Imaginary Friend (ARC)

by Stephen Chbosky

  “Me neither,” he said.

  She waited. Be a man. Step up.

  He did.

  Chapter 23

  You smell like going out.”

  That’s what Christopher used to say when he was little. She would put on her red lipstick and little black dress. She would spray a cloud of perfume on her wrists and rub them together, making the cloud disappear. And her son would follow her around the apartment on his little feet and say, “You smell like going out.”

  But he wasn’t there right now.

  She opened her closet door and looked at her new dress for her new life. That afternoon, she decided that none of her old outfits fit anymore. Not her body. Not her life. The cutoffs. The tight dress. The trashy denim skirt. All of those belonged to the old Kate Reese. New Kate Reese might deserve a little better.

  She still had savings with the lottery money. She couldn’t quit her job anytime soon, but this month’s mortgage was paid. The retirement accounts maxed along with the college fund. Of course, she still felt guilty and wasteful like she always did when it came to spending money on herself. But this time, she decided to take a chance and see what it was like to splurge. Just a little.

  So, right after work, she drove to the Grove City Outlet Mall.

  After ten stores, one hot pretzel, and an iced tea, she finally found it. A designer dress. On the clearance rack. $600 retail that she could have for only $72.50. She couldn’t believe it. She went into the dressing room. It had a skinny mirror, thank God. She slipped off her work whites and slipped the dress over her frame. Then, she stopped when she saw herself in the mirror.

  Oh, my God. That’s me.

  She looked beautiful. She looked like she had never been mistreated in her life. She looked like men always called her back. And they were always kind. And her husband hadn’t quit on her. And she had never met Jerry.

  She bought the dress and found the greatest pair of shoes on the clearance rack for $12.50.

  That’s right. $12-fucking-50.

  She celebrated in the food court with her favorite frozen yogurt. TCBY Strawberry. Then, she went home and spent the rest of the day feeling possible. At 7:30, she put the dress and shoes on. She studied herself in the full-length mirror. And even though it wasn’t as skinny as the store mirror, she didn’t mind admitting to herself.

  She looked good.

  When she drove to the restaurant to meet the sheriff (her idea—always good to have a getaway car), she decided she wasn’t going to talk at all about Jerry. How many first dates had she gone on since her husband died where the topic of conversation was the last bastard she dated. She thought she was getting a sympathetic ear. What she was actually doing was giving the next bastard a trail of bread crumbs as to how much shit she was willing to put up with for what grief convinced her was love.

  But not with the sheriff. She would leave no more bread crumbs. No more tips as to how to mistreat her. Yes, he knew some facts about Jerry from the time Christopher went missing. But that’s all he knew. As far as he was concerned, she was a widow. Her late husband was kind and honest and treated her like women are treated in the movies. He didn’t need to hear the word suicide. And more importantly, she didn’t need to say it.

  She pulled into the parking lot. She got a great spot right next to the handicapped stall. The “filet mignon” of parking spaces. Good sign. She went into the restaurant ten minutes early to be sure she was the first to arrive. But the sheriff was already sitting at the good table by the window. She guessed he got there twenty minutes early and tipped Mr. Wong a few extra dollars to get the best seat in the house.

  The sheriff didn’t see her. Not at first. So, she took a moment to study him. Kate Reese knew that people were themselves when they didn’t know someone was watching. Like her husband when she came home and found him talking to the wall. Or Jerry when she came home and saw him with an empty six-pack. She had been hurt too many times to not take this thirty seconds to cram for the date as if it were a final exam.

  The sheriff didn’t look at his phone. He didn’t read the menu. Instead, he scanned the room. Over and over. As if by habit. Seeing if there was any threat. Seeing if there was anyone suspicious. Maybe it was just his police training, but she thought it was more than that. Some kind of primal response to a world he knew to be dangerous. A world she knew as well. He was a real man. Solid. Blue-collar handsome. Sexy in the way that workingmen can be.

