It was either in yesterday’s Phoenix coffee shop or sometime in my Junior year of high school on the gymnasium floor…I can’t be sure, because the feelings were exactly the same, but I knew this woman, coach then, friend now, (the roles could be easily reversed), I knew that she was someone special.

She was young and looked like Janet Fonda, and we, in our teenage years, were eager to tell her both. Eager, and yet we made sure she knew how much we loved her predecessor. We had just begun to learn about love and trust and leaving, so all our cards in the colors of red and black, our team colors, were laid out on the table.

Of course I didn’t think about it then, how hard it must have been to join us. We, who had been friends since five years old. Moved from playground to gym. Knew the language of dropping the x in Alex (our beloved hometown) and replacing it with a k. And here she was, with her new ways and new shoes and I, we, stared through the glass of her office door.

Of course mine didn’t match our volleyball uniforms. My shoes were a light blue. Not Nike, but an off-brand, half-swoosh, that fooled no one, but the only ones we could afford. But I don’t remember ever feeling bad. Not even envious. We were friends, with no where else to go after school, playing in a gym. And I do mean play. Oh, of course we cried when it was all over, but mostly we just laughed. We laughed at the songs sung wrong on the bus, the girl who “mooned” out the back window, and the way none of us really knew how to do the flamboyant flop as we to took the floor before the match. (And we had the floor burns to prove it.)

I don’t mention the games, or our record. I barely remember. What was important is that she became friends with my mother. And sitting with her yesterday, in a coffee shop in Phoenix, she said, “…that’s exactly what your mom would have said…” and I was home. We talked of how those same volleyball girls recently visited me in France. We spoke of my mother, both of us eager to share our love and longing. We gave our compliments freely, and all cards, of every color, were once again laid upon the table.

She smiled when she said, “You were just friends, playing…” I smiled, because that was true about my friends in the gym, and my mother who worked just down the hall in the superintendent’s office.

Of course we cried when we had to say goodbye. But mostly, we laughed…