7 Friends Every Woman Needs

7 Friends Every Woman Needs

They’re there when times are bad (with a dirty martini or a carton of B&J in hand) and they’re there when times are good (with a dirty martini or a carton of B&J in hand). They’re our sisters, our secret-keepers, our sage advisers. Read these odes to some of the world’s greatest friends, then pick up the phone and call yours.

The kooky friend
My friend Elizabeth is the most kind-hearted person I know. She's sharp and funny and fun to be with. She is also a total neurotic.

Her fears could fill a phone book: mice, bugs, elevators, confined spaces. She reads the fine print on warning labels and scrupulously adheres to the age guidelines for board games and amusement park rides. If she spies her daughter scratching her elbow, she'll scrutinize the spot, murmuring, "Oh, I hope that's not the bite of the brown recluse spider." The last time we went swimming together, Elizabeth peered at the pond's tranquil surface, then turned to me and asked, "Are there sharks in there?" It was a freshwater pond, I told her, so sharks would be unlikely. She looked at me somberly. "Things happen," she said.

Elizabeth is, hands down, the most amusing of my friends. Not always on purpose, but she's OK with that. Listening to her go through a menu ("That sounds good, but maybe it won't be...I hope the pork isn't undercooked.... Did anyone else read that article about the new pesticides they're spraying on wheat?") is like watching a piece of performance art. And, because of her occasional freak-outs, she meets new people in the most interesting ways, like the obliging kayaker who befriended her after she panicked in the middle of the pond when we went for that swim last summer. He towed her back to shore.

Sometimes I think that Elizabeth's myriad terrors make the world a difficult place to live in...but then, I think, her world must be a more interesting place than the one most of us inhabit. After all, if you see every meal as a potential case of botulism, every hot tub as a roiling cesspool of infection and every rash as the harbinger of Dengue fever, imagine the sweet relief when the food's OK, the hot tub's clean and the rash is just a rash.

Besides, who wants normal friends? Normal friends do not have hilarious stories about the time they saw a mouse in their kitchen and barricaded themselves and their kids in the bedroom, and made their husband come home from work to kill it. Normal friends cannot fill you in on the five life-threatening strains of bacteria currently hiding in your chicken salad, or tell you why it's not fair to say they're afraid of flying, because really that fear is just an extension of the fear of tight, enclosed spaces.

And normal friends are not living, breathing embodiments of a most reassuring fact: Life won't kill you (at least, not today). If Elizabeth can survive a world fraught with terror, with peril lurking around every corner and every bug bite an incipient tumor, then the rest of us can handle an overdue bill, an argument with a relative and pretty much anything that the world throws our way.
-- Jennifer Weiner, author of the novels Good in Bed, In Her Shoes and the upcoming Certain Girls


The new friend
From the minute I met Cristina I felt a powerful connection to her. She's one of those people you immediately want to tell all your secrets to. It was December of 2006, and we were at an event to promote products her cosmetics company, Philosophy, had made to benefit my charity, The Joyful Heart Foundation, which helps sexual assault victims. Afterward, we became long-distance e-mail and phone friends, talking about our kids, and what we wanted out of life.

As a public figure, I find it can be hard to make new friends. People see me and think, She must be this way or that way because she's a "star." Of course, I'm just a person: Some days, I feel like I'm not a good enough actor, friend, wife or mother, or I just feel like I ate too much chocolate. With Cristina, I could simply be myself.

But here's when Cristina and I really fell in love: Last year I lost my oldest and best friend, Ann, to breast cancer; she left behind four little girls. Ann and I had gone to Catholic school together, and she was a leader from the fourth grade on. I worshipped her; she was the girl who taught me how to have confidence. After her death, I was talking with her sister, when out of the blue she mentioned the candle I'd created with Philosophy and said, "Ann and Cristina really loved each other." It blew my mind: I hadn't even known they were friends! Turns out, Cristina had even created a trust fund for each of Ann's girls. That touched me in such a profound way: I lost my own mother [actress Jayne Mansfield] when I was three, and it hit me hard that these girls no longer had a mom.

