A visit from an imaginary friend

"So this is your digs?"

I turned at the voice. At the sight of the familiar figure, I jumped from my seat.

"Ward!"*

We hugged at the doorway, laughing and pounding each other's arms the way men do that women just shake their heads.

It took us several minutes to become coherent. Both of us loved to talk and kept interrupting each other as I invited Ward into the apartment. Finally, though, we figured what each man had been doing for the past months.

"A book tour?" I said, handing him his plate of banana cream pie. Ward took it eagerly; though my height, his much broader build still made it appear he was several inches shorter than me.

"Yes." He looked about the kitchen, lost. I laughed and handed him a fork. He raised an eyebrow as he took the utensil as he continued. "For my second book. I really didn't want to do it since I'm still working on the new series, but the publisher insisted." He took a bite of the pie and responded to its taste by closing his dark eyes, his face beaming. I was about to take a bite of my own piece when his eyes flung open.

"Frick frack! I almost forgot!" He opened his carry-on and began to rummage through it.

I finished my bite and said, "Don't tell me you're still making up imaginary curse words." Ward didn't reply. He found what he had been looking for and pulled out a squarish object. I smiled as he handed it to me.

"A copy of the book," I said. "Thanks."

"Signed."

"But of course." I glanced through the dustjacket even though, as a reader of Ward's manuscripts, I was already familiar with the story. He took the opportunity to finish the rest of his pie. I sighed and placed the copy on the table. "Doesn't look like they didn't hype it up too far from the plot."

Ward nodded, then said, "so did you figure out why you stopped blogging?"

To be continued....


*Ward is fictional, based on a character (whose name is Ward, hint, hint) from one of my favorite books. If you can guess which book, I'll send you a Gmail account. If you already have one, I'll send you a congrats dance.