Dream Things True

by Marie Marquardt

  His uncle turned to face him squarely.

  “Yes, son. I know all too well. And I’m very sorry for your friend and her brother. But I need you to listen carefully to me. There’s not a damned thing I can do about this. If I were to help your friend, the entire state of Georgia would be on that lawn outside my office tomorrow, waving their signs and yanking their votes. It would be political suicide, son.”

  Furious, Evan stood and tried to speak, wanting to ask his uncle who the selfish ass was now. But Uncle Sexton held up his hand to pause Evan’s interruption.

  “But more importantly,” he said, “I have sworn to support and defend the Constitution of the United States and to represent the people of Georgia, Evan. It’s my job to understand their interests and to make those known in Washington. And the people of Georgia want an end to illegal immigration.”

  Evan’s head was spinning. He slumped back in his chair and rested his forehead on his hand.

  “And what about family?” he asked, unable to look up. “What about your responsibility to your family?”

  Evan’s uncle sat down next to him and touched him lightly on the arm. “Evan, I love you like a son. You know that.” A subtle trace of emotion rose in his uncle’s voice. “I want what’s best for you. But I also need for you to know this: being part of a political family means we sometimes sacrifice our own wants and needs for the wants and needs of the people.”

  “Even when the people are wrong?”

  “I don’t believe the people are wrong about this, Evan. But yes, sometimes even when the people are wrong. Your mother and I have known that for a long time.”

  “How?” Evan exploded. “How can you possibly not see the ugly wrongness of all of this, Uncle Sexton? I just don’t get it.”

  His uncle gazed out over the lake, saying nothing.

  “Do you know that I went to the jail yesterday? I went to post bail for Raúl and Mr. García.”

  “I know, Evan. Your Uncle Buddy called to tell me.”

  “And did he tell you,” Evan asked, emotion rising in his voice, “did he tell you that when I came in, he patted me on the back and said not to worry. He told me ‘boys will be boys’ or some bullshit like that.”

  “No, son. He told me you were upset, though.”

  Evan slumped deeper into the chair. He felt like screaming and crying at the same time. He felt completely out of control.

  “He told me he would get my friends out, but that was before he knew who my friends were.”

  “What’s your point, son?”

  Evan tried again, this time cutting to the chase.

  “Maybe the sacrifices you and Mom keep making, maybe they’re a mistake. Maybe they’re the mistakes that my mom is paying for, that I’m paying for.” He paced in front of the window. “Maybe they’re just eating away at our whole family.” He stopped and looked directly at his uncle. “I mean, hell, look at your own son.”

  Evan involuntarily tossed his head toward the room where Whit, messed up out of his head at noon on a Sunday, recently sat slumped in a chair, eating nothing, saying nothing.

  “Listen to me, boy. I’m not sure what you’re trying to say, and frankly I don’t think I want to know,” his uncle almost whispered. “But I am sure about this: It is time for you to end this thing with Eduardo García’s daughter. It’s time for our family to move past this particular set of mistakes before we have to live with some ugly consequences.”

  “No,” Evan said simply. “I’m not abandoning Alma for ‘the good of the family.’”

  He turned his back to his uncle and stared out the window.

  “I know it must seem a hard thing to do now,” his uncle said, moving beside him. “But you’re young, and you’ve got a lot of life ahead of you.” His uncle lifted a hand and placed it on Evan’s shoulder. “In a few months, you’ll be far away from all of this, playing soccer, enjoying college.” He wasn’t looking at Evan. Both of them had eyes fixed on the horizon. “You’ll forget all about this mess.”

  Evan pulled away from his grip.

  “It’s way too late for that, Uncle Sexton,” he said. “Alma and Raúl, Whit and I—we’re already living with the ugly consequences of a bunch of mistakes we never made. We can’t escape them. I mean, damn, look how hard your son tries.” Evan stepped toward the door. “But I’m not Whit, and I don’t want to escape them. I want to fix them, and I will.” He paused and then corrected himself. “Alma and I, we will. Together.”

  He turned his back on the only real father he had ever known, and walked away.

  EIGHTEEN

  Terrora Power

  Alma and Whit stood close, leaning over the railing to watch the water tumble into a concrete slab at the base of the dam. It was mesmerizing. There was a violence in it that Alma couldn’t turn away from.

  “He’s not going to help you. You understand that, right?” Whit spoke, raising his voice over the thundering roar of water.

  Alma didn’t look up.

  “You mean your dad? Of course I know, Whit. I wasn’t born yesterday. But Evan and Mrs. King seem to think he will.”

  “Bernice King should know better. She’s in on all of our family’s dirty little secrets.”

  “Mrs. King is amazing,” Alma replied. “I completely blew her off when she tried to help me last fall, and she still rescued me yesterday.”

  “She’s good at that,” Whit said.

  “Yeah,” Alma replied.

  “Does she still live in that little house in the crappy neighborhood?”

  “You mean the shotgun house?” Alma asked, turning to look at him. “And by the way, that crappy neighborhood is where I grew up. It was great, actually.”

  Whit laughed. “Sorry, but you must admit that some of the homes in your old neighborhood are in need of attention. God, talk about rescue! She takes me in sometimes, when my father starts in on me.”

  Whit’s dad? Laying a hand on him?

