Anna wasn't surprised to hear that Diane Peters had died last Tuesday. It was a perfect day for someone to die.
The blue sky had been covered in clouds that sound proofed the sky and slow rain fell the entire day. Pitter patter, the raindrops collected and made puddles and mud and gloom. It seemed like everyone was napping as there wasn't a hum of cars or chatter of people walking through cold, wet streets. Even the robins of spring hid from the quiet rain last Tuesday. What solidified Anna's sentiments on last Tuesday being such a perfect day to die was that last Monday was particularly lovely.
The clouds had been light and fluffy like cotton candy covering the most serene blue; she decided that God had intended the sky to be that color of perfect blue. Not too dark, not too light, and with the sunbeams uninterrupted all the way during their fall towards the ground.
What a perfect last day Diane Peters must have experienced, she thought while tying up her hair. She hadn't done it consciously, but while her fingers twisted and turned around the knot forming she remembered the day Diane Peters, Mrs. Peters to her at the time, asked her to brush her hair from now on when coming to class. Sweet, young Anna had only nodded at the time, but she smiled to herself now thinking of what had happened before school that day.
Anna and Luca rode their bikes to school that day. Every year like clockwork, when the snow melted off the sidewalks, their bikes hit the pavement. He would wait by her mailbox and then they would race all the way throughout their route which meant that the bows Anna's mother put in her hair fell off two blocks back from the school doors and Luca was always too sweaty for the first period. They looked a mess riding into school, but the smiles on their faces were incomparable. The two of them could not be separated, growing up with conjoined backyards, but their crew wasn't complete without the others.
After a left turn and eventually a right, the tires would screech, stop at the landmarked mailbox, and the arguing would begin. Luca always insisted he was faster and Anna always insisted he had gotten a head start. Nothing was more serious than these debates, but there were always giggles and sweet smiles mixed into the sour remarks. Eventually, Nina Breslin had learned to sit at the window before her friends arrived so she could see who really made it to her house first; it was the only way they could settle the argument. It made sense that Nina should get such a say, she was a spitfire even at 11 years old. The only thing bigger and darker than her eyes was her hair. The two had only met Nina at the beginning of the year, when a boy named Elliot complained that he couldn't see the board over the mountain of curls. Luca kicked Elliot under his seat and Anna felt embarrassed that Elliot would say such a thing. Just the minute earlier, she had been admiring the girl's hair and wishing her own hair would coil the same way. She even twisted it around her pencil and willed it to keep the shape, but alas it fell straight.
Mrs. Peters hadn't done anything about Elliot's comment, but next class she asked Nina if she would be willing to move to the back; when Anna noticed, she turned around, turned up her nose, and grinned. "I for one, really like your hair." A younger Anna had wanted to grow up faster, so she used a few extra words (like "for one") and mimicked posh accents and mannerisms she saw on television (like turning up her nose). An older Anna cringes at the thought of something so insincere.
Nina smiled. "You're Julianne, right?"
She returned the smile, "Just Anna."
Nina hummed and knitted her eyebrows together in thought; she looked like she was really trying to put together the meaning of life in that small head of hers. After a moment, she grinned victoriously just as though she had in fact found it: "You know, if you switch one of the A's in your name to be an I, we will both have the same letters."
Anna considered the proposition. "But also, you could just switch your I to be another A," she countered.
"That's true too!"
And so they were friends. Nina with one I, and Anna with two A's. There was never two girls that were more instinctually different, both in the way they looked and the way they chased down things they wanted, but opposites attract and these things didn't matter yet. All that mattered is that Elliot was undeniably rude, Nina's hair was undeniably beautiful, and Mrs. Peters' class was undeniably better with a new friend.
An older, much wiser, arguably more confident Anna smiled to herself at the memory once again while pushing and pulling her final hairs into place. With a zip, a buckle, and a tie she was out the door dressed in her most somber clothes to mourn the passing of the woman who gave her her best friend.
Luca was waiting outside when she shut the front gate.
Eventually, they had traded their bikes in for terrible excuses for cars but the tradition remained the same. Luca waited by the mailbox for Anna to come and join him, wherever he went, wherever they would go, this was their way. Approaching twenty-two, his blonde hair grew in darker but his eyes stayed just as bright, all the important parts of Luca stayed the same, she thought climbing into the passenger seat.
"How are you doing?" He asked, slow and hesitant.
Anna smiled at him while he put the car in drive and took off to take the left turn and eventually the right, "It's strange. I'm sad but I don't think I need to cry. I'm in an emotional limbo."
He nodded. "I completely agree. I think the last time I saw her was like three years ago in passing."
"I saw her last year when I came home for Christmas."
It was April now, the end of it to be precise. The flowers had blossomed and the grass was a brighter green than anyone had ever remembered. But perhaps that was the particular magnificence of the seasons, after long winters no one can clearly remember the green of spring.
Eventually the car screeched to a stop next to the mailbox, and like clockwork Nina walked outside to meet them. The four of them were home from college for the rest of summer which meant the neighborhood route was back to normal. Luca would pick up Anna, the two of them would get Nina, and then it was only a matter of time before they found Elliot.
Later that same day, just over ten years ago, Nina and Anna found out that Elliot was Luca's cousin during a fire drill when their last names meant they were one after the other in line. If their shared last name wasn't enough, the similar noses and the snarky grins (though Elliot used it more than Luca) paired them together well. The Castellanos cousins were Greek, though where Elliot grew to be stocky with dark, thick hair, Luca resembled Achilles: tall and golden, kind and intelligent, quiet and strong. They complimented each other.
Elliot was outside his house, sitting on the curb, and sipping from a flask when they picked up their fourth crew mate. Nina rolled her eyes, "Are you serious right now?"
There it was, the snarky grin. "I'm grieving," he responded. He screwed on the cap, straightened up his tie, pushed back his curls and climbed into the backseat with Nina.
The four of them spent the remainder of the twelve minute car ride reminiscing about Mrs. Peters and the memories of her classroom. The extra pencils she would keep in her classroom (that Elliot would always break), her strict talks she would give to the class after Nina had been talking during assemblies (that Nina would talk during), and the time that Luca let the class pet hamster out of its cage "to feed it" and then lost it. It was a good year. The four of them formed some inseparable bonds with one another, and a few more separable ones with the rest of the class.
Mrs. Peters had lived a good life. She was strict, but in a challenging way, not in a cruel way. Students craved her approval, but knowing it wouldn't come easily, they worked hard to impress her. She was kind, like an old conservative grandmother with a big heart. Never missed a Sunday church service and continued to check up on her students from time to time after graduating from her class. The four of them sat in the car and agreed, a lot of people should be more like Mrs. Peters.
So, no one was surprised she passed away for good people deserve heaven. But, everyone was surprised to see Harry Styles outside the funeral home waiting to walk inside.