  And those hands.

  Kate Reese was not a sentimental woman about anything outside of her son. But she was partial to hands. Call it what you will. That’s what she liked. She liked real men with strong hands that could make her feel held.

  The sheriff had beautiful hands.

  And he was blowing on them.

  His hands are sweating. He’s nervous.

  “Hi, Sheriff.” She waved.

  “Oh, hi,” he said a little too eagerly and stood up.

  Instinctively, he wiped his hands off on his dress pants and shook hers. His hands were smooth and dry and strong.

  “I got us a table by the window. I hope that’s okay,” he said.

  “It’s great.”

  He got up and pulled her chair out for her. She couldn’t believe it. Her husband used to do that for her. It hadn’t happened since.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  She took off her jacket, revealing the designer dress, and took her seat.

  “You’re welcome. You look beautiful. That’s some dress,” he said.

  “Seventy-two fifty at the outlet mall,” she said.

  Shit. Why am I telling him this?

  “Clearance rack. The shoes, too,” she added.

  Stop talking, Kate.

  It hung in the air for a moment. And then, the sheriff smiled.

  “Which outlet mall? Grove City?” he asked.

  She nodded.

  “That’s the best one. I get all my clothes there,” he said matter-of-factly.

  And with that, Kate Reese settled into the greatest first date she’d had since Christopher’s father. She never brought up Jerry. She didn’t even think of him. The old Kate Reese who put up with Jerry was wearing that interview blazer with the hole in the arm. The new Kate Reese was in a beautiful designer dress with a man with great hands that he kept blowing on all through dinner because for once in her life, a man was nervous to impress her. Instead of the other way around.

  Chapter 24

  When Christopher called his mom, he was confused. She hadn’t picked up their home phone. She picked up her new cell phone. And the music in the background didn’t sound like television at home. It sounded like restaurant music.

  “Hello, Mom?” he said.

  “Hi, honey.”

  “Where are you?” Christopher asked.

  “China Gate.”

  “Are you alone?” he asked, already suspecting the answer.

  “No. I’m here with a friend.”

  Christopher knew what that meant. She always called a new guy she was dating a “friend.” She made sure not to give him a name until it became more serious. He remembered when they were in Michigan. After a month of not talking about it, she finally said her friend’s name was Jerry.

  “Oh. That’s nice,” Christopher said.

  “What about you? You having fun? Enjoying your sleepover?”

  “Yeah. But I miss you,” Christopher said.

  “I miss you, too, honey.”

  “Maybe after church tomorrow, we can do something fun,” he said.

  “Sure, honey. Whatever you want. Dave & Buster’s even.”

  “Okay, Mom. I love you,” he said.

  “I love you, too, honey. See you tomorrow.”

  With that, they hung up. And there was silence.

  Christopher handed the phone to Special Ed and returned to work. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Mike and Matt text their mom from Special Ed’s mom’s phone (which Eddie smartly “lost” for the weekend). Out of the corner of hi
s ear, he could hear Special Ed call his dad from Mike and Matt’s phone and say they were having the best time at Mike and Matt’s house. And oh, no…he hadn’t seen Mom’s phone. Maybe she left it at the salon during her mani-pedi.

  But Christopher barely paid attention. He just wanted this new “friend” to be nice to his mom. Unlike the others. He thought about all the screams he heard through the walls. All the times she had been called names that he was too young to understand. A few months later, he heard some older kid say “bitch” on the playground. Maybe two months after that, the word “crap” became “shit.” And “jerk” became “asshole.” And the words made them all older and uglier. If he could just make the walls of the tree house thick enough, no one could hear those bad words through them. If he could make them strong enough, no one could ever hear “Fuck you, bitch” ever again. So, he stared at the white plastic bag as he hammered and hammered nail after nail after nail after…

  “Come on, guys. Break is over,” he said.

