IMAGINARY FRIENDS - Page 5

Luckily for Jeff, the doorbell rang.

DING-DONG.

Davey and Brian exchanged looks, rapture on their faces.

“ELISE!” they both howled at the same time, and dropped to the kitchen floor at a run. Jeff held his briefcase over his head, trying to avoid the stampede.

The boys ran into the hallway, where they slipped on the hardwood floors in their socks and banged into the wall, then into one another. Scrambling, tumbling over each other, they ran past the parlor –

Then slowly, quietly, tiptoed back to the doorway.

Inside, Granny Jobson was dancing, eyes closed, cheek-to-cheek…with nobody at all. Just her and the invisible man.

Granny Jobson may have liked dancing with invisible partners, but she still had the sixth sense possessed by all mothers, young and old: the radar that alerts them to raids in the cookie jar and plans to jump off rooftops with umbrellas. Though the boys had silently crept up to the room, she knew they were there. She opened her eyes and smiled at them. Not for a second did she break her stride, nor acknowledge that what she was doing might be grounds for a visit to the funny farm.

“Mornin’, boys.”

Brian and Davey smiled feebly at her…looked at each other…and ran away.

***

During those brief seconds of quiet, Jeff made his way to the front door, and actually got there before the boys did. His hand paused on the doorknob for an instant, and a touch of nervousness fluttered in his stomach. Jeff brushed it aside, and opened the door.

If he had been more honest with himself, and not swept his feelings under the rug so quickly, he might have recognized some excitement mixed in with the anxiety. But introspection wasn’t Jeff’s strong point.

Maybe that was for the best. If Jeff had been totally honest about why he was excited, he wouldn’t have just swept his feelings under the rug; guilt would have mandated he bury them with a pick and shovel.

The door opened, and there stood Elise. She was beautiful. Not like a model, though. No, she was the girl-next-door who moved back in years after having left home. Literally.

Jeff knew her parents from seeing them on long walks around the neighborhood. Sometimes Leland was cutting the grass on his riding lawnmower, or Ruth Ann was planting flowers in the yard. They were a nice retired couple who had moved in shortly after Davey was born. Jeff always waved when he saw them, and they waved back. He only knew their names because his wife Susan had told him. She had taken cookies to their house when they moved in, and continued to have lunch with Ruth Ann and Leland about once a month.

Jeff never actually met them, though, until they came to the funeral.

It was strange, Jeff thought, that the memorial service was the first time he had really met his neighbors. The first time he had done much more than give them a wave or a “How’re you doing.”

Unfortunately, Leland passed away a few summers later. Elise returned home the next day, and never left. She had been a schoolteacher back in the Midwest, but she took a leave of absence to take care of her mother. When the doctors told Elise that Ruth Ann was exhibiting early indications of Alzheimers, Elise quit her job and moved in permanently.

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Copyright © 2008 Darren Pillsbury. All rights reserved.