Imaginary friends. We’ve all had them at some point in our childhood; well, haven’t we?

I certainly did, and while everyone around me always called my dear friend Jenny Clark nothing more than a figment of a 5-year-old’s creative mind, I always knew better.

She was as real to me as Santa Claus, the Easter bunny and the tooth fairy, and she certainly stuck around longer than any of those guys, who came in and out of my life in rapid-fire succession, bringing great joy, but leaving just as quickly as they arrived.

Not so Jenny. She was there any and every time I needed her.

We often could be found riding tobacco-stick horses around my father’s farm, gleefully enjoying the outdoors, often pretending we were cowgirls riding the range. Sometimes we’d abandon our horses so they could be watered and fed and head over to a waiting red tobacco harvester just beckoning for us to sit and swing, which we often did, back and forth, back and forth, giggling and talking all the while.

Talking, quite naturally, was one of our favorite pastimes, something that, for some reason, always drew a lot of attention from those around me.

In fact, those tobacco-harvester conversations often drew onlookers from the nearby tobacco hot house where, rather than working, they would all lean out the makeshift door, eyeing Jenny and I suspiciously. Some would even venture over to the harvester, yelling on their approach, “Honey, who are you talkin’ too?”

I was always baffled by their question. Couldn’t they see it was just Jenny? I knew they could, but I’d humor them anyway and for the hundredth time just say, trying not to sound so exasperated, ‘it’s just me and Jenny.’

They’d shake their heads, turn and walk away, never saying a thing to Jenny. I always thought they were going to hurt her feelings, ignoring her that way, but she never complained, nope, not once.

In fact, she wasn’t even bothered when the dear lady who sometimes watched me came over to the harvester, shaking her finger at me and my friend, warning me that I was “talking to the devil.”

Talk about confused. Jenny looked nothing like the devil and I could not figure out why Ora Lee thought she did, but needless to say, Jenny and I decided the best thing we could do was find another spot to carry on our conversations. Too many people were listening in now, any way.

We drew the same kind of attention everywhere we went, though. I remember my mother taking me shopping at the downtown Leder Brothers store once, Jenny in tow. We were in search of my first pair of ballet shoes. My mother was busy talking to the clerk, so Jenny and I had wondered off, looking over the shiny new pocketbooks in the store, talking amongst ourselves about which ones were our favorites.

That conversation, too, brought strange stares and a few whispers from other shoppers who would look at us, whisper something to one another, look again and then walk off snickering.

My mother cautioned me after that outing that perhaps Jenny needed to stay home when we went shopping. Some people just didn’t understand.

Boy was she right.

My daddy, too, always preferred it when Jenny stayed at home. I guess it’s because when we went places, Jenny never had any money, so he always had to buy her something at the same time he was getting something for me.

And that usually brought strange stares, too. Once, daddy, Jenny and I went to the Dairy Queen after our favorite ice cream — the Dilly Bar. I’m not sure who liked it more, me or Jenny. Although daddy usually preferred that our Dairy Queen trips be limited to just me and him, this one time he gave in to my pleading green eyes.

And, he broke down and bought Dilly Bars for both of us. Daddy, of course, had to hold Jenny’s, which he did, without argument. Boy did we get the looks. I guess people had never seen another person hold a Dilly Bar for their daughter’s friend. But my sweet daddy did, even when Jenny couldn’t lick fast enough and the gooey chocolate began to run down his hand.

He never once fussed at us, but he did remind me after we went home that perhaps Jenny wasn’t quite a big enough girl to make our Dairy Queen trips any more. I was disappointed, but Jenny Clark always took it in stride.

My parents, though cautious about my friendship with Jenny, always welcomed her into our house and would set a place for her at our table, whether it was breakfast, lunch or dinner.

But all that stopped after our race.

You see Jenny and I both liked those sweet tasting baby aspirins that mama always gave us when we felt bad. I often pretended to be sick just to get one.

One day, we found the bottle, and since neither of us wanted to divide the spoils, we decided to race for them, using my grandmother’s colorful, circular rug as our track. We spilled the aspirin out on the floor and took off around the rug. At the finish line, the winner would get an aspirin.

I, of course, was the faster of the two and thus the winner, which meant I got the baby aspirin — all 10 of them. My mother came in on our last lap, saw the empty bottle and the one remaining aspirin held captive in my tiny little hand.

Needless to say, the race ended, I went to my room and Jenny was vanished from my house. Or at least that’s what they always thought. No she didn’t make any more appearances at our dinner table, or at the Dairy Queen, or even out on my rides around the farm, but late at night, after my prayers were said and the lights were out, she’d be there and we’d talk into the night, laughing and giggling like the old friends we were.