What's Imaginary?

"Have you ever had one?"

Prissy squinted against the wind as she sucked on the end of the cigarette. "Yeah." The smoke came out of her mouth as she spoke, and some of it drifted out of her nose. "I had two."

"Who were they?"

"Um." She paused to scratch her scalp through her black hair with equally black nail-polished fingernails. "Sam, and...shit, I can't remember. Julia, or Janice, or something." She rested her elbows on her knees and shrugged. "When I was younger."

"How old?"

"I don't know. Six, seven years ago, I guess I would've been six or seven." She sucked again on the cigarette, pulling in her cheeks and closing her eyes. Then she offered the butt to me. I had never smoked before, but I took it from her, pinching it awkwardly between my forefinger and thumb, and raised the end to my lips. I sucked like I was drinking through a straw and my lungs were filled with warmth. I cleared my throat. She laughed a little through her nose and took the cigarette back.

The smoke around us was making my eyes water. I wiped at them, trying to make them stop. "How long were they there?"

"C'mon, let's talk about something else."

"No, answer me."

She sighed and glanced over to where the sun was setting behind some townhouses. "I think only a few months. I don't remember. It doesn't matter. I was a screwed up little kid."

My eyes felt like they were going to start watering again, but not from the smoke. "I'm not screwed up," I said.

She turned to me and I thought she might laugh, but she just leaned her head into the palm of the hand holding the cigarette. "You had them?"

"I still have one," I told her.

"Shit." She laughed as she looked back at the sliver of orange sun that was still visible over the roofs of the townhouses. "Maybe I'm not so screwed up. Or maybe you're more screwed up than I thought."

"I'm not screwed up," I said again.

She stopped laughing. "Just because you don't smoke doesn't mean you're not screwed up."

I didn't say anything. We watched the sun disappear and I took another suck on the cigarette. "So, why do you have one?" she asked.

"I don't know. Why did you have them?"

Prissy shrugged again and turned away. "Maybe because I was lonely."

I thought that was probably why I had one, too. I had two sisters but one lived on the west coast with her husband and the other was living with Dad. I hadn't seen either of them in four years. Prissy was the first real friend I'd had in a long time. I'd met her by accident in the girls' washroom at school; she'd passed toilet paper to me from the next stall.

The wind rustled the bush beside me and I shivered. "It's getting cold," I remarked.

Prissy glanced at me and then threw the cigarette on the ground. She stepped on it as she stood from the porch, grinding it out with her heel. "I should get home anyway. See you tomorrow."

"See you," I said. I waited until she'd turned up the street before I stood and walked into the house.

Supper was take-out food and I knew my uncle had bought it on his way home from work. It was just on the kitchen table, unopened, and I wondered where he was. My mom wasn't in sight either, but an empty green wine bottle on the counter told me she had been through earlier. I thought that maybe I wouldn't see her all evening. Sometimes she stayed in her room until she passed out.

I made a plate for myself and sat down to eat. My uncle came up from the den a few minutes later. He looked tired, but he smiled at me as he dug some food for himself out of the take-out bag. "Hey, how was school?"

"Okay. Is mom upstairs?"

"Yeah, in her room. She wants to talk to you."

There was a sudden pressure on my stomach. "I have to go to the library tonight."

"I'll give you a lift." The pressure subsided. He turned his attention to his hands as he unwrapped a burger. "She's only been up there for a half hour, Hed. She said it was important." He looked at me until I nodded faintly. Sometimes he made excuses for me, but not today.

I finished eating and went to the sink where the dishes from last night were still sitting, bits of food dried against their surfaces. There were stains, too, beneath the food that no amount of washing would remove, telling of other times when the dishes had been neglected. Most of the time we just pretended not to notice they were there. On her better days my mother sometimes talked about replacing the dishes, but now she rarely left the house. I piled my plate on top of the dirty ones before heading upstairs.

The door to my mother's room was closed. I knocked quietly, wondering if she was asleep.

"Come in, Hedy. I know it's you."

