IMAGINARY FRIENDS - Page 49

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IMAGINARY FRIENDS!

13

Jeff walked around the house. Grandmother Tanner, Grandfather Tanner, and Davey all followed him in a mini-entourage. Jeff tried to avoid them as he combed through each room, looking behind drapes, inside closets, under beds.

“Jeffrey, you’re not well,” Grandmother Tanner said.

“So maybe some fresh air and a change of scenery will do me good.”

“But there’s nothing open on Christmas!”

“Something’s always open.”

“Nothing good.”

“I don’t need a five-course meal, mother.”

“Well, you can’t expect me to eat at a greasy little diner – ”

“Well don’t come then!”

“Why can’t we all just stay in?”

Jeff whirled around. His mini-entourage stopped in their tracks, afraid of getting too close.

“Because ANYTHING’S better than staying in and having you drive me CRAZY!”

Davey spoke up. “Bad news, Dad. You already dere.”

“Shush,” Jeff said, though without much conviction. He was looking at his mother, who seemed a bit hurt – and more than a little angry. “Mother…look, I just…I need to get out of the house for awhile. Just a little while. A change of scenery, some different food.”

“I hope it wasn’t anything he ate,” Grandfather Tanner whispered to Davey.

Jeff heard it, and his features softened. Occasionally he had to be reminded that, despite all his differences with his parents, despite the worlds apart they sometimes seemed to be, despite the fights and bitter words…they really did love him.

“I don’t want to start seeing things, too,” Grandfather Tanner finished.

Jeff scowled.

Davey beamed. “I do, I do!”

“Well, BAD NEWS – I was crazy before breakfast.”

“Jeffrey,” Grandmother Tanner began.

Jeff turned heel and ran away. His posse followed close behind.

What he didn’t want to tell them was that upon returning to the dining room that morning, he had expected to point out the knife and the creamer and the sugar dispenser and the flower centerpiece on the floor under the table. Inarguable proof. Everyone would see them, then exclaim, How did they get there? and suddenly realize that maybe, just maybe, Jeff wasn’t so crazy after all.

Except that when he walked in, the knife, the creamer, the sugar dispenser, and the flower centerpiece were all back on the table where they belonged.

After that, Jeff had searched the house for two hours non-stop and found no sign of the chubby little kid. And there was no sign that he had left, either: no open windows, no unlocked back doors, nothing.

All Jeff knew was that he really did not want to be in that house. What he really wanted was to spend the night in a hotel and called the exterminator (or would an exorcist be better?), but a move that extreme might prompt someone to start calling psychiatric hotlines. So dinner it would have to be.

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IMAGINARY FRIENDS - Page 48

Hey - check out the trailer for my book,
IMAGINARY FRIENDS!

Jeff held the phone to his ear. “Hello?”

A deep, aggressive baritone boomed on the other end. “Tanner!”

Jeff closed his eyes, now in more pain than ever. It was his boss.

“Hi, Mr. Carruthers.”

“We moved record product, Tanner! Record! Big fat numbers, humongous!”

Jeff opened his eyes. The pain had suddenly receded.

“That’s…that’s great, sir.”

“Dinner at my house on Wednesday! Time to celebrate!”

Ow…the pain was back…

“Uh…okay.”

“I’m looking forward to your presentation, Tanner! Get me another record Christmas next year, boy!”

“Yep…you betcha…”

“Don’t forget the focus group tomorrow, and – what was it, there was something else – oh – Merry Christmas!”

“Merry – ”

Click. The dial tone buzzed in his ear before he could finish.

“…Christmas.”

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IMAGINARY FRIENDS - Page 47

Jeff pressed on.

“Ohhhhh, I got you guys GOOD! You actually thought that I – I can’t believe you guys! You really – I mean – Mother, come onnnn, the rat was one thing, but this? Elise?”

Off in the kitchen, the phone rang.

“I’ll get it,” everyone said at once, but Davey was the first to act. He was already out the living room door before any of the adults were on their feet.

“Boy, you guys are gullible. You guys…I can’t believe you fell for it! You are so, so gulli – ”

Underneath the table, there was a resounding BUUUUUURRRRP!

“THAT’S IT, YOU LITTLE TWIT, COME HERE!” Jeff shouted, and dove beneath the table.

The little kid may have been chubby, but he was fast.

His eyes bulged as Jeff flew towards him, but then he darted out of the way, just inches ahead of Jeff’s grasping hands. In a flash, he was out from under the table and into the open.

“DO YOU SEE HIM?” Jeff howled. “DO YOU SEE HIM NOW?!”

Jeff clattered through the knives and sugar shaker and creamer tin and flower centerpiece, emerging between Grandmother and Grandfather Tanner’s chairs. Jeff would have appreciated the look on their faces, had he not been concentrating solely on one thing.

The chubby kid was only a few feet away, and running for his life.

Jeff dashed after him. “COME BACK HERE YOU BRAT! COME BACK HERE!”

The chubby kid was already through the dining room / kitchen door. Jeff bolted through it, shouting, “COME BACK HERE RIGHT NOW!”

The kid was maybe five feet in front of Jeff, his chubby little legs pumping like mad.

What Jeff didn’t see was the Bubble Baby lying on the kitchen linoleum.

So he had no idea what was happening when one foot hit the plush toy, and the rest of his body went airborne.

POP! Out flew the Bubble Baby –

WHAM! Jeff’s back slammed into the floor.

Jeff lay there, the breath knocked out of him, trying to gasp for breath, not feeling it come at all. He was panicking, he was hurt, but still he had the presence of mind to crane his neck up and look past his feet.

The chubby kid was already out of the kitchen…into the hallway…and out of sight.

Jeff let his head fall back with a thud on the linoleum. Defeated. Despairing. Dying. Then air came back into his lungs with a WHOOSH, and he gasped like a fish on dry land.

As he lay there panting, Davey walked up with the cordless phone.

“What’s wrong, Dad?”

“Daddy’s seeing things, sport.”

Davey looked excited. “That’s good!”

“I don’t think so…my college days are probably just catching up with me, that’s all.”

Davey was not to be deterred. “Maybe you’re seeing my imaginary friends!”

“If that’s the case…that’s bad. That’s unquestionably bad.”

Davey frowned and handed Jeff the phone. “It’s for you,” he said, then padded off back to the dining room.

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“DO YOU SEE HIM? HUH? DO YOU SEE HIM?!”

Jeff waited anxiously for the screaming to begin, the sounds that would confirm that yes, he had been right, and yes, he wasn’t crazy…

But the screaming never started. Just silence as the seven heads v-e-e-e-e-ry slowly reemerged from beneath the table, all with concerned looks on their faces. Even Brian and Davey.

Elise tried to look at him kindly…but she didn’t do too good a job of hiding her nervousness.

“Jeff…there’s nothing there.”

Jeff stared at her in horror.

“Dammit, he disappeared again!” and he jerked his head back under the table.

There sat the chubby kid, merrily licking eggs and bacon grease from his fat little fingers.

“NO, HE’S STILL HERE!” Jeff shouted. “LOOK, LOOK, QUICK QUICK LOOK!”

Nobody’s head was reappearing underneath the table, though.

Jeff pulled his own head back out. Everyone was staring at him.

“LOOK – FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, LOOK!” he yelled at them.

They all sat there frozen, unsure of what was going on. The only sure thing was that they were definitely not looking under that table again.

Jeff peeked under the table.

The chubby little kid waved at him before shoving his mouth full of pancakes.

“DAMMIT, THERE HE IS! LOOK AT HIM!” Jeff commanded.

Grandmother Tanner’s steeliness served her well when everyone else was too shocked to talk.

“Jeffrey, stop this right now!” she demanded.

“But…but he’s right there…right under the table…” Jeff said forlornly. “If you’d just look…”

The chubby little kid just sat there snorting with glee as he continued to stuff his face.

