Nine
Rilee
I tried to dream about the sun streamed brunch, the outdoor table, his weathered smile, and firm forearms, but instead I was lost in the contrasting dark and blinding light of the new dream.
Had I done something wrong? He was there with me and it was pleasant, but everything around us seemed chaotic, noisy, and he was in shadow.
The lines of his face cast their own shadows from the too bright shine in front of us.
In the chaos the magnetic breathlessness was gone. The first dream was magical and consuming, and exhausting after night upon night. The second was fluid. Saturday morning I awoke refreshed from the new dream with the subtle scent of lavender clinging to my tongue.
The following day the blinding dream returned but left me with worry.
Craig was still there, sitting beside me at a table.
But the dream plaguing and rewarding my nights was gone, and this odd but comfortable thing had settled in its place.
The lavender scent also worried me. Was the magic gone?
Was I just imposing my own desires on the universe?
Normally that thought would be liberating.
I’d worked hard to give myself choices, to free myself from the financial grip of my father and the emotional anchor of my mother.
But I guess somewhere inside I’d hoped the universe had taken notice of me and provided my life a nudge.
While it was nice sitting next to Craig in real life and in this second dream, it wasn’t destiny, it was just life.
By Monday morning I was ready for the whole thing to be over and just teach class.
I’d dreamed about a guy for weeks, maybe he was Craig, maybe my own construct.
Now I had a new dream. That was a good sign.
Maybe the dream changed over time and would move along, maybe out of my life entirely.
I could live with that. After all, some kids ate the exact same thing for lunch every day. I could handle that in my sleep.
“How’s tricks?” Mia chuckled as she swept into my classroom on break, Isaac Booker dodging her as if she was radioactive. I still couldn’t figure out high school boys’ reaction to a pregnant teacher. It was part fear and fascination. But not one they wanted to directly confront in a doorway.
Shuffling some worksheets I answered, “The day is still young.”
“No. How did things go on Friday? I wanted to ask you in person.”
Just to watch me squirm no doubt. And I wanted to dish, well I had until the second dream. Now everything was jumbled.
“It was nice,” I managed.
“And.”
And I thought about him holding the door open, standing close to me, before I’d walked away. “He has nice arms.”
“Oooh, nice arms to look at or to feel?”
Fiona whistled as she walked in, “Feel I hope.”
I glared at Fiona before explaining, “He has nice hands and these forearms.”
“Oh, those kind of arms,” Fiona smiled. “So, it went well. I’m assuming that is what that text about the CPR class was about.
“CPR class?” Mia asked.
“Well, this guy is looking at changing jobs but needs a CPR certification to meet the qualifications. I told him I was going to one soon and there might be an open slot. The Red Cross is booked for months.”
Fiona cocked her hip as she sipped her coffee and looked me up and down. “How good looking is he?”
A series of images flashed through my head, Craig’s eyes, Craig fingers holding the piece of lavender frosted donut, Craig’s dream face rough with stubble catching the sunlight, Craig’s comfortable smile as he turned toward me in the harsh bright light of the new dreams.
“Oh, she shivered,” Mia whistled.
“What? I did not.” I narrowed my eyes at her, pulling myself back into the present.
Fiona chuckled, “Huh, so you want to see this guy again then?”
“Well, I wouldn’t say no,” I agreed.
Checking the wall clock Fiona headed for the door. “For you, I’ll see what I can do. No promises however.”
Mia turned to go as well, but despite the impending bell I couldn’t let her go. “Hey, are you going to be around at lunch?” Sometimes Fiona was so down to earth you couldn’t talk to her about everything, and this dream thing was not of this earth.
“I’m around. My place or yours?”
I knew every book in this room, and every tack on the bulletin board. My classroom suddenly felt stifling and too familiar. I could have described it in my sleep, but it wasn’t my classroom in my dreams. “Yours.”
“See you then,” Mia smiled, trying not to swing her hips as if she didn’t want to remind herself she was pregnant.
It probably says something about the state of your career when you can phone in two hours of instruction, lecturing without notes or even a memory of saying the words themselves, or even the answers to student questions.
When you are awake but thinking about being asleep something should be wrong, it’s a crazy way to spend the day.
You feel crazy. It also makes it easier to say crazy things.
