a long time ago i would take trips to nacogdoches to see my friend melissa, who went to school at stephen f. austin.  she was a student there for quite awhile, so there were a lot of trips.  i can still remember how to get to her first dorm room, her second one, her third, and her first apartment.  i cannot, however, place her second and third apartments, which came with a husband and a child, or her first and second houses, which came with a husband and two children.  but i remember the dorms.

when i visited, i would sleep on the floor or the couch for a few days and melissa and i would walk around campus or go to parties or drive somewhere and hang out.  sometimes we would get alcohol and drink at her house or in her dorm room or outside somewhere.  we were usually alone; i never knew or really liked too many of melissa’s friends.  most of her dorm friends were sorority sisters with matching finger-and toenail polish, with lipsticked smiles baked onto tanned faces.  most of her apartment friends were neighbors, acquaintances, or her husband’s tobacco-spitting buddies.  she never really had any house friends.

michelle, one of the dorm friends, came along to hang out with us quite a few times, whether she had been invited or not.  usually, since melissa and i were close friends who didn’t see each other often, she had not been invited.  wherever melissa and i went, michelle insisted on coming along, insisted on driving, insisted on playing whatever music she was in the mood for.  she drove a little old red car, the inside of which was plastered with cracked cd cases, empty cigarette boxes, crumpled fast-food wrappers.  she worked the drive-thru at the taco bell across the street from dorm number one.

i didn’t like michelle, for several reasons.  first and foremost, she assumed that her friendship with melissa was more important than mine, that it was all right for her to infringe on what little time melissa and i had during those visits.  if melissa tried to tell michelle that she wanted to spend time with just me, michelle would be annoyed, hurt, sometimes even furious.  often she wouldn’t even bother to abide by melissa’s request; she would show up wherever she thought we would go, in hopes that we would be there.  often, we would, and she’d pretend nothing was out of the ordinary.

the other reasons i didn’t like her are small, petty, and embarrassing, having mostly to do with her slovenly appearance, her taste in music, and my own vague but horrible aversion to fast-food employees.

michelle was a clean-water activist.  she ran an environmental group at school and worked with campus authorities about water conditions on school grounds.  once, she showed us an article about her work in the school paper.  the back windshield of michelle’s car was covered with bumper stickers that said things like “save water.  shower with friends.”  all the dingy white t-shirts she wore bore water-conservation messages.  i suppose i’ll give her that.

one day, as the three of us sat outside talking, michelle lit her fourth cigarette with the third one, dropping the butt on the ground at her feet.  “michelle,” melissa said, “you’re so worried about the environment, how come you smoke so much and throw the butts everywhere?”

“well,” michelle said, taking a long drag and exhaling, “i guess i never really cared about the air.”