Chapter 11
THE DREAM
The next day, I woke to the sound of heavy raindrops pattering on the roof, gentle and consistent like an extra blanket pulled over the house.
Aster was beside me this morning. Usually I woke up to find him already showered and ready for the day, waiting for me in the kitchen or by my computer.
Usually I also left my bed earlier than this.
Aster and I still tried to catch the sunrise together when we could, though every day that passed made the ritual less of a rule to abide by and more of a fun tryst if we were both in the mood.
This was the second morning in a row that I had slept later than intended, and the first where Aster had slept in even later.
Before I got out of bed, I watched my muse’s form beside me and the way his chest rose and fell as if in timing with the rain.
He slept on his stomach, his hair soft and yellow against the sheets and one of his hands curled around the comforter.
He shifted while I watched, groaned and said my name, and for a while I wondered if he was awake as well.
When he didn’t stir again, didn’t reach for me or continue his thought, I realized he was only dreaming about me instead.
I stood up and glanced out the window at the infinite shades of gray nearby. The rain was heavier than I’d thought, paired with a sweeping wind that caused it to catch in the light at odd intervals like so many prisms falling from the sky.
I brushed my teeth and showered, and by the time I descended the stairs for breakfast, I found Aster already waiting for me.
He was wearing pajamas I’d never seen on him, white linen with blue trim, and some soft stubble had formed on his chin where I didn’t remember seeing it before.
His hair was tousled in a look that could have been intentional or the result of letting it remain unbrushed.
Good morning, he said with a wave. I fixed breakfast for you. If you haven’t already had it, that is.
“Breakfast? I’m impressed.” Then came the collective smell of coffee, eggs and toast, and I saw the two plates Aster had already set up at the dining room table.
I stepped forward, taking a mental inventory of the meal already prepared.
For drinks, we each had a mug of coffee with milk and a dish of sugar to prepare it with.
Aster had also prepared small juice glasses of what appeared to be cranberry juice, which I didn’t remember buying.
Then there was the food itself—eggs over easy, toast that was brown but not burnt, a selection of condiments that included butter and honey and peanut butter and grape jelly waiting to be selected.
I sat down in the thin chair on my traditional side and spread the napkin out on my lap. “I barely even eat breakfast. How did you know to prepare all this? How did you—where did you get it?”
I knew by now that Aster had no plans to reveal the extent of his mysteries to me any time soon.
A smile appeared on his lips at my approval.
He didn’t sit down at once but stood behind me and massaged my shoulders.
A simple matter. I reached into your dreams while you slept and took what I found there.
Aster’s words caused me to tense. I turned my head, looking up at him and wanting him to give me a better explanation. “You can’t actually do that, can you?” I asked. “I don’t even know what I dream. And I don’t remember anything I dreamed last night.”
Do you want me to tell you what you dreamed? His hands left my shoulders in anticipation.
I picked up the juice glass, sipped, and realized that I’d never tasted anything so satisfying. “Yes. What did I dream?”
You had a dream that it rained all day, and the two of us were trapped inside.
So we had a cozy breakfast together of eggs and toast. And then I did something like this.
He smoothed my hair and tucked it behind my ears, and then he leaned forward and kissed me on a side of my cheek he had just exposed.
I touched the spot and turned to him in a silent plea for more.
Do you still not remember? he asked.
“I don’t remember dreaming at all, and I think you’re making it up,” I said.
Aster scoffed. Why would I invent a fantasy like this when I could just as well do it here and now?
“Then continue,” I said. “What else did I dream?”
Not much. Let me see… He left my side and paced around the table, sitting across from me. Here he crossed his legs at the ankles and took a knife and fork in one hand, cutting off a corner of toast and dipping it in the yolk of one of his eggs.
I edged forward. “Don’t leave me hanging.”
I’m not. After that, we ate.
Aster nodded for me to start on my breakfast. I buttered the toast and took a bite out of it, unsatisfied.
Generally I made a point out of not asking useless questions, and clearly Aster had done nothing more than turn our breakfast into a mesmerization.
But my toast had started to cool, and I knew he had more to say.
“Did I dream anything more or was it just this?”
He swallowed a bite and blinked coquettishly. You tell me. It’s your dream. If you can’t recall it by now, I see no point in continuing.
I opened my mouth and prepared to tell him exactly how ridiculous I thought him.
His game was over. I was done playing it, and if he couldn’t say anything that made sense, then there was no point to it at all.
I wanted to do more writing today. I’d left off in a good spot earlier, and even if he didn’t directly coach me according to any conventional means, I felt more powerful having Aster nearby and knowing that I had him to call on if I needed any assistance.