The room was dim, but some of the shadow fled deeper out of sight under the bed as I opened the door. My mother sat on the rumpled blankets of her queen-sized mattress, still dressed in her maroon bathrobe from the morning with a bottle in her hand like the one downstairs, except this one was still half-full. The tiny old television in the corner was on with the sound muted. "I told you already about Priscilla," she said, looking at me with eyes that were only slightly bloodshot. "And don't bother trying to lie. I saw her leaving."

My mother and my uncle had looked a lot alike when they'd been younger, both tall and willowy with dark hair and dark eyes. Now, however, people mistook them for mother and son. Even though she was only a couple of years his senior, my mother looked decades older with her prematurely gray hair and her blotchy red skin. I resembled neither one of them, having inherited my father's pale hair and blue eyes, something my mother had never completely come to terms with. My mother and all of her siblings had earned my grandmother praise because she'd had such beautiful children; I have been called 'shy' and 'intelligent', but never beautiful.

"How many times do I have to tell you to leave her alone?" She spoke of my friendship with Prissy in the same way she spoke about scabs: leave them alone or they'll turn into scars, ugly scars on your skin that no one will want to look at. I looked at the floor in an appropriate show of shame, even though I could faintly hear M whispering from my room, telling me I could do whatever I wanted. I mentally urged him to shut it. "Sorry, Mom."

My mother didn't say anything for a few seconds, turning away to take another drink from the bottle. When she spoke again her voice was rough as if she was going to cry. "I know you hate me, Hedy, but I'm only looking out for you." She paused to let out a soft burp. "I don't want you to end up like that."

I nodded. She wasn't very drunk. Not enough to be really angry. "I won't hang out with her again, Mom, I promise." I glanced at my bare wrist as if checking a watch. "I have to go to the library. I've got a project to research."

"All right, honey. Ask Gordon to give you a ride."

I nodded again and closed the door as I left the room. My uncle was waiting for me when I came down the stairs and, as usual, he dropped me off at the mall. I met Prissy there a half hour later and we went to a movie.

Prissy had some marijuana on her that she'd stolen from her brother, so we smoked some of it in the back of the theatre, giggling as we spilled it on the floor while trying to roll it in squares of toilet paper. My mother was asleep when I came home, and it was easy to avoid my uncle until after I'd changed and taken a shower. My clothes I sprayed with air freshener to take the smell away before I put them in the laundry.

M was in my room, as usual. He didn't say anything; he was just sitting by the window. I changed for bed and pulled the covers back. "Good night, M."

He turned as I got into bed, dressed in his black clothes with tendrils of black hair hanging in disorder around a long, angular, clean-shaven face. Even his eyes were black. In the beginning, he'd looked an awful lot like my father, but that had changed over the years. Now he looked more like a man I had seen in a movie once. In the movie, he had been a bad character who had become good at the end just before dying.

"How was the movie?" M asked, though of course he knew already.

"It was okay. Didn't really watch much of it, though. Can you smell anything on me?"

"No."

"Good. I wanted to say no to her, but it's not much different than a cigarette."

He knew I was lying, but he didn't say anything about it. I really wasn't in the mood to defend myself against him.

"What did you do tonight?" I asked him.

"I had to meet up with the others. There was an emergency in Florida..."

Wait, hadn't it been Florida last time?

"...in Tanzania," M corrected himself as if he hadn't said Florida at all. "Very hush-hush. We had to retrieve some documents from a government building without alerting anyone."

"Did you have to kill anyone?"

"Not this time. I had to shoot a guard in the knee, but he'll live."

I smiled. "I'm tired, M."

"Go to sleep, Heather." He disappeared as I shut off the light.

"There's no one there, Hedy!"

I glanced down at my feet.

"Dammit, look! There's no one!" This hadn't happened in awhile. M was usually so careful not to appear when my mother was around, but this time we'd been talking in the kitchen when she'd come down the stairs. I hadn't expected her. She rarely woke up until after I'd gone to school. Today, however, she was already washed and dressed.