Jeff looked down at him, then up at the fearful eyes around him. Davey and Brian were open-mouthed; Elise was ashen with fear; Granny Jobson looked very concerned. Nana just looked perplexed (as always). Grandmother and Grandfather Tanner seemed more embarrassed than alarmed that their son was having a nervous breakdown.

Jeff didn’t really doubt his own sanity. Well, he did and he didn’t…because he was still convinced there was a kid under that table. What didn’t make sense was how it got there, and how no one else could see it, but Jeff was positive there was a chubby little kid on the floor who had stolen the flower centerpiece.

But everyone else thought he was crazy.

Maybe it was his mother’s influence, but Jeff was bothered more by everyone else’s opinion than by the question of whether that opinion might be right.

Jeff dropped the tablecloth, and made himself laugh. “…ha…ha…”

It was hollow and fake, so he stopped, then tried again. “Ha ha ha ha…” A bit more natural. “Hahahahaha…you thought I really thought I saw a fat little kid under the table stealing our food? You believed me?”

The group looked at each other warily. The very faintest of smiles began to pop up here and there, although it was impossible to tell if they were Oh…it was a joke smiles or if they were of the Oh God he’s starting again variety.

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There went the syrup tureen…

“I am fine,” Jeff insisted.

A napkin…a knife…a candlestick…the flower centerpiece…all disappeared over the side of the table, and no one said a word about it.

“On your side of the family, if I remember correctly,” Grandfather Tanner said to Grandmother Tanner.

“There was no such thing!” she snapped back.

Jeff closed his eyes. Relaxed.

I am fine, he repeated silently to himself. Fine. I am fine. Everything is fine. Fine, fine, fine. Fine fine fine fine fine FINE FINE.

“Oh, Geraldine,” Granny Jobson chuckled, “it’s alright to have a few screws loose, as long as everybody’s having a good time.”

“Amen,” said Nana.

Jeff slowly opened his eyes.

No hand.

But also no napkin, no knife, no candlestick, and no flower centerpiece, either.

Hmmm. If those things weren’t here…and if he was fine (which he was)…then where did it all go?

“It might be alright for you, but not in the Tanner family,” Grandmother Tanner sniffed.

“That’s what I’m saying,” Grandfather Tanner continued. “It was in your family, the Pattersons.”

“I will not listen to my lineage being slandered,” Grandmother Tanner hissed. “At least my family didn’t make their money off of bootlegging in the ‘20’s.”

“What’s bootlegging?” Davey asked. “I wanna bootleg!”

Jeff leaned over in his chair and slowly lifted up the tablecloth.

Grandfather Tanner clanked down his silverware. “We had a very fine president who came from bootleggers!”

Jeff stuck his head under the table.

And there, surrounded by bacon, eggs, syrup, saltshaker, grapefruit, creamer, and flower centerpiece, sat a chubby little kid with eyes like black buttons, stuffing his grimy little face.

Jeff stared at the chubby little kid.

The chubby little kid stared back at Jeff.

They both screamed at the same time.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!” Jeff howled.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!” screeched the chubby little kid.

Jeff jerked up his head, and slammed it against the underside of the table.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!” Jeff screamed again.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!” bellowed the chubby little kid.

Jeff finally got his head out from under the table. Everyone around him, even Davey and Brian, looked like they’d just seen the mouth of hell open up and the devil step out.

“THERE’S A KID UNDER THERE!” Jeff screamed.

“WHAT?!” everyone yelled back.

“THERE’S A KID UNDER THERE! LOOK, LOOK, BEFORE HE DISAPPEARS!”

Seven heads ducked under the tablecloth. Davey, Brian, Granny, Elise, Nana, Grandmother Tanner, and Grandfather Tanner.

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“I’m fine,” Jeff said as soon as he regained his powers of speech. “I’m fine, I’ve never been – ”

And then the hand came back.

Without a second thought, Jeff lunged across the table!

The hand saw him, or sensed him, or whatever, and pulled up short.

Jeff flung out his arm as he sailed through the air. He almost had it – was mere inches away –

The hand darted back out of reach.

CRASH! Jeff slammed into the table, arm outstretched, and watched the little pink fingers disappear under the tablecloth.

The hand was gone.

But that wasn’t the worst of it. It took Jeff a second to realize what had happened, and exactly where he was: lying chest down in a platter of eggs.

He stood up and looked down at his front. Eggs and hotcakes were plastered to his robe and pajamas.

“I’m fine, I’m fine, I just slipped.”

Granny Jobson leaned over to help pick off the food. He stepped back, out of her reach.

“No, I want this, I’m fine, that’s why I got it.”

He scraped the food off his clothes and onto the plate. He pulled a sausage out of his pajama top pocket and took a bite.

“See? Everybody just calm down, okay? I’m fine.”

Elise’s earlier look of amusement had now become out-and-out worry.

“Jeff…are you alright?”

“YES. I am FINE.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m fine! I’m – ”

And then it suddenly appeared again. Creeping over the tablecloth.

The chubby little hand.

Jeff just stared at it.

“…fine,” Jeff said, gritting his teeth.

“It’s just that this is a little out of character for you.”

The hand reached up between Elise and Nana, grabbed a grapefruit half, and dragged it down to the depths on the other side of the table.

No one else noticed.

“Yes, Jeffrey, you’re acting shamefully,” Grandmother Tanner rebuked him.

Jeff watched the hand reappear, take a fistful of eggs, and dart back down.

“I’m FIIINE,” Jeff said.

Whoops – there went the salt shaker.

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Elise and Granny Jobson turned away, and went back to chatting with each other. Grandmother and Grandfather Jobson resumed discussion of some fundraiser at the Minton Park Country Club. Nana went back to looking at Brian’s drawing.

Jeff shook his head, and stabbed a forkful of pancake on his plate. As he lifted it to his mouth, his eyes looked up.

There was the hand again, this time stealing a pancake. Both of them disappeared over the edge of the table.

Jeff whipped his head to the right –

There was Davey, drinking his juice.

Jeff whipped his head to the left –

There was Brian, still doodling.

Jeff whipped his head back to center –

And there was the hand again, filching a bacon strip!

Jeff flung back his chair, grabbed the tablecloth, and whooshed it up in the air as he stuck his head under the table.

Except…

There was nothing there.

No little hand, no little body for the hand to be attached to…just a bunch of old grannypeople’s legs.

Who were probably staring at him, right this second.

Jeff sl-o-o-o-o-owly pulled his head out from under the table. He knew what he was going to find.

They didn’t disappoint him: every eye at the table was fixed on him.

Through a mouthful of food, Davey asked, “See the rat again, Dad?”

“You be quiet!” Jeff smoothed out the tablecloth, then smiled calmly at the rest of the table. “I thought I, uh, lost a contact.”

Still with the food in his mouth, Davey pointed out, “You don’t wear glasses, Dad.”

“Davey! Don’t talk with your mouth full!”

Davey shrugged, leaned over his plate, and dutifully spat out his mouthful of pancakes.

“You don’t wear glasses, Dad!” Davey said again, much clearer and louder.

“That’s – ”

Jeff paused. It was true, he didn’t wear glasses. He had just needed an excuse, and that’s what they did on sitcoms: they lost contacts under tables. Obviously, he watched too much TV.

Since he didn’t have a reply, he decided to go after Davey again. Always a good diversionary tactic.

Jeff pointed at the ground-up pile of goo Davey had just spit out. “That’s disgusting! Don’t do that!”

“Make up your mind, Dad,” Davey said, and stuffed the chewed pancakes back in his mouth.

The horror of seeing that rendered Jeff speechless. Unfortunately, everyone else was looking with concern at Jeff, so his silence opened the door wide for comments.

“Jeff, are you feeling okay?” Elise asked.

“Jeffrey, you didn’t tell me you wear glasses now,” Grandmother Tanner accused.