Then it came back. The dream he was talking about.
I began to remember it clearly, as if I had only just woken up.
A sense of deja vu overcame me as suddenly I recalled the exact table setting that I had seen in my dream, the taste of the juice, the feel of Aster’s kiss against my cheek.
The one question that hounded me was whether I had dreamed this last night or if Aster had magically planted the scene in my head and tricked me into remembering it.
Aster was still waiting for me. He had prepared his coffee identical to the way I preferred mine, and as he sipped from his mug, holding it delicately in both hands, he cocked his head to the side in anticipation of my response. I hardly had any to give him.
“I still don’t know what you can do,” I said. “Or how you do it. What are you, Aster? You said that your substance stayed the same, but what is that substance?”
Aster’s eyes flitted into the living room briefly.
He didn’t speak, but I thought of what I knew about the origin of the muses.
According to myth, the muses were the daughters of Zeus and Memory.
They presided over various wells and springs, and various works of art always portrayed them next to some body of water.
Any of that could have been superstition, or tall tales handed down through the ages until they became memorialized in written tales. At any rate, the muses I had read about in old myths had never been as alive as the man before me now, as active or as cunning in their work.
“I remember the rest of the dream,” I said at last, wishing he had chosen to answer my last question. “You said that you loved me and that you wanted to make a plan to live together forever.”
Aster set the mug on the table with a clink.
That’s it. I wanted to know if anything left of the dream remained for you before I fulfilled it, and it appears it does.
I love you, Stella, and I want to live with you forever, and I thought if we put our heads together we could hatch a scheme.
A scheme for mutual immortality, if it were.
You and I together for endless years, living on an isolated corner of the world where the two of us would need nothing more than each other.
My thoughts turned instantly to our conversation on the catwalk the day before and the odd melancholy that had overtaken him.
He was still afraid. He still feared that he was temporary.
He wanted to find a way to escape a fate he felt I had bestowed on him, a happy ending where both of us could ride into the sunset.
What plans do you have after the summer? he asked.
“Plans?”
Do you have another residence like this? Another shore to sail to and work on yet another project?
I shook my head. How could I even explain reality to Aster?
It was hard enough to deal with it myself.
The only stable living one could guarantee as a writer was by working for a corporation or hiring out editing services to other people who wanted to write, or by teaching.
My job could never consist of traveling aimlessly to write new projects in new places unless I got a good return in doing so.
Practicality scared me. Economics, the gritty reality of the future’s uncertainty. Plans falling apart, or a lack of plans meaning never bringing them to fruition.
I traced my fingertip around the subtle floral pattern embossed on my fork as it sat on the table.
The stainless steel was spotless, and I wondered if Aster could have polished it while preparing the rest of the meal.
“I don’t have any plans after this,” I said.
“My plans depend on what I do while I’m here.
If my writing is worth anything. Otherwise I’ll move back home and look for something new. ”
I kept my voice low. Aster swallowed, his concern over my success evident for the first time.
“That’s why I’m so desperate,” I concluded.
His lips grew thin. I understand. I won’t hold you for breakfast if you don’t want it. I mean, if you feel as if you’d be better off working on your writing. You are skilled.
“But I do like the breakfast,” I insisted. “And I can’t thank you enough for thinking to make this. You’ve—you’ve…” I didn’t finish the thought because I couldn’t put a word to what Aster had done to me. As a writer. As a person. I shook my head at the thought and cut into one of my eggs.
I can’t be the one who causes you to stumble, he said.
I realized that I was the only one of us who was eating anything.
Aster sat back and folded his hands over the table. I made a mistake.
“A mistake?”
He nodded. I almost committed the unforgivable crime. I just never imagined it could be so important. Finish your breakfast, Stella, and don’t take long. You’ve got a book to write.
I’d never seen Aster adopt such a blunt attitude about my writing before, but after this point he remained committed.
Earlier he had seen my writing as only a background activity in my life, an enjoyable pastime like playing solitaire or making the bed in a certain way in the morning.
After I finished my breakfast and cleared the table, he escorted me into the living room and insisted I resume my seat.
“How long should I go for?” I asked.
The book, if you can. I want you to write a clear future for us so that we won’t need to worry about it.
“But what about this afternoon? The rain’s leaving. Should we go to the beach?”
He shook his head. The beach can wait for a later time. I want us first. You and me.
Aster pressed the tip of my nose playfully, but there was no levity in his tone or expression. I turned to my laptop and opened my document, and even though I was now doing the thing I’d been hoping to do since I arrived, I felt as if I’d just lost something important.