January 13, 2021

My Imaginary Girlfriend

I had only seen one on television but when I opened the front door and walked into the house I knew immediately I had walked into an intervention.

Doctors will tell you if you hear hooves you should think horse and not zebra so even though my birthday was six months away, I still should have figured surprise party - horse, and not intervention - zebra, but I knew right away it was an intervention.

Besides, sometimes it’s just going to be a zebra.

So instead of ‘Happy birthday,’ someone loudly whispered “He’s here,” and there was nervous shuffling in the living room.

It was a pretty good crew. My brother and sister-in-law, my nieces, their husbands and boyfriends, even Jake the Snake had come in from Vancouver. Allie and Cory were there too. Everyone had a copy of Not Book Club Material. Except for Cory who was holding a guitar.

It would have been a good crew for a birthday party.

But it wasn’t a party.

It was an intervention.

I wasn’t surprised to see that Sammy was leading the intervention. She is a clinical psychologist. She spoke first.

“Uncle Ronnie,” she said in her calming professional voice, “you first have to know that everyone in this room loves you.”

Oh boy.

“And it is important you understand we only have your best interest at heart. We don’t care who you date. We are only concerned when you keep it a secret.”

Now I understood.

It was about Claire.

Sammy confirmed it. “It’s about Claire,” she said.

One of the perks of being a writer is it has allowed me to construct the illusion of a robust and active, albeit dysfunctional, social life. My stories are peppered with references to dates, girlfriends and paramours. And while it is true that some of these liaisons are real, although disguised and distorted, the majority are spun out of whole cloth, and built up primarily in order to have them fall - thereby giving the reader a ring side seat to their demise.

A girlfriend is introduced of course not as a way to highlight my suspect virility or heretofore unexplained attractiveness, but rather, as a way to add conflict. Because, with conflict, comes humor. I can be a little heavy handed with it. Like the crushed chilies I add to my chicken cacciatore.

So I rack my brain and come up with names for each story; names which my friend Carainn says look like they have been plucked from a Catskills kosher singles weekend registry.

Aviva. Hannah. Miriam. Sarah.

I scatter them amidst my stories like the ashes of someone recently departed, making sure I don’t repeat names or confuse them with characters who have appeared in other stories.

Except for Claire.

Claire is in three separate stories.

“There is no Claire,” I said. “I made her up. She is imaginary.”

“Why is she in three stories?” Asked Rena. She is the youngest but it’s tough to get anything past her.

“I wanted to link the stories,” I replied. Which was true; sometimes there is something to be said for recurring characters. “Besides,” I continued defensively, “it’s not easy to keep coming up with new names.” Which was also true.

“Uncle Ronnie,” chimed in Danna, “just admit you have a girlfriend and we will move on. It’s not a big deal.

“Even if I did,” I said, both getting my back up and operating under the ‘best defense is a good offense’ maxim, “and I’m not saying I do. If you had bothered to read the entire book you would know that Claire and I broke up. It’s right there in Ain’t No Sunshine.”

“Hmm,” said Rachel. “That break up is sketchy. Nobody here believes it’s real.”

“Well of course it’s not real,” I countered, “because there is nobody real to have broken up with!”

“Here’s my theory Uncle Ronnie,” said Samantha in a voice she might use to talk someone off a ledge. “You had three good stories which you just had to tell. But it meant you had to reveal your girlfriend. I just don’t think it is a coincidence.”

I turned to Allie, who is my best friend, and said “Can you please tell them there is no girlfriend.”

Then Allie, with Cory strumming his guitar by her side, gently tossed me under the bus. “You almost never pick up the phone. I can’t account for a lot of your hours.”

Then Rachel said “Hah!”

I said “Believe me, I wish you were right. But there is no girlfriend.”

And then Caroline said, “We don’t care if she isn’t Jewish. We just want you to be happy.”

“Whoa,” I said. “Who said Claire wasn’t Jewish?”

“Claire, Uncle Ronnie?” Said Danna.

“Claire could be a Jewish name. I know a lot of Jewish Claires. Besides, that isn’t even her real name.”

“Aha,” said Rachel.

“There is no Claire. She is made up. She is an imaginary girlfriend.”

Then Cory stopped strumming the guitar and said “I think you doth protest too much.”

This went on for about an hour. Everyone had a theory. I batted every one down but I’m not sure anyone believed me.

It turns out though that interventions, if you can put up with the badgering and endless questions, feature excellent spreads. Maybe even better than birthday party food.

Caroline had even bought two different types of ice cream cake.

So it wasn’t all that bad.

All of this talk of Claire made me a little sad. She was my favorite of my imaginary girlfriends. I might have written her up a little cold, overly sensitive, and quick tempered but she was also sweet and caring and considerate. I went through the content of Ain’t No Sunshine in my head to see if it offered any clues as to why we broke up but my usual sparse and non-descriptive prose had come back to haunt me. Hoisting me, as it were, on my own petard. The story implied she had left me and it was the only thing I could infer. Claire did not suffer fools gladly and perhaps I was the fool with whom she wanted to suffer with no more. Still though, I hadn’t really done anything that bad. She had forgiven me for both my foray into birdwatching and my ill-advised Italo Svevo dinner invitation. At least, that’s what she told me. Maybe she still had feelings for me.

I drove to her apartment. It was late but she let me in without a thought. When I walked in I found Claire playing chess with the Angel of Death. She was a good player. Much better than me but she had a tendency to bring her queen out too early. That was fine against me but the Angel of Death would see right through it. She was already down some material and I watched in silence as she debated her next move. She wisely retreated her queen.

She looked up at me and said:

“Hey Hon. Where have you been?”

Just like that. As if we hadn’t even broken up three stories ago.

“Birthday party,” I replied.

“Fun! How did it go?” She asked.

“Not bad,” I replied. “Two different types of ice cream cake. I brought some back. Do you want a piece?”

“No thanks. I am stuffed,” she replied. Then, looking up at the Angel of Death she said “Nu? Are you going to make a move or do I have to wait until Simcha Torah.”

And that’s the story of how I got back together with Claire.

Sometimes it pays to be a writer.

The end.