THE TURQUOISE PEN

JUST BETWEEN YOU AND ME

Noël R. King

I was walking through the Wal-Mart, searching for a trashcan for my yard, and there she was: my imaginary friend from 30 years before.

"Stella??" I felt faint.

"Richie??" She seemed exceedingly pleased to see me, greeting me just as one would always hope and expect to be greeted by a long-lost imaginary friend.

"Oh, my living stars," I said. "You’re REAL?"

"Me real? What about you being real?" she said. "I thought I dreamed you up back there. I mean, you were really brave, jumping off tall buildings and all that other stuff you did with me."

I laughed. "No, you were brave! You told my recess teacher not to yell at me again. That was far more brave."

"We were something else back then, us two, you know?" She dipped and twirled and shimmied as she stepped aside to let a shopper pass us in the aisle.

Then, "Well, but how come my mom and dad could never see you, then?" I asked. "Nor that teacher either—even though she never yelled at me again."

"And my mom and dad couldn’t see you, either," she said. "They just laughed and said how fun for me to have a friend that only I could see, then I saw them wink behind my back."

I pulled a trashcan off the shelf and put it on my head. "I can’t see them either, ha ha ha!"

"Yeah," said Stella. I heard her faintly through the can. "I think I was adopted."

"What?" I said. The trashcan smelled like Elmer’s glue. It echoed in my head.

"My real parents were imaginary," Stella said, "so then I got adopted and had way too many parents."

"Oh," I said. "My goodness."

"Yeah," said Stella. "A lot of people don’t know that about me."

I took the trashcan off my head and followed Stella to her house, a street and place I’d been to in dreams before.

We walked the walkway curved around her yard. Abruptly, something hit and pushed me into a bush.

"Ow!" I said. "What was that??"

"Randy!" she yelled. "What in the world?! You go help her up, right now!"

I got up out of the bush (it was green and smelled of tea) and saw a teenage boy, bewildered, cross. "Help who up, Ma? You crazy now, or what?"

"Oy," I said to my best friend of old. "We’re STILL imaginary friends, I see."

"Oooh, this is so great!" she laughed. "I love imaginary friends, don’t you?"

"Ma?" her son said. "Ma?"

—As circumstances warrant, through her Turquoise Pen column Noël R. King, Scottsville, Virginia, reports on strange and wonderful things, including friends imaginary and not.