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“When Stacia used the wordneed,” Dru-Ann tells the camera now, “a light came on. Beta wanted me because I was Black. Now, was I being racially sensitive? Could Stacia have meant that the sorority needed someone with my sophistication and sense of style? Maybe, but I also didn’t love what she said about Hollis. Because what she meant by not ‘polished enough’ was that Hollis didn’t have enough money. So I grabbed Hollis and we left the party without saying goodbye. She never asked me what happened, though maybe she suspected. But on that night, Hollis told me that her mother, Charlotte, who was a kindergarten teacher, always maintained that a child would be just fine as long as she had one good friend. So we decided to be a sorority of two.” Dru-Ann feels her eyes mist up. “And from that moment on, we were.”
There are things about this story that make Caroline cringe, but that’s the beauty of it.Find the chink in the armor.Caroline tries to picture her mother—who Caroline thought had always been popular and well liked, even before she became internet-famous—wearing the wrong shoes and not getting into a sorority.
“So the two of you were best friends all through college?” Caroline says.
“We were,” Dru-Ann says. “We lived together all four years. Senior year, there was no stopping us.”
In their senior year, Dru-Ann and Hollis were both twenty-one—and this meant Franklin Street was theirs for the taking! Wednesday nights they went to Goodfellows; Thursdays meant the Cave because of the cute guitar player. Fridays and Saturdays they went to He’s Not Here, which they referred to as “She’s Not Here,” and they drank Coors Light from blue cups. Sunday nights were pizza at IP3.
“We had traditions,” Dru-Ann says to Caroline. “On our birthdays, we went to the Flying Burrito. And every night before we went out, we listened to Stephanie Mills singing ‘Never Knew Love Like This Before.’”
Caroline’s eyebrows shoot up. “So that was your song, then? Did you guys coordinate a dance to it, like my mom and Tatum?”
Dru-Ann scoffs. “No dance. That’s strictly high-school stuff.” Dru-Ann sighs. “Chapel Hill was a Carolina-blue bubble. We never wanted to leave.”
“Did you two ever argue?” Caroline asks. “Were there any bumps in the road?”
“Well,” Dru-Ann says. “That’s an interesting question. For that, I have to back up.”
Sophomore year, Hollis asks Dru-Ann if she can spend Christmas in Chicago with her.
“Won’t your parents miss you?” Dru-Ann asks. Hollis seldom speaks about her family. All Dru-Ann knows is that Hollis’s mother teaches kindergarten, her father is a plumber, and she has no siblings.
Hollis shrugs and says, “I’ll call them.” Hollis has made it clear that Nantucket is a place she wants to leave behind, and Dru-Ann can’t blame her. The island is four miles wide, thirteen miles long, and thirty miles off the coast; it’s overrun with tourists and billionaires in the summer and cold, windy, and desolate in the winter. It sounds like a nightmare.
So Hollis spends the holidays with the Joneses in Oak Park. Dru-Ann is able to appreciate her family and their traditions anew through Hollis’s eyes—the twelve-foot Christmas tree, the cocoa Dru-Ann’s mother makes with Ghirardelli chocolate, Christmas Eve dinner at the Phoenix in Chinatown. Hollis is as wide-eyed as a child; their days are gilded by her sense of wonder.
On Christmas morning, after present opening and eggs Benedict, Hollis calls home. “I’ll be quick,” she tells Mrs. Jones. “I don’t want to run up your phone bill.” She uses the phone in Dru-Ann’s bedroom, and who knows what gut instinct drives Dru-Ann to pick up the extension in her parents’ room and listen in, but she does. She hears Hollis say, “I’m sorry you have to spend Christmas alone, Daddy.”
Tom Shaw says, “It’s not so bad. I’m going to put a wreath on your mother’s grave, then meet some of the guys at the Anglers Club.”
Ever so quietly, Dru-Ann presses down the button to disconnect, then lowers the handset into the cradle.Your mother’s grave.For a year and a half, Dru-Ann has believed that Charlotte Shaw is alive and well, teaching finger-painting and assuring kids that they need only one good friend.
Does Dru-Ann storm down the hall to confront Hollis? She does not. It’s Christmas; Mrs. Jones has roasted a goose, and the relatives are on their way over, among them Dru-Ann’s uncle Jimmy, who will play carols on the piano while the rest of them sing. So Dru-Ann keeps quiet, but she smolders with this new knowledge. It’s more than a secret Hollis kept; it’s a deception.
Dru-Ann says nothing the next few days. On New Year’s Eve, Dru-Ann’s parents go to a party and her brothers head downtown to the bars. Hollis and Dru-Ann stay home, order Italian beef sandwiches, and turn on Dick Clark. Dru-Ann has a “New Year’s tradition” she wants to share—a bottle of something called Jeppson’s Malört Liqueur. It’s the foulest-tasting liquid ever invented, but Dru-Ann assures Hollis that drinking it is a Chicago rite of passage. They each do one shot chased by a beer, then a second shot. After the inevitable grimace, Hollis visibly relaxes and Dru-Ann thinks,Now—now, while it’s still 1988 and not yet 1989.If Dru-Ann doesn’t ask now, the lie might fester right up until graduation, when Hollis will have to explain why her mother isn’t coming to the ceremony. It’s too awful for Dru-Ann to contemplate.
“Your mother is dead,” Dru-Ann says.
Hollis claps a hand over her mouth and runs for the bathroom. Dru-Ann follows and holds her hair back.
In the final hour of the year, Hollis spills it all. “My mother died when I was a baby. I couldn’t tell you the day we moved in, I was already too emotional, I had never been away from home and I’d never met anyone who didn’t already know my mother was dead. I didn’t have the words. And then once I lied about it, I wasn’t sure how to tell the truth. I’m so sorry, Dru-Ann, the most fundamental fact about me is that I’ve never had a mother. I was raised by my dad and a bunch of other people who pitched in. But I never wanted you to see me as someone who was defective, by which I meanIdidn’t want to think of myself that way. College allowed me to start fresh, and I guess I thought I could just change the parts of me that I didn’t like.”
Dru-Ann considers her options. For days, she has been ready to be infuriated and indignant.You lied to me for a year and a half! A major lie, Hollis!This, she suspects, is what anyone else in her position would do. But the truth is, her time in Chapel Hill has been the happiest of her life for one reason only, and that’s the sniffling girl who smells like Jeppson’s sitting on the floor of the Joneses’ downstairs powder room right now.
“It must have been hard for you,” Dru-Ann says. “And I hope that you feel lighter now that you’ve told me the truth.”
“I do,” Hollis says.
“And I’m sorry you had to grow up without a mom. I’m sure that sucked.”
Hollis shrugs. “It’s the only way I knew. But there have been lots of times when I could have used a mom.”
Yes,Dru-Ann thinks, remembering the outfits Hollis wore during rush. “Did your mother really say that a kid would be okay as long as she had one true friend?”
“That’s what I was always told.”
Dru-Ann helps Hollis to her feet. The girl needs a shower. “Well, then, it looks like we’re going to be okay.”
