Blue Is for Nightmares

by Laurie Faria Stolarz

  year when she can wear green knee socks. Just one of the many senior privileges."

  Drea whips a Scooby Doo slipper at Amber's head.

  "Gotta go, Chaddy Patty. You know how it goes, people to do, things to see. Ciao, ba-by" Amber hangs up, stands, and pinches a three-finger wedge from her pajama crack. "I'm starving. Anyone for food?"

  "The card reading was right," I say. -Chad just asked Drea to breakfast."

  "He's not gonna cancel," Drea says.

  "Yeah," Amber says, -he needs your homework."

  -Great." Drea peels the foil down from her chocolate bar and nibbles at her frustration. "Most guys want me for my looks. Chad wants me for my brain."

  "Sucks for you," Amber says.

  I ignore the rest of their banter and take a seat by the corner window. I end up staring out at the tall maple tree in the distance, the one me and Chad christened at the end of last year, just after finals, when he and Drea were broken up.

  We sat beneath it, eating peanut butter and banana sandwiches and talking about our plans for the summer.

  -Are you cold?" he asked, referring to the goose flesh on my arm, running a finger over the skin.

  I shook my head and noticed that he was staring at my mouth. "You missed some peanut butter,"

  he said.

  How elegant. I licked the corner of my mouth and felt a peanut globule hit against my tongue.

  "Better?"

  He nodded.

  "I'm such a dainty eater." I looked away to hide the baked-apple heat I knew was visible all over my face.

  "You're beautiful."

  I looked at him, expecting to hear the butt of the joke. But instead he slipped his hand down my arm and cradled my fingers.

  "Drea's beautiful," I said. "I'm--"

  "Beautiful," he finished. He turned my chin with his finger, so I would look at him, and smiled like he really meant it. "I've always thought so." He brushed away the few dark strands that had fallen into my eyes, and glanced down again at my lips. "Is this okay?"

  I nodded and felt him lean in closer. I closed my eyes, anticipating the kiss, and then felt it warm and fruity against my lips.

  On our long walk back to reality that day, I told him I wanted to keep the kiss a secret, that I didn't want to hurt Drea. I wanted the memory to stay forever perfect in my mind, where no one could ruin it.

  He told me he had been waiting to kiss me for a whole year.

  But now it's me who's waiting.

  "Earth to Stacey- Amber shouts, plucking me off the blissful path of memory lane. "If this whole card thing is right, then Chad has less than two hours to cancel Drea's date, right?"

  I nod.

  "So what happens if you're wrong about the prediction?" Drea asks, her arm loaded down with school uniforms. "I guess I could be wrong about it all."

  But I know I'm not. I turn to glance back out the window That's when I see him. Again. The man from last night. "He's back!" I shout.

  -Who is?" Drea asks. But then she sees and drops the uniforms to the floor.

  He's standing out on the grass, only a few yards away. He looks straight up at us and smiles.

  "What a freak!" Amber says.

  "Should we do something?" Drea asks.

  "Like what?" I say.

  "Call security"

  "They'll never listen," Amber says. -They think we're nutty"

  "Thanks to you," I say.

  He takes a step closer and points in our direction. I look at Amber and Drea, but can't tell who he means, who his eyes are focused on, if it's me. I squint to focus harder. But before I can figure it out, he tilts his cap to salute us, and then simply walks away.

  Ten

  "Are you ready?" Drea is standing by the door of our room, waiting for me, doing a last-minute vanity inspection in the mirror. She drapes her monogrammed towel around her neck and pulls her hair forward over her shoulders. "Remind me to make an appointment later to get my eyebrows waxed." She runs a finger over the invisible fuzz between her eyes. "Let's go. All the showers are going to be taken."

  But now that Amber's gone, I want to talk.

  "Looks like Chad and I are sitill on for this morning." She winds a long strand of wavy blond around her fingers, her nails freshly painted in corn yellow.

  "Looks like," I say, practically biting through my tongue. Chad still has a whole hour to cancel.

  And I know he will. I grab the towel from the foot of my bed and drape it around my shoulders.

