To Be, Rather Than To Seem

iv

How long does it take to be friends with someone?

In the case of Jesse Buckwheat, they hadn't explicitly labeled themselves friends. They had grown close, but something was different in how they related. Like Gillian and Rain, they did not do fun things together—no riding bicycles or dancing as his mama had. But was he wrong to assume friendship in their shared smiles and silence, in long talks on the bus and communal meals at the cafeteria?

Friends liked each other—he liked Jesse, and, on a belief, Jesse liked him too.

Friends knew each other well—he learned a lot of things about Jesse in the past weeks: Though Jesse appeared to be his age, he was two grades ahead; Jesse was a talker and would tell almost everything on his mind—rued over losing a foot race during gym class, "Ugh, I tripped over my foot! Tell you, I'm better at getting up a hill cycling than running," and he picked up he was a poor runner but a passionate cyclist; enthused over the bird feeder set behind his house, "There's always a family of mockingbird somewhere close, but they don't come near the feeder," and he learned of his love for birds and how he knew all things avian; Jesse often impression people when storytelling; tilted his head slightly left when listening intently; liked his neighbor's deaf dog Roo ("She can't hear me calling, but whenever I'm in her sight, she'd get up and look for me.") and disliked boredom.

As it turned out, Jesse also got him talking and exchanging pieces of himself.

Friends spend time together, at least occasionally, because they enjoy being in the company—he often sought him as soon as setting foot on the school bus, and he'd (heart-swellingly) noticed Jesse naturally sat beside him too; how realizing they shared the recess field and snacktime, slowly gravitated toward each other and holed up in their world; sometimes Jesse got him to linger around his other friends but (he had a feeling Jesse sensed it) struggled to be as comfortable as with him.

Years after, he realized there was a splitting hairs difference between making friends and becoming friends; then, at this point, they had only been making a friend, and it was not until after the Thanksgiving break that they became friends.

However, down the line, he will appreciate their friendship as a sentiment equal to splitting a candy and offering.

He had woken up in low spirits for the Thanksgiving morning. Every week, occasionally every other day, his parents called through a pay phone. Sometimes, on a stretch of silence, a written letter arrived (which he appreciated) detailing what was happening on their end, his mama's sketches covering the spaces between paragraphs (and he'd read it again and again before writing back).

He was setting the farmhouse table, half-listening to Papa Tommy's direction, but all that bothered him was yesterday's telephone call. As he spread the cotton tablecloth—I'm sorry, Willy—and smoothed the creases. As he evenly placed the placemats—The storm has been bad since Monday morning, dear, now a warning of a tornado—and set the porcelain plates, the bluebirds fleeing the rim. By the time the silver flatware flanked the plates—We're really sorry, Willy. We promise we'll all be together for Christmas.

Thanksgiving was a small affair in his life. An uneventful meal at a small diner and, when they can, here at the farmhouse with Papa Tommy and Nana Sue. But always the three of them.

The doorbell chimed, and he flinched.

"Isn't it too early for Solomon," Nana Sue spoke over the pots and pans dancing on the cooktop. Solomon was the farmer's market vendor who sometimes bought their extra produce, their sole guest after Papa Tommy found out he was spending Thanksgiving alone.