Imaginary Things

by Andrea Lochen

  “Okay,” I said, backing up so my son could hurtle past me down the stairs.

  “Anna,” Duffy called, and I expected some variation of “be careful,” but instead she said with a meaningful smile, “Have fun tonight.”

  “Thanks. You too.” I took the steps slowly, feeling as jittery as if I’d just drunk ten cups of coffee. The sun had finally wrestled free of the clouds the afternoon rain showers had brought, and it was so bright, I was having a hard time focusing on Jamie and his shiny truck. He asked me a question about David’s booster seat, and I was grateful to have such a mundane task to figure out. He helped me remove it from the minivan and install it in his backseat with such ease I questioned if he’d done it before, but he insisted he hadn’t.

  We were looking for a place to park by the time I got the courage to glance over and really look at him. He hadn’t shaved, but his beard looked like it had been shaped or trimmed somewhat, and I had to admit, it made him look older, not so baby-faced, and very masculine. He was wearing sandals and faded jeans, and the only trace of black was a polo shirt that I guessed was from high school, judging by the way it fit him—tight in all the right places.

  “So what do you think we should do first?” Jamie asked David, crouching down to his level.

  David, never having been to a fair before, treated this like a trick question. He squinted at Jamie and turned the question around on him, a habit he’d recently acquired from Duffy, who did this to him all the time and insisted it helped develop his critical thinking skills. “What do you think we should do first?”

  Jamie grinned at me. “Well, let’s see. We could get something to eat, we could go on some rides, we could play some games, or we could talk to the firemen and check out their trucks.”

  Ding, ding, ding, we had a winner.

  “I want to see the fire trucks,” David decreed solemnly. He gripped my hand like he was going to start dragging me even though he had no idea which way to go.

  Jamie guided us to the perimeter of the grounds, where a long red and white fire engine was parked and a couple of volunteer firefighters in baggy tan overalls with reflective strips were teaching kids about fire safety. They demonstrated raising the ladder and spraying the hose and even allowed kids to sit in the driver’s seat of the truck and wear an oversized black hat for a photo opportunity. I hadn’t thought to bring my camera, but Jamie took a picture of David with his phone and promised he’d send it to me.

  “Looks like you’ve got yourself a future firefighter there,” Jamie said to me, as my son reluctantly turned over the fireman’s hat to the next kid in line.

  “Yeah. Either that or a paleontologist. Or a farmer. Or a pirate.” “Hmmm. All worthy professions.” Jamie lowered his phone to show David the picture he’d taken, and in his zeal, David kissed the screen. Jamie didn’t even wipe off the smudge; he just laughed and put the phone back in his pocket.

  We started walking to the row of food stands, for which I was grateful, because my stomach was growling and the intoxicating scent of buttery corn on the cob, roasted nuts, and cream puffs was heavily perfuming the air. How would poor Winston resist? Jamie and I each got giant slices of pizza, and David got a cloud of pink cotton candy bigger than his head. (I figured that a carnival was the one place you could get away with feeding a child spun sugar for dinner.) I was so entertained watching his deliberate progress, which reminded me of an ant nibbling on a doughnut, that I didn’t notice Duffy and Winston coming toward us until they were right behind Jamie’s shoulder.

  “Hello, hello,” Duffy said, dropping her magenta suede leather purse on the seat beside Jamie with a thump. “Thank goodness we ate before we came. It’s unconscionable, the things they’re coming up with to deep fry these days. Deep-fried Oreos? Deep-fried Twinkies? What’s next? A vat where you can deep fry your own hand and gnaw on that?”

  “Ingenious,” Jamie said and winked at Winston.

  “Grandpa! Grandma! Look at my cotton candy!” David cried, waving the sticky pink fluff dangerously close to my hair.

  “It’s lovely,” Duffy said. “Just my favorite shade of pink.” She leaned against the picnic table. “So, what have you all seen so far? And what were you planning on doing next?”

