By Susan Diamond
Pearl is a lonely sweet sixteen. She doesn’t fit in with the other students at her high school and hasn’t (yet) found a friend she can relate to.
Pearl is different because she is an old soul. You know the type, she is more comfortable in conversation with adults than teen-agers. She is baffled by her own peers language and subject matter.
The habits of her classmates don’t make sense to her. Just the other day she was in the gym locker room and three girls were talking about a party they were at over the weekend. Sharlynne Powers said, “I was so f- -ked up...”
She understood Sharlynne was drunk or high or both, from what must have been alcohol, marijuana, and or pills. Pearl could not follow the rest of the story which may have had Sharlynne and the girls sharing the specifics of the intoxicants, how much was ingested, and which other friends had what, did what, and how long the “partying” lasted until so-and-so passed out or the cops came.
Pearl felt like an observer from another planet. The Earth she lives on does not revolve around the same sun as the other students in her school. And so, she goes it alone.
Pearl has a part time job after school and on the weekends. She works retail at Banana Republic in the mall. Her personal fashion style would be called business attire. As you can imagine, wearing a blazer, blouse and slacks to high school places her firmly in the nerd category, sub-category of one.
Nearly every student in her class wears some version of jeans, sweats, t-shirts, belly shirts, sneakers or flip flops, except for one senior and he has a job at Verizon after school where he wears a button down and dress pants, but he’s cool and well-liked and the other kids respect him.
Pearl is not respected by her peers, nor is she disrespected. She is simply invisible.
Until one day three weeks before her seventeenth birthday, a girl from her biology class says “hey” to her.
Pearl looks around.
“I’m talking to you - you’re Pearl right?”
She nods her head.
“We’ve got bio together.”
She answers, "Sure, I remember."
“Cool.”
And that’s all it took. Pearl and Sylvie became friends.
Life is different for Pearl now that she has a friend her own age. She has someone to talk to, to share with and she looks forward to lunch in the school cafeteria.
Friendship is nourishment to Pearl’s soul and it’s contagious.
Pearl reaches out to a girl she meets in the mall on her break. Her circle expands. Her happiness increases. It’s only the beginning of a life of fulfilling relationships for Pearl.
Everyone needs a friend and God’s Divine plan ensures it.
