"What about..." I looked out the window, as Hank waited for my brainstorm. "What about, sometimes a friend needs a hand."

Hank smacked my desk. "Now you're talking, D-Man!"

"What?"

"They'll love it. I love it. Mason's going to love it. Sometimes a friend needs a hand. Simple and brilliant. We can build a whole campaign around that message. I'll start working on the pitch."

Brilliant? It was crap and Hank would figure that out by the time he got to Mason's office.

Waverly called back a few minutes after Hank left my office and we set up a time to have a longer talk later in the week. Right after I got off the phone with him, I went back to thinking about Billie as if I didn't already have enough things already keeping me off my game.

When I went to pick Spring up from daycare, my head was still in the same place. The more I walked, the more I thought about the little things: Billie's hair blowing in the wind, her perfume, her warm giggle in bed when I tickled her foot with my toe. When I saw. Stephanie Eckleburg wave from the desk, I almost welcomed the mental break almost.

Fortunately, she didn't wait for conversation to ready Spring, and we were out the door without more than a nod and a brief hello. On the walk home, Spring held my hand. For a demanding four year-old, all she really wanted was to swing arms. Her hand was so small and sometimes two of her fingers fell between mine. Despite her being no bigger than a yard gnome, holding her hand comforted me. I needed to tell Spring everything. I needed to chatter. I needed to confess. Me, me, me. Instead, we swung arms.

I really wasn't sure what made me snap at Billie. I suppose I could have responded differently. I should have known that everything was just too perfect: she was a gorgeous woman I'd known and admired a long time, a good friend, a person who showed up when I needed her, who Spring really liked and who really seemed to like Spring back. But we were in such completely different places. Billie was still out there bending life to her will. When we made love, I thought for a short moment that we were getting ready to take on the world together. But it was like one of those auto races where two cars momentarily seem to be neck-and-neck, but where one is actually going much faster than the other. Billie was in the process of lapping me.

Chapter 16.

More Like an Imaginary Friend Spring grabbed a chair, slid it to the stove, climbed up and poured the leftover chili from The Manhattan Chili Co. into a pan.

"Hey, let me help you there," I said, lifting her and putting her on the ground. "Where did you learn how to do that?"

"Billie."

"Oh really?"

"Uh, huh. She said everything tastes better on the stove."

"Do you think that, too?"

"Uh, huh." She smiled rather smugly.

"Okay, but you leave the stove part to me, deal?"

She nodded. "Deal."

Spring watched as I removed the milk from the refrigerator and got out two sippy cups.

"When is Billie coming over?"

"It's just you and me tonight."

"Why?"

"She's busy".

"Busy?"

"It means she has other things to do."

Spring frowned.

"My thoughts exactly, but that's what she said."

"Tomorrow night?"

"Spring, I don't think we'll see her tomorrow or anytime this week."

"Why not?"

"Sometimes adults need to take a break from each other."

"How come?"

"We see each other at work and go on vacations and have dinner together...and we need some time away to sort through our thoughts."

Spring pointed at the chili and reminded me to stir.

"What I mean is that sometimes we feel differently about each other and that makes things confusing."

Spring clearly didn't understand, so I tried again.

"You know when Jeffery at the daycare center hits Ellen in the arm?"

She nodded. Jeffery and Ellen "liked" each other and showed affection the way four-year-olds often do.

"Well, I hit Billie in the arm and it turned out that she got mad at me because of it."

"Billie isn't coming back?" Spring began to bite her lip.

"I don't know, Spring. I hope..."

Spring ran into her room with me behind her. She buried her head into her pillow and started crying.

"What's the matter, Spring?"

"She isn't coming back."

I decided lying made sense here. "Of course she'll be back."

"When?"

"I don't know. Next week?"

She sobbed into her pillow. "You just said you didn't know..."

"She'll be back, just not as much as in the past few months...but she'll be back."

She lifted her head up and looked at me, her little gray eyes red with tears. "She isn't coming back...like Mommy,"

If I were four, it might seem that way to me, too. I searched for the right spin for a child, but couldn't come up with anything. "She'll come back, I said because I had no other way of dealing with Spring's anguish at this point. "I promise."