“See? First the brain goes, then the eyes,” Grandfather Tanner pointed out.

“Eat up, Jeff, you really are getting lightheaded,” Granny Jobson said.

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IMAGINARY FRIENDS - Page 42

12

“But I saw the thing before Davey went Yellow Submarine!”

The whole family sat around the dining room table. Nana and Elise were there also, partaking in the Christmas morning feast. Heaping platters of pancakes, sausage, bacon, and eggs made a circuit around the table. Tubs of soft butter sat next to syrup bottles, and crystal plates lay decked with fresh berries of all sorts.

Only two people were not hungrily tucking in. One was Brian, who had returned to form and was sketching in a brand new pad he’d received that morning. The other person was Jeff, who was trying – unsuccessfully – to prove to the others he wasn’t insane.

“I saw a lump under the paper, like something was racing underneath – ”

“Hush now, Jeff, and eat. You’re probably just lightheaded,” Granny Jobson said as she loaded his plate with eggs.

Grandmother Tanner fanned herself with a napkin. “You should be ashamed, giving me a scare like that.”

“It’s true, I swear!” Jeff cried.

Davey chomped on a sausage. “I don’t think you’re crazy, Dad.”

Jeff looked down to his right, where his son sat atop a stack of phone books again. “I don’t want to hear anything from you! You’re the reason they think I’m nuts!”

“And I quote,” Elise said, “`But I saw the thing before Davey went Yellow Submarine.’ Unquote.”

Jeff glared at her. Elise smiled back sweetly.

Davey held up his little finger. “Pinky doesn’t think you’re crazy, either, Dad. But Modine’s not so sure.”

Jeff pointed at Davey as he addressed the table. “Look, you’re going to call me crazy, when his finger’s talking to him?”

“Better be careful, Jeff,” Granny Jobson advised. “His finger’s the only one here defending you.”

“Why would I believe his finger?” Nana asked. “Maybe his finger’s crazy, too.”

“He’s five years old. He’s allowed to be crazy,” Elise said.

“There comes a time in every man’s life, Jeffrey, when the mind just isn’t what it used to be,” Grandfather Tanner said. “No need to be ashamed of it.”

“I’m not crazy – I just thought I saw something, that’s – ”

Across from Jeff, a tiny hand reached from beneath the table and grabbed a sausage from a plate. It then ducked out of sight.

“DAVEY!” Jeff yelled.

“What, Dad?”

Jeff looked down and to his right. There sat Davey, chomping away at his eggs.

Jeff looked across the table, at the platter of sausages.

He looked to his left. Brian was drawing placidly, totally engrossed in his sketch.

Jeff looked around. Everyone else was eyeing him suspiciously.

Jeff looked back at Davey.

“Did you…”

“Did I what?” Davey asked.

Jeff shook his head, totally perplexed. “Nevermind.”

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Jeff hurriedly wrapped his robe around him, and pleaded with the faces staring up at his. “I thought…I thought there was something under the paper…and it was headed straight for Davey…and I – ”

Something touched Jeff’s foot underneath the paper.

“AAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!” he screamed, and vaulted onto the nearest coffee table. Everyone in the room jumped up about three inches.

Everyone except for Davey, who surfaced from beneath the paper making submarine noises.

“AH-ROOOGA! AH-ROOOGA!”

And then he went back under.

Jeff looked around the room, then down at the coffee table he stood on. He cleared his throat, pulled his robe tighter about him, and stepped back onto the floor with as much dignity as he could muster.

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Jeff ignored his mother, and chose to wax nostalgic. “Ah, tighty whities,” he said to Elise. “No Christmas would be complete without them.”

Elise looked at him funny. “What are you talking about?”

“Every Christmas, I got a package of six tighty whities. Every day after Christmas, me and the neighborhood kids would use them as slings for throwing snowballs. We’d put them on snowmen we made and…”

Something caught Jeff’s eye. On the far end of the room, under a hundred discarded present wrappings, there was a rustling. A movement.

“And what?” Elise prodded.

The rustling became more pronounced now – more like burrowing. A little hump moved to and fro in the tatters of colored wrapping.

“Do you see that?!” Jeff pointed.

“What?”

Wrapping paper started to churn as the thing sped up.

“That!”

“What?!”

Now paper flew in the air as the thing (whatever it was) weaved a drunken course across the room!

“I don’t know, maybe a – ”

Jeff stared in disbelief as the thing suddenly straightened its course – and headed right for Davey.

“ – RAT? DAVEY, WATCH OUT!”

Jeff leapt from the couch.

“A RAT?!” Grandmother Tanner screamed, and scrambled up onto her chair.

“A rat?” Davey asked excitedly, glancing all around. “Cool, can I keep it for a –”

A shadow fell across him, and he cut his question short. He looked up to see Jeff soaring above him, face in a panic, arms outstretched, a pajama’d superman in a slo-mo arc through the air.

Then he hit the floor.

WHAM! Jeff made contact just behind Davey, and cut through the wrapping paper like a hall-of-famer sliding for home. Within seconds he was on his feet, tearing through the paper, tossing colored scraps like a three year-old in a leaf pile.

“It’s here!” he shouted. “I saw it! It was moving in the paper, it was making a bee-line right for Davey – ”

Suddenly Jeff slipped. BOOM! Everyone in the room jumped as he began to thrash about and scream!

“AAAAAHHHHHH! IT’S IN MY ROBE! OH MY GOD, IT’S IN MY ROBE, IT’S – ”

Jeff jumped to his feet and tore off his robe. Then his pajama top. Then his pajama bottoms. He jumped up and down on the pile of clothes, trying to pulverize his attacker.

“IT’S IN THERE, IT WAS TRYING TO GET ME – ”

He yanked up the clothes and felt through them, patting them down, shaking them out.

“IT’S…it’s…not there…”

Jeff stopped and looked up at everyone staring at him in shock (except for Elise, who hid a delighted smile beneath one hand).

About then he realized he was half-naked, standing in the middle of a room filled with old folks and children, wearing only a pair of polka-dot boxers.

“Get butt-nekkid, Dad!” Davey shouted.

“Jeffrey Tanner, don’t you dare!” Grandmother Tanner warned.

“Boy, put your clothes on right now!” Grandfather Tanner said.

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11

A storm of wrapping paper! Gold, silver, shimmering red, metallic green, floating through the air! Candy canes and nutcracker dolls! Tinsel-decked trees! Santas and reindeer! Bows, ribbons, unlooked-at cards!

Davey and Brian tore at their presents like cyclones through a Hallmark shop. For once, Brian’s sketchbook was nowhere in sight.

Granny Jobson sat with them on the floor in a housedress, up to her waist in ripped-up paper.

Grandmother and Grandfather Tanner sat in chairs, far above the din and muck, looking down on the proceedings in more ways than one.

Jeff sat on the couch, a long blue robe covering his pajamas. Tufts of his hair stuck out here and there in a minor case of bedhead. Next to him were Elise and her mother, Nana, both of them nicely dressed. Nana was a cute little bird, with a big smile and a somewhat perplexed look on her face.

“What’s the little one’s name again?” she kept asking Elise. “What about the sad one?”

Just then, Davey ripped into an oddly shaped package. When the paper was gone, he had to take a minute to register what he held in his hand: a Bubble Baby.

Davey collapsed to his knees and addressed the heavens like on old-time revival preacher, or maybe just a rock star.

“THANK YOU, SANTA! YOU DA’ BOMB!”

Nana blinked. “He’s very loud for such a little boy.”

Jeff laughed, and looked over at Elise. “Thanks for coming.”

“Wouldn’t miss it for anything,” she smiled back.

Davey and Brian reached for their next batch of presents, and tore them open to find…underwear. Tighty whities.

For once, Davey was speechless.

Grandmother Tanner gave an approving nod. “You can always use a fresh change of underwear.”

Grandfather Tanner chimed in, “In case you get hit by a car and have to go straight to the hospital.”

