girl gone by

"Any man of mine better walk the line
Better show me a teasin' squeezin' pleasin' kinda time
I need a man who knows, how the story goes
He's gotta be a heartbeatin' fine treatin' Breathtakin' earthquakin' kind
Any man of mine
Well any man of mine better disagree
When I say another woman's lookin' better than me
And when I cook him dinner and I burn it black
He better say, mmm, I like it like that yeah
And if I change my mind A million times I wanna hear him say Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I like it that way" - Shania Twain.

The year 1996, and i know she liked this song quite a bit. i can still remember her singing it. she sang alto in the choir. standing on benches in the dusty choir room, i used to admire her legs, so athletic, so long. i'd stare shamelessly, fixating my gaze on the black mole on the back of her thigh. it always made me feel guilty for staring, but then she was just one of those girls every other girl knew with the intimacy of a voyeur. Teachers loved her, but she was never teacher's pet. They simpered but she stayed cool. She had many offers to model and act and as many schoolboys and even men at her heels. Maybe they got on her nerves sometimes. She yelled at a guy once - he'd been following her around, spying on her from his apartment. I was there - we were friends by this time. Even at sixteen, going out with her was like going out with a celebrity. The boy who'd been trailing, came up to her and tried to talk. She unleashed all the fury a torrent of words can muster on the boy who withered before our eyes. I don't think she saw him again. I admired her then, for her force, her conviction and her power over other people, particularly men.
We lost touch (We were never close friends anyway) and it seems odd for me to write about her now, she died last year - suicide over a guy. so ironic! who would have thought a girl like her.
But people live on in funny ways. For me, it's the song. And i just saw it on tv.