Katy and Cheryl were best friends. Cheryl wore glasses and had blonde hair. Katy had a wide smile and dark hair. And though Cheryl lived in New York and Katy lived in Oxford, England, they talked on the phone every Sunday—Cheryl on her shiny red cordless phone, and Katy on her little black cell phone.

One Sunday, when Cheryl dialed Katy’s number, she was in a very bad mood. She had been to the grocery store after church, and they were out of her favorite soft drink, Fresca, and her favorite cookies, McVitie’s Plain Chocolate Digestive Biscuits; but she still bought orange juice and chocolate and bread and bananas. She had to carry the heavy bags back to her apartment all by herself, and her arms were tired—so tired she found it hard to hold up the phone.

Katy said, “Hello?”

“I thought you’d never answer!” said Cheryl.

“I’ve had a very tough week,” said Katy. “I’ve been teaching these silly undergraduates who don’t know the difference between a friar and a chicken. I even told them my frequent-friar-miles joke and they didn’t laugh!”

“That’s a stupid joke anyway,” Cheryl said.

“My husband Josh has a cold—”

“He should take some cold medicine!”

“And it’s been raining all week.”
            Cheryl rolled her eyes. “That’s why they call it Old Blighty.”

“And then the other day, when I was walking down Catte Street, one of the silly undergrads threw a bright yellow banana peel over his shoulder, and I slipped and fell and landed on my knee, and it hurt!”

Cheryl laughed and said “Hee hee hee! I bet you looked like an ox.”

Katy said, “Well! If you’re going to be rude to me, I’ll just hang up.”

And she did.

“Well!” Cheryl said. “I didn’t really want to talk to her anyway! I hope Josh sneezes and wheezes all over her.” But she was still very angry. She stomped across the apartment and kicked her toe on the table.

“OWWWWW!” Cheryl yelled. “I WANT COOKIES!”

But the grocery store hadn’t had the right cookies, so she decided to make some—her special banana oatmeal chocolate-chip cookies. She got out the bananas, the oatmeal, the sugar, the flour, the cinnamon, the baking soda, and of course, the chocolate chips.

            And she lingered for a long time over her music collection, choosing just what album she should listen to while she worked:  A Little Night Music by Sondheim? The College Dropout? Or perhaps, Bruce Springsteen’s Greatest Hits?

            After selecting the Boss, putting the CD in the CD player, and turning the music on, Cheryl began making the cookies.

            First she set the oven to three hundred fifty degrees.

Then she measured out all the dry ingredients except the oatmeal, one by one, and stirred them together. She added the egg, beating it thoroughly into the dry ingredients, with the oatmeal after that.

As she was mashing the banana, she remembered Katy’s fall and how she had laughed at it. That wasn’t very nice of me, Cheryl thought, and she felt the tiniest twinge of shame.

She mixed and mixed and mixed some more, then folded the chocolate chips into the batter. Once everything was blended, she took two teaspoons and spooned the batter onto the cookie sheet, though she ate a little of the dough herself (using a clean teaspoon, of course). Then she put the cookies in the oven and set the timer for fifteen minutes.

Cheryl picked up her photo album and looked at all the pictures of things she and Katy had done together through the years. There was Katy in her wedding dress in Oxford, and Katy barefoot on the beach in Coney Island; Katy looking out at the water by the Brooklyn Bridge, and Katy and Cheryl on a mountain in the Peak District of England.

Cheryl remembered that Katy was the best friend she’d ever had. She felt very sorry she’d been so rude, and she knew she needed to make it up to Katy.

The timer beeped. Cheryl took the cookies out of the oven and ate one, just to see if it was done.

It was delicious, and the taste put her right out of her bad mood.

“Boy, Katy would really like these!” Cheryl said.

She decided she would send Katy a box of the cookies to say she was sorry.

She got a box and packing tape and wrapping paper and a Sharpie, and once the cookies were all finished and cooled, Cheryl put them into the box one by one, with waxed paper to fill up the gaps and foil to keep them fresh.

Then she labeled the box “Katy Beebe, Oxford, England,” and took it to the post office. She knew Katy would be happy with the cookies . . .

. . . and indeed, Katy was.

When they talked the next week, Cheryl apologized, and they were friends again.

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