Davey and Brian sat there with the underwear in their hands, and stared at Grandfather Tanner.

He began to fidget.

They kept their gaze on him.

He shifted in his chair.

Still they stared.

Grandfather Tanner looked away.

But Davey and Brian didn’t.

Finally, Grandfather Tanner fished out two quarters from his pocket and tossed them to the boys.

“I really don’t think you should be giving the children money all the time,” Grandmother Tanner sniffed.

“That’s the only way we can buy presents we like,” Davey answered.

Grandmother Tanner glared at Davey. If looks could spank, one little boy in the room would have a very red bottom.

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He looked in both directions along the side of the house, past the shrubbery that grew along it. The bushes were knee-high, and grew right up alongside the house. No one could hide there – and no one was. There was nothing.

He looked at the stubbly winter grass, hoping to see some kind of depression in the blades, some indication of a foot that had passed by. Nothing.

He looked at the trees in the backyard, the oak and pecan, and the few lonely pines. Only the oak tree was big enough to hide someone standing behind it. Jeff darted to the side suddenly, reindeer raised like a samurai sword, hoping to surprise whomever might be behind it –

There was no one behind the tree.

He backed his way up to the door, carefully looking all around as he went.

There was no one here.

He stepped back inside, took a final look around, and then shut the door. The locking deadbolt sounded loud and final in the cold December air.

The lights stayed on. And then, finally, Jeff’s footsteps retreated inside the house.

Next to the door, the two-foot-high shrubbery twitched a little. The leaves parted the tiniest bit.

Had Jeff been in the yard now, he still wouldn’t have been able to see. Only by crouching down, by squatting on all fours, could he have glimpsed the human eyes that squinched up in merriment deep within the branches. But he would have heard the giggles, soft and innocent, that drifted into the night air.

The branches rustled back into place, and the giggles died away. And everything was silent once again.

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“Davey, there’s a pile of toilet paper in the bathroom!”

Brian looked over from his pillow. Davey bolted upright.

“I didn’t do it,” he said.

“Well who did?”

“…another little boy with my face.”

Jeff glared. “Well, tell him that if he does it again, another little boy with his face is going to get a spanking.”

Jeff closed the door.

Davey frowned. “That’s not very fair!” he called out.

***

Jeff walked back to the bathroom, and gathered the heaping pile of toilet paper in his arms. He was going to have to dispose of it in the garbage cans out back, and quietly, like a mobster with his cement shoes. All Jeff needed was for his mother to find it in the middle of the night. Boy, would he hear about that in the morning.

Waste not, want not. Jeff hadn’t imparted the correct values to his boys. Didn’t Davey know there were little kids in Africa who didn’t have any toilet paper to wipe with?

Actually, he doubted she’d say the last part, but why give her the chance?

He was out in the hallway, arms loaded with unspooled Angel Softness, when he heard the giggling again. It was down the stairs, on the first floor.

Jeff looked in the opposite direction, over at Davey and Brian’s room. The door was shut.

Again, he hadn’t heard anything open or close. How did that kid do it?

Jeff walked quietly over to the boys’ room, and wondered how he should go about it – stand there with the toilet paper in his arms, waiting for Davey to show up again? No, the kid might take forever to get back to bed. Better to go track him down, corner him, maybe make him take out the toilet paper himself.

Jeff opened the door. A sliver of hallway light fell on the bunk beds, and Jeff saw something he didn’t understand at first.

Both Brian and Davey were in bed.

A cold hand slowly closed around Jeff’s heart, and he had trouble drawing his next breath.

Someone was in the house.

The giggling, again. Ghostly and far away…

Jeff quietly closed the door, dropped the toilet paper, and ran for the stairs.

He got to the first floor and looked around wildly.

A giggle. Not that far away – it sounded like it was in the den –

Who was it? It sounded like a kid – a neighborhood kid? A thrill-seeker, someone here on a dare? Or a teenager? Someone robbing the presents under the tree?

Jeff looked around. A plastic reindeer sat on the foyer table. He grasped it by the head, brandished it like a club, and started for the den.

By the time he was in the room, the giggling was further away, back in the hall.

Jeff ran as fast as he could. As he got into the hallway, he had a clear view of the kitchen – and the open back door. The screen door slammed shut the second he looked, but Jeff couldn’t see anything but darkness beyond the wire mesh.

And outside, the giggling.

He ran through the kitchen, clicking the switch for the outside light on his way to the door.

When he burst through, the back yard was painted in long shadows thrown by the spotlights. He paused, breathing hard, and listened.

Nothing. Silent as a snowfall. No sounds anywhere, not even the wind in the trees.

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IMAGINARY FRIENDS - Page 36

Jeff looked at his reflection in the mirror. Was that the face of a man who couldn’t move on? Who was stuck? Who was letting life pass him by?

Maybe.

No…no, it wasn’t true. Life wasn’t passing him by. Life was all around him! Life was bowling him over! He had so much life, he couldn’t take it all! He hadn’t said anything at the time, but yes, he had considered possibly, maybe asking someone to do something sometime…

Hey, wait! He’d invited her to Christmas morning tomorrow, hadn’t he? And she was coming, wasn’t she?

Jeff immediately felt guilty, and stopped that train of thought in its tracks. He’d invited Elise because the boys liked her, because she was important to the family.

The boys. Right there. More life than he could handle. How could they not count? He had two wonderful kids, full of energy, full of life, kids he loved –

Something was wrong.

In the corner of the mirror, Jeff could see something white. And big.

He turned around…

There on the floor sat another mound of toilet paper. A good two feet high, at least.

Jeff’s hands tightened on the edge of the sink, and his teeth gritted together.

One wonderful kid. And another one with WAY more life than anybody could expect Jeff to deal with.

Suddenly, out in the hallway, there was a high-pitched giggle and the padding of tiny feet.

“DAVEY,” Jeff yelled, totally forgetting the hour. The only thing in his mind were visions of coal lumps in Christmas stockings. He flung open the bathroom door and stuck his head into the hall. “DA– ”

He stopped. The hall was dark and deserted. Brian and Davey’s door was closed.

“Davey?” Jeff whispered.

***

Jeff poked his head into Davey and Brian’s room. Both boys were under the covers.

Jeff tried to calculate how long it would have taken for Davey to run from the hall, into the bedroom, and climb up on the bunk. Surely longer than the five seconds that had just passed.

And he hadn’t heard any doors open or close.

And the padding feet…Davey didn’t pad, he stomped.

It was just about impossible…

Pfff. Davey had never let impossibility stop him before.

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Jeff just waved half-heartedly over his shoulder, and entered the boys’ bedroom without looking at her.

“Jeffrey? Jeffrey, did you hear me?”

Jeff shut the door behind him without answering.

Grandmother Tanner humphed and “well I never”-ed for a second or two more, but elected not to follow him. That was just asking for more shenanigans from David. Plus, it was a little boy’s room, with two living inside. She could imagine the horrors within.

***

It was messy, truth be told, but it wasn’t especially dirty. All the laundry got tossed in the hall closet clothes hamper, and there was no food allowed upstairs, so what was left was mostly piles of Brian’s drawings and Davey’s beat-up toys. Jeff waded through them over to the bunk bed.

Brian, in the lower bunk, was still drawing by a flashlight he held in one hand. Jeff ruffled his hair and kissed his forehead. “Don’t stay up too late, okay?”

Brian nodded, and smiled.

Jeff stood up and looked in the top bunk. Wonder of wonders, Davey was already in bed and under the covers. And he was grinning like the cat who ate the canary.

Jeff sighed. “You’re really loud, you know that?”

“Sorry, Dad.”

“So…what did you win.”

“A wish. I can’t tell you, or it won’t come true.”

“Considering how much you yelled, I hope it was a good one.”

“Ohhhhh, it was.”

