Though Pearly and I lived in the same apartment building and attended the same preschool, it was painfully clear that our lives were vastly different, as evidenced by the shell-shaped doorbell attached to her front door.

My parents and I had a doorbell. It worked half the time. Whether or not it managed to eke out a sound, its rectangular button would then remain stuck, like a frowning adult sucking in their stomach. It would take my father two minutes and his favorite Leatherman pocket tool to pull it back out, the doorbell releasing a defeated KONG upon release.

The first time I visited Pearly’s apartment, seven floors above ours, I was introduced to her father, a stolid man with a firm handshake. I then met her older sister, whose approval I immediately and desperately craved. I never spoke a word to her but hoped she liked me anyhow.

Her mother didn’t seem quite human to me, a fairy, a pixie, and a princess wrapped up in stylish capris. After serving us an after-school snack of raisins and homemade fruit roll-ups, she opened up a foldable craft table, covered it in a plastic tablecloth, and presented us with soap-making kits.

While Pearly created a star smelling of lavender and her sister made a rose-scented heart, I concocted a mixture of mint, oats, and vanilla and attempted to fill the palm-sized shell mold. I then overpoured, iridescent soap base spilling out across the table. I barely even had time to process what had happened before her mother started cleaning me up.

“It’s okay,” she said. “It’s just soap. Now you’re extra clean.”

I stared down at my arms, watching her gently scrub my skin. It looked as though I had dipped my hands in glitter.

Everything in that apartment, I remember thinking, was just so beautiful.

One weekend, her mother took us to the beach, where we promptly began to pretend to be mermaids. About five minutes in, Pearly said she wanted her tail to be pink, and though I had recently informed my parents that my favorite color was blue, I was suddenly convinced blue was horrifically ugly.

“Okay,” Pearly said after about five minutes of bickering. “Then my tail is rainbow-colored.”

My jaw dropped. I hadn’t known such a thing was possible.

After another round of squabbling, we stomped off our separate ways, swearing we would never speak to each other again. I sat on the shore and watched Pearly splash her older sister with water.

I had only been sulking for about twenty seconds when Pearly’s mother took a seat beside me. She tucked her legs beneath her, sitting so properly, I found myself sitting up straighter, even as my feet sank into the sand.

I can’t remember, now, if I expected her to say something straight out of an after-school special or if I was too afraid she would be upset with me. She had never lost her patience with me before, but after those twenty seconds of self-reflection, I had realized I was wrong. Pearly could have her special tail if she wanted. As long as she agreed I had the better singing voice, one perfect for luring sailors, I didn’t mind.

Pearly’s mother did not say anything to me then. She just sat with me, her eyes narrowed, and stared out at the water. The longer the silence stretched on, the less I wanted to speak. I didn’t think I had ever felt that way in my life.

In the end, Pearly and I reunited and instead pretended we were trapped on a deserted island. By the time we piled back into her family’s white van, her mother in the driver’s seat and her father riding shotgun, we had forgotten all about our silly mermaid tails.

For the next year, we remained close friends, getting in trouble for whispering to each other all throughout the week and spilling watercolor paints across the plastic tablecloth on the weekends.

Then the worst happened: We were forced to attend different schools. Our mothers continued arranging the occasional get-together, and I distinctly remember attending Pearly’s next princess-themed birthday party, but once we were no longer classmates, our friendship fell apart.

I can’t recall the last time we spoke. Last I heard, she no longer goes by Pearly, or even Pearl, instead requesting that everyone call her by her middle name, Evelyn.

“Isn’t that funny?” my father asked no one in particular. “Everyone. Evelyn. The two sound the same.”

“No, they don’t,” I replied, my voice harsher than intended. I saw the hurt on his face but pretended that I hadn’t.

I see that car sometimes. That familiar white van, her mother so small and lithe, she’s all but invisible behind the wheel. I dread the day they trade in their old car for something new. Every time the elevator doors open, I both hope and fear it will be one of them. When it gets quiet late at night, I imagine what I’d say.

Remember the time we pretended to be Barbies and nearly broke our ankles from tottering around on flexed feet? Remember how we would dare each other to sneak into your sister’s room and steal one of her earrings, just to see if she’d notice? Remember when we argued on the beach and you told me you hoped a whale would come and eat me?

Sometimes, in my dreams, I’m right back on the shore with her mother. We still don’t say anything. We simply watch the waves. Every time I awaken, I find my cheeks wet. I stay where I am, my head on my pillow, and let the tears fill the nautilus of my left ear.

Then, rising slowly, I turn to the window and peer up at the moon. In my heart of hearts, I believe they’re looking out there with me, seven floors higher and a lifetime away.