If Only in My Dreams

by Wendy Markham

  In the dream.

  Just as long as she keeps reminding herself that none of it is real—that Jed Landry isn’t alive at this very moment in some alternative universe—she’ll be fine.

  Because if he were…

  Well, she might just have a bittersweet afterthought about leaving him behind.

  At last, Clara limps the final few steps along West Eleventh Street toward her building. She averts her eyes as she passes a trench coat–clad man from a neighboring building. She can feel him watching her from under his black umbrella as he clings to his dog’s leash, waiting for it to do its business along the curb.

  She can just imagine what she looks like at this point: still wearing the vintage costume, soaked to the bone, her hair bedraggled and makeup undoubtedly smeared all over her face. If she had collected a dollar for every curious stare she attracted in the course of her journey down from Grand Central Station, she could have bought a car in no time and driven herself the rest of the way.

  Grimacing, she forces her swollen feet up the steps to the door and buzzes the building super’s apartment on the ground floor.

  If he isn’t here, she’s going to have to get to a phone and call Jason. He still has his set of keys… if he didn’t toss them into the East River.

  Please be home, Mr. Kobayashi. Please let one thing go right for me today. Pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease…

  “Yes?”

  “Mr. Kobayashi, it’s Clara McCallum. I’m locked out. Would you mind…?”

  The door buzzes promptly, unlocking with a click.

  She opens it and steps in out of the rain at long last. Relieved to be home, she closes the door behind her and leans against it with a sigh.

  What a nightmare.

  Beyond the inner vestibule door, she can see Isamu Kobayashi, an elderly man with surprisingly jet-black hair. He ascends from his apartment and shuffles toward the door, wearing a robe and slippers, as usual. She undoubtedly caught him in the midst of what seems to be his favorite pastime: watching one of the old cop shows to which he’s addicted.

  He was doing that the very first time she met him, when she first came to see the apartment. She could hear the distinct Dragnet theme blasting from his television.

  She remembers the details of that sweltering July day very well, with good reason, because something strange happened. Something she hasn’t been able to explain to this day.

  The moment Mr. Kobayashi first saw her standing there in the hallway with Kim, the Realtor, his jaw dropped.

  At the time, that didn’t strike her as unusual; he was probably a fan of her soap. Or so she assumed.

  “Wait here a minute,” he said, and she assumed he was going to get the keys to the vacant apartment or something.

  That wasn’t it.

  He handed her a package wrapped in brown paper and marked with her handwritten name, all but faded. It was wrapped with string and sealed with a yellowed, brittle strip of tape.

  “This is for you,” he said.

  “Oh, how sweet. Thank you. What is it?”

  “I don’t know.” At her questioning look, he elaborated, “A man dropped it off and said to give it to you whenever you came.”

  Puzzled, Clara smiled politely, tucked the package into her bag, and exchanged a knowing glance with Kim, assuming the old man must be slightly senile or something.

  She fell in love with the apartment at first sight, and agreed to rent it on the spot.

  It wasn’t until she got home later that night that she remembered the package.

  She opened it somewhat gingerly, uncertain of what she was going to find.

  Certainly not the fuzzy red mittens with the white snowflake pattern her grandmother knit for her mother when she was a little girl. Along with a matching red hat, they were part of a set Jeanette had given to Clara years ago, but she rarely wore them. Mittens just weren’t in style; she preferred sleek leather gloves.

  She always assumed the hat and mittens were tucked away in a dresser drawer, but when she opened it to check, only the hat was there. Puzzled, she put the mittens in with it, and the set was whole again.

  Obviously, she unwittingly lost the mittens somehow, at some point.

  But how on earth had they come into Mr. Kobayashi’s possession?

  Even he seemed clueless. When she asked him, he just repeated that a man had given him the package and told him to hold it for her.

  “When was this?” she asked.

  His answer told her that he really was senile. “Oh, years ago. When I was a little boy.”