  "Drea, before we go, there's something I need to ask you about."

  "What?"

  "That guy who keeps calling you. Why were you upset the last time he called?"

  "Who says I was upset?"

  "I know you, Drea. Who is he and why were you upset?" She sighs. "He's a friend, okay? We just had a misunderstanding."

  'About what?"

  "He just thought I was seeing someone, but I'm not, so there's no problem."

  "What does that mean? Are you two a couple?"

  "I don't have time for this. Are you coming or not?" She jiggles her basket full of shampoo products and shower gels.

  "Not," I say. "Not until we talk about this."

  "Fine," she says. "Then I guess I'll see you later." She closes the door behind her.

  I plop down on my bed, a serious headache creeping across my temples. Sometimes I wish my problems could be solved as simply as that sceue in the movie Grease. The one where the diner morphs into a chunk of heaven. Where Frankie Avalon swoops down from a sparkling, light-filled sky and plays guardian angel for Frenchy, who needs advice about beauty school.

  I could use some advice, too.

  I roll over and glance toward the broken window. There's a clicking sound coming from just outside it. "Drea?- I sit up. Maybe she forgot something.

  The noise continues.

  I move off the bed and grab the baseball bat from behind the door. I sling it over my shoulder, batter-up style, and wait. A whistling now slow and steady and separated by human breaths. I take a few steps toward the sound, but then it seems to travel over to the corner window, the one that isn't broken. I follow it, noticing the window is open a crack.

  "Stacey" says a voice. "I can see you. Can see your pretty plaid pajamas.-

  I take another step, my heart beating down the door of my chest, forcing me to stop, take a deep breath. I root myself in place, secure my hands around the baseball bat, and mentally prepare myself for his next move.

  And there it is a hand smacks up against the glass, the fingers squirming and kneading their way upward, toward the window frame, to open it wider.

  I lean forward to see the figure below. It looks up at me, almost startled, its face covered by a white hockey mask, and suddenly I feel like I've been plopped onto the set of Friday the 13th and at any minute now a six-inch knife will come plunging through the window.

  The hand curls into a fist and knocks against the glass. And then he starts laughing. A dead giveaway. I'd know that

  Kermit-the-frog laugh anywhere--head, bobbing; mouth, arched open; and zero sound coming out.

  Chad.

  He flips the mask off and breathes aloud, Jason-from-Friday-the-13th style. "I can see you, Stacey" he repeats, still laughing.

  "I hate you, Chad."

  He smooshes his lips against the glass, but he still looks good. Fresh-out-of-bed good--his sandy-blond hair still sticking up in the back, a bedsheet-pattern line against his cheek, tiny points of fresh, golden hair sprouting from his chin. Sexily delicious.

  "Where's your sense of humor?"

  I start to pull the window shade down to block him out. I don't want to talk to him right now. I look awful. I feel awful. And I despise jokes like this.

  "Wait a minute," he says. "I'm sorry, okay?"

  It's hard to resist since he looks so scrumptious, standing on tiptoes, a glob of white toothpaste gathered in the corner of his mouth. An imaginary bubble blows out from my head. In it, the two of us have woken up together; he's
sneaking out, and this is our secret.

  I pop the thought out of my head with a pin of reality and push the window open. "What are you doing here?" "I was actually looking for Drea."

  "She's showering. Why?"

  "We were supposed to meet for breakfast. I was gonna help her with her psych homework."

  "Really? I thought it was the other way around."

  79

  "I help her, she helps me." He winks. "What's the difference?" He hoists his elbows up on the sill to peer into the room. "You girls are slobs. Worse than us bachelors."

  I smooth my hands over my hair and try to subtly pinch my cheeks for color. "I'll tell her you came by."

  "What's the matter? You want me to go so soon?" Chad dangles his hand off the sill, inside the room, allowing me to catch a glance of the tiny points of boy-hair on his knuckles. "Can I come in?" he asks.

  "Why?"

  "What do you mean why? To hang out for a while. To talk. We don't get to talk as much as we did last year."

