by Noel Hynd
“Well,” Rebecca said, rising to the moment. “Let’s go upstairs now and see if we see him. I’d like to meet Ronny, too.”
Again in unison, they answered. “Okay.” They were enthusiastic about introducing Mom to their friend.
Bill bailed out of the event, giving Rebecca a bemused raised eyebrow and a bored but understanding smile. Kids! She walked upstairs hand in hand with her small brood.
Nope. No Ronny this evening. Not visible, anyway.
The kids brushed their teeth and put their pajamas on. Bill came upstairs and prepared a bedtime story for two. Something about a rabbit running through the woods and stopping for a carrot and lettuce pizza — hold the cheese, please! — on the way home.
Rebecca took the moment to walk over to the turret room and glance in. There was only a mild hint of the smell that had been bothering her. Otherwise, the room was empty, awaiting renovation, renewal and its eventual salvation.
And still no Ronny.
“Yoo hoo,” Rebecca finally called to the empty chamber. But no imaginary guy tonight. Then both parents kissed their children goodnight and went back downstairs.
“An imaginary friend?” Rebecca asked softly, not wanting to be heard upstairs. “With a name?” She shook her head.
“The only imaginary Ronny that I knew of in Southern California was the former president,” Bill grumbled, hardly looking up from his laptop.
“It is a little creepy, isn’t it?” Rebecca said.
“What is?” Bill asked.
“An imaginary friend. With quite so much detail.”
“Didn’t you have one when you were a kid?” Bill asked.
“Have what?”
“An imaginary friend, with or without a lot of detail.” She thought about it.
“Yeah. I did,” Rebecca admitted. “She was a girl my age.”
“Did she have a name?” Bill still wasn’t looking up.
“Her name was Sally,” Rebecca admitted.
“Then what bothers you about Ronny?” Bill asked.
“I find it a little strange that they both see the same dude,” Rebecca said. “Usually…”
“Screw ‘usually’!” Bill snapped. “McLaughlin and I work on the same architectural plans. Same principle: joint creation. Is that creepy?”
“No, but…”
“A joint creation of the mind,” her husband said, finally raising his head. “Patrick and Karen working in tandem. Now what’s really bugging you?”
She thought about it. She knew the answer. It took her a few moments before she had the nerve to give voice to it.
“What bothers me is the way they keyed in on the turret room,” Rebecca finally admitted. Bill turned and looked fully at Rebecca.
“What do you mean?”
“There’s something about that room that bothers me. Always has.”
Her husband was watching her. Then she saw something unsettled in his eyes, and she felt his gaze settling in on her. It almost scared her when her husband’s moods changed so quickly. With narrowed eyes,
“Like what?’ he asked.
“The smell in Ronny’s room, for one thing,” she decided. “Yuck!” She tried to make a joke of it, hoping that might drive away the whole problem.
“It’s not ‘Ronny’s Room!’” he snapped. “It’s the ‘turret room,’ soon to be the ‘second floor playroom’ as soon as I have time. Now, anything else?” he asked.
She searched. She didn’t want to dredge up her feelings from the attack in Connecticut. She had done so well since the move in conquering all those old anxieties.
“No,” she said sullenly. “Nothing specific. Just a feeling.” He continued to gaze at her. Then his annoyance dissipated, and he eased.
“The room will be a lot more comfortable, a lot more welcoming, once we renew it,” he said. “You know, paint it. Get some stuff in for the kids. Okay, honey, look. Even I admit that it’s a little tiny bit creepy now.”
“You feel that, too?” she asked.
“I didn’t say I felt anything,” he said. “I just think maybe that room should be a priority. I don’t want it to turn into something that’s scaring the kids. Or my wife. Okay?”
“It’s now a priority,” she said. She knew when to ease off and agree with her husband. She had learned in her years of marriage to him that this was sometimes the only way to avoid a major fight. So she pondered the point and tried to make a joke of it.
“I wish Ronny would do something about that smell while he’s wandering through our upstairs,” Rebecca added. Bill went back to his laptop.