  Nobody questioned him. The boys just fell into line and returned to the tree. They had worked like that all day, pausing only to take a drink of cherry Kool-Aid or a bite of chipped ham. The floor beams had been secured by late morning. The secret door with the rope ladder by lunch. By midday, the beams for the four walls were up. Even as the temperature dropped twenty degrees, they kept building with an almost religious focus. The autumn chill worked its way into their bones as they let their minds go to the big thoughts of little boys.

  Special Ed talked about cheeseburgers. He wondered why the ones at McDonald’s were so much better than the ones in the cafeteria. He had a bone to pick with McDonald’s about their apple pies, though. “Ever heard of caramel? Hello!” His rant quickly turned to daydreams of Thanksgiving dinner with his one grandma’s famous apple pie. Only five days away. Mmmmmm.

  Matt wondered when his eye would stop being lazy, so he could take off his eye patch. He hoped it was soon so Jenny Hertzog would stop yelling, “Pirate Parrot! Pirate Parrot!”

  Mike did not talk about being called “Mike the Dyke.” His focus was building the tree house. He said these nails were perfect. They went in every time no problem. Normally, nails were difficult. They would bend, and you’d have to pull them out and straighten them. But not these nails. They always found footing in this tree. Mike looked at his little brother, who smiled at him. For some reason all their own, he smiled back.

  “Remember that time you stepped on a rusty nail and needed a tetanus shot?” Mike said to his little brother.

  “You mean a tennis shot,” Special Ed corrected.

  “Yeah. That hurt,” Matt said.

  “You didn’t cry, though,” Mike said.

  “No. I didn’t.”

  The discussion quickly found its way to a heated debate about which Avenger was best. Special Ed was a Hulk man himself. Matt liked Iron Man until his older brother liked Thor, and then Matt agreed Thor was best. Nobody could figure out what it would look like if the Hulk ever took a crap. But everyone agreed that it was the funniest thing they ever heard.

  They each decided they should get their own character. Special Ed got his beloved Hulk after convincing the group Mike was the perfect Thor since he was the best with a hammer. Matt had to be Captain America because he started as a pipsqueak but became big and powerful. The whole group said there was only one Iron Man. Christopher. He was the leader. The smartest. The mastermind.

  “The vote is anonymous then,” Special Ed said.

  And that was that. The boys didn’t say another word for the rest of the afternoon. The tree was like a mom with babies in her arms. Safe and warm. It was only when they left the tree that the cold caught up to them, and they would realize how freezing it really was. They didn’t know where the hours went. The clearing was its own little world. A big circle protected by trees and clouds. An island in the middle of the ocean.

  The only person who didn’t feel safe was Christopher. As day became dusk, he found himself watching the clearing like a deer with eyes on each side of its head to see predators approaching. The predator wasn’t visible, but he could still sense it. With every tap of the hammer, he could feel a whisper working deep into his mind. The same words echoing over and over like the congregation repeating the Lord’s Prayer with Father Tom and Mrs. Radcliffe on Sundays.

  We’re not going fast enough.

  Christopher asked the guys to go that much faster. And they did. Their hands raw. Their faces sunburnt despite the November cold. They all looked more exhausted than they would ever admit. Especially Matt, who never wanted to seem weak in front of his big brother. But even Mike looked tired. Still, they kept working. Silently humming a song in their hearts. Blue Moon. Until finally, around eleven o’clock that night, their bodies began to give out, and the unlikely voice of reason spoke.

  “This is nuts. I’m hungry,” Special Ed exclaimed.

  “We’re not stopping,” Christopher said.

  “Come on, Chris. Put down the whip. It’s the first night,” Mike said.

  “Yeah,” Matt added.

  “Guys, we need to finish before Christmas,” Christopher said.

  “Why?” Special Ed asked in a huff. “What’s the big deal?”

  Christopher looked at the white plastic bag. Then, he shrugged.

  “It’s nothing. You’re right. Let’s eat,” he said.