Jeff smiled, then kissed Davey’s cheek. When he spoke, he addressed both boys. “Good night, guys. Go to sleep so Santa can come.”

Jeff walked to the door, then paused. “Davey?”

“Yeah?”

“Remember our rule for Christmas?”

“There has to be light outside before I can get anybody up.”

“What kind of light?”

Davey rolled his eyes in exasperation. “The sun, the sun.”

“Good.” Jeff had added in that clause the year before, after Davey had pointed to the street lights atop the telephone poles outside. “And Davey?”

“Yeah?”

“When you go to get the first person up…make sure it’s Grandmother Tanner, okay?”

Davey’s smiling face popped up over his sheets. “Okay.”

“Goodnight, guys.”

Jeff walked out of the room and closed the door gently behind him.

***

He walked in the hallway bathroom and snapped on the light. Turned on the cold water faucet, splashed some water on his face. He had a long night ahead of him…and he was tired, very tired.

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IMAGINARY FRIENDS - Page 34

“What? What he said about you guys? Yeah…it was mean…but it’s not his fault. He can’t see you.

“What? Yeah, I wish he could see you, too, Modine. Huh? Hey – that’s a good idea, Petey!”

Davey pulled the wishbone out of his jeans pocket, and held on to one prong of it. The other end he extended to the thin air, as though offering it to someone.

“Who’s gonna pull with me? You are? Okay, you got it? Wait – make a wish. I wish…I wish Dad could see you. I wish he could see all of you!”

Davey screwed his eyes shut, and pulled back his hand.

Maybe, somewhere far overhead, a shooting star swept across the sky. Maybe there was an angel that flew by on silent wings, or some unseen fairy sprinkling pixie dust. Or perhaps it was just the power of one little boy's dreams, enough power to roll up all the magic of childhood in one sweet, short burst. Whatever the explanation, something incredible happened.

If only there had been no tablecloth. If only Jeff and Granny Jobson had been able to see.

Because as Davey pulled his end of the wishbone back to the breaking point, the other end stayed dead still in the air…almost as if someone were actually holding it.

***

Jeff looked up at Granny Jobson, and tried to inject some levity. “Well, if having a significant other is so great, why don’t you have a boyfriend?”

Seeing that the conversation had come to an end, and feeling that she may have pushed a little hard into sensitive areas, Granny complied. “When I want a hairy, smelly beast I have to feed all the time, I’ll get a horse, thank you very much.”

At that very second, the tablecloth in the next room exploded and Davey sailed through the air, screeching, “I WON! I WON! I WON! I WON!”

After Jeff scraped himself off the kitchen ceiling, he watched Davey madly circle the kitchen table then shoot into the hallway towards the front end of the house. “I WON! I WON! I WON! I WON!”

As the “I won’s” finally faded, and muted footsteps pounded the stairs to the second floor, Jeff turned to Granny Jobson. “Well, minus the hairy part, you’ve already got one.” He stood up with a groan and headed for the stairs. “Time to put somebody on Ritalin.”

As Jeff walked away, there was no reason he would have checked under the dining room table. So he did not notice the short piece of wishbone, still lying on the floor.

***

When Jeff reached the top of the stairs, Grandmother Tanner came out of the guest bedroom clutching her velvet bathrobe over her long silk pajamas. Her hair was done up in curlers.

“Good heavens, Jeffrey, what was that all about?”

“It was Davey.” Jeff walked on by, as though that were all the explanation necessary.

“Well could you please keep him down to a low roar? Your father and I are trying to sleep.”

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“The boys are what I look forward to, Granny.”

She put a kind hand on his arm.

“Then why are you sending Brian away?”

Jeff was silent awhile before he spoke.

“…because he’s slipping away. All he does is spend his time in an imaginary world, and I can’t seem to pull him out of it. I don’t know what to do.”

“I think when he’s ready, he’ll come out of it on his own.”

“What if he doesn’t?”

Granny smiled. “He will.”

“But what if he doesn’t?”

“Jeff…I think you ought to be more concerned about when you’re going to come out of it.”

“I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not. You don’t really have any friends…and God forbid you had any lady friends. Almost three years now, and I haven’t heard even a peep of maybe possibly considering asking a woman to a movie. The only people you do anything with are me and the boys. I know you love us, but you need someone else in your life, Jeff. Someone who can love you as much as Susan did, God willing.”

Jeff grinned ruefully. “This isn’t what I expected to hear from the mother of my wife.”

Granny paused. Finally, she said it.

“Your former wife, Jeff.”

He cringed, and looked back to the cup of tea.

“It’s painful to hear. I know, because it’s painful to say it. But life does go on. And it’ll go on without you if you wait too long.”

“You say ‘three years’ like it’s forever. To me, it feels like maybe a couple of months. Sometimes it feels like yesterday.”

“Well, that’s no wonder, since you’ve been doing exactly the same thing every day for the past three years. You go to work, you come home, you do it all over again. Nothing changes, because you don’t give it a chance to change.”

Jeff didn’t say anything.

“Susan would want you to be happy, Jeff.”

Jeff managed a little half-hearted chuckle, mostly for effect. “With another woman? I don’t think you knew Susan very well.”

“If you believe she wants you to be miserable and alone until you join her…I don’t think you knew her very well.”

Jeff didn’t know what to say to that.

***

Forty feet away, Davey could clearly see his father and Granny Jobson through the door joining the dining room and the kitchen. But they couldn’t see him.

He sat under the dining room table, peeking out from beneath the low-hanging tablecloth. He sat crosslegged in his pajamas, and spoke in a whisper to his left, then to his right, as though a semicircle of tiny fairies were badgering him with questions.

“Yeah, he’s nice now…I think he just had a temper tantrum…yeah, I know he tells me not to, but he’s sad about Mommy…

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10

Jeff felt horrible.

Not since Susan had died had he exploded like that. Certainly not in front of the boys, and never at them. Or at Granny Jobson. And never, ever in front of other people, even if they were family.

The shame was overwhelming. He tried to be a good dad, he really did. He had been dealing with it so well, too. He’d been okay at the mall, at the tree, looking at the ornament she made…hadn’t he been happy all season long?

Not like last Christmas. Last Christmas had been a living hell. And the first Christmas after she died…he barely had any memory of that at all.

He had promised himself it wouldn’t ever be like that again…he had promised himself he would be strong. The boys needed him, needed to see that it was okay.

Except that it wasn’t. It was never going to be okay ever again.

He quietly dried dishes with a cloth, and stacked them on the counter as Granny Jobson rinsed.

She hadn’t said anything since the outburst. Nobody had. And it was killing him.

He ought to say something.

He opened his mouth a couple of times to speak…but nothing came out. Finally, he forced himself by strength of will.

“Granny…”

He couldn’t go on. But he didn’t need to.

“It’s alright, Jeff.” He felt Granny’s tiny arm around him, hugging him. “I miss her, too.”

Something gave way inside of Jeff. First one tiny tear splashed on the dish he had been drying…and then another, and another, until it was wetter than when he had begun.

***

Jeff sat slumped at the homely little kitchen table, and slurped at the cup of mint tea Granny Jobson had made him.

“I’m sorry…”

“It’s alright, Jeff. I shouldn’t have brought Susan up. I know you’re doing the best you can.”

“I still shouldn’t have blown up like that.”

“Well, when you’ve got me questioning your decisions, and Geraldine for a mother…it’s understandable.” Granny Jobson sat down in the chair beside Jeff. “I do have something to ask you, though.”

Jeff looked at her over the cup of tea.

“Oh, it’s not bad. It’s just that after I lost Frank, Susie was a great comfort to me…and when the Lord took her, well…you and the boys were what helped me live on. Which is what you need to do. It’s coming up on three years, Jeff. I think you need to find somebody who can help you live on. Somebody you can look forward to seeing everyday.”

A name popped into Jeff’s head, without him trying, without him wanting it.

Elise.

