I’ve lost my mother’s diamond.  Not the whole ring, mind you, just the diamond.

Cherise says it’s a sign. 

“A sign of what?” I ask.

“A sign of your future.” There’s an eerie golden gleam in her dark brown eyes.  “It’s sign that true love is coming your way.”

“Yeah, right,” I snort.  Not a ha-ha funny snort, but a full throttle, you-are-out-of-your mind kind of snort. “You crack me up.”

Cherise snorts back at me.  Only louder and better.  Her snort actually echoes off the walls of the school hallway, bouncing locker to locker until some freshman girls at the end of the hall turn to see what the racket’s all about.  They glance nervously in our direction then rush off to class.

We look at each other and both start laughing.  It’s absolutely hysterical that the girls ran off.  If they’d just hung out a little longer, they would have discovered that Cherise is not the type to harm the young.  Quite the opposite in fact.  She’s all about love and peace and cosmic harmony.  Cherise was born in the wrong decade.  She should have been a flower child of the Sixties. 

Cherise Gregory has been my best friend since kindergarten and lives in the apartment above mine.  When she’s not attending rallies for gender equality or animal rights, Cherise’s favorite pastime is finding signs in the universe and interpreting their meaning.

You might wonder why Cherise and I are friends at all. I like factual, hard science and keeping my feet grounded in the reality of what’s happening today, not what might be someday.  While Cherise lives for tomorrow and side-trips into metaphysical fantasy.

We may seem entirely different on the surface, but once you get to know us, you’ll see that Cherise and I have lots of things in common. And for those things we don’t have in common, well, that’s what makes our friendship interesting.

I’ve always thought that we’re good together because we balance each other out. We both love hangin’ at the Corner Café (it’s like our home away from home), reading romance novels (Cherise takes them seriously, I just think they’re fun), watching classic movies (we especially like the ones with happy endings), and of course – looking up at the stars.  We are both really into the stars. The big dif is that we come at our passion for the nighttime sky from different perspectives: Cherise is into hoo-ha voodoo astrology, whereas I prefer the academic pursuit of astronomy.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m really supportive when Cherise uses astrology to forecast the weather, intuit what questions will be on our exams, or make personal decisions like if she should buy the black or the brown clogs.  On the flip side, she’s infinitely patient when I regale her with some little known fact about the molecular makeup of Saturn’s rings or feel the burning need to share pictures of the Eagle Nebula. We each have our own perspective on the stars and we’re fine with our differences. I would even say it enhances our friendship…most of the time.

I’ve never tried to press Cherise to take a more scholarly approach to the planetary system and only once before has Cherise ever dared to make a prediction about anything connected to my personal life.  It was seven years ago, and neither of us have ever mentioned it since.  That’s why it’s incredibly odd that today she’s interpreting the loss of my mother’s diamond as something more than what it is: the accidental loss of a valuable, sentimental stone.

 “It’s definitely a cosmic marker,” Cherise reiterates as I grab my books for class and a bottle of water from my locker before flinging it shut.  The door jam is bent. I have to slam the door over and over again to finally get it closed. 

“I don’t really see how losing the diamond out of my mother’s ring can be a signal of impending romance,” I say as I twist the combination lock, mixing up the numbers. “Really, Cherise, you sound like a bad fortune cookie.”

 “You know I’m right.” Cherise closes her locker smoothly.  It clicks shut, but she doesn’t twist the lock.  She leaves it unlocked, preferring to trust in the goodness of human nature instead. So far, no one has stolen from her.

 “Sylvie, you aren’t in tune with the universe,” Cherise tisks, while we head down the hall toward the one class we take together, English Literature.  “Good thing for you, I am.” She grins. “It’s so obvious. Diamonds are the stone of engagement.  Engagement is what inevitably happens to a couple in love. When you find the right guy, he’ll give you a diamond of your very own.” She seems quite sure of herself. “Losing your mother’s diamond means that the right guy is coming soon. Really, really soon.”  Cherise smiles widely.  Her straight teeth are a reminder of the years we suffered through braces together. “I have no doubt. Love is headed your way, Sylvie Townsend.”

As usual, Cherise’s logic is beyond comprehension.  It’s a pretty big leap from losing a diamond to falling in love. It reminds me of the time in junior high that she got the stomach flu and interpreted it to mean that a big blizzard was coming. Don’t ask how she made that connection.  I have no idea either, but the snow started the next morning and school was closed for a week while the city’s maintenance crew shoveled out the town.

As much as I like to tell myself that Cherise’s predictions are ridiculous, things generally seem to happen the way she says they will. Weird, but true. As a scientist, however, I will tell you there’s no possible way she has an inside track on the universe, so let’s just say that what Cherise calls “predictions” I call lucky guesses.  And in general, Cherise is an exceptional guesser.

Copyright Stacia Deutsch and Rhody Cohon August 2007