If Only in My Dreams

by Wendy Markham

  Every time the door jangles to signal a new arrival in the five-and-dime, Jed hopefully jerks his head in that direction.

  But it’s never Clara.

  Nor is it Alice, who has once again failed to show up for work.

  No, just a constant parade of local shoppers, too many of them with impossible requests… and he’s just about got whiplash from all this wishful head swiveling.

  All he wants is to get down to Manhattan to find Clara.

  Instead here he is, swearing to Mrs. Robertson, yet again, that he really doesn’t have silk stockings in stock.

  “I don’t think you’re being honest with me, Jed. I heard that you had a stash.”

  “Where did you hear that?”

  “I don’t remember. But I’m sure somebody mentioned it.”

  “Mrs. Robertson, if I had silk stockings in the store, I’d be happy to sell them to you, believe me.”

  Anything to get you off my back, you old biddy.

  “I just don’t understand why you can’t get them.”

  Gritting his teeth, he reminds her—again—that most silk is imported from Japan, and the government cut off trade with Japan several months ago. He offers her an alternative, but Mrs. Robertson, who perceives the war as a major personal inconvenience, refuses to consider the “newfangled” nylon stockings.

  “You’re charging too much for them,” she accuses. “No one in her right mind would pay that for a pair of stockings.”

  He watches her browse for a good fifteen minutes, asking countless questions about the merchandise. As he answers them, his thoughts are on Manhattan, and Clara. He still hasn’t fixed the DeSoto’s flat, but he’s pretty sure he’ll be able to borrow a car from one of his buddies. That’s the best thing about living in a small town—somebody is always there when you need a favor.

  “Oh, look, there’s the dear little musical snow globe you tried to sell me,” Mrs. Robertson comments, spotting the damaged music box on the sale table. “I can’t imagine who would want an angel with a broken wing, even at half price.”

  Jed merely shrugs.

  “I’ll give you ten cents for it,” Mrs. Robertson announces, pulling out her change purse as though it’s a done deal.

  Jed shakes his head. “I’m afraid I have to stick with the marked price.”

  “You aren’t willing to bargain?”

  “I’m sorry,” he says, as if he really is. Meanwhile, he promises himself that at this point, he wouldn’t sell her the sweet, wounded little angel if she offered him twice the original cost.

  No sooner does Mrs. Robertson grumble her way out the door with just the morning paper than Betty Godfrey sashays in.

  She’s wearing fashionably thick-soled shoes and a sweeping fur coat. Beneath a tall, tilted hat, her strawberry blond hair is carefully parted on the side and draped over one eye in an exaggerated imitation of Veronica Lake’s peekaboo style.

  “Jed Landry! Where have you been?”

  “I’ve been right here,” he says mildly as she marches right up to the counter, enveloping him in a cloud of Evening in Paris perfume. “Where else would I be?”

  “You said you would call on me over the weekend, you naughty thing, and you never showed up.”

  “I did?” He frowns, trying to remember when he might have made such an unlikely commitment.

  “Yes, don’t you remember?”

  “Refresh my memory, why don’t you.”

  “I stopped in here on Friday afternoon to buy some navy thread for the divine dress I’m making, and I told you I had to hurry home because I had an apple pie in the oven, and you said that you like apple pie, and I said, why, then, come on by and have a piece.”

  Hmm. Jed does like apple pie.

  But the rest of it… well, he’s fairly certain he would not have made any brash promises to the likes of Betty Godfrey. Knowing her—and he does, all too well—she’d expect a ring and a vow in return for the pie.

  “But you never showed up, Jed,” Betty concludes unnecessarily, obviously waiting for an explanation.

  “Sorry you were disappointed, Betty. I guess it must have slipped my mind. What can I help you with today? More thread? Different color?”

  “Oh, I think I’ll just browse.” She makes no move to do so.

  He nods, and begins to unpack a carton of music boxes that arrived this morning.

  “You know, Jed…” Betty leans toward him, elbows propped on the counter, her pretty face cupped in both hands, her one visible eye gleaming with what appears to be accusation. “I heard a rumor about you.”

