Imaginary Friend (ARC)

by Stephen Chbosky

“TWO,” she hissed.

  “Please, Grandma! Don’t make me go home with her!”

  “THREE!”

  Mrs. Collins grabbed her son and spun him around. She looked him dead in the eye.

  “If you make a scene in front of these people, I will leave you in the doghouse until Christmas morning. I swear to Christ.”

  Brady’s eyes went black, and he stared at her for as long as he could bear it. But eventually, he did what everyone else did with his mother. Including his dad.

  He blinked first.

  As soon as they left the room, Mrs. Collins began to feel apprehensive. It wasn’t the walk through the hospital, although the stares from the rabble were somewhat disconcerting. It wasn’t even the drive home, even though the accidents and fallen trees and lines at the gas station were alarming.

  No. The problem was Brady.

  “Mom, what’s your name?” he asked.

  “Kathleen Collins.”

  “No. What’s your real name? Before you met Dad.”

  “Kathy Keizer. Why do you ask?”

  “No reason.”

  Mrs. Collins might not have been the warmest mother in the world, but she knew her son. And Brady didn’t ask questions. He was exactly like his father in that respect. But right now, he couldn’t have been friendlier. It was a sick friendly, though. A calculated friendly. He was giving the Stepford smile right back to her. A silence masking itself as peace. The two of them got home and climbed the long driveway through the estate. None of the servants’ cars were there. While the cat was away, the mice did like to play. They were all alone.

  “Mom, would you like a sandwich?” he asked.

  “No, thank you. I just need a bath. And aren’t you forgetting something?”

  “What?”

  “I counted to three. You can’t fool me with this nice act. You know the rules. If you act like a dog, you’ll be treated like one. Outside.”

  The air between them was silent. Mrs. Collins did not relish punishing her child. She was the opposite of her father in that way. She would never give Brady the hose. She would never let him stand in the elements all night. And she made sure he had a doghouse to keep warm in. But the rules were the rules for a reason. She needed to teach him to be better than her. She needed to give him his own aluminum siding on which to paint his own dreams. It was for his own good.

  “One hour, Brady. Or do you want two?”

  He was silent. Staring at her. Coiled like a snake.

  “One,” he said.

  “Good. Then, sit out there for an hour while Mom takes her bath.”

  “Okay, Mother,” he said.

  She expected some rebellion. She felt guilty when she got none. Maybe he didn’t deserve it this time. But she didn’t want her son to learn the wrong lesson and end up on a gurney in a cafeteria, did she? Of course not. So she took him out to the doghouse in the backyard while the deer watched them. She let him keep his coat.

  “I love you, Brady,” she said before she went back into her warm kitchen to get her glass of cold Chardonnay.

  * * *

  Brady said nothing in return. He just sat in the doghouse and watched her like he was supposed to. His grandmother had told him this would happen. She had told him everything she wanted him to do right before she closed her eyes and pretended to be asleep for his mother’s benefit. She didn’t want his mother to get distracted by something as trivial as a lucid mother.

  “Brady, when you’re in the backyard, can you do your grandma a big favor?”

  “Sure, Grandma.”

  “The next time she throws you in that doghouse, make sure it’s the last. This family needs to heal. Okay?”

  “Okay, Grandma.”

  The old woman smiled her toothless grin.

  “Thank you, Brady. You’re a wonderful little boy. I know it’s been hard. Old people and kids are invisible to the rest of the world. But do you want to know a secret?”

  “What?”

  “It makes us unbeatable at hide-and-seek.”

  After Mrs. Collins went upstairs for her bubble bath, her son crept back into the house and snuck into the kitchen. He pulled the long knife out of the block with his little, freezing fingers. Then, he quietly moved up the stairs just like his grandmother told him to do.

  Chapter 79

  Mrs. Collins threw on her slippers and robe and walked to the master bathroom. She opened the door and looked at the beautiful room made of marble and glass. Her husband’s construction crews were still working on the new cabinets and had left a few cans of paint and stain. But soon, this room would be all hers again.