“Maybe you can get him to paint and reinforce the walls while you’re at it, too,” he said.
“You’re such a pragmatist,” she said.
“The turret room is empty,” Bill said, losing himself in cyberspace again. “So Patrick and Karen fill it with their imagination. That’s fine as long as they’re not scaring themselves. And obviously they’re not.” He paused. “They think this ‘Ronny’ clown is funny. So let them think that.” Rebecca sighed again. There was a creak in the floorboards behind her husband.
“And by the way, architects are pragmatists by nature,” he continued. “Theories don’t hold buildings up. Nails, wood, and the proper use of physics do. Comprenez?“
“Bill, you really are one of the great B.S. artists of all time,” she said. “Or should I phrase it, ‘artiste de merde du taureau’?”
“Call it anything you like, Becca,” he half replied without looking up. “And thanks for the accolade. You made it sound real elegant.”
“You’re welcome,” she said. Then she waited for a full minute. “Want to do some sex after the kids are asleep?” A curled eyebrow in response from her husband, two eyes glancing up.
“How about tomorrow?” he asked. “I have a lot of tweaking to do for Jack McLaughlin tonight.”
“You animal,” she teased, maybe with a little too much sarcasm. “I don’t know how I resist you.”
But Bill let the comment pass, continuing with his laptop. She walked over to him, half to touch him, half to see what was on the computer screen. She arrived: architectural plans.
“Okay,” she said.
Twice miffed, she tuned her husband out the rest of the evening. And she felt a pang of loneliness, on the other side of the continent from her best friends and passively ignored by her husband.
And this “Ronny” nonsense didn’t help, either.
In fact, the uneasiness about “Ronny” carried over for several more days. Twice a week, Rebecca phoned her widowed mother in Illinois. Somehow, in their next conversation, Rebecca drifted toward what was bothering her: the imaginary friend both her children saw.
This Ronny.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Rebecca’s mother answered. “Patrick and Karen left friends behind in the East. So they’re imagining new ones until they’re secure with their new playmates at school.”
Rebecca thought about it. And her instincts were at work again, the same extra sense that had once told her in a Connecticut parking lot that her life was in danger. Here she didn’t feel danger. She just felt… well, creepy.
Silly, she told herself, but sometimes in the house she had that old sense of being watched again. Under observation, from an unknown point, someone hidden somewhere.
“It still unnerves me a little,” she admitted to her mother.
“Don’t let it, dear. Your nerves are still tingling from that horrible incident in Connecticut. And Ronny will be replaced by real friends in a matter of days.”
“I guess,” she said with a sigh. Sometimes mothers are right, even on the long distance horn.
Like clockwork, within the next few days, Patrick and Karen started talking more about new acquaintances at school. No more mention of Ronny. And Rebecca didn’t ask about him. Somehow she associated him with trouble, though she didn’t quite know why.
But indeed, he had vanished. To celebrate, Rebecca convinced Bill that they should throw their part
y on the first Saturday in October.
Silently, he brooded about the date for several minutes. Then he gave his blessing.
“Yeah. That’ll work,” he said. “It’ll give us time to fix the place up a little. It won’t look so bare when we have people in.”
She smiled and kissed her husband on the cheek. She went out the next day and picked out fifty invitations. Almost without notice, her sense of being observed vanished at the same time.
There was another positive note, too. Over the next two days, Bill stripped the walls in the turret room and prepared them with white primer. Rebecca held her breath as her husband worked. Deep down, as she was afraid to admit to anyone, she had this horrible sense of dread that something terrible was about to happen.
But the first step of renewing the room went without incident. It was a complete success. The stench even receded when the old wallpaper was torn away.
And best of all, she thought to herself, no Ronny.
Chapter 7
Two afternoons later, a sunny Wednesday, Rebecca was stepping out of her car in front of her new home. She heard another vehicle on the road. She turned. She saw the dark haired woman in the yellow Mustang convertible. The woman — California plates HOTCHIK — drove past her without acknowledgment. Rebecca had been about to raise her own hand to wave, but the convertible passed too quickly.