  Oh no! She was trying to horn in on our date. Correction: not a date. Just an outing between friends who both had full and busy lives with no time for romance. I’d told her as much only a few hours earlier. But still, the thought of my grandparents chaperoning us like a couple of seven-year-olds was really unappealing. David told them all about the fire truck we’d seen, and I folded my paper plate into halves until I couldn’t fold it anymore. When Jamie saw what I’d done, he reached out his hand for the plate and got up to throw our trash away.

  “Do you know what we saw on our way over here?” Duffy asked David. “A game where you get to squirt a water gun at targets to win prizes! Doesn’t that sound like fun?” She hefted her purse over her shoulder and gave me a questioning look. “We’d love to take him around if you guys want to…”

  It was even worse than them horning in on our not-date—they were deliberately trying to force us into date territory! Could Duffy be any more obvious? I smiled apologetically at Jamie, but apparently he wasn’t about to make this easy on me either. It’s up to you, his impassive expression seemed to say. No one else can make this decision for you, Anna.

  “Sure,” I said. “That would be great. Just let me know when and where you’d like to meet up later and how much I owe you for any games or rides.”

  Winston shook his head. “We’ll take care of everything. We’ll take him home, tuck him in. Just enjoy yourselves.” It was so similar to how he’d set us loose as kids, that I almost expected him to hand us each a ten dollar bill.

  I asked David for a hug, and he obliged me, but I could tell his heart was already set on the water gun game. I had almost hoped for a tantrum, even just a little one, to prolong the inevitable, but David chose that moment to be an obedient little soldier. And so they left, and Jamie and I were alone.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “So,” I said, and I found that I didn’t know what to say next. I wasn’t fooling anyone, least of all myself. This was officially a date now and probably had been one all along. I liked Jamie. I liked him in the cozy, comfortable way that long-time friends have with each other, but I also liked him in a kind of way that I kept wondering what he looked like with his clothes off.

  But I hadn’t done this—dating—in such a long time that I didn’t remember how. I wasn’t sure I’d ever really known how. There were the high school boys whose idea of a “date” was videogames followed by other activities I’d rather not remember in their parents’ basement. And then there were the guys I’d met recently at parties or bars, whom I refused to take home to my place for fear that David would wake up. In between, there was Patrick.

  “So,” I repeated.

  Jamie stood up and stretched, revealing an inch of taut abdomen and a black treasure trail, which I had to drag my eyes away from.

  “Should we go get a couple of beers?” he suggested.

  The beer tent, packed tightly with rowdy, twenty-something groups of friends and couples, restored a little normalcy to my world. Since it was where the fire department made the most money, several of the firefighters were hanging out, swapping stories, and taking pictures with flirtatious girls. Jamie bought us each a beer and then led me over to a familiar-looking group of guys who turned out to be Sam, Marshall, and another guy I didn’t know (not Colin, thank God). But just around the time I was starting to get bored with their good-natured but profanity-laced razzing of each other, Jamie said our goodbyes and led us to a small table.

  “Are you sure you’re old enough to drink that?” I teased as we sat down.

  “I’m only six months younger than you.” To prove his point, he took a swig of beer. I watched as his Adam’s apple rose and fell as he gulped it down.

  “Sometimes I feel older,” I said, spreadi
ng my hands out, palms down on the table.

  “Older than me?” Jamie’s forehead creased in concern.

  “No. Just older in general.” We were sitting at the edge of the tent, and I could see a sliver of dusky rose sunset.

  Jamie’s forehead wrinkles deepened. “Well, you had to grow up fast.”

  “We both did,” I said, not sure if I was referring to his caretaking of his mom or his battle to overcome his drug addiction.

  “Do you want another beer?” Jamie asked. He had finished his.

  “No, thanks.”

  “Me neither.” His casual demeanor was wearing off, and he was starting to look as nervous as I felt. “So, how is your rocking chair?”

  I looked up, caught off guard. “Oh. It’s good.” I laughed. “I’m a bit worried David’s and my combined weight is going to break the thing, but otherwise it’s good. Thank you for helping me get it. It means a lot to me, and I’m sorry if I wasn’t able to properly thank you.”

