imaginary friends
Cara
Cara didn’t have many friends growing up. The lack of childhood pals worried her parents to no end, so when she mentioned
she had made a new friend, conveniently named Sara—Cara and Sara, neither had an h at the end of their name, another thing they shared in common—her mother not-so-secretly breathed an audible sigh of relief.
Hallelujah, she said, well within Cara’s earshot. At long last. As if that was the end of any worries over Cara’s awkward, gawky preteen phase. Case closed, let’s call it a day.
What her mother didn’t know was that Sara was an imaginary pal assembled out of necessity by Cara herself, a make-believe
classmate to get Mom off her back. Stop fretting.
Cara was twelve when Sara entered her life. That was definitely on the older side, manifesting an imaginary friend, but Cara
didn’t care. She considered it a craft project:
Make Ur Own Make-Believe Pal.
Cara created a complex backstory for Sara, including such details as where she grew up (Canada), when she moved to Virginia (age ten, the summer before fifth grade), what color her hair was (jet-black like Siouxsie), her choice in clothes (mostly black, some jeans, mostly leather, but not real leather because she was a member of PETA), her choice in music (The Cure, The Smiths, Joy Division), her favorite movie (Legend, duh), which—surprise, surprise—were all Cara’s absolute favorite things, too.
Sara was the idealized version of Cara.
Cara could never dress like her fantasy counterpart. Mom would never let her, not in a million years, so Sara became something
of an imaginary mood board.
Whatever Cara wanted for herself she projected on her pretend pal.
Cara became quite adept at manifesting Sara, filling in the gaps for a life that never existed. One might say Cara knew more
about Sara than Cara even knew about herself.
In making up a personal history for her pretend pal, she forgot to fill in herself. All her thought and energy went into Sara,
leaving Cara’s own life empty.
Whenever Mom asked if she might ever meet this mysterious best friend, Cara always came up with an excuse: Cara’s job at the
Dairy Queen had her closing, even though she’s a vegan, or her mom is immunocompromised or she’s busy volunteering for PETA.
To keep up appearances and keep her mother from worrying all over again, Cara created endlessly elaborate one-sided conversations
on the telephone at night, laughing to herself while pretending to chat with Sara, even though there was never anyone on the
other end of the line. She would place a small strip of Scotch tape over the reset button so that she wasn’t actually on the
phone, keeping the line open without the incessant beep beep beep of the disconnected call pecking at her ear, the operator nagging, If you’d like to make a call, please hang up and dial again .
. . Cara could talk to Sara for hours. Or at least until Cara’s mother told her to get off the phone.
It was fun. Freeing, even. Finally having a chance to chat with somebody about the things going on in Cara’s life, even if there wasn’t anyone really there.
Sara always knew what to say to make Cara feel better because Sara was in fact Cara, a manifestation of what she needed the most. It may have started as an excuse, a cover, but now, the deeper into these phone calls Cara and Sara went, the more Cara could share with Sara, opening her heart up to a new friend.
A true friend.
I feel like my mom doesn’t understand me . . . She doesn’t want to understand me.
For real?
Yeah, she, like, wants me to be just like her when she was my age . . . but that’s not me. That’ll never be me.
I think you’re pretty cool just the way you are, Sara said after a brief pause.
You think? Really?
Yeah, I do.
Cara always knew when her mother was eavesdropping from the other side of her bedroom door, the silhouettes of her feet filling
the gap along the floor from the other side, so she would laugh at something Sara had said, answering back, Of course you’d say something like that, or Oh my God, you didn’t, please tell me you didn’t, for real, I can’t believe you’d do that, you are so hilarious, what did
he say?
It worked. For a while. All the way up until Cara’s mother covertly picked up the phone from the kitchen to listen in on the
conversation, palm pressed against the mouthpiece, ear up to the plastic colander, hearing nothing but the hum of the dial
tone.
Cara’s mother barged right into her room without even knocking, cutting off the conversation between the two girls. Her mother
demanded Cara explain herself. To admit Sara wasn’t real. She’d had her suspicions for weeks, months, and now this. All this.
Cara was in tears when she eventually confessed. It was as if Sara was oozing out of her, running down her cheeks, out from
her nose, her very pores, gathering at her chin.
That, sadly, was the end of the era of Sara.
Until now.
Let me in . . .
“. . . Hello?” Cara is now twenty-seven years old and no longer believes in imaginary friends.
When’s the last time she thought about her ol’ pal Sara?
Years ago.
Cara now lives in Richmond, alone, just a three-hour drive from her childhood home in Norfolk. She’s gotten a job with the
Virginia Film Commission, primarily dealing with permits for production companies who want Richmond to double as a cheaper
DC. Mindless office work. Way too much red tape. She’s told herself it’s filmmaker adjacent and therefore worth her time and
energy, though most days she comes home absolutely zonked from all the endless hours of phone calls with producers or assistant
producers or associate producers all asking for her to expedite the process on their permits so they can shoot, like, tomorrow
in Maymont.
Not gonna happen, sorry . . .
Most nights, all Cara wants to do is crash on her couch and watch a movie. Open a bottle of something. Maybe light up. She could go out, if she could just rally. She’s made some friends here in the city. More like acquaintances.
