Day 322 Mila

I'm in seventh grade in our cafeteria (really just a very large trailer that serves as our "auditorium" when the lunch tables are cleared out), milling around with a few friends and some acquaintances. Somewhere in the background, a girl, Janie, turns to someone, a short little girl with long black hair and low-slung backpack and goes, 

"Happy Birthday!"

At this point, I'm in charge of the yearbook class' balloon sales and I jump at the chance to spread my helium-charged happiness. So I jump up and insist that I get her a balloon; she looks at me, surprised and a little wary like, "Who is this child and what is the big deal with getting a balloon?"

Half an hour later, I've blown up a $2.50 balloon in her honor and learned her name: Mila. 

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Fast-forward 11 years later at 12 am, I call her house phone. 

I know, from experience, that no one will pick up. Over the past decade, I've learned to wait for the voicemail to come on and... just talk. No really, I have conversations with Mila's answering machine,

"Hey, Mila, it's me. [awkward pause] Hi Mr. and Mrs. Z! Hope I'm not waking you guys up tonight [longer pause] So how about that last episode of House!-"

Usually, if I'm calling during normal daylight hours, someone ends up picking up the phone after I've irritated their living room enough with my retarded comments. Tonight, I know no one will pick up, but I do it anyway. Why? Because it's our 11th anniversary and most of all, it's my little Mila's birthday.

Mila's the youngest of my circles of friends. Over the years, her birthday has been the subject of irritation for us, usually falling within Ramadan. Not that we have any problems with the religious holiday, but because, per tradition, we held little lunch picnics for everyone's birthdays...and Mila's was a pain in the butt because she fasted every year for high school during her birthdays. 

While I've had friends for just as long as I've know Mila, she is the only one with whom I have an actually anniversary for: a date that we know for sure our friendship started. To this day, she has the little deflated balloon in her closet and my scrawled handwriting on the top left of the Minnie Mouse print, "You owe me $2.50."

I'm not sure if she's ever paid me back that $2.50. But I figure, between the years of friendship, taking a few of my kicks during that year we took karate together, and helping me through countless study sessions and spiritual issues of my own, I think we'd call it even.