Quickly Cristina and I grew much closer, talking about what it means to be a mother, how we are mothers to many of our friends and to each other. I realized her friendship filled a hole I've had in my heart since I lost my own mother. Cristina is my light.
-- Actress Mariska Hargitay, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, as told to Laurie Sandell


The friend you'll keep for life
I often compare my lifelong friendship with Barbara to my parents' marriage. They tied the knot after knowing each other just six months and are still madly in love 48 years later. Sure, they were attracted to each other, but beyond that, there was a certain amount of luck in that they grew together in the same (weird) ways. I certainly could not have known when Barbara walked into Mrs. Sinapi's fifth-grade class in her red pants with bicycles all over them that 30 years later she'd be the one to advise me on what to get at the Barneys warehouse sale. But here we are.
Of course before we hit the joys of adulthood we had to suffer the iniquities of childhood. Like the time in gym class when we girls were forced to choreograph a modern-dance routine. It was the kind of thing my brothers would have come up with to torture me. The one saving grace about the memory is that my partner was Barbara. So today, when I hear "Last Dance" on the radio, there's someone I can call to say, "And step and one and kick and turn." And Barbara will be on the other end of the line doing the jazz arms right along with me. Sadly, most of our history is similarly humiliating. For example, the time we drove with our learner's permits, not to buy beer, but to get doughnuts.

I'm not surprised we've stayed best friends and a lot of the credit goes to Barbara, whose ability to improve herself has never stopped inspiring me. I've watched her quit smoking, cut out drinking, get out of debt and recently, although she's got a very demanding day job, become the lead singer of a band. She really is a rock star. When she tells me I can do something, I believe her, and the older I get, the more important that feels. We laugh the same amount at the same things, and tell each other every year that we look the best we've ever looked. The thought of getting old depresses me, but I know Barbara will be right alongside me advising me that knee-highs are fine with a skirt and I should get the correctional shoes in bone -- they'll go with everything.
-- Julie Klam, author of the memoir Please Excuse My Daughter


The couple friends
For the last two years, I've been in a threesome. No, not the kinky kind. What I mean is, I am best friends with a couple. The relationship formed in a way that would make a good sitcom: After a bad breakup, I left New York for the West Coast to look for an apartment with my friend Rachel. We found a beautiful two-bedroom with a view of the Golden Gate Bridge. Rach started dating a guy named Josh. I, entering rebound madness, dated everyone else. Soon, things with Josh and Rach got serious, and he started sleeping at our place. Often a roommate can feel ousted by this situation, left out. With us, it was exactly the opposite. Rach and Josh are the most inclusive people I know; they are happiest when surrounded by friends. Plus, both were commitment-phobes. Having someone else around meant things weren't too serious.

At first, I declined their invites. Did they really want a third wheel along? But Rach and Josh always insisted. So we went. Everywhere: ski trips to Tahoe, costume parties, expensive dinners in out-of-the-way restaurants. There are a lot of perks to being best friends with a couple. The biggest, of course, is that when you have a dating problem, you have four ears instead of two. For example:

ME: I'm supposed to go out with that guy tonight. Should I call?

RACH: Of course. You need to know about dinner. Call!

JOSH: No! Don't call! Men hate it when you call. Make him call.

RACH: Oh, yes. Maybe don't call. Yes! No call!

(This particular No Call materialized into No Date, which turned into a night out with Josh and Rach to celebrate my intact pride.)

As time went on, I came to love the situation. Why go on a potentially painful date, when I could hang out with my best friends? Then one August morning, I got a call at work. It was Josh. He was planning to ask Rachel to marry him. After about 10 seconds of unselfish excitement, the inevitable, nagging thought pushed its way forward: What's going to happen to me? For a while, we were all in denial. "We'll buy a house together!" Rachel said. It seemed like a great idea to me, until I told my mom about it.

