Blue Is for Nightmares (12 page)

Drea relays all of this information in no more than five se,conds, her eyes focused up at the ceiling, like she's embarrassed by it all. And I'm trying to respect her, doing my best ndt to show even a single speck of horror on my face, nod- dog in all the right places. But she's looking at me now, lips scfunched up like she wants to be sick, and so I feel compelled to ask:

"What's wrong?"

"I told him about, you know, how far I've gone." "What do you mean,
how far?"

"Stacey?!"
She rolls her eyes. "I mean how
far...
how far around
the bases."

Oh.

"I told him how me and Chad flew through second, made it to third, started for home run, but then got struck out."

Drea must sense my confusion because she rolls her eyes for the second time this evening and blurts, "We
struck out,
Stacey! We were all ready to do it, had all the supplies we needed, but then I guess I sort of freaked, and so we decided not to."

She makes it sound like some camping trip. Still, I'm not sure I want to be hearing any of this, but I listen anyway. We talk about their conversations for a good hour. And at the end of it Drea seems, oddly enough, more relaxed, less jittery, I think, because I haven't said much more than uh huh and
em hmm
the whole time. But now my somewhat-silence is bugging her because she's propped herself up on her elbows, awaiting my response.

"So?" she asks.

"So what?" I answer, trying to erase the mental images now planted in my brain of my best friend and love object
almost
home-running. "What do you want me to say?"

"Do you think I was wrong?"

"I don't think it's a question of right or wrong, Drea." A big fat lie. "I think you probably did what you felt was comfortable for you at the time."

"Well, it was kind of wrong," Drea says. "I mean, now that I think about it, I must have been completely nuts." An understatement.

"I mean, he could be some crazy psycho pedophile ax- murderer for all I know," she continues.

"Em hmm."

"That's why I don't want to tell my parents about it, or anyone. I just feel so dumb. I really thought he--you know, cared about me. It was kind of nice."

I give Drea a hug and twist my fingers through her hair, catching a bit of yogurt residue on my finger. "You're not dumb."

"It was just because, I don't know, he was nice and you weren't around that first time he called, and I had just gotten off the phone with my mom, and she told me all this stuff about how I might be spending next summer with just her at Grampy's house, and I don't know, it was just...

easy.

"I know about slipping into easy" I say. "Sometimes it fits pretty nice."

"Plus, that first time he called, I kind of thought it was Chad, but now I don't know. I mean, I think I'd be able to tell Chad's voice after all this time."

"Maybe, like you said, it's more than one person. Or maybe whoever it is is using one of those voice changer thingies."

"Do
you
think it's Chad?" Drea asks.

"I don't know. I don't want to think it's him, but it sort of makes sense, especially since he had the jersey. I definitely think it's someone on campus. Someone our age who knows everybody, who knows the workings of this place."

"Who?"

"I don't know," I say. "But we're gonna find out."

After I've given her a full French braid, Drea returns to her bed and snuggles up for sleep. That's when the phone rings.

I pick it up. "Hello?"

"Hi, Stacey. I got your message. I hope I'm not calling too late." It's my mother. I sink back into the comfort of my covers, just hearing her voice, a little piece of home.

"No, Mom," I say. "This is a perfect time."

After my short stint of normalcy with Drea, and a surprisingly pleasant phone conversation with Mom, I fasten the silver dream necklace around my neck, fall asleep pretty easily, and don't wake up until morning.

Except I don't have a nightmare, don't remember any of my dreams, and am starting to feel like a complete and utter failure.

While Drea and Amber go off to classes, I call the school secretary, feigning stomach cramps, and wallow in the misery of my bed. I try to get myself to fall back asleep. I light incense, count stars, and start a dream journal, but nothing works. I'm so completely awake I want to throw up.

This is how I spend my entire day. Stacey Brown, Sleep Loser. Stacey Brown, who ditches school and can't even enjoy the playing-hooky basics of sleeping in.

Drea and Amber come straight to the room after classes and I confess to them my failures.

-Bummer," Amber says.

I'm starting to feel even less confident than I did before, and that's what prompts the next couple hours. I try to convince Drea to go to campus police, to tell them about everything that's been going on.

