Sometime in 11th grade, my best friend Shay* made an offhanded comment, referring to her, Nicky, and myself as “the Trinity.” We laughed because it was blasphemous and pretty appropriate, but over the years, the nickname stuck, and so did our friendship.
We’ve all recently graduated and have pretty much been scattered, geographically and mentally speaking; one’s in grad school, one’s working, and the other (me) is doing neither. Yes. I am the bum. But it’s rare for all three of us to be at the same place at the same time, let alone in our hometown where our funky friendship began. As it so happened, Shay was in town and invited Nicky and I to come over to bake cookies and hang out.
I arrived first, following the same roads I could’ve driven down blindfolded when I was 17 and turning into her block at the exact same corner lined with shrubbery. I hadn’t been over her house in at least two years so, so after greeting Shay at the front door, I took in everything in her home much like a puppy with ADD. Shay’s home has always reminded me of something straight out of those classy Home décor magazines and stepping through it after not seeing the interior for a few years, it still felt like a familiar haven as it had been when we still had sleepovers there.
We chatted for a bit about school and I spoke to her father as we waited on the “Jesus” representative of our Trinity. Only a little later did the final point of our triangle arrive. Nicky handed out scarves she’d knitted herself and Shay and I squealed over how great they turned out (Mine’s a lovely green-aqua with a cute pattern). Later, Nicky opened up a packet of sugar cookie mix and we shared what was up in each other’s lives, complained about our younger siblings, and laughed about stories we’d made years ago while we kneaded the dough. I managed to keep dropping pieces of my piece of dough before we finally got them into the oven and we were quite disappointed to learn we couldn’t use the cookie cutter on it…
While the desserts baked, Shay fed us goat wrapped in roti and these extremely yummy potatoes from Denmark that were left over from her family’s Christmas party. Before long, she’d whipped out a big package of rose tea with the same amount of excitement she got back in 7th grade at the prospect of going to one of our dances.
You know how pre-teen girls go crazy when Justin Bieber comes within 20 feet of them? Yeah, that’s much like how Nicky and Shay love their tea, dating back to their freshman year when they were broke college kids who really could only drink tea. But it transformed into a bit of an obsession that I continue to find amusing anyway.
Plus, they always bring out some funky teabags every now and then so that’s always fun.
When the cookies were done, we found one that had three cookies baked into each other like a three-leaf clover. We decorated the batch and I wrote our initials on top of each of the three-clover cookie with red sparkly icing before we broke them apart with a small “toast," to the Trinity and to all the years ahead of us.
There were no cute boys, skimpy dresses, loud music or alcohol.
And it was likely my favorite day of the past few weeks.