It was always worse to be caught with M when she was sober. Then she always knew what she was saying and I couldn't change the subject.

She took my chin in her hand and forced my head up. M was scowling.

"Look, no one! Stop talking to no one!"

I didn't say anything. My mother let go of me and walked away with heavy footsteps. My uncle had left early for work so we were the only ones in the house. I wished he was here to tell her she was overreacting. She usually listened to him.

I heard her from the living room and realized she was on the phone. I didn't move. She returned with a smile on her face as if she'd just won something from me. "You're coming with me today, Hedy, to see my psychiatrist."

"But, school..." I sputtered.

"I'll write you a sick note. Get ready, we're leaving in twenty minutes." I had never been to her psychiatrist, though she'd threatened me more than once with a visit to see him. My mother hadn't driven anywhere since the last time she'd had an appointment, and it showed as she took us both to his office. He worked out of an older, brown-bricked building on the corner of the downtown area and as we walked to the door I caught a glimpse of a room through a curtain-less window. There were pictures on the walls of red crayon hearts and of smiling families holding hands. I wondered how many people came here sick and went out cured. The waiting room was similarly decorated with photographs of fathers hugging their young sons and of sisters laughing together over some private joke. My mother ignored me as I glanced around, flipping through a magazine as we waited to be called by the receptionist.

The waiting room was empty so it wasn't more than a few minutes before we were being led to a room with the name 'Dr. Thoth' on the door in silver letters. The woman who had accompanied us knocked and a deep, male voice invited us in.

The room was wide with a low ceiling, which seemed to perfectly suit the short, overweight man, bald to the crown of his head, who was seated at the desk. He glanced up from something he was writing as we entered and gave a quick smile.

"Ah, hello Denise. Please, have a seat."

At the other end of the room, the wall was swathed completely in rich burgundy curtains, presumably hiding large windows. The only light in the room came from a small desk lamp at Dr. Thoth's elbow. Behind him stood a squat bookshelf, neatly stacked with rows of books on each shelf so that they looked all attached together, like if you tried to take one they would all come with it. They looked new and the edges of the shelves were gray with a thin layer of dust.

Dr. Thoth stopped writing and put the folder and his pen away before laying his hands together on the desktop and smiling at us. "So, Denise," he began gently, "how have you been?"

"Oh, I've been all right," my mother muttered, picking up her purse and making a show of looking for something.

"Have you had any of those dreams again?"

My mother shook her head and, seemingly satisfied with the contents of her purse, put it down again. "I brought my daughter with me today."

The way he looked at me made me sure that my mother had spoken of me before. "Hello, Heather," he said. "It's nice to meet you."

"Thanks." M was standing by the covered windows, just watching us. I tried not to look like I was staring off into the corner of the room.

"I've heard quite a bit about you from your mother."

I wondered how much he'd heard. My mother's friends in my old neighbourhood had always seemed surprised to find out that she was married and had a daughter, as if she'd never mentioned us. Very few of her friends had visited the house; when they had, my mother had dressed me up in skirts and tied my hair into tight braids, and my father had always shaved off his beard.

"Would you mind if I asked you some questions?"

I shook my head. He smiled. "What can you tell me about your father, Heather?"

"Oh, she and her father used to be great friends," my mother said suddenly. "They used to do their best to humiliate me in front of everyone."

M gave a sharp bark of laughter.

"Is this true?"

I didn't say anything. Dr. Thoth pressed his lips into a thin line. "You have a friend named Priscilla, is that right?"

I nodded. "She's in my grade."

"What's she like?"

I saw my mother turn to look at me, but I refused to meet her eyes. "Her parents are divorced, too."

"But she's much worse off than Hedy," my mother interjected. "She dyes her hair and smokes cigarettes, and I wouldn't be surprised to find out she's into drugs. I also heard that she's shoplifted from stores. Her father's unemployed and the family doesn't have much money."

"She doesn't sound like a very good influence," Dr. Thoth said.