Some co-workers organized a female filmmakers coalition. She’s never actually seen anything by anyone else yet. They meet
monthly to discuss projects they’re working on or a screenplay they’re workshopping or maybe just even a film they’ve all
seen recently. The group’s preferred spot is Sticky Rice, though lately it’s been such a frat-magnet, Cara can’t help but
wonder if there might be a better place to meet up. Ipanema or, Jesus, even The Village would be ten times better than Sticky Rice. But Cara’s new to the crew, the rookie of the group. She doesn’t
feel comfy enough suggesting a change in location, so she sorta suffers in silence most nights while—
Let me in . . .
There it is again. This time, she’s certain she heard it.
“Who’s there?”
Cara sits upright on her IKEA couch, straining her ears to listen. She’s been hovering around the same paragraph in her book for the last few minutes. The words haven’t been sinking in, no matter how many times she rereads the same passage. She just can’t focus.
She puts The Lovely Bones down, losing her place.
Listening.
The voice could’ve come from right behind her. Someone whispering at her ear. It felt that close. The hairs on the back of
her neck even prickled. There was the faintest sensation of breath spreading across her skin—but the moment she sits upright
and turns to look over her shoulder, there’s nothing there. Her apartment is empty, save for herself.
Sara? That you?
It’s such a silly thought, Cara can’t help but laugh—inside—to herself. She hasn’t had a conversation with her imaginary friend
for . . . what? Years? Well over a decade by now.
She’d completely forgotten all about her. Sara. Her good ol’ imaginary pal.
It couldn’t be.
Could it?
What’s she doing back now? What does she want with Cara? It seems so silly, when Cara thinks about it, but . . . who else
could it be, calling her? Imagine that. How funny it’d—
Let me in . . .
Cara gasps. The book slips out from her lap and falls to the floor.
The voice sounds deeper now. Far more resonant.
Growing.
There’s no mistaking it. There is a palpable presence. A voice. Someone else is here. In the room. With Cara. But she can’t
see them, wherever—whoever—they are.
Cara can’t help but panic. Her heartbeat picks up. She’s having difficulty breathing.
“What do you want?”
What did Sara ever really want? Did she ever ask for anything from Cara?
Sara, her fucking imaginary friend. Sara, in her head.
Does that make it any less frightening for Cara, thinking that her make-believe pal has come back, after all these years, picking up the loose end of their friendship with the ease of picking up the phone and reaching out? Touching someone?
Reconnecting?
What’s the alternative? That Cara is hearing voices? That she’s losing it? Her job is stressful, yes, but not enough to fracture
her personality. She’s lonely here in Richmond, yeah, for sure, but it hasn’t pushed her to the edge of desperation. She’s
not going crazy. She’s not losing her mind. This is not that type of movie. This is her life, not some gothic—
Let me in.
Cara slips off the couch and drops to the floor. She lands on her back, on her book, in that gap between the couch and the
coffee table, a carpeted canyon that pinches her shoulders closer to her chest. She crab walks out from the chasm until her
back meets the wall. She doesn’t want anything behind her. She wants to take in the living room in its entirety. She wants—needs—to see everything . . . because that’s just it. That’s the problem.
There’s nothing to see. No one is here. It’s just her and . . .
Sara. Her ol’ pal. Just like old times, checking in, seeing how you are, what you’ve been up to. There are worse things, aren’t
there? Sara always had a plan. Sara always knew what to do. Maybe Sara is what Cara’s been missing all these years. Someone
to take over. Someone who gets shit done. Finally, Cara could finish her screenplay. Finally, Cara could make her film. Finally,
finally, people would pay attention to Cara because Sara was in charge and everyone loves Sara, fun Sara, living on the edge Sara,
the spotlight always finds her, shining so bright, and isn’t that what Cara wants more than anything? To bask in Sara’s glow?
To feel the heat of celebrity? Of stardom? She could do anything, be anything. A star.
“Yes.”
It’s a relief, letting go. All the worry. The self-doubt. Sara chews it all up. Swallows with a smile. No more pain, no more loneliness. All Cara has to do is simply . . .
Let me in.
It feels cold at first. Like water poured over her head. It rushes down her back, her spine, the water filling her up from
the inside out, a sudden jolt of cold that sends a vivid shiver across her skin, goose bumps rippling over her flesh, but
the rush suddenly goes deeper, filling in every crevasse, almost all at once, a flood now, an overwhelming deluge, drowning
now, Cara feels like she’s drowning, she can’t breathe, there’s no air down here—
Cara’s body freezes. Her bones seize. Her lungs lock.
Her jaw suspends itself, slung open. Her eyes roll up into the safety of her sockets, her skull, a snail easing back into
its shell, hiding, leaving behind nothing but white, the veins laced within.
Sara’s come back, out of the blue, out from the abyss that is Cara’s endless imagination.
Sara wants to hang. Make up for lost time. Walk the bloody red carpet.
Cara is now Sara. Or, at least, that’s the last thought that goes through Cara’s mind . . .
Sara’s all grown up now. She’s no longer twelve. Her tastes have matured. Sharpened themselves. She wants to go out. Get a
taste for this city’s nightlife.
Of Jordan.