Today is Steph Aldrich's birthday

Stephanie Aldrich was a girl with rocketship-red hair and a great pocketbook in my French class, that September of my first year at Notre Dame Academy. Steph wore boas and cat-eye sunglasses, angora sweaters and crystal jewelry, and she always had PixiStix or Smarties in her bag. During free period, Steph and I would to sit on the floor in the hallway in front of her locker, and I would put my head in her lap and she would play with my hair. Such is love for girls who are 14 years old.

Steph and I wrote many small books together, including 'Ideal Man', our lengthy list detailing the perfect boyfriend. He was to have a crinkly smile and brown eyes (Steph's idea) and be able to recite Shakespeare on command (my idea). On the first page, Steph penciled in a chiseled male torso and wrote, "Just a thought."

Today, Steph has grown up to be a hard-working elementary school principal with an almost supernatural talent for reading kids' minds. She lives in a hillside house in Vermont across the street from a luxury resort, where she keeps a garden of fantastic flowers. Her rocket-red head of hair hair has grown out into wide, shoulder-length waves. When I hang out with her in her living room, my feet resting in her lap and her cat pawing its way across the top of the couch, I feel like I am 14 again. Time-travel: Such is love for lifelong friends. What do people do without it?