  Not wanting to embarrass him, Clara dropped the subject. To this day, she’s stumped about how her mittens landed in her super’s hands, but at least she hadn’t lost them forever. She wore them all last winter, and plans to this year as well.

  But at this moment, she isn’t dwelling on the mittens as she comes face-to-face with Mr. Kobayashi.

  “Oh! What happened to you?” he asks in his Asian-accented English. “You look like a drowned rat.”

  “I know… I’m sorry to bother you, but I don’t have my keys.”

  “You got mugged? Did they steal your purse?”

  Clara hesitates, then nods. It’s easier than attempting to explain what really happened. She simply doesn’t have the energy to provide even an abridged version.

  Unfortunately, in addition to watching old cop shows, Mr. Kobayashi’s other favorite pastime is conversation. He’s the chattiest man Clara has ever known—and oddly, he has rarely come across as senile since that first day she met him. Maybe that was just a momentary memory lapse.

  For the most part, she usually doesn’t mind chatting with him. But today, right now, she just wants to get into her apartment and out of these clothes.

  “You poor thing! They attacked you! You’re all bruised!” Mr. Kobayashi has spotted her forehead. “Let me call the fuzz for you.”

  The fuzz?

  Okay, he’s definitely seen a few too many outdated cop shows. She wants to smile, but manages not to. He’s so earnest, so concerned.

  “I’ll call the doctor, too,” he offers.

  “No, I don’t need a doctor or—or the fuzz, Mr. Kobayashi, but thank you. I’m sure I’ll be okay.”

  “But you’re hurt! You need ice on that.”

  That’s it. His kindness, combined with the reminder of Jed Landry gently applying an ice pack to her head, suddenly has Clara feeling like she’s going to cry.

  She opens her mouth to explain that she’s really fine, but she can’t seem to push the words past the lump of emotion in her throat.

  “Did you get a good look at the perp so you can ID him in a lineup?” Mr. Kobayashi asks then, sounding like Starsky, Hutch, and Baretta all rolled into one.

  Okay, now she feels like she’s going to laugh and cry all at once.

  She manages to tell him, straight-faced, that the perp got away.

  “That’s a shame. But maybe he dumped your purse somewhere. Usually these swine just want the bread and toss the rest.”

  “The bread?” she echoes in bewilderment, before realizing that he’s talking about the money.

  The bread.

  Bread…

  Bakery…

  Doughboy…

  Her momentary amusement with Mr. Kobayashi’s outdated cop jargon segues right back to Jed Landry with disarming ease.

  Jed, and his comment about his father having been a doughboy.

  The thing is, if that was all a dream… then how could it contain information she’s never heard of?

  For a moment, she’s stricken anew by the possibility that she might really have traveled back to 1941 this morning.

  Then she comes to her senses.

  Who says any of those details in the dream were authentic? You probably just made up the stuff you never heard of before.

  Like doughboy.

  “Mr. Kobayashi,” she says, dragging her errant thoughts back to the matter at hand, “if you could just let me into my apartment, I would r
eally appreciate it. I know I’ll be fine. I just need to rest.”

  “First, you need to get ice,” he says, pulling out his key ring and leading the way to the stairs. “Then call the fuzz. Then rest. Okay?”

  “Okay.” Except for the part about the fuzz and the ice.

  Shaking his head as he climbs the steps above her, the diminutive man says, “Such a shame this happen to nice dame like you.”

  This time, she does smile. He can’t see her.

  “I’ve lived in this city all my years—seventy years, you know that? Seventy years right in this house.”

  She does know that. He likes to tell anyone who will listen about what the neighborhood was like in the old days. The neighborhood, his life, the house…

  She knows that his parents were household help for the Sloans, the last people to live here when it was a one-family home. After Mr. Sloan passed away years ago, his heirs sold it for a small fortune and it was turned into apartments like most of the other townhouses on the block. Apparently, Mr. Kobayashi came with the building.

  “All these years, the city has gone downhill. Now, nobody is safe around here. You can’t be too careful.”