  She drew herself a nice, warm bath. She threw in the lavender soap chips and watched them bubble. While the bath filled, Mrs. Collins wiped the steam that gathered on the mirror like clouds on a windshield. She looked at the diamond necklace around her neck and felt a measure of pride that little Kathy Keizer had made it out of that cold backyard. Through sheer will, she had turned the aluminum siding into this beautiful bathroom and this beautiful bathtub with the beautiful marble floor.

  See the house, Kathy. You’re going to live in a bigger house someday.

  The biggest house in town. See the good husband. See the beautiful son.

  Mrs. Collins slipped her naked body into the tub. She didn’t know what felt better. The warm water or the cold wine. She looked down at the scars on her palms. The pools of apple-red blood that the tub carried through the water like soft red clouds. Mrs. Collins closed her eyes and let the warm water dig the cold out of her bones. The cold from that backyard that she could never get rid of. Not even on family trips to Hawaii when she tried to forget that she had ugly cigarette burns and scars on her palms underneath concealer. It was always there.

  God, you’re ugly, Kathy Keizer.

  She wouldn’t listen to the voice. Not tonight. She was not Kathy Keizer anymore. She remembered the moment when the priest told the flock, “I now present you Mr. and Mrs. Bradford Collins.” She used the name Kathleen from that moment on. Mrs. Kathleen Collins.

  Kathy Keizer was as dead to her as her father was.

  When she got back from her honeymoon in Europe, all Kathleen Collins wanted to do was build her dream house. Her husband wanted a house in Deerfield that was close to Route 19 and his office. But the newly minted Mrs. Collins didn’t spend all that time freezing in a backyard to buy somebody’s “used” house. She wanted everything to be new. It would be elegant. Modern. Glass and steel. Not aluminum siding. A big fireplace to keep her bones warm. A beautiful bathroom to wash away the ugly memories. Mr. Collins agreed to everything she wanted because he loved her back then. His wife was as beautiful to him as that house was to her.

  God, you’re ugly, Kathy Keizer.

  “My name is Kathleen Collins, God dammit!” she hissed out loud.

  She listened to her voice echo off the imported marble floor. The floor she brought back from her third trip to Italy, which her father had never seen once. She closed her eyes and locked horns with the voice. She had done it before, and she had always won.

  You’ll never cover up the scars, Kathy Keizer.

  You’ll never get warm, Kathy Keizer.

  God, you’re ugly, Kathy Keizer.

  Even through her father’s burial, she beat the voice. She hated the man in the casket with all her heart, but she made damn sure to shed a tear for him because that’s what a Collins would do. She watched him being lowered into the cemetery’s ground in the dead of winter. He would be buried in a cold backyard for eternity. Buried with every secret because she wasn’t about to turn her past into a daytime talk show to sell commercials to the people stuck on gurneys. She wasn’t going to be one more God damn talk-show victim walking around with the idea that all parents who abuse their children were abused themselves. She would never be buried. She would be cremated. She would never be cold again.

  “Mom?”

  Mrs. Collins opened her eyes. She saw Brady standing in the doorway.

  �
��Brady, what are you doing here?!” she asked.

  “I was cold,” he said.

  Brady started to walk toward her.

  “What are you holding behind your back, Brady?”

  “It’s a secret.”

  “That’s not an answer.”

  “It’s the only answer I’m going to give you, Mom.”

  Brady took another step toward her.

  “That’s it, mister. You want to be out in the doghouse all night!? If you act like a dog, you’ll be treated like a dog.”

  “You’re the dog, Mom. Your diamond necklace is just a dog collar. You’re just some rich man’s bitch.”

  Brady took another step toward her. She looked into his eyes. She had seen him be willful before. But this was different. This was frightening. Something told her this was the final showdown with her son. Someone was going to blink first. This was the war.

  And she was going to win.

  “Mister, you march your fucking feet outside, or you will spend a week in that God damn doghouse, do you understand me?”

  Brady said nothing. He just walked closer. His face was so calm. He had no fear of her anymore.

  “Bradford Wesley Collins, I am counting to three.”

  “Good. I will, too.”