Jeff felt a sharp stitch of guilt, and pushed her name and her face from his mind. To avoid meeting eyes with Granny, he stared into his tea.

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Granny Jobson looked sad, and not a little disapproving. Which, coming from Granny Jobson, was something Jeff hated to see. “Are you sure Susan would have wanted this, Jeff?”

A tide of bitter resentment suddenly rose in Jeff. That isn’t fair, he thought. Bringing Susan into this isn’t fair.

“Look, there’s nothing I would love more than to have Susan back here right now to help me make this decision,” Jeff said in a low, trembling voice.

“Jeff, I didn’t mean – ” Granny Jobson started.

“But I have to make the best decision for the boys’ welfare that I can, and Brian’s not paying attention in class and he’s falling behind in school, and talking to him about it hasn’t helped, and monitoring his homework hasn’t helped, and tutors haven’t helped, and psychologists haven’t helped, and if military school was good enough for me then it’s good enough for DAVEY, GET YOUR HAND OUT OF THAT TURKEY!”

Davey froze. Unseen until now, he had been rooting in the body cavity of the turkey, his arm in all the way up to his shoulder.

“I’m just lookin’ for the wishbone,” he explained.

‘The Hidden Wishbone’ was a family tradition that Granpa Jobson had started years ago, and was now carried on by Granny Jobson. It was a variation on the Danish ‘coin baked into the Christmas cake’ – which had been the family tradition until Susan cracked a molar on the lucky penny at 17. Hence the change.

When Granny carved the turkey, she would remove the wishbone with surgical precision. She would then make another cut, and push the wishbone into the stuffing inside the bird. Whoever got a serving of stuffing with the wishbone was supposed to be lucky for the year. And if he won the wishbone pull, well, then he got a wish, too.

Davey had just decided to be a bit more aggressive about upping his chances this Christmas.

Suddenly, his face lit up. He pulled out his arm with a wet schlurpping sound, stuffing and turkey fat dripping from his skin – but with the wishbone intact in his gooey little hand.

“See? Got it!”

Grandmother Tanner was staring at Jeff. He knew what she was thinking, could already hear her disapproving voice in his head: if you can’t handle him, maybe you ought to consider putting two children in military school.

A small part of him wondered if that disapproving voice wasn’t right.

Jeff leaped up from his chair. “Look at you – look at you! You’re a mess!” He started yanking off Davey’s shirt.

Davey held up the wishbone. “Modine wanted me to get it!”

“No he didn’t, Davey! No he didn’t! Modine isn’t real, he’s imaginary! IMAGINARY! Stop blaming your behavior on people who don’t exist!”

Davey stood his ground, half-naked but defiant. “They do too exist!”

“Where are they then? I can’t see them!”

“Cause you don’t know how to look!”

Jeff stabbed a finger towards the back of the house. “Go get in the bathtub right now! GO!”

Davey jumped down from the chair, still clutching his wishbone, and ran off into the kitchen and out of sight.

Jeff watched him go, and slowly sank into his chair. He placed his elbows on the table and his head in his hands, and tried to forget how he had just acted.

That is, until the silence around him cranked up to a deafening roar.

Jeff looked up at the four sets of eyes still staring at him. No one said a word, their forks still poised midair, loaded with turkey and vegetables.

“WHAT?” he shouted, and dropped his head back into his hands.

All around him, the clink and scrape of cutlery on china resumed. No one said anything for the rest of dinner.

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Grandfather Tanner looked down at his plate and started raking green beans back and forth.

Davey’s eyes never wavered.

Grandfather Tanner coughed and drank some tea.

Davey kept staring.

Finally, Grandfather Tanner fished a quarter out of his pocket and placed it on the tablecloth in front of Davey’s plate.

Davey still kept staring.

With a sigh, Grandfather Tanner produced another quarter. Clink! Onto the table it went.

Davey palmed the coins, gave Grandfather a reproachful look, and resumed balling up his dinner roll into doughy little globs.

By this time, Grandmother Tanner had begun breathing again. “Well…Brian, you’re very quiet this evening.”

“He’s always quiet,” Davey said.

“In my day, David, children spoke when spoken to.”

Davey looked at her sympathetically. “That was a loooooong time ago, wasn’t it.”

Grandmother Tanner decided to ignore him, and focus on Brian instead. “Are you looking forward to your new school, Brian?”

“Do you remember when they invented dirt?” Davey asked.

“David, I am having a conversation with your brother.”

“Are most of the people from back in your day dead yet?”

Jeff tried to disguise his laugher as a cough. “Davey.”

Again, Grandmother Tanner turned to Brian. But now she was a little out of sorts. “Well, Brian?”

Brian shrugged.

“What does that mean?” Grandmother Tanner prodded.

Brian shrugged again.

“Brian, I asked you a question.”

“I don’t think he wants to go,” Davey stated matter-of-factly.

Grandmother Tanner scowled. “Young man, when I want to talk to you, I’ll address you.”

Davey scowled back. “I can already dress myself.”

“Jeffrey, will you please control your child?”

“Davey, cut it out.”

“Well I can.” He turned to Granny Jobson to explain. “I just need help wiping sometimes.”

Grandmother Tanner covered her face with her hand. Jeff rapped his knuckles sharply on the table.

“Davey, I mean it!”

Granny Jobson looked at Jeff. “Are you sure it’s such a good idea, sending him away to school?”

Jeff paused, and looked at all the faces looking back at him. “…yes. Yes, it’s a very good idea,” he said, not sounding convinced at all.

“When are we taking him?” Granny Jobson asked.

Jeff slumped down a bit, deflated by guilt. “…day after tomorrow.”

“What?!”

“They normally start back January second, but he’s coming in a semester late, so he has to go in for orientation and get used to spending the night there,” Jeff explained quickly.

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9

The food was wonderful. A huge turkey sat in the middle of the table, with dozens of tender slices carved from its bronzed skin. Cornbread stuffing, garnished liberally with sweet baby onions, spilled out between the drumsticks. Great bowls of vegetables filled every available space – green beans cooked with smoked chunks of ham, creamed corn sweet and thick on the spoon, emerald-green broccoli dribbled with melting butter – and a ruby ring of jello held a thousand cranberries suspended within.

The adults sat and talked, and drank their iced tea. Brian had his head down, and doodled on a paper napkin. Davey, who had to sit atop several phone books to reach the table, held court with his imaginary friends.

He had torn up his dinner roll into a hundred squished little balls of dough, and shredded his turkey meat into thin, moist strands. The broccoli had been divided into a small pile of tiny green buds, and a couple of cranberries lay sectioned into eighths.

As he started picking the seeds out of the green bean pods, he looked around his plate like a college professor inspecting his class. A very small class. Where none of the pupils were taller than 2 inches high.

“An’ the food goes down into the stomach, and little men hit it with shovels and sticks an’ knock it into teeny eeny weeny little pieces.”

Granny Jobson smiled at Davey’s lecture on digestion. Grandmother Tanner regarded it with something a few degrees shy of horror.

Grandfather Tanner was talking to Jeff. “So, son, how is work?”

“Fine, fine…we’re hearing pitches for next year’s Christmas line. I’m working on my presentation, which is coming up pretty soon.”

“Speaking of Christmas,” Granny Jobson said, “what did you ask Santa for, boys?”

Brian shrugged.

Davey leapt to his feet on top of the phonebooks, squatted, and bellowed, “I WANNA BUBBLE BABY!”

Every adult in the room jumped in their chairs. Grandmother Tanner looked like someone had mistakenly used heart attack shock paddles on her. Even her hair was frayed.

It took all the self-control Jeff possessed to calmly turn to his son and say, “Davey, use your inside voice.”

“But that’s how I told Santa at the mall, Dad!”

“Yes, well, you told him once and I doubt he can hear you from here, so please don’t try again.”

Davey turned to Granny Jobson. “We saw Santa two times, but he got skinnier the second time!”