  “No, I guess you can’t.”

  “You poor thing. You’re a nice person. Why did this have to happen to you?”

  “It’s just been a really bad day,” she admits, her smile vanishing.

  “You should watch TV when you rest,” he suggests. “Dragnet is good. It’s coming on soon. That will take your mind off troubles, cheer you up.”

  Dragnet. Right, very cheerful.

  They’ve reached her door. He unlocks it and she steps over the threshold. “Thank you so much, Mr. Kobayashi.”

  “You so welcome. Oh! I almost forgot!” He slaps himself on his hair, still jet-black despite his advanced age.

  “What?”

  “Somebody was here looking for you today.”

  “Looking for me? Who was it?”

  “She didn’t say her name. Just rang the bell and asked if you live here. I told her no, in case she was a nutcase, but she pointed to your last name on the buzzer panel,” he says apologetically.

  “That’s okay,” Clara says with a sigh. “What did she look like?”

  “Old lady. White hair. Glasses.” He shrugs.

  It was probably another die-hard One Life to Live fan. They pop up from time to time, seeking autographs and complaining about Arabella Saffron’s untimely demise.

  “I’ll check on you later,” Mr. Kobayashi says, turning to leave.

  “Oh, that’s not necessary. I really am fine.”

  “I’ll check on you,” he says, and departs with a wave, shuffling back down the stairs in his robe and slippers.

  Safe and warm in her apartment, Clara unwedges her feet from the hideous shoes and kicks them into the corner. In the bathroom, she slips off the wet clothes and throws them into the claw-foot tub. Oddly, the stench of stale cigarette smoke again reaches her nostrils. She picks up the jacket she was wearing and sniffs it.

  It definitely smells like smoke.

  Which proves…

  Absolutely nothing.

  Sitting on the closed toilet seat, she unpeels the seamed silk stockings, which are hopelessly snagged, and deposits them into the trash.

  Looking down again at her breast, she gingerly touches the gauze bandage. The site beneath it is still sore. But in a few days…

  The lump will be cut out, leaving her permanently disfigured.

  Oh, my God.

  Without warning, a wail escapes her throat. Even as she tells herself that she should just be damned grateful for the surgery and her prognosis for survival—and grateful that she isn’t losing her entire breast—she can’t help but mourn the imminent loss.

  She buries her face and sobs, long and hard and loud. If the flood of bitter tears alone could wash away the heartache, she would be healed.

  Instead, she merely feels ravaged in their wake, more depleted than ever before.

  She rises to her feet shakily, takes her robe from the hook on the back of the door, and puts it on, needing to hide the bandage and all it signifies.

  As she ties the sash around her waist she catches sight of her reflection in the medicine-chest mirror.

  Good God. I look like hell.

  Her forties’ hat is waterlogged; beneath it, her hairdo is lacquered to her head. Her eyes are raw and red, her expression ravaged, her makeup is down around her chin, and the crimson lipstick is hopelessly smudged.

  How ironic that Clara, who wouldn’t deny that her success in the entertainment industry is based as much on her beauty as on her talent, has transformed into this… this visual monstrosity. She can’t bear to look at herself.

  Is this what it’s going to be like from now on… after the surgery? Will she dread seeing herself naked afterward? Will she be able to ever again share her body with anyone else?

  One thing at a time. For now, I just need cold cream, she tells herself. Cold cream, then a hot shower for about an hour, and about a week of sleep.…

  Except that she can’t sleep. She has to see Karen.

  Maybe she’ll help me.…

  Oh, who am I kidding?

  No one, she thinks bleakly, can possibly help me at this point. Not in the way I need.

  What she needs is a magic genie who could miraculously sweep away her cancer as if it never existed.

  Sure. That’ll happen.

  With a weary sigh, she begins pulling out the pins that secure her sodden hat to her matted hair. Each tug makes her wince in pain.

  She isn’t looking forward to donning this getup all over again tomorrow…

  Nor is she looking forward to calling the unit production manager to explain her vanishing act.

