood at the edge of the pool wearing khaki pants and a white shirt with a Seahorse logo. He gestured until ignoring him became impossible, then he cupped his hands around his mouth. “Are you girls guests of the hotel? Might I ask your room number?”

I sputtered. Linda looked blank. Lana saw something fascinating in the sky and stared straight up. Carolyn, however, answered with a perfect mixture of impatience and scorn. How dare you dripped from her tone.

“Of course we’re guests. Room 121.” She sighed broadly and began to make her way to the side of the pool. “Just let me get the key. I’ll show you.”

“Never mind,” he said. “I believe you.” He couldn’t be sure he wasn’t pissing off an important guest, so he decided to let it go.

I whispered, “He must be the Seahorse’s butt!”

Linda cracked up, and we all started laughing again. Mr. Seahorse looked over his shoulder, but he didn’t come back. Carolyn suspected he might, though.

“We should definitely leave now,” she suggested. That girl could parry a situation like nobody else.

Lana and I shared as many memories as we could in that short visit in 1989, but I didn’t see her again for 15 years.

My mother once told me a pleasure of growing older was remembering the past. Not dwelling on it; just revisiting people and places that made you happy when you were young. She was right. After I saw Lana in 1989, I thought about CaBeLiLa often, and so I did again when I got the e-mail from Linda ten years later.

When Lana and I met after so many years, what chemistry allowed us to relate as though no time had passed? And would it be like that if the three of us saw each other again? Linda’s e-mail in 1999 opened the door to renew our friendship. We were ready then.

But what did we ever have in common, then or now?

Our interests didn’t line up. Linda and Carolyn joined clubs, but not the same ones. Linda’s picture is all over the yearbook, usually (but not always) dressed for something sporty. Carolyn’s, too, but Lana and I? Nowhere. Neither of us could be bothered to do one single thing we didn’t want to do in any given moment, and going to meetings – “participating” – was at the top of things we didn’t want to do.

Carolyn detested physical exercise, and Lana didn’t crave it. I loved to be outside and moving, and so did Linda. (A few years ago I had cause to ask Lana if she could ride a bike. She said even though she wasn’t an athlete, she could walk without assistance, and yes, she could ride a bike.)

Linda and Lana had bonds going back to grade school, but Linda was Daredevil No. 1 and I was daredevil No. 2. We egged each other on toward bigger risks than we should have taken. Carolyn and Lana held onto our coattails to see we didn’t go too far. Linda and I were competitive, and if we had been boys, we might have engaged in fisticuffs now and then, which would have horrified Carolyn and Lana. Lana was glamorous. Carolyn was smart. But Lana was also smart, and so was Linda. And Lana wasn’t the only glamour girl in the group.

So we were cute enough to get by and smart enough to carry on a conversation. We had to talk to each other, after all, in order to make each other laugh.

And there it was. We made each other laugh, as simple as that sounds.

If we were bricks, that was the mortar. We shared a huge sense of the ridiculous. When we got together we never stopped laughing, and not just girlish giggles – genuine laughter at the absurdity of it all.

We grew into accomplished women with different capabilities, but laughter makes for lifelong friendships. Linda’s e-mail in 1999 led to the resurrection of our friendship. We stayed in touch, and when our 40^th reunion rolled around, I e-mailed Linda. Would she like to meet at the airport in Houston, rent a car, and drive to Kemah together? She would. Should I try again to get in touch with Lana? I should and I did.

Lana worked for the biggest law firm in Houston. I had recently retired from the State Department in Washington. Linda was running her own business in Salt Lake City. If nothing else, we would all have work adventures to share. I got in touch, and our on-going series of three-way e-mails began. Lana filled us in on Carolyn’s accomplishments, and how she became Young Business Woman of the Year in Houston.

In September of 2004 the three of us sat down together for the first time in 40 years. We met in Kemah before the reunion and began the tradition of drinking a toast to Carolyn, to CaBeLiLa, and to the renewed friendships of the TCHS Class of 1964. Something special was happening for our class, and it’s gotten better and better.

In my maturity I value three things in others. A sense of humor, intelligence, and courage. I generally settle for any two out of three, as long as one of them is a sense of humor. What I learned about these old friends of mine, that I didn’t know in our green and tender years, was about their courage.

I don’t mean bullet-stopping, flame jumping, charging the enemy courage. Linda still rides motorcycles and she was once on the United States Skydiving Team – she used to jump out of perfectly sound airplanes. Lana and I were in awe of that, but that’s not what I mean.

The courage I’m talking about lies in coping with life and keeping that sense of humor. Life handed the three of us plenty. The details of our various trials don’t matter for these purposes. The truth is, every human being encounters adversity. Those who don’t never tried anything, never took a single risk, and that’s the worst calamity of all.

When I was young, I thought everybody measured up, did what they had to do, made the best out of whatever life delivered. Time has shown me it’s more rare than I thought. The world is full of cry babies, but none named CaBeLiLa. Carolyn faced her own death joking with her nurses; her mother told me that. I know of Linda’s challenges, and Lana’s, and how they stepped up, so now I admire them as well as love them, and we know each other better than we ever have.

We’ve been “friends again” for ten years and counting. We see each other once or twice a year, and travel together when we can. We go to our class reunions if possible. When Linda came to D.C. we crashed a secure area of the Pentagon and were escorted back to the public area by two husky Marines. If Mr. Birkner had been there, he would have tossed us in the Potomac River in hopes Mr. Casal would row by.

We’re leading worthwhile lives. We love people who love us back, and we’ve done interesting, rewarding work. Between us – counting Carolyn – there’s seven kids and five husbands. Kids last forever, husbands not necessarily, but friendships? When they stretch out over a lifetime, you’ve got something to treasure.

I’m lucky to have known Linda and Lana when we were girls, and Carolyn. There are others in this category, too. Gloria. Danise. I can’t leave them out. I know all of them in the way I know everyone who went to Texas City High School in the 60s. We speak a common language; we have a common experience.

I know these beautiful souls, all of them, and I’ll know them forever – until the laughter finally stops. A long, long, long time from now.

NEXT: Gangs and Grocery Stores