Again, I didn't reply. Dr. Thoth didn't ask me any more questions for a few moments as he pulled a notebook open and began to write something down. I glanced at my mother but she was inspecting her chipping nail polish. "Isn't this supposed to be about my imaginary friend?" I asked him.

My mother turned to me at the same time the doctor did. Then they looked at each other and I saw Dr. Thoth nod slightly. "Is it, Heather? Why don't you tell me?"

"I don't know."

"Do you think it's a problem?"

I shrugged.

"She talks to herself in her room," my mother told him.

"Is this true?"

I shook my head. "I'm talking to him."

"Him who?"

"M."

"Is that his name?"

My mother sighed suddenly as if becoming bored with the topic. "Her father's name is Michael. That's where she got the 'M'."

"Is that the truth?"

Out of the corner of my eye I saw M cross his arms over his chest.

"Why do you talk to him, Heather?"

"He listens to me."

"Why don't you talk to your mother, or your friends?"

I shrugged.

"Do you have any friends?"

"Just Prissy," I answered.

"I see." He began to write in his notebook.

My mother didn't take me to see Dr. Thoth again. Prissy wanted to know how the appointment had gone. "Did he give you any pills to take?" she asked me.

I told her no, that he'd hardly asked about M at all. She laughed.

"Doctors are all the same," she told me. "Unless they can prescribe something, they're not too interested." We were going to a convenience store not far from the school where Prissy bought some cigarettes and I bought some gum. The cashier must've known we weren't nineteen, but he sold Prissy the cigarettes anyway and I had a feeling she came there often. We kept walking after that and at the next block Prissy asked me, "Can I stay at your house?"

I shook my head.

"Why not?"

I shrugged. "My mother doesn't like me to bring friends over."

"Why?"

I shrugged again. Prissy lit a cigarette and didn't ask me again. We walked to the park and sat on a bench by the lake to watch the ducks. It was getting colder so they wouldn't be around much longer, but it was nice to watch them paddle around in pairs while we could before they flew away. When it got closer to suppertime we said we'd see each other at school tomorrow and left for home.

My uncle was in the kitchen when I arrived. "Is mom upstairs?" I asked him.

He nodded and put a covered plate in the microwave. "You want some?"

"Okay. What is it?"

"Leftovers."

"Okay."

He closed the door and pushed some of the buttons. As we waited, watching the timer count down, my uncle spoke. "I heard you went to see your mother's shrink."

I nodded.

"What did he have to say?"

"Not much." There was a dried dollop of ketchup on the table and I picked at it. "Do you think I'm screwed up?"

My uncle didn't say anything for almost a minute. He sighed. "No, I don't think so, Hed. I think you're coping."

The timer on the microwave beeped. My uncle brought the plate out and uncovered it. I grabbed one of the burgers and a handful of fries. "Do you think she'll ever stop?" I asked him.

My uncle took a bite of his burger and shrugged. "Maybe. When she realizes things are wrong." He swallowed. "Library tonight?"

I shook my head at first, but then stopped. "Yeah, please."

Prissy's house was smaller than my uncle's, but it was crowded and noisier. Her mother's boyfriend had a son, and Prissy had three sisters, two of them older than herself. The girl who answered the door seemed surprised that I was there for Prissy. Prissy came down the stairs a few minutes later and we left for my house. When we got there, I invited her in for the first time. My uncle's car was still gone and my mother was nowhere to be seen. We settled in the kitchen.

"Your uncle has a nice house," Prissy said.

I nodded. "He's the manager of a bank."

"No shit."

M was standing by the counter. The sink was still filled with unwashed dishes. As Prissy looked around, I got up and started to run water in the sink.

"What are you doing?"

"We haven't done the dishes in awhile."

"Oh, I don't give a rat's ass if you do your dishes. We never do ours."

I shrugged and poured in some detergent. The food bits were stuck on, but most of them came off with a little bit of scrubbing. The stains were permanent.

"What happened to your plates?"

"They're stained." No matter how hard I scrubbed, the streaks, mostly red from pasta sauce, wouldn't wash off. After a few more moments, I took the plate I had in my hand and walked to the garbage. The bin was too small to hold it.

