Forever Friends

By Hazel Hutson

Forever Friends is a group of five very short stories about the lives, loves, and losses of friends from the Buffalo, New York area. They later move to various cities across the country, but they never forgot where they came from or the friendships they formed. Truly a work of fiction, each great story is a stand-alone story that touches on friendships, relationships, betrayal, intrigue, and even death. Every story can be read in thirty-forty minutes. Battered spouse syndrome, infidelity, and murder are a few of the subjects covered in these stories. You are almost guaranteed to relate either directly or indirectly to some or all of the events. No one gets a free pass on pain, but good friends can move you to a better place beyond the pain so you can heal.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Oct 9, 2017
• ISBN: 9781640821309

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Forever Friends

Hazel Hutson

Copyright © 2017 Hazel Hutson

All rights reserved

First Edition

PAGE PUBLISHING, INC.

New York, NY

First originally published by Page Publishing, Inc. 2017

ISBN 978-1-64082-129-3 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-64082-130-9 (Digital)

Printed in the United States of America

To Dorothy Thompson Bryant, Deidre Chambers, Marlowe, Sean and Destiny Goodwin

Igrew up in Buffalo New York. Wherever you grew up, I’m sure it only takes a song or the name of an old friend to take you back there. Memories, good or bad, are important because they help to define who we are.

The Bracelet (Brittany)

Buffalo, New York, is a small city located in Western New York. When you say New York people think large city. Buffalo, not counting the suburbs, is divided into small neighborhoods such as East Side, West Side, North Side, South Side, Riverside, and Black Rock. My neighborhood was East Side. Even within my neighborhood there were small areas like Hamlin Park, Central Park, Fruit Belt, Cold Spring, just to name a few. This story happened in Cold Spring.

Betty and Cynthia attended Lafayette High School and lived near each other on Alexander near East Ferry. East Ferry ran east and west through the east side of Buffalo. There was a corner store on East Ferry and Alexander not far from Jefferson that was popular with the young people because shoplifting was easy. On the other end of Alexander on the corner of Harlow there was another store that was popular with the adults because they gave groceries on credit.

Cali lived on Brunswick in the Hamlin Park area. She attended Bennett High School but spent a lot of time with us anyway. Girls from different schools and neighborhoods were more likely to be friendly than guys. Guys were territorial and only hung out with guys from their neighborhood.

Karen lived on Waverly, and Brittany lived on Chester. They both lived near East Ferry. They attended Fosdick Masten High School, sometimes called Girl’s Vocational High School. No matter what part of town you lived, on the weekend we met at the same bars. We were in high school and shouldn’t be hanging out in bars, but that’s where we got together. Drinking was a past time for most of the young people in our neighborhood, especially wine. Strawberry Hill, Swiss Up, Ripple, MD 20/20, Night Train, and Thunderbird were the most popular with our group. Most of us didn’t drive so we didn’t worry about DUIs. The most popular bars with our group was Revalot Lounge or Pine Grill. There were several other bars that were popular like Humbolt Inn and Twenty Grand. There was one on almost ever corner, and we hit every one. I love Buffalo.

The weather in Buffalo was so unpredictable that making plans was difficult. If you didn’t like the weather, just wait because it would definitely change. Winters were terrible because of the snow, and summers were unbearable because the old homes had no air conditioning. Summers were hot and muggy because of the city’s proximity to the Niagara River and Lake Erie. Oh, did I say I love Buffalo? With all of the bad weather, Buffalo people were great at making friends. I had four best friends and many, many other friends.

On a cold Friday evening several of us decided to spend the weekend at Betty’s house. We rotated from house to house spending the night at each other’s house so we could spend as much time together as possible. This weekend we couldn’t decide what to do, so we decided to do nothing.

We all had boyfriends, and we all had problems too. Some relationships were more stable than others, but we helped each other through the bumpy parts.

Cynthia was petite and very pretty. She loved wearing tight jeans and tube tops. She was quiet but could speak her mind when needed. She had been dating George since sixth grade. They met at School #17.

Betty was tall with long pretty legs. She wore a lot of short skirts. She dated Alex. No one had an opinion about Alex or the relationship. He seemed to be nice. At least he seemed to be nice to Betty. If he wasn’t, we would have heard about it. She knows how to handle her business.

Brittany looked and acted older than the rest of us. She was built like Chaka Khan and could sing like her too. No one could keep track of her boyfriends, and she liked it that way. She liked being unpredictable, even though they called her something else.

Cali was the shy one. She had a very small frame. In fact, she was sometimes called skinny. Her face was pretty, and she didn’t wear makeup. Her beauty was natural. Dating didn’t interest her until recently. She met this guy named Eddie at a party, and that’s all she wanted to talk about. He said he graduated from Lackawanna High School. Lackawanna is a small city very near Buffalo. He moved here over the summer. Needless to say, we were suspicious of him and very protective of Cali.

It was about 9:00 p.m., and everybody was winding down. We had planned to stay up all night talking about people, but one by one we all went to sleep. Finally, the house was quiet; we were all asleep.

The sun came up. It was about 8:00 a.m., and Mrs. Johnson had started breakfast. She decided to let the girls sleep a little longer until breakfast was ready. She was making pancakes, sausage, eggs, toast, and grits. Cali smelled food and came in first. When everything was ready, Mrs. Johnson sent Cali to wake the other girls. She knocked on the bedroom door and told them to come to breakfast. She came back and got a plate. She started to eat then the others girls joined her in the kitchen. There was so much commotion that no one noticed that Brittany wasn’t there. Where’s Brittany? they chimed, yelling from the kitchen, Better hurry before nothing’s left but the dishes.

Mrs. Johnson, who was not happy with the yelling, decided to find Brittany. She asked which room they slept in. The girls were so busy eating and talking no one heard her. Mrs. Johnson, smiling at the confusion, decided to look for Brittany. There was no trace of her. She called for the girls to stop eating and come help. They were in and out of rooms calling her name. Mrs. Johnson said in a very uneasy voice, I can’t find her. They checked the bathroom and called her name again several times.

Her purse and makeup are still here, said Cali. They looked for a note and couldn’t find one.

Cynthia said, Let’s call her mother, maybe she went home.

Cali said, Not yet, we need time to think. We wouldn’t want to alarm her mother if there’s no problem. They decided to call some friends first. Maybe she left with a friend. The girls really thought she might have left with a guy, but they didn’t want to say it in front of Mrs. Johnson. They called everyone they knew. No one had seen her. It was time to call her mother. Neither girl wanted to make that call, so Mrs. Johnson called. She was so hurt that this could happen while the girls were in her care.

Mrs. Lewis, Brittany’s mother, came over right away. She was visibly upset. She asked a thousand questions. No one heard or saw anything? "If Brittany left during the