"You're going to buy a house with a married couple?" she cried. "What, are they going to keep you in the basement?" Being ridiculed by my own mother brought the point home.

Moving out was hard, and in my new place, everything was so quiet. When I saw Josh and Rach, we'd talk frantically, catching up. "It's so hard to pick out outfits without you there!" Rach said.

"I know!" I said. "And now I have to do this dating thing on my own!" That part, however, was actually going well. In fact, shortly after I moved into my new place, I started dating the guy I'd had the biggest crush on throughout my threesome period -- Mr. No Call. "What took you so long?" I asked him one day.

"Well, honestly," he said, "I liked you, but I didn't want to date you, Rach and Josh." Oh. And so our threesome ended. Or mostly. Because just the other day I got a call from Josh. He had bought Rachel a gift -- a running ID with in-case-of-emergency contacts.

"I put my name, then yours," Josh said. "Is that OK?" Holding back tears, I told him it was entirely OK during any emergency. Good news, bad news, babies, sickness, health -- I'll be there.

"Likewise," he said. "Both of us. Anytime." I hung up feeling luckier than ever. Because even in my new independent-me phase, I have a lot of emergencies. I don't think one best friend could handle them all. I definitely need two.
-- Katie Crouch, author of the novel Girls in Trucks

The 9-to-5 friend
I once had a job I hated.

It was repetitive, isolating, mind-numbing, soul-crushing and downright boring -- and it took me 90 minutes to get there. But my day always had one bright spark in it: Jaime. A sunny, funny blond with a huge heart. Ours was a friendship built on IM:

Me: so far this day sucks.

Jaime: well i just saw mailroomboy. he's on his way toward you.

Me: love. but he's so thin. is that how they grow 'em in secaucus?

Jaime: srsly. he is like a stalk of asparagus.

Jaime: asparacaucus! you know he loves you, right?

Me: he loves everyone.

Jaime: but you guys have something. he thinks you're so cool! prolly because you ARE.

Over our six years working there, we became so close we couldn't make any major decisions without consulting each other.

Me: i ordered these skinny jeans, and i can't tell if they are hip or obscene. or obscenely hip?

Jaime: wanna meet me in the supply closet so i can see?

Later:

Jaime: those jeans are very slimming! rock 'em! would look good with your blue H&M top.

Me: ooh, i should try that! well, thx. i can't breathe, but thx.

The crazy part is, I actually became more productive: Knowing that a finished task meant I could meet Jaime at the vending machine for gossip, I was more likely to be focused and get it done.

Me: i can't deal with B. she is so neurotic, so annoying, so over-the-top. i am miz. totes in a road show of les miz. all of her emails are marked "urgent." and yet!

Me: so not urgent!

Jaime: i have chocolate here. and that astrology book.

Me: i'll be down in 5

Jaime and I weathered all sorts of guy situations together.

Me: i know i shouldn't want someone who doesn't want me, i just feel sad he's not into me.

Jaime: it is sad, because he would be upgrading his entire LIFE by being with you.

Me: haha, that makes me feel less defective.

Jaime: you're NOT defective. you're EFFECTIVE

Then last year I got a new job. It was bittersweet to say goodbye to the work I loathed and the girl I loved. But Jaime is still my best IM buddy. Just yesterday she wrote:

Jaime: so. asparacaucus.

Me: yes yes yes????

Jaime: got a haircut!

Me: omg

Jaime: it's ador. maybe i can send cameraphone pic later.

Me: omg plz!!!
-- Dodai Stewart is the senior editor of jezebel.com

The friends who show up
You never know until you know, you know? You hope your friends are what you think they are -- loyal, deep, fast -- but you don't find out for sure until, say, a big lump in your breast turns out to be a bad tumor. Shannon called from vacation in tears when she heard my news. Mellie hired me a housecleaner. Carolann knitted me a warm, kicky beret that I wore for months until it began to fall apart and my husband said I looked like a 40-year-old pothead. One by one, in choreographed succession, Phoebe, Tracy and Missy packed bags and came from points east to California, because they "had to be with me." They didn't know what they were doing -- my cancer was a first for all of us -- but they came anyway. They brought things -- art supplies for my two kids, books for my husband, slippers and sleeping caps for me.