  “No problem.” He gave me a half-smile, one that reminded me of the insecure adolescent he’d been, and then turned his attention to his empty plastic cup.

  “But you know what?” I asked, reaching across the table to lightly tap the inside crease of his arm. His skin felt electric and hot to the touch; I removed my hand quickly. “It was bittersweet for me to reminisce about rocking him as a baby because my ‘baby’ is going to be starting kindergarten at Port Ambrose Elementary in only a week.”

  Jamie’s smile spread across his face. He leaned forward on his elbows, ever so casually flexing his chest and arm muscles. “Oh, yeah? That’s where I went to elementary school. It’s a nice place. I’m sure David will like it.” His dark-chocolate-brown eyes were studying me the way David’s had as a newborn, with warmth, curiosity, and a hint of distrust. “Does that mean you’re staying in the Salsburg area?”

  “For now,” I said and pulled my ponytail over my bare shoulder, teasing apart the waves with my fingers. “I don’t know if it will be permanent, but it feels like the right place to be.” At that moment, it had never felt truer.

  Without talking about it, we both stood up and made our way outside the tent. Night was descending like a dark, silky parachute, and the carnival was finally coming alive. The round bulbs on the rides burst with electric light and energy, and everything that had looked so tacky and pedestrian before suddenly looked romantic and full of possibilities. Like Paris in the middle of small town Wisconsin. All my worries were melting away, and I felt sprightly, effervescent, and downright girly.

  “Let’s go on the Ferris wheel,” I said.

  Jamie rolled his eyes, but he was suppressing a grin. “You didn’t get enough of it when you were eight?”

  “Apparently not.”

  We bought tickets and stood in a very short line. Most of the passenger cars were unoccupied, and only a dad and a son and two adolescent girls were ahead of us. I could see why. The Ferris wheel looked even more rickety and unsafe than I’d remembered. But before I could back out, the ride operator was locking us into a car that was much smaller than I recalled. My bare thigh was snug against Jamie’s jeans-clad one. How had Jamie, Leah Nola, and I all fit in the same car as kids? Granted, Leah Nola probably didn’t take up much space, but still.

  “Did you ever know that I used to be afraid of heights?” Jamie said, as the Ferris wheel lurched upward so another passenger car could be filled.

  “No! Seriously?” I glanced at his white-knuckled death grip on the safety bar and wondered if he wasn’t still somewhat afraid of heights.

  “Yeah. This persistent little neighbor kid used to beg me to go on the Ferris wheel with her even though I was terrified. We’d go ten times in a row without getting off and use up all our tickets at once.”

  “Gosh, I’m so sorry. I had no idea. Why didn’t you say something?”

  “It’s okay. I’m glad you didn’t notice.” Jamie shifted his weight slightly, and I could feel his hip pressed against mine. The Ferris wheel creaked, and we climbed higher into the night sky.

  The view wasn’t as spectacular as I remembered: the white tents, the port-o-potties, the other psychedelic-flashing and whirling, seizure-inducing rides. But beyond the bright lights, nestled under the cover of darkness, were modest homes, ancient trees, and farm fields that stretched for miles. And somewhere down there were my son and grandparents, the three people I loved most in this world.

  I turned to focus my attention on Jamie, whose arm was carelessly touching my knee, and whose bearded face looked irresistibly handsome, and I suddenly had the urge to kiss him. Making out on a Ferris wheel was so cliché, I admonished myself, but the impulse lingered, getting hotter and more urgent with each awkward jerk of the wheel. We were on the downward swing now. Hopefully I could control myself for just ten more minutes. And then? And then all bets were off.

  Jamie’s warm gaze met mine, and I blushed, as if he could read my mind.

  “Did you ever know that I’ve loved you since I was six years old?” he asked softly.

  The jittery over-caffeinated feeling returned. The skin cells on my bare thigh touching his leg sparked with excitement. I gripped the safety bar too, and my palms felt slippery with sweat.

  “I don’t believe you,” I said lightly.

  “When you left, I missed you so much that I prayed you’d get in trouble again and your mom would send you back.”

  “And I did.”