  And no, she’s not looking forward to the appointment later with Karen, either.

  So what are you looking forward to?

  Not much of anything, she realizes. Except, perhaps, sleep.

  Maybe I’ll dream about Jed Landry again.

  That possibility sparks a glimmer of interest. Now that could possibly be something to look forward to. Especially since, this time, she’ll know it’s just a dream.

  Not that he can possibly help her.…

  No, she has already determined that no one can do that. No human, anyway.

  But then, Jed wasn’t human—he was a part of her dream. And there was something about dream Jed… strong, solid, capable dream Jed… that made her feel…

  Safe.

  Gazing into the mirror, she watches her brow furrow and her teeth come down on her bottom lip.

  It was definitely just a dream. Right.

  Right?

  Clara turns thoughtfully away from the mirror, the hairpin removal task momentarily abandoned.

  Padding barefoot to the living room, she goes straight to the bookcase and peruses the row of titles.

  It’s on the top shelf: the big leather-bound dictionary her grandfather presented to her at her elementary school graduation, along with a dark-haired porcelain angel, of course. The dictionary’s first page is inscribed in spidery handwriting: For Clara-belle, with love from Grandpa on your special day.

  She flips the pages to the Ds and scans the entries. There it is.

  As she reads the definition, her heart starts pounding all over again.

  Doughboy n. An American infantryman in World War I.

  She never knew that.

  Are you sure? Maybe you read it somewhere.

  No, she would have remembered. She would have remembered because the word doughboy would have brought to mind her father, and the way she used to poke him in the stomach to make him giggle like the fat white Pillsbury Doughboy on TV.

  But if she never knew that a doughboy was a World War I soldier, then how could she have conjured it in her dream?

  If the Jed Landry she encountered was a figment of her imagination, then he could know only what she knows… isn’t that correct?

  Suddenly, she’s u
tterly depleted. Her head is spinning and, once again, nothing makes sense.

  She closes the dictionary and shoves it back on the shelf.

  Later, she thinks wearily, trudging to the bathroom again. I’ll worry about all of this later.

  CHAPTER 7

  Jed? Have you been away?” Sarah Wenick calls through the dusk as Jed passes by her two-story Dutch Colonial that evening on his way home.

  He shakes his head, marveling that the neighborhood gossip happens to be outside on a gusty December evening like this. Chestnut Street is all but deserted, families tucked cozily inside houses gaily illuminated with strings of colored lights.

  Yet there’s Sarah on her top step, plainly visible in the pool of light from an overhead fixture. She’s bundled into a woolen coat and a head wrap, fiddling with the string of darkened lights tacked around her front door. One of the bulbs must have burned out.

  “Hello, Sarah, no, I haven’t been away,” he calls back to her. “I’m just coming from the store.”

  “Oh… I saw the suitcase and I thought…” She trails off, waiting for him to elaborate.

  He merely nods and tips his hat with a gloved hand.

  If he were a gentleman, he’d offer to help her replace the bulb, knowing her husband, Clark, is working the night shift down at the plant.

  Well, he is a gentleman… under most circumstances.

  He just isn’t in the mood to explain the suitcase to his perennially nosy next-door neighbor… or, in turn, to his mother, who will surely hear about it from Sarah promptly.

  “Good night, Sarah.”

  “Good night, Jed. Give Lois my best.”

  His galoshes make a squeaking sound in the snow as he trudges up the Landrys’ driveway next door, covered in several inches of fresh white powder since he shoveled it early this morning.

  Pop’s snow-blanketed DeSoto is parked in front of the detached garage, right where Jed left it when he drove it home a few weeks ago with a flat tire. He hasn’t got around to fixing it yet. Good thing nobody drives the car but him—though Gilbert will want to when he gets back, and Penny keeps begging him to teach her now that she’s almost seventeen.

  He figures he’d better oblige her one of these days. Mother doesn’t have a license, and Gilbert would never have the patience to teach Penny.