  “About me?” Oh, for crying out loud. “What’s that, Betty? I suppose you heard that I’ve got a stash of silk stockings. Well, let me tell you, it isn’t—”

  “No, I heard that you were chasing a dame through the streets yesterday morning, hollering at her.”

  “Well, you don’t say.” He shrugs, thinking that this is the worst thing about small towns. A fella can’t get away with anything.

  Betty just nods.

  Jed can’t help but notice that she seems to spend an awful lot of time waiting for him to say something. And that he seems to spend an awful lot of time trying to think of something to say.

  This, then, is clearly not a relationship made in heaven—not that it’s news to him.

  “Well, where’d you hear about this rumor?” Jed mildly asks Betty at last, shifting his weight, filled with renewed longing to flee Glenhaven Park.

  “First from Gladys Van Tassel, and she heard it from Floyd Mead. I don’t know where he heard it.”

  I do, Jed thinks, remembering that Floyd’s twin brother, George, was one of the eager fellas who helped Clara up when she tripped and fell.

  “I told Gladys, ‘Jed would never make such a public scene.’ But now that I’ve heard it from a couple of people, well… I told them all that I was sure she was a customer.”

  “She was.”

  “And I said that she must have shoplifted something from you, and that’s why you were chasing her. Was it?”

  “No.” He looks around the empty store, wishing for a distraction—like Mrs. Robertson coming back to go at it another round about the silk stockings or break more fragile merchandise.

  “Then why?”

  “She left something behind. I just wanted to give it to her.”

  “What was it?”

  “A couple of bags, Betty, that’s all.” He wishes he didn’t feel so gosh-darned defensive about it.

  “Did you catch her?”

  “No, I didn’t.” But I will.

  “Well, some people are saying you were chasing her like a love-crazed fool.”

  “Oh, they are, are they?” he mutters.

  “Are you in love with her, Jed?”

  “I don’t even know her, Betty.”

  She smiles coyly and winks at him. Or maybe it’s just a blink. He can’t tell, what with that hairdo of hers.

  Veronica Lake might look sexy with one eye, but Jed swiftly concludes that on everybody else—including Betty—the style is somewhat ridiculous.

  You don’t see Clara going around half blind.

  No sir, when she was here, both of her big green eyes were clearly visible—and frightened.

  If she were a spy, Jed muses, you wouldn’t expect her to be frightened. As the legend goes, Mata Hari was calm and collected right until her last moment, blowing kisses to the firing squad before they executed her.

  There was nothing calm about Clara.

  Again, Jed longs to drop everything and rush to the city to find her—not just to put his curiosity to rest or do his patriotic duty.

  She needs me, he finds himself thinking irrationally.

  “Say, there’s still half a pie left over at my house, Jed,” Betty is cooing. “Why don’t you come by after you close the store later? My mother is out at her bridge game and she won’t be home until late.”

  “I can’t. I have to be… someplace else.”

  “Tomorrow, then?”
/>
  “I’m afraid that’s no good, either.”

  “Then Thursday?”

  “I would think that pie of yours might be moldy by then, Betty,” he can’t help saying.

  She shoots him a one-eyed scowl and straightens up, adjusting her hat. “What a thing to say!”

  “I’m sorry. It’s swell of you to invite me, but I’m afraid I’m just too shorthanded and busy here at the store to squeeze in much of anything else at this time of year.”

  “That’s just your loss, then, Jed Landry.” Betty flounces out of the store without a backward glance.

  He watches her go, thinking his life would be much simpler if he could will himself to fall in love with Betty.

  But he can’t do that any more than he can stop obsessing over the troubled mystery woman.

  He looks impatiently at his watch.

  At least six hours to go before he can depart on his mission to find Clara.

  Find her… and then what?

  CHAPTER 9

  A steady rain is falling as the black town car eases down Fifth Avenue.

  The driver has the radio tuned to AM, 1010 WINS, with its endless news, traffic, and weather.