  “And you did. But then we didn’t see each other for all those years, and I had this idea of you in my head, this perfect, beautiful, creative girl, that I just knew wasn’t realistic and that no girl could possibly live up to. But then you came back in high school, and you exceeded it. Then you broke my heart.”

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered.

  “You’re not,” he murmured accusingly. “You’re still breaking it.” His warm, calloused fingers lightly turned my chin toward his. Our lips collided, and I was suddenly no longer concerned with how cliché and adolescent it seemed to make out on a Ferris wheel. His beard felt soft against my face, not how I’d expected it to feel at all, and we were drinking each other in as though we each had been unquenchably thirsty.

  We hardly noticed when the ride jerked to a stop at the bottom, the safety bar released us, and the ride operator shot us a sulky frown.

  “Can we go somewhere?” I asked in between kisses, and Jamie grabbed my hand and desperately pulled me through the maze of the carnival.

  Jamie’s bedroom was nothing like I’d envisioned. I’d never seen it as a child, and I guess I wasn’t sure what kind of room an all-black-wearing, country-music-listening, landscaping guru in his early twenties would have, but this certainly wasn’t it. The room was tasteful and immaculate like a five-star hotel room. His queen-size bed was neatly made with a duvet-covered comforter that smelled like laundry detergent and sheets that felt like Egyptian cotton of a high thread count. I couldn’t tell you much else about the room beyond the bed, because that was my main area of concentration. Frankly, it was very perceptive of me to notice the bed at all given the things Jamie was doing to me.

  Skimming my bare legs with his rough but surprisingly gentle palms, he helped me kick off my cowboy boots and then set about unzipping and sliding off my tiny jean shorts. All through his methodical efforts to undress me, he continued to kiss me like he was a man in a desert and I was a tall glass of icy lemonade. We rolled toward the center of the bed, and I straddled him, unbuttoning the collar of his polo shirt and wrestling it over his head. I pressed my cheek against his warm, smooth chest, savoring his chiseled muscles, the clean smell of his skin, the wild pounding of his heart.

  “Do you have something?” I murmured.

  “Yes.” Jamie twined his fingers through my messy ponytail, drawing me closer to his face, as though he couldn’t bear one second when our lips weren’t touching. With his other hand, he fumbled blindly through the nightstand drawer, finally producing a condom. It had always been my least favorite part of
sex—the awkwardness, the bringing back to reality, the slowing down and stopping to consider: what are we doing? Should we be doing this? But there were none of these hesitations with Jamie. His eyes never left mine as he rolled the condom on, and then his muscular arms were back around me, guiding me, enveloping me. I felt insanely sexy and desirable, but I had felt that way before; there was more to it than that. I felt cherished. Did you ever know that I’ve loved you since I was six years old?

  Afterward, we lay side by side in a blissful stupor, hypnotized by the slowly rotating ceiling fan above us. My black thong was still caught around my heel, and I lazily tried to fling it to the floor.

  “Did that really just happen, or is this all a dream?” Jamie asked, gently stroking my side with the back of his hand, from my breast all the way down my rib cage.

  I didn’t move the sheet to cover up the pale, yet shiny stretch marks on my lower abdomen. Instead, I propped myself up on my elbow and turned to face him, noting his own scar. Three inches in length, red and raised, outlining his armpit. From the car accident, I suspected. He propped himself up too, and I reached behind him to pinch his impossibly firm butt.

  “Ow. What was that for?” Jamie asked, laughing. He playfully tried to reach around me to return the favor.

  I grinned and swatted his hand away. “Not a dream.”

  “Excellent.” A black forelock fell over his eye, and he didn’t bother to brush it aside. Instead, he smoldered at me with his one visible eye.

  “You’re excellent,” I said. “I mean, wow. Just wow.” I ran my palm lightly over his bearded jawline.

  “That’s the second best news I’ve heard all day,” he said and kissed my fingertips.

  I sat upright, hugging my knees to my breasts, and gave him a gentle push so that he lost his balance. “What was the first?”

  Jamie flopped flat on his back and then stretched his arms overhead. “When you said you were sticking around Salsburg.”