  Brady took another step toward her. Mrs. Collins had stared down everyone she had ever met, but Brady’s face was filled with a dull, quiet rage that she had seen before. It felt like she was trying to stare down her own reflection.

  “ONE!” she hissed.

  Brady smiled the sickest frown upside down.

  “TWO!”

  Brady moved his hands from behind his back.

  “THREEEEEEE!” Brady screamed.

  With that shout, Brady raised the knife and jumped toward the bathtub. Mrs. Collins pushed him away and jumped out of the water. Any thoughts of disciplining her son were long gone. This was self-defense. Her feet hit the slick marble, and she tumbled over, slapping her head on the floor. She lay on the imported Italian marble. She saw her son walk over to her, towering like a giant. She began to feel woozy. She wasn’t even sure if she were awake or still asleep in the bathtub.

  “Mom?” Brady said. “Grandma is sorry for all the things Grandpa did, but we have to stop thinking about that now. Okay?”

  Brady touched her arm. She could feel the tingle running through his fingertips like the dying embers of a campfire. Brady handed her the knife. For a moment, she thought about cutting her own throat with it. Or maybe stabbing him. But that’s not what the knife was for. No. It was for something else. Brady opened her makeup drawer and handed her all of her favorites. Eye shadow. Concealer. Lipstick.

  “Grandma says it’s time to stop feeling ugly. You’re not Kathy Keizer anymore. You’re Kathleen Collins. She told me to make you feel pretty now, okay?”

  Brady reached his hand down to help her up. She still felt a little dizzy, but Brady gently took her hand to steady her as she stood. Then, he helped her over to the mirror. The two of them looked into her beautiful vanity with the custom lighting like a Hollywood starlet. He slipped her beautiful silk robe over her shoulders to cover the cigarette burns.

  “Grandma says you’re not a dog, Mom. Listen to Grandma,” Brady said.

  Brady reached behind his mother and took off the diamond necklace. Mrs. Collins looked at her long neck. The skin used to be so tight when she was Kathy Keizer. But now Mrs. Collins had a wrinkly neck. It started to itch, so she scratched it. But the scratching did nothing. It just made her skin more itchy. So, she got another idea. She picked up the concealer and started to fill in the ugly red dimples the diamonds left in her skin.

  “That’s it, Mom. It’s time to erase Kathy Keizer,” Brady said.

  Mrs. Collins could still see the ugly red, so she put on more concealer. When every inch of her neck was covered, she moved to her face. She needed to look presentable for Christmas. What would people think? She was Kathleen Collins now. She couldn’t let anyone see Kathy Keizer.

  God, you’re ugly, Kathy Keizer.

  She put bright-red lipstick over her lips, but it didn’t look right. She didn’t look like Kathleen Collins. She looked like stupid little Kathy Keizer, the first time she put on makeup and looked like a streetwalker. Like a hooker. Like a clown. A clown’s face.

  “Grandma wants you to feel beautiful,” Brady said.

  Mrs. Collins slathered the concealer over her skin. Layer after layer. Like butter on bread. But it still wasn’t enough. She rummaged through her makeup drawer. She took out liquid bronzer and poured it into a pool in her palms. God, her palms. The scars on her palms. They didn’t belong on Kathleen Collins’ elegant hands. These were Kathy Keizer’s hands.

  God, you’re ugly, Kathy Keizer.

  She spread the liquid bronzer all over her hands. All over the scars. All over the memories. But it still wasn’t thick enough. She could still see the little girl in the window outside of the warm kitchen. She grabbed more. Eye shadow. Eyeliner. Every shade of lipstick. She rubbed it all over her body. But there wasn’t enough. She could still see the scars. Mrs. Collins poured and smashed every ounce of makeup she had onto her skin, but she could still see Kathy Keizer. She moved around in a blind panic, looking for more makeup.

  But all she had left was paint.

  Mrs. Collins grabbed the construction crew’s paint cans and cracked them open with her son’s knife.

  “That’s it, Mom,” he said.

  She moved to the mirror, lathering the paint on her face. A nice grey primer. A thick white paint. She poured the paint over her hair. Over her body. She couldn’t stop the itch under her neck. She couldn’t feel beautiful no matter how much paint she poured over her skin.