Grandfather Tanner gestured with his fork. “That’s because it was two different people, David. Santa Claus is primarily just a symbol used by corporations for seasonal marketing purposes, that’s all.”

Davey slowly turned around and stared at Grandfather Tanner.

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Grandmother Tanner watched him run away. Then she turned her eyes to Brian. The battle might have been lost, but the war was not. She put back on her (somewhat) happy face.

“And what do you have there, Brian?” she asked sweetly.

Brian, looking terrified, lifted up HOW TO DRAW MONSTERS.

Once she read the title, Grandmother Tanner reacted as though she were holding a pop-up book on intestinal parasites.

“`How to Draw Monsters.’ Well. You know, you can’t really make a career out of drawing monsters!”

Jeff stood there as though he had been slapped, as though someone had held up a mirror to show him the ugly, unvarnished truth about himself. He felt bewildered…a little angry…and very ashamed. “Mother, it’s Christmas.”

Davey suddenly peeked around a corner upstairs. “Yeah, Grandma!”

Grandmother Tanner looked around sharply.

“Grandmother!” Davey yelped, and ducked back around the corner.

“Besides, I know several guys at my company who basically draw monsters for a living,” Jeff said. “And baby dolls, and other things, I guess, but they draw monsters and get paid for it.”

Grandmother Tanner didn’t look impressed. “And that’s supposed to prove me wrong?”

“Look, mother, you may not like my job, but – ”

Grandmother Tanner ignored him, and turned to Brian. “Alright then…you can’t really make a good career out of drawing monsters.” She looked back up at Jeff. “Is that more accurate?”

Okay, that tore it. Jeff was about to let loose with both barrels when Granny Jobson walked in, smelling of cranberry salad and wearing an apron and oven mitts.

“Turkey’s on the table!” she cried out, and Grandmother Tanner ushered Brian into the dining room.

Jeff sullenly watched her go. Granny Jobson saw him, and poked him in the ribs. “No sourpusses at my table, Jeff, especially at Christmas.”

“It’s my mother.”

“It generally is,” Granny agreed. “Don’t worry, I spit in her tea for you.”

Jeff stared at her in horror. “Granny, you didn’t!”

“Gotcha!”

Jeff grinned, and put his arm around her. Together they walked towards the dining room. “You know, actually, maybe that’s not a bad idea.”

“Yeah, well, it’ll cost you.”

“How much?”

“How much you got?”

By the time he sat down at the table, Jeff was feeling much better.

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Grandmother Tanner looked at the box of Lego’s Jeff held under his arm. “Goodness, Jeffrey, are you still doing your shopping?”

“Still finding fault, Mother?”

“Don’t be so sensitive. I was merely making an observation.”

Grandfather Tanner, meanwhile, beamed down at his two grandsons and pointed with his pipe. “How are you doing, boys?”

Brian just shrugged. Davey beamed right back. “Me an’ the boys is doin’ fine, Granpa!”

Grandmother Tanner heard that, and turned around sharply.

Davey quickly covered his cheeks with both hands.

“Grandfather,” he spat out quickly.

“What boys are those, David?” Grandfather Tanner asked.

Davey lowered his hands and began counting off his fingers – starting with the littlest one. “There’s Petey, and Modine, and Eubanks, and Joe-Bob – ”

“Eubanks?” Jeff interrupted.

“That’s a perfectly lovely name,” Grandmother Tanner admonished him.

“Now who the heck are they?” Grandfather Tanner asked.

Davey stuck his chest out proudly. “My homies!”

“I think they’re his make-believe friends,” Jeff explained.

Davey looked like Jeff had just announced the Tooth Fairy was taking back all the money she’d ever given him. “They’re not make-believe, they’re imaginary!”

“Okay, okay,” Jeff agreed to quiet him down.

Grandfather Tanner frowned, and tamped down his pipe with a silver rod. “I read once where imaginary friends are indications of an unwillingness to deal with real-life problems.”

Davey stared at Grandfather Tanner. It was not a pleasant stare.

Grandfather Tanner tamped down the pipe some more.

Davey stared.

Grandfather Tanner lit the pipe with hands that shook the tiniest bit.

Davey continued to stare.

Grandfather Tanner pulled at the pipe and blew out a thin stream of smoke.

Davey stared all the more.

Finally, Grandfather Tanner shoved one hand in his pants pocket and pulled out a shiny new quarter, which he held out to Davey.

Without any hesitation, Davey took the coin and turned away…but not before he gave Grandfather Tanner a sideways glance. Watch it, bub, he seemed to be saying.

Grandmother Tanner ignored all of this, and instead tried to reason with Davey. “Don’t you think it’s time you stopped playing with imaginary friends, and made some real ones?”

Davey spoke slowly and distinctly, as though explaining to a child. “They are real.”

Grandmother Tanner flashed her little condescending smile. “No they’re not, David.”

“Yes they are.”

“No, they are not – ”

“Yes they ARE.”

Grandmother Tanner leaned over, her fingers poised like lobster claws. “No they’re not.”

Davey clasped his cheeks and ran shouting from the room.

“YES THEY ARE YES THEY ARE YES THEY ARE!”

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8

So now the three of them stood on the front porch of their modest but quaint house, with Jeff holding the key poised in front of the lock, and Davey and Brian looking up at him with panicked faces.

“Pleeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaase can we go back to the mall?”

“I’m thinking about it…” Jeff said.

But just as he started to withdraw the key and quietly slip away, the door opened on its own.

“Too late,” Davey moaned.

There stood Jeff’s parents. Grandmother and Grandfather Tanner.

Grandmother Tanner’s silver hair sat piled atop her head in a tasteful French twist. Over her shimmering pearl grey dress, she was tastefully loaded with gold and the occasional diamond. Earrings, a bracelet for each hand, four rings, a beautiful necklace ending in a tiny opal pendant. Her makeup was slight but expert, and her skin was perfectly luminous. She would have been a very attractive woman ‘of a certain age’ were it not for the perpetual look of hauteur she wore on her face.

Grandfather Tanner was a bit more just plain folks, though that wasn’t saying much. Under his v-neck sweater, a silk tie was knotted impeccably at the collar of his Italian-made shirt. His dark grey hair was immaculately trimmed. Rimless designer glasses sat perched on the bridge of his nose. The sweet smell of fine tobacco drifted from the hand-carved mahogany pipe he held lightly in his hand.

Jeff grimaced, and tried to fake enthusiasm. “Mother! Father! How are you?”

“I would have been better had my grandchildren been here to meet me on Christmas Eve,” Grandmother Tanner sniffed. “David! Brian!”

“Granma!” Davey said.

Grandmother Tanner smiled. “That’s Grand-mother, David.”

“Grandmom!”

Grandmother Tanner’s teeth set on edge. “Grand-mother.”

“Grandmamma!”

Grandmother Tanner reached down and pinched Davey’s cheeks in a way that was somehow both grandmotherly and sadistic all at once.

Davey caved immediately.

“OKAY, OKAY! GRANDMOTHER!”

Grandmother Tanner immediately let go, and patted his head without a trace of a smile.

A normal person might have objected, but Jeff had grown up with a thousand brutal cheek-pinchings of his own, so it seemed completely by-the-book to him. He barely noticed Davey rubbing his face and stepping far away from Grandmother Tanner.

Jeff sniffed the air. “Boy, something sure smells good.”

“Helen was cooking when we got here,” Grandmother Tanner said.

Helen was Granny Jobson’s first name. Only Grandmother Tanner called her Helen. In return, Granny was the only person who called Grandmother Tanner by her first name, Geraldine. Helen, how are you? Oh, fine Geraldine. That’s nice, Helen. Isn’t it, Geraldine. It was a civil way – barely – they had of sniping at each other.

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IMAGINARY FRIENDS - Page 25

7

It wasn’t that Jeff didn’t love his parents. He did. He just would have preferred they live much farther away. And didn’t call so much…and maybe only wrote once in awhile.

