Dear C.

My best friend is leaving SB. The first friend I ever made here. The one who threw my baby shower and when I told her I was pregnant said 'you're lying, shut the fuck up, you would never tell me like this, over the phone, you're lying'. Her husband yelled 'I bet it's a girl'.

When she was pregnant we had to stop going out for cocktails, so instead we went to see every movie out in the cinemas, and in a town as pretentious and arty as this one we saw some pretty weird shit. Remember those 70-year-olds having sex? I can't seem to get that one out of my head. C. is awesome to go to the movies with. I think I will miss that the most. Mrs Skeletor is pretty damn good because she sneaks in a bottle of wine and always pours it during the quietest part of the film, but C. is the dogs bollocks because of her loud and wholly inappropriate laughter. Do you remember when the grandfather shot the son in Monsters Ball? I do, because C. was eight months pregnant and we screamed and laughed so hard I thought she'd deliver right there and then.

We have been through two children and three last names together. We were the undefeated champions of the Santa Barbara tennis league in 2000 (I'm not telling you what division). We used to play singles for hours in shorts and T-shirts dripping with sweat. I always knew not to mess with her when we'd turn up for an early match and she didn't have her eyebrows on yet. We regularly fought over the 'chalice' the mac daddy of all trophys. For the record, I still have the chalice, she never did win it back from me.

She will kill me for publishing any photo of her. She is already sweating bullets and scanning down this post having read that last sentence thinking, 'oh no you didn't'.

LK and I went to their wedding in Maui; we were two of only five people on that beach and it was gorgeous. I saw her son on the day he was born, he was the first newborn I'd ever held. Her husband called me from the OR to say it was a boy and that he was called 'Colin'; her insides were still on the operating table and she was still managing to mess with me. He's not called Colin, thank the Lord. She told me that if she had a girl she'd call her Brandy Star and I said I'd buy her a pole for her crib. I told her what my girls names were and she called me a stuck-up cow.

I have testified in court for her.

She was the only non-relative who stayed in the waiting room in the hospital for Anna to appear. She had to sit on a couch between LK's Mom and LK's Dad's girlfriend for hours. No friend should suffer that.

When I was 8-months pregnant with Anna I was walking through the make-up section in Macy's when it suddenly hit me that I might be having a girl and that I knew nothing, nothing about make-up, or the 'right' jeans or any of that stuff. The only thing that kept me from curling up in a little ball was the thought that if my daughter wanted to know about anything girly I'd always be able to refer her to C. God help Anna now.

It is hard living in a town where my husband grew up, where he knows everyone. It took me a long time to make some good solid friendships of my own, friends that will last the test of time. I know that C. is one of those friends and that's why I'm truly gutted, but also happy for her because I know she's got a better life ahead of her, and I know she'd better keep in touch because I have no idea what I'm doing out here without her.

I give it one hour before she phones me to tell me to take the photo down.