  That’s because you’re ugly on the inside, Kathy Keizer.

  The voice was back. She didn’t think she could win this time. And maybe the voice was right. Of course, she thought. The voice is right. My insides are all scarred and ugly. That’s where Kathy Keizer is hiding. That’s where the paint belongs.

  “Mom,” Brady said calmly.

  “Yes, Brady?” she asked.

  “Do you remember how you thought that somewhere out there, there was a parent who abused their children who wasn’t abused themselves?”

  “Yes?”

  “You said if someone could tell you that, you would die a happy woman.”

  “Yes,” she said, the tears washing the paint down her cheeks.

  “Well, I know for a fact there is,” he said softly.

  A great relief washed over her. Mrs. Collins smiled and stirred the paint with Brady’s knife like soup over a campfire. Then, she brought the paint can to her lips. She thought she might be asleep. This must be a dream because how else could she explain her son’s glowing eyes. Black as coal left in a child’s stocking.

  “So, Mom, would like to know who the first parent was who abused their kids who wasn’t abused themselves?”

  “Yes, Brady. Please tell me.”

  Brady perched in front of her on the marble countertop. When his voice changed, her blood went as cold as that old backyard. Because she knew that voice. It was her father’s voice. Slowed down like his old 45 records played at 33 speed.

  “thE aNswer is goD.”

  Then, Mrs. Collins raised the can and painted over Kathy Keizer’s insides.

  Chapter 80

  They had to kill the hissing lady.

  They had to get the key.

  The nice man lifted the attic stairs, and they climbed out of the shelter. Out of the refrigerator. Into the morning light. Christopher was invisible to all but the nice man, but that didn’t take away the fear. The hissing lady had been out in the imaginary world all night. Waiting for them. Setting traps. Preparing.

  “Come on,” the nice man said. “We have to find her while it’s still daylight. It’s our best chance.”

  They started in the woods. Retracing their steps. The trail led to the clearing, which led to the tree house. The nice man climbed the
ladder one more time to make sure the tree house was still locked. He found two words left on the door. Written in blood.

  TICK TOCK

  The nice man tried to hide his fear, but Christopher could see it. Growing with each step. It’s not what they found. It’s what they didn’t find.

  The woods were completely deserted.

  It was as if the imaginary world were empty. Or hiding behind a corner. Waiting to strike. They searched for her in the woods for the better part of an hour, but found nothing. Except deer tracks. So, they followed them until the tracks went around in a circle like the beginning of the yellow brick road. It was all a trick. It was all a game. Christopher could feel the hissing lady’s cat and mouse with every step. She was playing hide-and-seek like a little girl. Waiting out the daylight. Waiting for the night to come, so that she could yell…

  “Olly Olly In Come Free!”

  They left the woods. Christopher walked behind the nice man, who moved quickly through the bushes without making a sound. The streets were empty. No mailbox people. But the tracks were fresh. Thousands of footprints on the pavement. Little ones from high heels. Big prints from shoes or sandals or bare feet. Some from children. Some with an extra track left by an old person’s cane. Some of them missing limbs. Or toes.

  “Where do the mailbox people come from?” Christopher asked.

  “They’ve always been here. They’re her soldiers.”

  “Maybe we can turn them. Maybe we could cut the strings that hold them together and set them free,” Christopher said.

  “I tried that once. I cut the yarn that held a little girl and her sister’s mouths shut.”

  “What happened?”

  “They tried to eat me alive.”

  The nice man approached David Olson’s old house on the corner. There was no one inside it. No hissing lady. No David. No mailbox people. Just words written in blood on David’s bedroom window.

  TICK TOCK

  The nice man stared at the words bitterly. Christopher gazed at the same window where the hissing lady had led David Olson fifty years ago. He could almost see the boy sleepwalking into the woods. Never to return again. The nice man was quiet, but Christopher could feel some of his thoughts leaking out of his skin like a dripping faucet. Words laced with guilt and sadness. The last time the nice man tried to kill the hissing lady, David Olson died. Christopher could feel the burden weighing on the nice man’s shoulders like a cross.