  It's true that we don't. But it hasn't exactly been the same between us since that day when we kissed. I look at him, from his long, curly lashes to the pout in his mouth, and feel a million tiny bottle-rockets go off in my heart, just remembering that kiss.

  "Please," he says. "With peanut butter and banana sandwiches on top?"

  I feel my cheeks turn warm, like bowls of chowder. He's thinking about it too. It doesn't surprise me that he's thinking about it. What surprises me is that he's admitting that he's thinking about it, and that's something altogether different.

  He wants me to know that he's thinking about it.

  A part of me wants to let him in. Another part wants to close the window and yank the shade down over his face, once and for all. I swallow both parts down in one bittersweet gulp and say,

  "That's probably not a good idea. Madame Discharge usually makes her rounds sometime around now"

  He nods, disappointment brimming in those luscious, greeny-blue eyes.

  I bite the side of my cheek and search my brain for something to say. Anything. "So, who told you we like horror?"

  'A little bird," he says, sticking his chest out. It takes me a moment to notice that he's wearing his old hockey jersey, the one that was tacked up over the broken window.

  "Hey, you have your jersey. When did you get it back? Someone took it from our room."

  "Sure they did.-

  "They did," I say. "We came back late last night and it was missing." I look back at the broken window, at the image of Scooby Doo posing from the beach towel tacked up over the hole--

  Amber's addition.

  Chad pulls the hockey mask back over his face and breathes like Darth Vader. "This was just my way of getting you guys back after your failed attempt at scaring me. Better luck next time."

  "What are you talking about? We didn't try to scare you."

  He lifts the mask from his face. "You didn't?"

  I shake my head.

  "Then who put the jersey in my mailbox?" He tugs a sheet of notebook paper from his back pocket. "This was attached to it."

  I take the note. There are large block letters written with red marker across the page: STAY

  AWAY FROM HER. I'M WATCHING YOU.

  "Whatever," he says. "Probably just one of the guys, playing a joke. Look, I gotta go before security catches me. Maybe I can come in some other time."

  "Maybe," I nod, still clutching the note in my hand. "Can you just tell Drea I can't make it for breakfast after all? Hockey practice."

  I swallow down the ball of impending doom I feel lodged in my throat, and manage a slight nod.

  "Tell her Donovan's gonna be in the room, so she can just e-mail him the assignment, and I'll have him print it out and give it to me before class."

  My head fuzzes over with questions, but instead of asking any I just say "Okay"

  "Thanks, Stacey. Tell Dray thanks, too. I owe her big time. Oh, and can you tell her to make sure she changes her answers around a bit? Wouldn't want the teacher to think we're cheating." He winks.

  I wave goodbye before shutting the window and locking it.

  There, it happened. He canceled. The cards predicted correctly.

  Eleven

  I vvhip the door of the shower room open and boog it acr.oss the red clay floor in search of Drea.

  There are a few girls waiting in line for a shower stall, their arms full of fruity shampoo and bars of soap, but no Drea. I visually

  lur the pairs of feet sticking out from beneath each cursco in search of Drea's pink jelly shoes. I notice a pair of tail

  Osi:ar the Grouch flip-flops, standing in the last stall. ,Ainber? Is that you?" I jiggle the curtain.

  "Get lost," says a throaty voice that definitely isn't Amber's.

  I round the corner by the sinks and there's Drea, in front of the mirror, scrunch-drying her hair with a blow dryer. She clicks the dryer off. "What's wrong?"

  'Are you okay?" I'm all out of breath. I look over her shoulder at Veronica Leeman, who pretends to brush her teeth a few sinks away even though it's so completely obvious that she's eavesdropping.

  'Are you okay?" Drea asks.

  "Get your stuff and let's go," I say. "We need to talk."

  "What-ev-er." Drea focuses back in the mirror and plucks a salmon-pink lipstick from her makeup pouch. She smears it on and blows obnoxious air kisses toward Veronica. "Chad just loves this color on me."

  Everyone knows Veronica would give up using hair spray for a whole year just to have one date with Chad. Drea smiles at me, proud of her own bitchiness.

