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Estellahad a friend once. Her name was Marian, but everyone called her Marie.Marie was quiet and didn't have many friends. Marie liked to read booksand essays and poetry. Marie didn't really have any talents, except herintellegence. She couldn't write but she loved to read, couldn't sing orplay an instrument but loved music, and couldn't paint but loved spendingendless afternoons wandering in art galleries.
Estella tried to be a goodfriends to Marie, talking and laughing, making jokes which Marie neverquite found funny, and taking her places. They did all sorts of thingstogether. Marie would take Estella to finer events in their area and Estellatried to get Marie into movies, boys, and sleepovers.
When middle and finally high school came around, Estella many timesfound Marie looking down. She would sit alone at lunch and stare at herfood tray, looking like she was about to cry. Everyone thought she wasanorexic, for Marie was tall and skinny, and always very pale.
Estella would be a goodfriend and ask Marie what was troubling her. Marie would answer with asmoothly flowing prose that seemed to have nothing to do with any situationEstella found herself in with Marie. She suspected Marie might be usingher substantially larger vocabulary to mask what she was talking about.Marie must have been talking about home, or her family.
"Why do you have to be socryptic?" Estella would demand.
Marie never answered. Thismade Estella mad, but she kept on being the good friend. Everytime Marielooked down Estella would ask, and every time Marie had a story to tell.Estella would sit by listening, shaking her head.
"Why do you have to be socryptic?"
This continued many times.Estella never knew whether Marie was getting better or worse. Everytimeshe asked the answer was long and complicated.
As Estella took the spade and dumped dirt over Marie's coffin, thelast words of the suicide victim echoed eerily in her head, over and overand over again,
"Didn't you know? It's poetry."
