God, she was condescending. She was a whole ten years older than me but acted like I was so naïve. We'd met in a poetry writing class, where she spun out work after work about her two favorite subjects: the superiority of hippie culture and her love of the professor that current faculty had replaced. She was not sure about new ways of teaching and our brand new professor. As for me, I was one of Steve's boys, the johnny-come-latelys like him, and I was one of his writing superstars, as he would say. She was openly hostile to him and quibbled with him during session about trivialities like the use of second tense in modern verse.
Amy looked like a grown-up version of Pippi Longstockings. She sometimes braided her hair that way, too, to add to the effect. And, like me, she was a heavy depressive. That was what joined us together and what complicated our relationship. I had to admit it, whether I wanted to or not. When I was down and she was up, she could pull me to my feet. When the reverse was true, I could take that role, too. But when we were both scraping the bottom of the barrel, we were worthless.
Her primary allegiance was to Peter. Peter tended bar at a club downtown. Peter was older than her and probably had high-functioning autism, but she clung to him like a barnacle to a ship. No one could understand. Not her friends, certainly not her parents. Amy was hard to get, and the best I could ascertain was that she had body acceptance issues, because they cropped up periodically in her poetry.
She wasn't fat, but like so many women, she thought she was.
As I got to know her better, I recognized we had at least a few things in common. She'd worked at summer camps most of her life and had an encyclopedic knowledge of the outdoors. I'd been in Boy Scouts for a time and won a few merit badges, but she put me to shame. I wish I'd been more interested in nature. It might have pulled us together. We might have dated instead of being friends with benefits.
Even so, I remember many times lying in her bed, still stoned from sex. She'd point to a photo of herself on the bedroom wall. "You know who that is?" Of course, I knew who the image was. I'd only been told a thousand times. "I was your age back then."
When she gave readings once a semester, I'd show up at the English wing ten minutes early. Amy's folks would talk to me and ignore Peter. I have to admit that it made for great awkwardness between everyone present. Peter knew I was infatuated with what he saw as his girl, but he was totally under her control. Once he even called me to apologize, at her insistence. Totally whipped. I knew this because I could hear her in the background during the call, demanding this act.