Finally, after much sweat shed from Amber and I, Drea agrees and she and Amber head off to talk to them. I, on the verge of pulling out each of my hairs, one by one, offer to join them, but Drea wants me to stay in bed and try to catch some snooze.

Joy.

Just barely six o'clock in the evening, it already looks like well past nine outside. I decide to take an herbal sponge- bath in the sink in our room, hoping the blending of water and flowers will help do the trick.

Gram used to swear to taking baths before spells and before bed. Baths, not showers. There is a difference, according to her. She said the body needs to be purified in preparation for that which is sacred, that the senses don't work to their fullest when the energy hasn't been cleansed. Of course, it's hard to take a bath when your school only has stand-up showers. Especially when those stand-up showers can only handle two inches of water when the drain is blocked before water starts spilling out onto the floor.

I plug the drain with the stopper and fill up the sink to three-quarters of the way full with lukewarm water. It's one of those old-fashioned sinks white porcelain with silver 0fixtures--

attached to the wall on my side of the room. To the water, I add the carnation petals from the flower I borrowed out of the vase in the dorm lobby. Then I add in droplets of rosemary, peppermint, and patchouli oils, and a handful of mint leaves--all soothing, clarifying herbs and flowers that will hopefully help me sleep long and soundly and, most importantly, will help make my dreams more insightful.

I unscrew the cap off the bottle of talcum powder and sift a tablespoonful into a ceramic cup. To it, I add four tablespoons of honey and stir. The talcum powder will help clarify images in my dreams that might confuse me, while the honey will help my dreams stick in place, so I can remember. I spoon the mixture into the sink with a finger and then mix the stew of water with my hand, encouraging all the ingredients to blend and intensify I lay a towel on the floor for spillage, change into my red and ratty terrycloth robe--a favorite in my growing collection of comfort clothing--and dip a sea-sponge into the water. Leaving my robe open, I begin with my legs, sponging down the length, breathing in the floral vapors as I reach down to my feet. "Oils and water, flower and herb, give me vision, give me sight on my walk this night." I re

peat the chant three times aloud, imagining the sea of oils mixing and purifying my skin and the air I breathe. I redip the sponge and move up to my belly, then up a bit more to my neck and shoulders. I close my eyes and concentrate on the nature CD I fed into Drea's player--trickling water seasoned with just the right amount of birdsong. It's the last ingredient to a recipe that will help tranquilize my spirit so that I can experience insightful dreams, ones that aren't blocked by my own fears.

I know why my dreams haven't been so telling these past couple days. Gram used to say that in order to have insightful dreams, you need to be brave enough to accept the consequences. At the time she told me this, sitting across from her over tea, playing gin rummy and eating butter biscuits, I didn't really understand what she meant, but now it makes perfect sense.

I know I haven't been brave about dreaming. I know my subconscious side is probably picking up on the fact that I'm scared to death. A part of me died inside when I failed Maura. I can't fail again because if I do, what remains of me will die as well. And then there'll be nothing left.

I glide the sponge over my face, concentrating on the idea of strength, imagining the water washing away any trace of fear. The exercise empowers me, restores the energy I've been missing. I glance down at my amethyst ring and kiss the stone, imagining Gram's cheek, fully believing that, in some way, she's here with me.

I wrap myself up in the robe and move over to my night table. I reach inside the drawer for a yellow wax crayon and a note pad. I need to think of a question I can ask my dream.

Something clever. Something that might reveal the truth in more than one way. But the only question I end up scribbling down is the one that seems most obvious: WHO IS AFTER DREA?

I fold it up, slip it inside the dream bag, and deposit it into my pillowcase. Then I crawl into bed, close my eyes, and imagine warm teabags sitting atop the lids. With each breath, I picture the waning moon, growing more narrow and shallow, until it's no more than a speck of light.

Just about to travel off to sleep, I hear a knock at the corner window "Stacey,- calls a voice through the glass.

Chad.