  The four boys sat on the longest branch, side by side, like the men who built Rockefeller Center. Christopher had seen that picture in the library once with his mom. All those men hovering above the city on a beam. One false move and they would all die.

  At dinner, they passed around the canteen filled with Kool-Aid, eating peanut butter sandwiches with grape jelly on Town Talk bread. For dessert, they snacked on Oreos with ice-cold milk kept in the stream near the billy goat bridge. After a full day’s work, they were the most delicious Oreo cookies any of them had ever had. They spent the next hour making each other howl with laughter with the latest and greatest burp or fart.

  All the while telling ghost stories.

  Matt told the one about the guy with the hook that everyone had heard a million times. And without Matt pretending to be the guy (since no one had a hook), it didn’t get much of a scare. But Christopher did his best to act afraid so that Matt wouldn’t feel too bad for his failure.

  Christopher then recounted the plot of the movie The Shining, which was on TV one night when Jerry had fallen asleep on the couch. His mom was working the late shift at the diner, and he was supposed to be babysitting. Christopher liked the black cook the best and didn’t understand why if he could see the future he would walk directly into the ax. But otherwise, it was really good.

  Mike’s story was really good, too. He started with the flashlight under his chin.

  “Do you know why they bury bodies six feet deep?” he asked like those spooky guys who host the horror nights on TV.

  “Because they start to smell,” Special Ed said. “I saw it on TV.”

  “No,” Mike said. “They bury them six feet deep so they can’t get out. They’re all awake under there. And they are crawling like worms to get out. And eat your brains!”

  Mike proceeded to tell the story of how one zombie woke up underground and crawled out to get back at the guy who shot him and his girlfriend. It ended with the zombie eating the guy’s brains with a knife and fork. All the guys loved it!

  Except one.

  “I have a better story,” Special Ed said with confidence.

  “The hell you do,” Mike said.

  “Yeah,” Matt added, trying to sound tough.

  “I do. I heard it from my dad,” Special Ed assured him.

  Mike nodded, prodding Special Ed to “do your worst.” Special Ed took the flashlight and put it under his chin.

  “A long time ago. In this town. There was a house. The Olson house,” Special Ed said.

  Mike and Matt got instantly quiet. They had heard this one.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Ol
son were away at dinner. And they left their oldest son in charge of his crazy younger brother David. All night, he kept coming down the stairs while the older brother was trying to make out with his girlfriend, and David would say these crazy things.

  “‘There is a witch outside my window.’

  “‘She has a cat who sounds like a baby.’

  “‘There is someone in my closet.’

  “Every time he came down, his big brother would make him go back upstairs, so he could keep making out with his girlfriend. Even when David came down with pee stains in his pajamas from being so scared, the older brother thought he was just faking it for attention because David had been so crazy lately. So, he took him upstairs and changed his pajamas. Then, he walked him all over the upstairs and showed David that there was nothing scary up there. But David wouldn’t listen. He kept screaming. It finally got so bad that the older brother locked David in his bedroom. It didn’t matter how much David screamed or kicked at the door, the older brother would not let him out. Eventually, the kicking and screaming stopped. And the older brother went downstairs to be with his girlfriend again.

  “That’s when they heard the baby crying.

  “It sounded like it was on the porch. But they didn’t know who would bring a baby here this late at night. Or why. So, they walked to the front door.

  “‘Hello?’ asked the older brother.

  “The older brother looked through the peephole in the door. But he could see nothing. All he could hear was the sound of that baby crying. He was just about to open the door when his girlfriend grabbed his arm.

  “‘Stop!’ she said.

  “‘What’s wrong with you?’ he asked. ‘There’s a baby out there.’

  “‘Don’t open the door,’ she said.

  “‘What are you talking about? What if it’s alone? It could wander out into the street,’ he said.

  “‘It’s not a baby,’ she said. Her face was pale. She was terrified.

  “‘You’re crazy,’ the older brother said.

  “She started walking up the stairs toward David’s room.

  “‘Where are you going!?’ he screamed.