When I sat down in Mia’s front row she noticed right away that I hadn’t brought any lunch. Which was not usual.
“You’re going to get hangry this afternoon.”
“I am having strange dreams.”
Mia forked salad into her mouth and chewed before answering. “Strange like I drank too much on the weekend, or strange like someone might think I’m crazy.”
“I don’t know.” I couldn’t look at her so I rubbed at the lines in my knuckle. Fiona would have immediately been thinking about HR implications.
“Well, try me. I’ve dreamed some pretty odd stuff since this little guy came along for the ride.” She patted her belly without taking her eyes off me.
“This guy-” I drifted off.
“The guy from the gym?”
I meant to talk about my dreams, not Craig. My guy. “Yea that guy. I dreamed him.” I don’t know why I was telling Mia this. She wasn’t a therapist. She didn’t even teach sociology.
“Oh honey, that just means you have chemistry. I couldn’t get Silas out of my head, asleep or awake until we did it, which wasn’t like a dream by the way.”
Shaking my head I looked up but past her to the triangular diagram on the white board.
“But I dreamed him before I saw him.” I let half the story fall out of my mouth.
How I had the same dream for weeks and then I saw him in person and it was the same guy.
The guy from my dreams. And how could I not say yes to a drink with the guy who was haunting me.
And then we had that drink, and the dream changed, but he was still in it. “It’s nuts. I’m nuts.”
“Oh, Rilee,” Mia sighed, her salad and fork abandoned.
“Brains do funny things. Especially with dreams. It’s been a long time since you’ve been with anybody.
Your head is just telling you it’s ready for something.
When you saw this guy he fit your type and your brain folded the two together.
That’s what happened with the second dream.
Now you have a person to put into the fantasy. ”
That sounded way too logical for the feelings rolling inside me.
And I saw Craig before he asked me out. But I couldn’t tell Mia that without making this a bigger deal than it should be.
Getting district approval required forms and an interview, a lot of stuff for something that may be nothing.
And a lot of real–world processes could snuff out whatever spark might be there.
Hey, before I can see you again I need you to fill out this form and go to this interview with me.
Yea that was a rainstorm I had no interest in standing in.
“I haven’t told Fiona this,” Mia started, which instantly pulled my attention away from the classroom white board to her.
“I dreamed about my baby. I dreamed it was a boy, and then we got the ultrasound and it was a boy.
Then I dreamed that his name was Cecil. I mean who names their kid Cecil.
But that is what I called him in my dream.
And then Silas tells me he has been thinking a lot about his cousin who died whose name was Cecil. So, we are going to call him Cecil.
“Now I’m sure that Silas talked about Cecil before. They were close growing up. And I’ve wanted a boy. Maybe it’s all those brothers growing up.” Mia smiled at me and tapped her fingers on her desk.
“Just because I dreamed about a boy named Cecil doesn’t make it so.
And who knows, maybe the doctors got it wrong and there is a girl named Gretchen in here.
What I’m trying to say is that our brains want to make meaning where there isn’t.
Dreams are just part of what makes this life fun, and Rilee you deserve some fun.
If you like this guy, it’s okay. It’s okay to have some fun. ”
It wasn’t just my brain making things up, the details were too correct.
But even as I started to say it, Craig’s eyes swam into my thoughts.
Eyes that morphed ever so slightly to look like my dad’s.
The horrible lying cheater who left my mother a babbling wreck.
Maybe this whole thing really was just my brain screwing with me.
“Thanks,” I managed, not sure if I believed it, but willing to try on the idea.
Turning back to her salad Mia looked over to see a pair of tentative freshmen sticking their heads in the door, recognizing they were intruding on some non-student time. “Rilee, Go get some lunch. Your afternoon classes will hate you if you don’t.”
“Okay. See you tomorrow.”
“Any time.”
I wandered into the cafeteria as the line was dissipating and grabbed an apple and what passed for a chicken sandwich.
Struggling to give my afternoon classes the attention they deserved, I avoided thinking about Craig for a whole forty minutes.
Every time his hands, smile, or those eyes interrupted my explanation of cell structure I had to reset the clock.
For some reason mitochondria made me think about his chin and how his whiskers would feel against my cupped palm.