Hey Dianne,
If you and your friend are both logged into live chess at once and have each other friended, you'll appear in one another's 'Friends' tab- just look for where it says Friends- then right click on their name and issue a challenge. If they accept the challenge the game will get created. The following may be useful if you encounter any further difficulty:
http://support.chess.com/index.php?_m=knowledgebase&_a=viewarticle&kbarticleid=739&nav=0,82
http://support.chess.com/index.php?_m=knowledgebase&_a=viewarticle&kbarticleid=725&nav=0,82
There's got to be something simple that I'm missing. A friend and I are trying to play each other on line live instead of just online. We've both already friended each other and we can start games, but we can't figure out how to set it up to play each other.
Is there a help file somewhere?
Thanks ahead of time,
Diane Merriam