"Break it," M suggested.

I nodded and began to pile the dishes in my arms. Prissy watched me silently. Only when I started walking toward the basement did she ask me, "What are you doing?"

"We need to throw these out," I told her. "But we have to break them first."

"Shit. Why?"

"They're stained. We need to buy new ones."

The laundry room had a cement floor. I put one of the plates on the floor face down and looked around, eventually spotting my uncle's bowling ball. I picked it up and carried it over to the dish on the floor.

"Watch out," I told Prissy, and then I dropped the heavy ball. The plate cracked into pieces. I handed Prissy one of the garbage bags in the corner. "Hold this open."

She took it from me and pulled the edges apart. I dropped the pieces of the plate in and then put the second dish on the floor. The ball had rolled away a few feet and I went to pick it up. There was some white powder on it from the cracked ceramic, but otherwise it was still in good shape. I dropped it on the next plate, and then did so with all of the others until the bottom of the garbage bag was full of pieces.

"What now?" Prissy asked me. I took the bag from her and we went back upstairs. The bag with the pieces now fit in the garbage bin. I shoved it further down with the bottom of my sneaker and then I drained the sink.

"Do you want to come to the mall?" I asked Prissy. "I've got to buy more plates before my mom wakes up."

Prissy nodded and we left the house.

I picked some white plates without designs, ones I could afford with my allowance. I wasn't expecting to meet anyone I knew while we were on this trip so it surprised me when someone tapped me on the shoulder. "Heather?"

I turned at the familiar voice and recognized Dr. Thoth. "Hello," I said.

He smiled. "I thought it was you." He was dressed casually now in brown corduroy pants and a black leather coat. "How are you doing?"

"Fine," I answered, glancing at Prissy. I wondered if he was going to identify her from what my mother had said this morning, but he said nothing about her.

"Are you shopping with your mother?" he asked me, casting a glance around us.

I shook my head. "She's at home."

"Drunk," M added.

Dr. Thoth nodded. "I see. What are you shopping for?"

I held out the plates to him. He nodded again. "I see." He cleared his throat. "Heather, I was hoping that I could talk to you again, without your mother present."

"Not now," I said.

"No," he agreed. "In my office. Maybe we could schedule an appointment."

I didn't say anything.

"Your mother was quite worried about you when she called me this morning," Dr. Thoth told me. "I think I might be able to help you."

"Her mother is an alcoholic," M said.

Prissy must've realized that this was the psychiatrist and had wandered away to look at some other sets of dishware.

"I'd like to find out why you have this...imaginary friend," Dr. Thoth continued.

"Her mother is an alcoholic," M said again.

"Perhaps it has something to do with the departure of your father."

"Her mother is an alcoholic." M was getting louder and I wanted to tell him to shut up.

"What do you think, Heather?" Dr. Thoth asked me.

"My mother is an alcoholic!" M shouted above the noise of the store.

Prissy was staring at me, as was Dr. Thoth. Some other people had also stopped what they were doing to look at me. I realized that I had shouted the words aloud. Dr. Thoth's eyes widened. "I see," he said quietly.

I turned from him and started walking away. Prissy caught up with me. We bought the dishes and left the store. M had disappeared and I wasn't inclined to wonder where he'd gone. Prissy didn't say anything to me until we arrived home, and then she helped me put the new dishes away. My mother was still asleep and my uncle was downstairs. Prissy and I watched a movie in the living room before she left. She never asked me about what I'd said to the doctor. M was in my room when I went up to bed, but something was wrong. He was hunched by the window with a hand over his heart.

"What's wrong?" I asked him.

He pulled his hand away and I saw the wound. "I was shot," he told me. "The mission in Washington was an ambush."

"Are you going to die?"

He nodded. "But it's all right. The world is safe now. I stopped them."

"I know," I told him. I pulled the covers back on my bed and lay down. "Good night, M."

"Good bye, Heather."

He disappeared as I turned off the light.