Kiira and I met in kindergarten when we were five years old. It was the first day of school and I was struggling with the transition away from home. I have a vivid memory of tearing up in line as our teacher spoke to us. Kiira noticed and took my hand. From that point on, she became a friend and someone I could look to for comfort. In our early years as friends, I always looked up to Kiira. When she got a pair of red bell bottom pants, I asked my mom to buy me purple bell bottoms.
When Kiira got Converse High Top tennies, I asked my mom for a pair too. When Kiira decided to paint a blonde mermaid on our school mural, I decided to paint a brunette mermaid. I loved to spend the night at Kiira’s house because she had a lovely trundle bed. We would lay in the trundle bed and read comics from her massive Archie comic book collection.
She would always do this thing where she would practice funny faces in front of a mirror. It was like watching Carol Burnett, it really made me laugh. In second grade, we decided we wanted to play kickball at recess. At that time, only the boys were allowed to play kickball. We went to the principal’s office and told him why we believed we should be allowed to play with the boys.
Our mothers probably helped us plan this little delegation. The principal listened to us, and when we were finished, he gave us each a piece of candy and told us he’d look into the matter. A few weeks later, girls were given the right to play kickball with the boys. Kiira was always pulling me into new things. In fourth grade, she set me up with my first boyfriend. He was a very sweet kid, who as an adult took over his stepfather’s church in the Fillmore. In eighth grade, we were cheerleaders, which fortunately neither of us continued in high school.
In eighth through tenth grade, Kiira, myself and several of our other friends were part of a drama group run by our middle school drama teacher, and an actor friend of hers. The group, called the Percita Players, was perfect for Kiira because it was based in improvisation, which Kiira was a natural at. We would brainstorm ideas, run them through as improv and then our adult directors would help us shape them into actual scripted vignettes. I remember this one that we were supposed to be doing about teen alcohol and drug use for a community organization.
We had a phrase from an actual PSA: “Don’t take the car, you’ll kill yourself.” We loved that phrase! So Kiira does this scene as a drunken housewife. She’s putting sugar in the washing machine, and laundry detergent in the cake mix, drinking the whole time. It was really well done, and hilarious. She then goes out to her car, and we yell from backstage: “Don’t take the car, you’ll kill yourself!!” We thought it was so funny, but obviously, it wasn’t the serious message the community organization wanted about alcohol use. They didn’t use any of our vignettes, but we loved creating them.