Jill and I were sitting on the edge of a table in the back of our algebra class one day when a substitute teacher walked in. That would have been ninth grade, the year we both pledged to the Beta Beta sorority, so we'd gotten to know each other pretty well. You get to know people well when you spend Saturday afternoons scrubbing the sidewalk in front of a movie theater in Yonkers with a toothbrush. The sub was doing the roll call...Mister This, Miss That...and when she came to my name, she couldn't read it. So she called out, "Miss...uhh...Stringer." Jill cracked up, and from then on she called me "String."
The following year, I had a slumber party for the sorority. My dad was on a business trip and my mother locked herself upstairs with a book and earplugs. We all had our hair in wire rollers, so everyone looked like the inside of a toaster, and we were all wearing baby doll pajamas, so it must have been warm outside. We had a player piano at the time (the kind you had to pump with your feet) and a whole cabinet of music rolls, so that provided entertainment for awhile. Then we walked around the neighborhood at midnight in our bare feet and smoked (at least those of us who smoked at 15). About 2 a.m. when things were beginning to wind down, I brought out my Ouija board. My mother had gotten it for me and I thought it might be fun since there were so many girls there.
There was an immediate protest from all the Catholics...I didn't realize the Catholic Church considered Ouija boards to be "against the rules," but some of the girls had never seen one and wanted to try it out. Eventually, everyone wanted to play and we asked it all the usual questions 15-year old girls ask a Ouija board, accusing each other of pushing the planchette and laughing at the cryptic answers. And then someone asked if we would all still be friends in five years and the planchette began to move furiously, spelling out "1 will die." That did it. One girl called her mother and went home. I think everyone blamed me for ruining the night, but I didn't believe anything that came from EJ Korvette's toy department could predict the future.
I was going to school in New York City when Jill was killed and someone called me at 6 a.m. with the sad news. I remember riding into the city on the train, looking at the Hudson River and wondering how a girl who was so full of life could be gone. It's one thing to laugh at a Ouija board prediction and another to face the reality of how fragile life can be, even at 18.
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Laurie Bean (Ross)
Diana Strayer (Sample)
Jill and I were sitting on the edge of a table in the back of our algebra class one day when a substitute teacher walked in. That would have been ninth grade, the year we both pledged to the Beta Beta sorority, so we'd gotten to know each other pretty well. You get to know people well when you spend Saturday afternoons scrubbing the sidewalk in front of a movie theater in Yonkers with a toothbrush. The sub was doing the roll call...Mister This, Miss That...and when she came to my name, she couldn't read it. So she called out, "Miss...uhh...Stringer." Jill cracked up, and from then on she called me "String."
The following year, I had a slumber party for the sorority. My dad was on a business trip and my mother locked herself upstairs with a book and earplugs. We all had our hair in wire rollers, so everyone looked like the inside of a toaster, and we were all wearing baby doll pajamas, so it must have been warm outside. We had a player piano at the time (the kind you had to pump with your feet) and a whole cabinet of music rolls, so that provided entertainment for awhile. Then we walked around the neighborhood at midnight in our bare feet and smoked (at least those of us who smoked at 15). About 2 a.m. when things were beginning to wind down, I brought out my Ouija board. My mother had gotten it for me and I thought it might be fun since there were so many girls there.
There was an immediate protest from all the Catholics...I didn't realize the Catholic Church considered Ouija boards to be "against the rules," but some of the girls had never seen one and wanted to try it out. Eventually, everyone wanted to play and we asked it all the usual questions 15-year old girls ask a Ouija board, accusing each other of pushing the planchette and laughing at the cryptic answers. And then someone asked if we would all still be friends in five years and the planchette began to move furiously, spelling out "1 will die." That did it. One girl called her mother and went home. I think everyone blamed me for ruining the night, but I didn't believe anything that came from EJ Korvette's toy department could predict the future.
I was going to school in New York City when Jill was killed and someone called me at 6 a.m. with the sad news. I remember riding into the city on the train, looking at the Hudson River and wondering how a girl who was so full of life could be gone. It's one thing to laugh at a Ouija board prediction and another to face the reality of how fragile life can be, even at 18.