It is Claudias 30th birthday, and we are none the wiser. Well, she's the home owner, with a swimming pool in the backyard. She spends her birthdays letting foundation experts give quotes, and telephone guys come in to install new phone lines. I'm the best friend with no car, no cell phone, no apartment or job that just got back from a jaunt in Mexico.
We are none the wiser.
She says, that I'm the one that leads us down the wrong path, and then she's the one that sends us on detours. She follows that with a finger at her tiny cup that tells the japaneese lady we need another round of sake while swallowing a sea urchin whole. I really missed you while you were away says again.

I had cleared out my apartment of everything except the refrigerator mold, the pubes at the toilet seat and the whimpering stray cat she'd begged me to keep a year before. I had kissed her goodbye with a shrug and then fumbled with the remains. I walked out to the car to fish out the windex in the back seat and her jeep was still in the parking lot. I found her there sitting in the parking lot slumped over the steering wheel crying. That's when we decided that we'd grow to be old best friends in stupid orchid hats tending eachothers gardens in old age.