As she unloaded her own car, without being obvious, Rebecca watched the yellow car. A garage door rose automatically in the house three doors down and the car disappeared within.
Then, again with unseen hands, the garage door closed.
Rebecca turned her attention back to the contents of her car’s trunk. Paint and rollers. Brushes and pans. The turret room was soon to undergo phase two of the Moores’ full attack. Rebecca made two trips into the house with her purchases. She came back outside to make sure she had locked the car. She thought she was alone when someone spoke to her.
“Hi!” The voice was female and came from behind her. Rebecca turned. There was a young woman at the edge of her driveway. Rebecca had never seen her before.
“Hello,” Rebecca answered. The woman stood twenty feet away.
“Just move in? I’m one of your neighbors. I thought I’d stop and be your best new friend.” Rebecca smiled. She walked toward the woman.
Her visitor was thin with short blond hair and fair skin. A pretty face with freckles. She wore blue jean shorts and a pale pink T-shirt. A thin gold chain circled her neck and hung at the top of the shirt. At first Rebecca thought she was perhaps college age because she had a young figure with long tan legs. But then, immediately, Rebecca drew a second impression, one that told her that the visitor was maybe ten years older than that. Early thirties.
“I’m Melissa Ford,” the visitor said. “I’ve been watching you.”
“You have?” Melissa smiled and set Rebecca at ease.
“In a neighborly way,” she continued. “I live two doors down.” She pointed at the house two doors away where the yellow convertible had just disappeared. 2141 Topango.
“I’m Rebecca Moore,” Rebecca said. “I’m happy to meet you.”
“I was out walking. I thought I’d stop and say hello,” Melissa Ford said.
“Thanks. I thought I just saw your, uh…”
“Roommate. That’s June. Big blond bitch. She just drove by, right?”
“Right.”
“And you went to wave, and June didn’t see you.”
“You were watching carefully,” Rebecca said.
“June’s antisocial,” Melissa said “She does rude stuff like that all the time. She didn’t wave to me, either.”
“Then I won’t take offense.”
“There was none intended.” Melissa glanced toward 2141 and then back to Rebecca.
“I’ve seen you going in and out,” Melissa said. “You’ve got two nice looking children and either a husband or a boyfriend or some sort of fulltime stud muffin. I don’t care which.”
“It’s a traditional setup,” Rebecca said. “That’s Bill, and he’s my husband. You?”
“I have a roommate,” Melissa said. “June. Nontraditional, maybe you’d call it. I don’t know.”
“Do you work in the neighborhood?”
“I was on the adjunct faculty at UCLA,” Melissa Ford said. “American Civilization. My concentration was on California in the early twentieth century.”
“Was?”
“Modern life,” she said. “Recession. Budget cuts. I was terminated.”
“Oh. Sorry.” An awkward pause. Rebecca wasn’t sure what to say. “Well, it sounds like a fascinating field. I’m sure you’ll find something else.”
“Yeah. Starbuck’s for the time being. But hey. I don’t sweat the small stuff. Life happens. I like California, so I’ve made a commitment to stay. I came here in the mid-nineties. Drove out all by my lonesome in a Volvo station wagon and a degree in American Civilization from Sarah Lawrence. Decided I liked California, not Sarah Lawrence, so I stayed. I studied and got a gig at UCLA.”
“Sounds fascinating,” Rebecca said. “I’m impressed.” Rebecca locked her car and turned to her friend.
“Want to come in for a minute? I’ve got coffee. Ice tea. Soda. Anything you want.” Melissa seemed surprised. Rebecca could see it in her eyes.
“I’d really like that,” Melissa said. “Thanks.”
Rebecca led the way into the house. The small talk continued. Melissa was the type who told her entire life story within the first five minutes of one’s first meeting her. Rebecca didn’t mind at all. The conversation drifted back to the adjunct faculty position at UCLA by the time they reached the kitchen.