"Really promise?"

"Really promise."

Looking to the eggplant window frame sketched on the wall, I wondered about Billie and if Spring would ever really see her again. The thought that she might not upset me nearly as much as the thought that Billie and I might have no future as friends.

"D?"

"Yeah?"

"Why are you so sad?"

I picked up Diane's picture from the table. "Because I miss your mom, and I miss Billie and I'm afraid..."

There was a loud wail from the kitchen and I ran to check my latest failure. Black smoke poured from the pan of chili. After drowning our dinner and cracking the smoke detector with the broom handle, I was ready to start over. Spring laughed the entire time.

"Who left this on and then forgot about it?"

Spring pointed at me.

"Me?"

She nodded.

"I should know better."

She nodded again.

"You should have reminded me."

She pointed to herself and imitated me. "Me?" she said.

"Uh, huh."

She shook her head.

When I lunged to tickle her, she ran into the living room. I caught her at the couch and tickled her into submission. There, in front of the couch next to the TV beneath the shelf where the urn sat, Spring's mural of the two of us and Billie was pinned to the wall. We stared at the outlines. Not only were the images holding hands, at some time in the last month, she had drawn smiles on their faces.

"You want to go to the park tomorrow? I'll tell Mr. Mason I'm taking a day off."

She didn't say anything.

"We can see the ducks..."

She gave half a smile.

"And the penguins..."

She half-shrugged. .

"We can see Mr. Jimmy and get a hot dog..."

Finally, she smiled.

"Spring, this whole thing will work out for the better, okay?"

"Uh, huh."

"I promise."

The next day, I played hooky and felt guilty every minute. It hadn't been that long since Mason had given me all of that time off. Still, I felt that Spring needed this time. She needed to know that I would do this for her.

At the zoo, Spring saw the ducks, but the penguin exhibit was closed for cleaning. She ate half her hot dog before feeling full, and I ate the other half because someone had to. I remember the expression on Diane's face when I used to do this in front of her; the look that said, How can any adult eat those things? That had been more than six months ago. In six months, Spring had become a New Yorker, a Giants fan, and had just started rooting for the Yankees. In six months, Spring had learned to eat hot dogs from a cart, bagels, and even tasted calamari, or "icky squid," as she had referred to it. And in six months, Diane had become more of an icon than a person. When Spring talked to her these days, she seemed more like an imaginary friend.

When we got to the elevator back at the apartment, Jim was in the lobby. He waited for us, holding the door. "Just dropped the boys off at their monster's, uh, mother's," he said. "What have you been up to?"

"The zoo!" Spring shouted in the small space.

Jim smiled at her. "Well, Miss Spring, I'm glad I don't have a hangover."

"Hey, come on over," I said. "I'll order a pizza." I hoped Spring wouldn't ask me to put mac and cheese on her slices because I really didn't need the physical reminder of Billie.

"Sounds good."

"If you want beer, though, you're going to have to bring some. All I have in the house is scotch and the kind of wine you don't drink with pizza."

"Good thing I'm around, huh? Give me a few minutes and I'll come over."

"Cool," Spring said, and we both smiled down at her.

While we waited for Jim, Spring put on her pajamas and I ordered the pizza. When I hung up the phone, I realized that I was staring at my Fishhook Cactus, which had once resembled a turkey pinata. Thanksgiving dinner. Billie had done so many things for us, dozens of things over those months. The only thing she didn't do was stick around.

I called down to Spring, who had gone into her room. "Hey, I've got an idea. Put these on." I handed her a Groucho nose and glasses along with the Santa hat. "When Jim gets here, let's surprise him."

She liked the idea.

When we heard the knock, we tiptoed to the door and readied ourselves, adjusting our hats, noses and glasses. I gave Spring notice with a head nod of one, two, three, and opened the door.

"Ta daa!" I shouted, with Spring joining in. The cotton ball tassels on the ends of our Santa hats bounced.