My Friend, Valerie Bessette
Yesterday was the birthday of my friend, Valerie Bessette. She and I went to High School together. Val was petite with silvery blond hair. She played the Good Witch Glinda in our High School production of the Wizard of Oz. The next year she played the lead in Booth Tarkington’s Seventeen. Her character carried a tiny dog wherever she went, but nobody in Vermont has a tiny dog--the closest we could find was a forty pound poodle. Val made her entrance buried under that dog with perfect aplomb. And that was her way--she could handle anything. The summer we were twenty-one I was languishing in Stowe with a bad boyfriend, a pile of debts and no plans for my future. Valerie came home from New York City where she’d been going to Parson’s School of Design. She was living my dream life. She suggested we take a day trip to an art gallery in the next town. Just ge...