And all this came as quite a surprise to me. Had I earned this much support?

I had lived most of my life in the company of men. When I was growing up, my older brothers dominated our house, as much with their giant bags of sweaty ice hockey equipment that filled the laundry room as with their epic tales of triumph at the boy-girl dance. I lived in the space that was left over, sometimes boldly (if ineffectively) inserting myself into the action, but mostly saving my voice for a later day. I've often pretended that I preferred hanging out with men. After all, I had learned how to cuss like a sea hand and tell a joke like a bartender and, damn it, I wasn't going to rein myself in for a bunch of lily-livered "ladies" who bored me with their small talk about wrapdresses and Pilates and sisal rugs.

But it was the ladies who saved me, physically and emotionally. My surgeon was a woman, as were my ob-gyn, my chemo nurse, my radiation oncologist, my genetic counselor and the psychologist who gave us the words "cancer is like weeds in a garden," a phrase my husband and I used over and over again with our small children (who are, incidentally, both girls). When my fertility was sacrificed to the cause, I found the empathy I so needed in the arms of Mary Hope and then Meg and then my mother, all of whom knew to listen for a long time (days) before reminding me that the two girls I already had were double-good, and would surely fill me up if I let them. Maybe it was the central role my breasts were suddenly playing in things, but looking back, it was a distinctly feminine time and one that left me wiser than it found me.

Since then, since I've become a regular person again instead of a cancer patient, I've kept a soft spot in my heart for guy friends, but I woo girlfriends. I cultivate and collect them because I know. Believe me, I know.
-- Kelly Corrigan, author of the New York Times best-seller The Middle Place. She can be found online at kellycorrigan.com

The friend who's been there
Our friendship began before I knew her, when I found her diary in a Dumpster outside of my New York City apartment building. I read the entries -- written in the 1930s when Florence was a teenager -- as if they were personal letters to me.

Three years later, a private investigator I'd hired led me to Florence, then 90 years old and living in Connecticut with her husband of 67 years. She wore red lipstick and Dior glasses and held out her arms to greet me. "What made you do this, Lily?" she asked. She wanted to know why a twentysomething would want to befriend someone her age. "Older women are invisible, we all know that," she said. But to me, she was still the young woman of the diary. And so began our unlikely bond -- one I'd come to rely on and cherish.

During Sunday visits over bagels and lox, we got to know each other. One weekend, Florence leaned back in her Eames chair and asked me, "How's your love life?" When I told her about my boyfriend, she grilled me further: "Is he the one?" He was my first love, which made me unsure. With an elegant shrug, she reassured me: "You have time."

She answered all my big questions. "What does it feel like, looking back on your life?" I asked Florence one day. She peered into her diary. "I love that girl, Lily," she said. "I love her when she was young and optimistic. It's possible, if I had listened to her...." Her voice trailed off. Florence had told me she'd wanted to be an artist. Now she asked, "If I'd been true to myself, would I have ended up with this ordinary life?"

It was as if she was speaking about me. Back when I'd found the diary, I was lost. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. And I was so self-conscious. I couldn't pass a mirror without looking, wondering if I'd ever find someone to love and understand me. Florence gave me perspective, something a friend my own age couldn't. "Self-consciousness has been the biggest curse of my life," she admitted. "It's like carrying a heavy shell, all the time. Are you that way? Lily, my advice is get rid of it as fast as you can."

Last April, Florence's husband, Nat, died. I flew to their house in Florida to be with her. "Lily and her new grandmother," she said as we took a photo. "You brought back my life," Florence confessed. "You brought mine back too," I told her.
-- Lily Koppel, author of the memoir The Red Leather Diary

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