Robert Tate Miller | My Friend Kim

My new novel THE CHRISTMAS LAYOVER  is about friendship among strangers. While the terms friendship and stranger seem more like antonyms than synonyms, that is (happily) not always the case. In my book, a small town opens its arms to an airliner full of strangers at Christmastime, and, in my own life, I’ve had similar experiences. On more than one occasion, those that didn’t know me from Adam reached out with the hand of friendship and drew me into their lives just when I most needed to feel included. One such occurrence happened long ago in a college town called Athens, Georgia. I’d like to share it with you.   I’d seen her around campus long before I pledged the Kappa Sigma fraternity the winter of my sophomore year. I’d admired her from afar—the epitome of the untouchable college beauty. I’d decided that if I were forced to choose one perfect girl, she would be the one. Even though our paths crossed several times a day, I felt as if she lived in some remote corner of a distant universe. I was sure she had no clue I existed.

She was there the night, several weeks into my
pledgeship, when I was invited to join the frat brothers at a local honky-tonk. A favorite band
was playing that night, and I welcomed the chance to get out of my stuffy dorm room and
away from the grind of studying.

I arrived late and took a seat at a table alone in the
back of the room. The others didn’t notice me from their front row of clustered chairs near the
stage, but I didn’t care. I was in no mood to socialize with the same slave drivers who made
me scrub the floors and take out the trash. I made a pact with myself to hang out for fifteen
minutes and then beat a hasty retreat.

I heard a familiar laugh. . .. Then I saw her. She was
sitting among them, and I wondered who had made her laugh, wishing it had been me. She
seemed to shine, making everything and everybody else in the room fade to insignificance. I
looked around and wondered if anybody else saw her, but they all seemed too caught up in
their corners of conversation to notice. How could they not? She was stunning. Radiant. I
discovered that if I shifted my chair a little to the left, I had a clear view of her. I could watch
her surreptitiously—the band in front of her providing the perfect cover.

I imagined myself sauntering up to her and asking
her to dance. What would she say? Would she just laugh or simply look right through me?
Maybe my voice would crack, and I’d turn and slink away as if it had all been a mistake. Then I
could simply spend the rest of my college years going around corners and taking roundabout
routes to avoid seeing her.

At that moment, she turned toward the back of the
room—her eyes searching as if she’d felt my thoughts on her. I blushed bright red when her
gaze rested on me. I saw her lean over and whisper something to one of the brothers, and
then she got up and weaved her way back through the cluster of tables. She was coming
toward me.

For a moment, my heart began to race, thumping so
violently I was sure she could see the fabric on my shirt moving. I looked over my shoulder and
saw the “Restroom” sign. I breathed a sigh of relief. Who was I kidding? I took one last sip of
my ginger ale. It was time to go home.

“Hey, Rob, what are you doing back here all by
yourself?”

I looked up, and she was standing right in front of
me. She was smiling as if we’d known each other all our lives. I swallowed hard. My voice
vanished into thin air. She pulled out a chair and sat down at my table.

“How’d you know my name?” I finally managed to
mumble, several octaves higher than normal.

“I asked around,” she said with a twinkle in her
brown eyes. “I always make a point of knowing the names of all the cute guys on
campus.”

I flushed a deep crimson, and even though I’m sure
she noticed, she didn’t mention it. She took a sip of my ginger ale and began to talk. She told
me all about herself. Where she grew up. What her family was like. Her favorite movies, what
she liked to eat, her hopes and dreams and disappointments. Fifteen minutes turned into a
half hour, an hour became two. We talked and laughed like old friends. There were people all
around and a band playing somewhere behind us, but I’d long since lost consciousness of the
din of voices, the music, the smell of smoke. We’d slipped into our own world—one where a
new friendship was being born.

By the time the band finished its third encore, Kim
Lattanze had stepped off the pages of my imagination and into my life. She bid me good night
at the door and walked off into the night.

We became the best of college friends in the
months and years that followed. On graduation day, we hugged goodbye and promised to
always stay close. We faithfully kept our pledge with cards, letters and numerous phone calls.
Sometimes we’d run into each other at some alumni gathering or football game. She’d take me
by the hand and pull me to a corner, where we’d take up right where we left off as she’d
pepper me with questions about my family, career and love life. We’d always leave with a
promise to be a little better at staying in touch.

“Where’s Kim? I thought she’d be here.”

I was standing in the middle of a crowded ballroom at the
large southern wedding of a college fraternity brother. I wondered why I hadn’t seen Kim. We’d
both talked about the wedding in our letters, said we looked forward to seeing one another, to
catching up. I asked a college friend a simple question in that ballroom, and his answer forever
changed my life.

“You didn’t hear? Kim was killed. Car accident. I’m so sorry
you didn’t know.”

It was in the days before the internet when it was still
possible to simply be left out of the loop. Everybody else thought somebody else had told me.
I felt as if someone dropped a bowling ball on my chest. I immediately walked out of the
wedding, found a quiet spot and broke down. I wept unabashedly, shaking and sobbing,
holding nothing back. Kim was gone. She was gone forever, and she wasn’t coming back. The
letter I’d gotten from her not so long before, sent on flowered stationary in a peach-colored
envelope, would be her last.

Nearly thirty-five years later, my thoughts sometimes still
drift back to those college days. I recall an evening—a moment kept alive in the memory of
Kim’s smiling eyes. One small but unforgettable minute in time. A shy boy, a beautiful girl and
the precious gift of friendship she’d brought to my table that night.

And now, when I invariably find myself scanning the
corners of rooms at parties, I stay vigilant—always on the lookout for that timid stranger who
might feel a little out of place, a little left out. I can recognize myself in those bashful souls,
and then I think of Kim. What would she do in a situation like this? I walk over and say hello.