"Come on, Stace," he says. -Let me in.-

I get up from the bed, tighten the belt on my robe, and head over to the window. That's when I'm reminded-- when my annoyance at his incredible knack for dropping by at the most awkward times dissolves. He looks amazing. While he looks off into the night, waiting for me to let him in, I study the way his black leather jacket hugs around his shoulders, the way his hair is messed up to perfection. How he's wearing wire-rimmed glasses instead of his usual contacts.

I, on the other hand, can feel a glob of talcum powder caked in my hair, a smidgen of honey against my neck. But I'm still on a makeover high from last night, and after the sponge bath, I'm feeling surprisingly sexy.

He looks up at me when he hears the lock unlatch, and I watch a smile grow on his cheek. It's a knowing smile, a confident one. A smile that tells me he knows what I'm thinking, and he feels the same.

I tug up on the window and pull a stool over to sit, so we can talk at eye-level.

"Hi." He lifts the window even wider and leans his elbows onto the sill. He's chewing gum, a skinny, mint-colored piece that flips back and forth over his tongue.

"Hi." I swallow hard and watch his eyes notice the movement in my throat.

"Did I disturb you?"

"No," I say. "I just took a sponge bath."

"Really?" he says. "Maybe I should have come sooner."

A nervous giggle spatters out my mouth, making a weird gurgling sound. But Chad's expression remains serious, as though he really means it.

"So, are you alone?"

I squeeze my legs together, feeling the urge to pee. "For a little while."

"Good. I wanted to talk to you." He leans his body closer, and I can smell the mint of his gum.

"About what?"

'About us." His eyes linger at my neck, the way I've allowed the vee of my robe to open up.

I shift to sit on the heel of my foot in an effort to stop the tugging urge to pee. "What about us?" I clench my teeth and swallow down the pain.

He plucks a folded piece of paper from his back pocket. It has my name, written in red block lettering across the front, the same lettering as in the other notes. "This one is for you."

'Are you the one who's been sending these?"

"Would that bother you?"

"What do you mean? Are you--"

"I mean, would you still like me if I were the one?" Chad moves his face so close that I can feel the heat of his mouth, moistening mine. This is so wrong. I can't like him.

"Yes, you can," he says, as though reading my mind.

My mouth twitches, anticipating the minty flavor of his kiss. I try to distract myself by looking everywhere else-- his forehead, his nose, his right earlobe--but my eyes can't help but land back on those lips--slim, pale pink, sculptured to fit my mouth. I hold my eyes closed in a prolonged blink, waiting for him to touch me with those lips.

"Open the note first," he breathes.

The area below my stomach stings with pressure. "Chad," I say. "I have to go to the bathr--"

"Just open it," he says. "It's what you've been waiting for."

I take a deep breath and unfold the note, the message printed across the middle: LOVE IS

FUNNY.

Love is funny?" I question.

"I guess if you think about it," he says.
"Everything
is funny for some people." He touches my face with a brush of his hand, sending electrifying tingles straight down to my watermelon-pink toenails. "Wait," he says, as if just remembering, "I have something else." He pulls three lilies from behind his back and hands them to me. "Be sure to give these to Drea."

"I don't understand," I say

"You will." He leans forward and places his mouth on mine, his kiss exploding across my lips and at the tip of my tongue.

Behind us, I hear keys jingling against the door. There are voices too--mingling together, whispering. Someone's coming, but I can't move myself away.

Nor do I want to.

The door squeaks open and Chad is still kissing me. A set of shoes clunks their way across the wooden floor, stopping just behind me.

"Stacey?" says Drea's voice.

But I can't steal myself away. I won't.

"Stacey!" she repeats. "Wake up. Wake
up!"

I feel my body being shaken, and when I finally do wake up, Drea and Amber are hovering over my bed.

"Did you have another nightmare?" Drea asks.

"Urn... My head is spinning; it just felt so real. "I don't know. Give me a minute."

"You were breathing all weird," she says. "Practically hyperventilating."

I shift in bed and feel a slight dampness in my pants. Lovely. "I have to go to the bathroom." I pull the comforter over the sheet and do my best to walk backwards, as nonchalantly as can be possible, out the door and down the hallway.