“Teaching beats answering telephones in an office, which is what a lot of Am Civ graduates end up doing,” Melissa said. “Have you met Dr. Lerner yet?”
“No. Who’s that?”
Melissa eased into a stainless steel and plastic chair at the kitchen table. She moved her head to indicate a house four doors down Topango Gardens on the north side of the street.
“Maurice Lerner,” Melissa said as Rebecca unpacked the bag of groceries. “He’s a shrink. Faculty at UCLA. He’s a fully tenured professor in the psych department, if you want to be impressed. Or ‘psycho’ department, maybe I should call it, since it’s UCLA. Anyway, Maurice is a brain. He’s written a dozen scholarly books.” She rolled her eyes, beautiful brown ones. “Puts little old me to shame.”
“I really don’t know anyone in the neighborhood yet,” Rebecca said. “I mean, I’ve met a lot of people. But I don’t really know people. Understand what I mean?”
“I hear you. But now you know me.”
“Thanks. I do.”
“And within a few weeks you’ll meet everyone else. I promise you that you’ll like it here. How’s that? My personal verbal guarantee, worth the paper it’s printed on.” Melissa smiled.
“Thank you. That’s encouraging.”
“You’re not from California,” Melissa said. “I can tell. My guess is you’re from the East. You’ve got that reticence that Westerners mistake for hostility.” Rebecca frowned.
“You’re really right on, aren’t you?” She asked. Melissa smiled very prettily.
“No use hiding what we think. Is there?”
“I’m from Maryland originally. My husband’s from Virginia. Most recently we lived in Connecticut.”
“Why did you come here?” Melissa asked.
The incident in Fairfield flashed before Rebecca’s mind. She rejected it.
“My husband’s an architect. He wants to open his own firm. He has a contact here. In Brentwood.”
“Nice area. Money, you know,” Melissa said approvingly. “Can’t live well in this town without oodles of money.”
“The contact’s a friend from graduate school. The friend has too much work for his own firm so he subcontracts.”
“Nice arrangement. An architect is a smart thing to be around here. If we ever have The Big One, someone’s go
ing to have to put up a lot of new buildings.”
“The Big One’?”
“The big earthquake. A whammo 8.8 job. The one everyone thinks is inevitable.”
Rebecca shuddered. Nothing more sobering than thinking of her house leveled to the ground within weeks after the mortgage approval. Melissa laughed. Rebecca finished unpacking a brown bag.
“Sometimes when I refer to ‘The Big One’ to women from the East, they think I’m talking about an orgasm,” she said.
Rebecca laughed.
“I wish I were,” Melissa said, raising her degree of candor to the next level. “As a single woman, you never know who you’re going to pair off with next.”
“Have a boyfriend?” Rebecca asked.
“Would I be concerned about my next orgasm if I did?’ I mean, other than something I can do for myself?” She flexed her index finger.
Rebecca laughed again. There was something about Melissa, a crude frankness and irreverence that was infectious. Rebecca felt good just laughing with her.
“How does ice tea sound?” Rebecca asked.
“I never knew it made a sound.”
“I mean…” Then Melissa started to laugh and Rebecca joined in a second later.
“I’m sorry,” Melissa said. “I couldn’t resist.” Still laughing. “Ice tea would be terrific,” she said.
Rebecca set to making some. Fresh brewed, plus ice, plus some mint, lemon, and sugar. Melissa watched her and admired the finished product when it was served.
Rebecca sat down at the kitchen table, joined her friend, and sipped.
“This is delicious,” Melissa said.
“Thank you.” Rebecca sipped, too. The brew was good.
“Did you say you were from California?” Rebecca asked a few moments later.
Melissa smiled.
“Do I look it?”
She did. The blond hair. The tan legs. The shorts. Or at least she looked as if she had been there for a while. Rebecca didn’t know what to say.
“Think hard,” Melissa said, sitting with perfect posture and leaning back in a chair. She folded her hands behind her head.
Then Rebecca recalled.
“Oh, of course! You just told me. You drove out in…”