His mother was old-school patrician. She served on every community board in the city – at least, every community board where the majority of the members belonged to the Minton Park Country Club. She was the head of several small charities, all of which specialized in fundraisers at tea parties and champagne brunches at the Minton Park Country Club. She presided over a scholarship fund, which every year gave a nice sum of money to an exceptional, college-bound high school senior whose father and mother usually happened to be millionaire members of the Minton Park Country Club.

Jeff’s father was more of a regular guy than his mother, though that was like saying gold is more of a “regular metal” than platinum. She had grown up in the fashionable Birchmont section of town, whereas he had been born on the wrong side of Mainland Avenue (where the denizens were merely upper middle class, rather than rich). But he had used his disadvantaged youth as a launching platform, and pulled himself up by his polished leather bootstraps to become a lawyer, and a very successful one. He made partner in the firm of Bailey, Banks, and Biddle when he was only 29, at which point he had met and married his wife, and then spent the rest of his career mostly absent from the Tanner household. Now that he was retired, he spent five days a week playing golf at the Minton Park Country Club, and the other two watching football and talking about golf.

They had had big plans for Jeff as he grew up. Harvard Law…Johns Hopkins Medical School…studying architecture at wherever one studies architecture (architects were permissible, of course, but not quite on the order of doctors or lawyers). Jeff could do whatever he wanted to do, so long as the tuition to learn to do it would top out over $300,000.

Of course, Jeff’s plans to become a business major had met with some consternation. But that quieted down after awhile. After all, it mattered more what type of business it was he went into. There were plenty of stockbrokers and real estate magnates and technology overlords who were members in good standing at the Minton Park Country Club. And if he met a nice girl at the club, and found a father-in-law who was willing to take him under his wing…

So Jeff’s announcement that he was marrying a Fine Arts major from Tampa, Florida was met with tacit disapproval.

And his decision to become a toy executive encountered flat-out disdain.

“We didn’t put you through five and half years at Stanford” (Jeff had not exactly been the best of students) “so you could sell tinker toys!” Jeff’s mother had sniffed.

“I’ll be designing and marketing,” Jeff had explained, “and I’ll probably be working with products that weren’t considered a classic toy in 1975.”

“Tinker toys were great!” Jeff’s father raged. “If they were good enough for you, by gum, they’re good enough for the little hooligans of today!”

Once Jeff had proved he could pay a mortgage on a house (“Modest…but quaint,” Jeff’s mother had evaluated it) and start a semi-respectable life as an adult, there was a bit of grudging respect paid to him. And when he and Susan had Brian, well, most of the old disappointments were forgotten. After Jeff’s mother got over the shock that she was now a grandmother, the elder Tanners saw their grandchildren fairly often – at least for people who spent so much time at champagne brunches and golf.

Which was fine with Jeff. If Brian and Davey never set foot in the Minton Park Country Club, he would be a happy man.

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IMAGINARY FRIENDS - Page 24

“Well, I don’t look that way.”

“Do too.”

“Do not!”

“Do too.”

“I do not!” Jeff turned his head to look at Davey, and saw that Brian had decided to take his face out of the MONSTERS book (miracle of miracles) and join the conversation. After a fashion, that is. “Brian, do I look that way?”

Brian put on a “Sorry, pal” look and nodded. Which meant Yeah, actually you do, in Brian-ese.

Jeff was horrified. “Nunh-unh!”

Davey leapt between the two front bucket seats. “Uh-huh!”

“NUNH-UNH!”

“UH-HUH!”

Jeff realized that he had slipped into kiddie-speak. He spent so much time around his own children, and designing toys for children, and selling to children, that he had begun to talk like children. Which was not a good thing. Not in this situation.

So he drew himself up in his seat, squared his shoulders, and acted like an adult. “No, I do not. And even if I did, it’s none of your business.”

Davey was having none of this adult crap. So he upped the ante. “Daddy and Elise, sittin’ in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G – ”

“Cut that out!”

“First comes love, then comes marriage – ”

Well, hell. If the adult thing didn’t work…

“Then comes Davey in a baby carriage!” Jeff sang back.

It had the hoped-for results: Davey was horrified. The enemy had sunk to his level – and was BESTING him.

“Nunh-unh!”

“Suckin’ his thumb,” Jeff chanted, “wettin’ his pants – ”

“NUNH-UNNNNNHHH!”

And then the greatest coup of all happened: Jeff got an ally, as Brian suddenly burst into song with him.

“DOIN’ THE BABY HULA DANCE!” they shouted together.

Davey flung himself all around the back seat and flailed his legs about. He cupped his ears with his hands, and hollered at the top of his lungs, “I CAN’T HEAR YOU! LA LA LA LA LA – I CAN’T HEAR YOU – ”

Jeff and Brian were laughing so much as they pulled into the driveway that Jeff almost didn’t see the black Mercedes parked there. He slammed on the brakes for real, and as the car rocked back and forth in the aftermath, things grew deadly quiet.

“Great,” he muttered. He had totally forgotten.

Davey sat up from where he had fallen in the floorboards. “What?”

Jeff pointed at the Mercedes.

“Grandmother and Grandfather Tanner are here.”

No one spoke. Hardly anyone breathed. Had there been snowflakes falling outside, Jeff would have been able to hear them as they drifted gently against the windshield.

Someone had to finally break the silence. Davey did, after a good 20 seconds.

“Can we go back to the mall?” he asked.

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IMAGINARY FRIENDS - Page 23

“Is Elise opening presents with us tomorrow?”

“Yes, she’s coming over with Nana tomorrow, and we’re all having breakfast together and opening presents.”

‘Nana’ was what Davey and Brian called Elise’s mother, Ruth Ann.

“Nana’s wrinkly.”

“Yes, well, Granny Jobson’s wrinkly, too. I’ll be wrinkly, soon. You’ll be wrinkly, we’ll all be wrinkly.”

“Yeah, but she acts weird.”

Jeff hadn’t ever tried to explain Nana’s beginning stages of Alzheimers to Davey. He wasn’t even sure he should. As far as he knew, Elise had told him in confidence. When she wanted the boys to know, she would tell them, he reasoned.

So instead, Jeff just deflected the question. “Yeah, well, Granny Jobson acts weird. She dances with invisible people all the time.”

“She says she dances with Granpa.”

Jeff looked at Davey in the rearview mirror. This was the first he’d heard of Granny’s choice of dance partners. “She told you that?”

“Yeah.”

Huh…Granpa Jobson had passed away six years ago.

“Yeah, well…you act weird, too.”

Davey looked shocked. “Me?!”

“You talk to invisible birds, and some kid with your face is messing with the toilet paper.”

“But that’s real!”

“Yeah, well, it’s still weird.”

“Is not.” Davey put his face behind the headrest, and pouted. But only for a second, and then he followed up with the sucker punch.

“When’re you gonna kiss Elise?”

“WHAT?”

Jeff nearly slammed on the brakes. It was more of a hard tap, but it caused several car honks and some screeching of tires.

It also caused a great deal of motion in the car. Brian was restrained by his seatbelt, but Davey’s face got mashed against the headrest, and then he collapsed back into his seat.

“Jeez, Dad!” Davey complained, rubbing his nose.

“I am NOT going to kiss Elise! And put on your seatbelt!”

“You always look like you wanna.”

“WHAT? I do NOT!”

“Well, you always look stoopid around her, like Casey Smith does when she’s chasing boys.”

Casey Smith was a girl in Davey’s kindergarten class, who had already discovered boys at an extremely young age – or had just found an inspired way to torture them.

Davey screwed up his face like he had just been asked to eat a particularly disgusting piece of food. Which for Davey would be something like asparagus or spinach, since dog food was fair game. “She always looks stoopid like that when she tries to kiss me or Jack or Benny.”

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