Cecelia Ahern - If You Could See Me Now

“Elizabeth.” She felt the tap of a little finger on her shoulder.

“Yes, Luke.”

“Drew this for you.” He handed her a brightly colored picture. “It’s of me and Ivan playing in the garden.”

Elizabeth smiled and studied the drawing. Luke had written their names over two matchstick-like men, but what came to her as a surprise was the height of Ivan. He was over twice the size of Luke and was dressed in a blue T-shirt, blue jeans, and blue shoes, and had black hair and great big blue eyes. What looked like black stubble lined his jaw and he held hands with Luke with a big smile on his face. She froze, not quite knowing what to say. Shouldn’t his imaginary friend be the same age as he was?

“Eh, Ivan is very tall for only being six, isn’t he?” Maybe he had drawn him larger than life because he was so important to him, she reasoned.

Luke rolled around the floor giggling. “Ivan always says there’s nothing only about being six and anyway he’s not six.” He laughed loudly again. “He’s old like you!”

Elizabeth’s eyes widened in horror. Old like her? What kind of imaginary friend had her nephew created?

Chapter Twelve

I found it easy to understand Elizabeth’s upset over Luke’s drawing, but that doesn’t mean I agreed with it. Friends come in all different shapes and sizes, we all know that, so why should “imaginary” friends be any different? Elizabeth had it all wrong. In fact, Elizabeth had it completely wrong because as far as I could see she didn’t have any friends. Maybe it was because she was only looking for thirty-four-year-old women that looked, dressed, and acted like she did. You could tell by the look on her face, that’s what she thought Luke should have done when she looked at Luke’s picture of me and him. And that’s no way to make friends.

The important thing is not what we look like, but the role we play in our best friend’s life. Friends choose certain friends because that’s the kind of company they are looking for at that specific time, not because they’re the correct height, age, or have the right hair color. I don’t see any other “real” older males interacting with Luke in his life, do you? Maybe I’m exactly what he needs right now. It’s not always the case, but often there’s a reason why, for example, Luke will see me and not my colleague Tommy, who looks six years old and constantly has a runny nose.

Just because you see one “imaginary” friend, it doesn’t mean you see them all. You have the ability to see them all, but as humans only use 10 percent of the brain, you wouldn’t believe the other abilities there are. There are so many other wonderful things that eyes could see if they really focused. Life’s kind of like a painting. A really bizarre, abstract painting. You could look at it and think that all it is, is just a blur. And you could continue living your life thinking that all it is, is a blur. But if you really look at it, really see it, focus on it, and use your imagination, life can become so much more. That painting could be of the sea, the sky, people, buildings, a butterfly on a flower, or anything except the blur you were once convinced it was.

After the events in Elizabeth’s office, I needed to call an emergency “What IF” meeting. I’ve been in this job for years and I thought I’d seen it all, but I obviously hadn’t. Saoirse seeing me and talking to me had really stumped me. I mean, that’s completely unheard of. OK, so Luke could see me, that was normal. Elizabeth had some sort of a sense of me, which was weird enough, but I was beginning to get used to it. But Saoirse seeing me? Of course, it’s common to be seen by more than one person on a job, but never by an adult, and never by two adults. The only friend in the company who dealt with adults was Olivia, and it wasn’t any kind of a rule, just what seemed to be happening all the time. I was confused, I can tell you that, so I got “the boss” to round up all the usual suspects.

Our “What IF” meetings were set up to discuss everyone’s current situations and to knock around some ideas and suggestions for people who are slightly stuck. I’ve never had to call one on my behalf, so I could tell the boss was shocked when I did. The name of the meeting has a double meaning. We were all tired of being labeled “imaginary friends,” so we decided to call the meeting the What Imaginary Friends meeting. I made that up myself.

The six people that meet are the most senior people in the company. I arrived at the What IF room to the sound of everyone laughing and playing. I greeted them all and we sat around and waited for the boss. We don’t meet around long conference tables with smelly leather chairs in a boardroom with no windows. We have a more relaxed approach to it and it really has a much more positive effect, because the more comfortable we all feel, the more we can contribute. We all sit around in a circle on more comfortable seats. Mine’s a beanbag. Olivia’s is a rocking chair. She says it’s easier for her to do her knitting that way.

The boss’s not really bossy, we just call her that. She’s really one of the nicest people you’ll ever meet in your whole entire life. Now, she’s really seen it all, she knows everything there is to know about being a best friend. She’s patient and caring, listens and hears what people don’t say more than anyone I know. Opal is her name and she’s beautiful. She floated into the room just then in a purple robe, her dreadlocks tied back in a half ponytail away from her face, with the ends hanging down past her shoulders. She had tiny sparkling beads throughout her dreadlocks, which glistened when she moved. She had daisies nestled into her dreadlocks like a tiara, a daisy chain around her neck, and around her wrists. Round purple-tinted glasses sat on her nose and when she smiled, the beam was enough to guide ships into shore on a black night.

“Nice daisies, Opal,” Calendula said softly from beside me.

“Thank you, Calendula.” She smiled. “Little Tara and I made them today in her garden. You’re looking very nice today, what a lovely color.”

Calendula beamed. She’s been a best friend for absolute donkey’s years, like me, but she only looks the same age as Luke. She is small, with blond hair that was today styled into bouncing curls, and is softspoken, with big blue eyes. She was dressed in a yellow summer dress with matching yellow ribbons in her hair. She had gleaming new white shoes that swung from her hand-crafted wooden chair. The chair always reminded me of a Hansel and Gretel chair, yellow with painted hearts and candy sticks.

“Thank you, Opal.” Calendula’s cheeks turned rosy. “I’m going to a tea party after this meeting with my new best friend.”

“Oh.” Opal raised her eyebrows, impressed. “Very nice. Where is it?”

“In the back garden. She got a new tea set for her birthday yesterday,” she replied.

“Well, that’s lovely. How are things with little Maeve?”

“Well, thank you.” Calendula looked down into her lap.

The noise from the others in the room died down and all the focus was on Opal and Calendula. Opal wasn’t the type of person to ask everyone to be quiet in order to start the meeting. She always began it quietly herself, knowing that that the others would soon finish their conversations and settle down in their own time. She always said that all people needed was time and then they could figure most things out for themselves.

Opal was still watching Calendula fidgeting with a ribbon on her dress.