In the dorky story I play out in my head, Jason’s my boyfriend. When he’s not around and only exists in my mind, we have this perfect relationship. He surprises me with gifts, brings me flowers. No one has ever given me flowers before, and I hate how much pleasure the idea brings me. We stay up all night talking, and then go out on my lawn and watch the sun come up. I say that I need to go to bed, that I have to work the next day, but he won’t let me go. “Just another minute. Five more minutes. Ten more,” and he holds me tighter. He takes me to a family event on the mainland (on the boat I’m cool, relaxed, but he keeps me close, just in case), something middle-weight like a Memorial Day cookout. Nothing too serious like Christmas or anything. I’m nervous but he says everyone will love me, and they do. I find things to talk about with the grown-ups, and the kids all claim me as their favorite after I teach them how to walk on their hands. (In my imagination, I know how to walk on my hands.) But his mother loves me best of all. She always wanted a girl, and she thinks I’m “just darling.” No, that sucks. It’s more like: I bust out some super-witty one-liner and she says, “That’s my girl,” but quietly, mostly just for me to hear, and then tosses me a wink, a subtle wink—or is winking just too heinous?

His mom is pretty in the pictures on her Facebook page. But then again, she always untags herself from the ones where she looks kinda iffy. I probably won’t ever meet her in real life, which is fine by me, actually. I’d probably like his imaginary mother better, and when I say the wrong thing in front of the imaginary mother I can just shake the scene like a huge Etch A Sketch and start over. ⌘+z. I have as many tries as I need to make it perfect.

My phone flashes again, alerting me to a voicemail.

“You have one new message,” the robot voice tells me, adding gravely, “The next message is three minutes long.” My voicemail only records for three minutes, so when I hear that it means that either someone has called me accidentally and recorded the noise in their bag or their back pocket, or that it’s the first Friday of the month and my imaginary boyfriend’s stoned and rambling.

“Hey, it’s me. Just calling ’cause I’m on the island and wondered if you want to meet up. But I guess you’re not there. Maybe you’re at work or something. So, I don’t know if you’re busy or whatever . . .”