  And thanks to Jesus deJesus, Clara’s head is tuned, as it has been since this morning, to an endless replay of “Midnight Train to Georgia.”

  Which wouldn’t be so bad if it didn’t remind her of Jed Landry.

  But then, today, what hasn’t?

  Determined to keep those disturbing thoughts at bay, she sits huddled in the backseat, gazing out at the surprisingly heavy Saturday-night traffic.

  Or perhaps not so surprising. After all, Clara remembers, it’s December now. Manhattan is always extra crowded at this time of year.

  Mesmerized by the red brake lights reflected on the shiny pavement, she can’t help but remember happier holiday seasons.

  From the time she was a little girl, her grandfather always took her to see The Nutcracker on the first Saturday night in December, just as he always did her mother. In fact, Clara was named for the little girl in the ballet, who was given the unexpected Christmas gift of a nutcracker—then saw it come magically to life in her Christmas Eve dream.

  Maybe she and I have more in common than just a name, Clara finds herself thinking—and immediately drags herself away from that topic.

  She’d rather dwell on pleasant, uncomplicated thoughts tonight. Like her annual Nutcracker outing with Grandpa.

  He always called it “a date with my best gal”—and she thought the words always sounded a little hollow. When she got older, Clara came to understand that his real “best gal” had been his beloved Irene. Grandpa liked to talk about how he didn’t mind getting older, because it meant that he was getting closer to seeing his Irene again.

  Though sometimes, when he looked at Clara, he would smile and say it was almost the same thing. Almost.

  Clara-belle, you look more and more like your grandmother, he used to tell her.

  He was the only one who ever called her Clara-belle.

  God, I miss him, she thinks, turning her head against the seat back and blinking away unexpected tears.

  So much for pleasant, uncomplicated thoughts.

  It’s been awhile since she cried over her grandfather, who lived to the ripe old age of eighty-three.

  “In your sleep—that’s the way to go,” he liked to say, as the years piled on. “None of this wasting away slowly. One day you just don’t wake up, and boom! It’s over.”

  Which was exactly what happened a few years ago. He had a sudden heart attack in his sleep. Boom! It was over.

  For Clara, the only comfort in the wake of his death was that he did it his way—and that he was at last with his true best gal again.

  She knows that; she can feel it… and sometimes, when she’s alone, she can almost convince herself that she just glimpsed the two of them out of the corner of her eye.

  Yes, and she once made the mistake of saying that to Jason.

  “You believe in ghosts, Clara? Are you kidding me?”

  “I believe that my grandparents are together somewhere. And that sometimes they’re with me.”

  “But… they’re dead.” As if she didn’t know. “Where is it that you think they are? In heaven?”

  “Maybe. Or maybe back here on earth.”

  “You mean reincarnated?”

  “Maybe. Who knows? Maybe they were both reborn as babies right now, and they’re going to grow up and find each other and fall in love all over again.”

  “Sometimes I really worry about you, Clara. Some things you get into your head are just… out there.”

  And everything in his head was just… completely pragmatic. He’s never believed in anything. An afterlife, or reincarnation, or miracles, or Santa Claus, or God, or creative thinking, or…

  Or Clara herself.

  Not even when her yearly income surpassed his.

  “Mine is a salary,” he would say. “It’s not going to go away tomorrow.”

  Implying that her income—and her career—could evaporate in a puff of smoke any minute.

  And, okay, it very well could.

  But Clara is accustomed to the unpredictability of her life. She thrives on the whimsical nature of her business, on being paid for creativity.

  Jason, who possesses not an ounce of whimsy, just didn’t get it.

  She can just imagine what he would say if she tried to explain what happened to her yesterday.

  Covering a tremendous yawn, she’s grateful that she isn’t due back on the set until Monday morning, when they’ll shoot the train scene.

  What a relief it will be tomorrow to catch up on her sleep, maybe go to the gym, or watch a movie.

  Or she could—

  No. Absolutely not. That’s a bad idea.