  'Actually, Chad can't make it for breakfast," I say, savoring every syllable. I can be a bitch too.

  Veronica spits a mouthful of toothpaste out in Drea's sink, a speck of peppermint spooge landing against Drea's cheek.

  "Watch it!" Drea squeals, swiping the dribbles with a cotton ball.

  Veronica gets right up into Drea's face. "If I catch you and your loser friends flashing my dad again, you'll have me to answer to."

  "What are you talking about?" Drea asks.

  "That was my father last night outside your room," Veronica continues. "He was lcoking for my room, and un- fortunately found yours. Your room is the one on the ground floor, all the way to the right, facing the lawn, isn't it? Are you girls that hard up that you have to resort to middle-aged men?"

  "Is your father that hard up ihat he has to resort to peeping in the windows of teenage girls?"

  "Screw you," Veronica says "For your information, he works the late shift and had to swing by my room to pick up some keys. There wasn't anyon2 working the front desk."

  rerfume in Veronica's direcDrea

  squirts a few puffs of tion to ward her off. "Well, he oust have liked what he saw, because he came back for mon this morning."

  "To drop the keys back oft--not that it's any of your business." Veronica walks away and Drea and I look at each other and burst out laughing.

  "It figures she would have wacko-perv for a father," Drea says.

  "I can't believe that was him" I say.

  "Wait," Drea rebounds. "Wiat do you mean Chad can't make it?"

  "He said something about 1-laving an early hockey practice," I say. "He wants you to e-mail the assignment to Donovan so he can print it ou and give it to Chad before class."

  "Why isn't Donovan going P the hockey practice? He's the star center." Drea hurls her ipstick into the sink. "I'm so sick of him lying to me and bloving me off. This is just like last week. He gave me some fathetic story about visiting his sick grandmother."

  "He did have his hockey mask with him," I say. "You know what this means though, don't you?

  The cards were right. He canceled."

  "I have more important things to think about than cards."

  "More important than your life?"

  Drea tries to push her way past me, but I grab her arm and spin her around. "Your spoiled brat routine isn't going to work this time," I say. "I'm going to help you whether
you like it or not."

  She stares at me a few seconds, as though not wanting to listen but too scared to run away. "I can't deal with this right now."

  "Well, I'm sorry, but you don't have a choice. You're my best friend and I don't want anything to happen to you."

  I lead Drea into a bathroom stall for privacy, pull the now-mangled note from the center of my palm, and drop it into hers.

  "What's this?"

  "Just open it," I say. "It was attached to Chad's hockey jersey. He got it back. It was stuffed into his mailbox with the note."

  "Stay away from her. I'm watching you'?" Drea reads. "Wait, I'm confused; I thought I was supposed to get the note."

  "You will," I say. "Another one. Addressed to you. I'm sure of it."

  "Who's the 'her' in the note?" she asks.

  "Who do you think?"

  Drea smiles. "It's me, isn't it."

  "It's not a compliment, Drea. This is serious. Whoever sent this note to Chad is trying pretty hard to make sure he stops hanging around you. Chad might even be in danger himself."

  Drea's smile wilts. -That doesn't make sense. Why would anyone want to hurt Chad?"

  -Because whoever this is wants you all to himself.- -So, you're sure it's a guy?"

  "Who knows? You've pissed off enough girls around here.- I spread the paper out on the wall and smooth my fingers over it to feel the grains. There's a slight vibration coming from the word

  "her." I trace the letters with my finger and concentrate on each one. Then I close my eyes and bring the paper up to my nose.

  "What?" Drea asks. "What is it?"

  -Lilies,- I say. "Like in my dream. There were lilies." "What do lilies have to do with anything?"

  she asks. "They're just flowers."

  "Lilies are the death flower."

  -You're scaring me."

  "We're in this together," I say, taking her hand and holding it. "If we can predict the future, we can change it." -So much for fate."

  -We make our own fate," I say. "I'm not going to let anything happen to you."

  "Promise?"

  I nod and think of Maura.