  One she’s been toying with all day, but a bad idea nonetheless.

  Spotting the familiar green awning of the landmark prewar apartment building on the corner of Fifth and West Eleventh—Mr. Kobayashi said Marlon Brando lived there back in the forties—she straightens in her seat.

  Almost home. She zips her parka to her chin as the town car turns onto West Eleventh Street, past the looming Gothic facade of the First Presbyterian Church on the corner.

  Gazing down the block, she can see Christmas lights twinkling from several buildings, isolated to the windows of apartments occupied by particularly festive tenants. Swept by a wave of nostalgia, she wonders what it was like when all of these nineteenth-century townhouses were single-family homes.

  The car glides across Sixth Avenue, where the elevated trains once ran. Mr. Kobayashi once said that one of his earliest childhood memories was watching the overhead trestles being demolished when the avenue was widened. He also wistfully told her about the beautiful architectural complex that used to stand on the corner. Rhinelander Gardens, it was called, and it looked like something out of New Orleans’s French Quarter. Mr. Kobayashi said the structures were razed back in the fifties to make way for P.S. 41.

  Trying to block out the school, along with Ray’s Pizza on the opposite corner, Clara pictures the neighborhood back in Jed Landry’s time—then finds herself feeling both wistful and vaguely uneasy.

  “Here we are, Ms. McCallum.” Don, the driver, double-parks in front of her building and gets out to open her door. “Careful not to get wet. You don’t want to get sick.”

  If you only knew, she thinks grimly.

  Holding an umbrella above her head, Don escorts her up the steps to her door. He tips his cap and is gone.

  I should thank Mr. Kobayashi for the sweet note and Bing Crosby CD, Clara reminds herself as she steps into the warm, dry, well-lit vestibule.

  She descends to his apartment on the basement level and knocks.

  No reply other than the squealing tires and wailing sirens of a police car chase, clearly audible from the television inside.

  She knocks again, harder.

  This time, the volume is promptly lowered and she hear
s footsteps, chains rattling, bolts sliding.

  “Ms. McCallum!” The super peers out at her in surprise. “What happened? Did you get mugged again?”

  “No, I’m all set tonight, see?” She holds up her purse and her keys.

  “You got your stuff back!”

  “Er—yes.”

  “Where did the perp leave it? Dumpster? Trash can? Mailbox? I saw that one once, on Columbo.”

  Ignoring the query, she quickly changes the subject. “I just wanted to thank you again for letting me into the building yesterday, and for that sweet little gift you left at my door. That really cheered me up.”

  “Sweet gift?” Mr. Kobayashi frowns. “What sweet gift?”

  “You know…” Clara smiles. “The CD.”

  He just looks at her blankly.

  So he’s going to play dumb.

  “Thank you so much, Mr. Kobayashi.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  All right, maybe she should just let him be a secret Santa if that’s how he wants it. And that definitely seems to be how he wants it.

  “I didn’t leave you a sweet CD gift,” Mr. Kobayashi says nervously, with a glance over his shoulder.

  “You didn’t?” she asks, playing along.

  “No! I’m a married man!”

  Hearing a pot lid rattle in the kitchen, Clara realizes that the semireclusive Mrs. Kobayashi must be eavesdropping. Oops.

  “I’m sorry, I guess it was somebody else,” she says hastily.

  “I guess so. It wasn’t me.”

  Hmm. His tone is so forceful and his expression so stern that she’s almost inclined to believe him.

  But if he didn’t leave the CD at her door, then who did? It’s not as though somebody could just walk into the building off the street and up the stairs to her door. Nobody roams the halls unless they live here.

  Although…

  She has a sudden, disconcerting memory of the mystery lady lurking in the shadows of her building last night, wanting to talk to her.

  Well, no worries about being stalked by a fiend if it came from her. There’s nothing sinister about a Bing Crosby CD, that’s for sure.

  When she reaches the second floor, Clara finds herself thoughtfully glancing at Drew Becker’s closed door. She can hear music playing on the other side.