  “What do you mean?” she asked, sounding stressed out.

  “Oh, God, Alma. Don’t get all worked up. He doesn’t beat me or anything. He just constantly insists that I be someone I’m not. You know?”

  Whit laughed, a sort of high cackle.

  “He wants me to be Evan, or he wishes Evan were me. It’s exhausting.”

  They both fell silent as the roar of the water started to ring in her ears, and Whit took another long swig from his flask.

  “I’m sorry,” Alma replied, and she meant it.

  She didn’t understand any of it, but she knew just by looking at Whit that he was tired, very tired.

  She decided to change the subject—to let him in on some of her own vulnerability.

  “So, Whit, since you seem to be sort of a professional in the alcohol department, I have a question for you.”

  “My, what a lovely compliment, Alma.”

  Alma pressed on, knowing she might lose her nerve if she waited another moment.

  “Friday night, while Evan was dragging your drunk ass home, I drank for the first time.”

  “Really?” Whit drew out the word, almost singing.

  “Yeah, really.”

  He turned to face her, sizing her up with his gaze.

  “I’m not surprised. I mean, look at you. You’re the Virgin Mary, all dressed in blue, sweet and innocent.”

  “I am not sweet,” Alma replied, belligerently.

  “All right, maybe not sweet, but definitely virginal.”

  “Yeah, I think that might be gone, too,” Alma said.

  Was she about to confess to Whit that she wasn’t sure whether or not she had lost her virginity to the love of her life? Until now, she wouldn’t even let herself think of the possibility. There were so many other stresses in her life, and Evan had been so consistently himself with her since Friday—nothing so monumental could have happened. It would have changed things, right? But once she said the words out loud, she knew that her anxiety was real.

  “Which brings me to my question,” she
said. “I’m sure I only had a couple of beers. But I can’t remember anything about that night, except landing on a bed with Evan.”

  “So, you think you blacked out, and that precious moment that’s supposed to last a lifetime is forever gone?”

  “Something like that, yeah.”

  “Alma, darling, you are tiny, but even a tiny person isn’t going to black out after a couple of beers.”

  “Oh, and a Jell-O shot,” Alma added, “a gooey blob.”

  Whit looked at her, eyebrows arched. “And now, I presume you’re going to tell me this shot was delivered by Conway?”

  “Nice job, Sherlock,” Alma replied, feeling sort of confused.

  “OK, then you definitely blacked out. I don’t know what he puts in those shots, but it’s not alcohol, and it’s strong.”

  “Oh, God,” Alma said. Her head was starting to spin. “Do you mean, like, drugs?”

  “Yes, Alma. I mean, like, drugs. So, did you bleed?” Whit asked, nonchalant.

  “What?” Alma called out, too loud.

  “Did you bleed? Are you sore?”

  She started to blush. She could feel it rising in her cheeks.

  “I can’t believe we’re having this conversation.”

  “You didn’t, then.”

  “No.”

  “And this is Evan we’re talking about? The one who you think may have deflowered you?”

  Alma wanted to crawl under a rock.

  “Of course!”

  “And he was more or less sober, thanks to me?”

  “Yeah, he was sober.”

  “If you’ll permit me to be Sherlock Holmes once more, I’d say this is elementary, my dear Watson. No blood, no soreness, and a sober boyfriend who is almost as saintly as you. Your virtue is intact.”

  He grabbed Alma’s arms and turned her body to face him. “Alma, there’s no way Evan took advantage of you if he was sober and you were as wasted as you say you were.” He dropped his arms and shrugged. “So, you two can go on and gather up the rose petals.”

  “What are you talking about?” Alma asked, both relieved and confused.

  “You know,” he said, “bed of rose petals strewn across a blanket under a moonlit sky? You and Evan can do it the way everyone fantasizes it will be the first time.”

  “Yeah, OK. Can we stop talking about this now?” Alma said, stepping back. “I’m really sorry I brought it up.”

  She wasn’t sorry, though. She was relieved. Whit was right. She no longer needed for this anxiety to linger amid her other, more concrete concerns.

  They both leaned over the railing again and watched the waters fall.

  “Wanna hear about my first time?” he asked, nudging her.

  “Not really, but I don’t think that’s gonna stop you,” Alma said.

  “It was just too romantic,” he began, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

  “Wait,” Alma said, “was this with a girl?”

  “Yes!” Whit exclaimed. “Well, let’s just say a girl was involved.”

  This was going to be good, but Alma wondered whether she was too much of a prude to handle it.

  “Conway and I, we broke into your boyfriend’s house after a party where Conway, incidentally, had been passing out those wicked Jell-O shots. He only gives them to a select few—always girls. It doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to figure out what he’s up to with those.”

  Alma stepped back and hugged her chest tight. “Wait,” she said. “You mean he’s purposely drugging girls?”

  Whit just raised his eyebrows in a gesture that, Alma thought, was meant to convey something along the lines of “Duh.”

  “And you all just let him do this?” Alma asked.

  “I don’t let him do anything, Alma. He’s not exactly mine to take care of.”

  She felt nauseated and confused. She wanted to be alone all of a sudden, but she had no idea how to escape.

  “I didn’t even know you and Conway were, uh, friends,” Alma said quietly.

  “We weren’t, and we definitely aren’t now. He won’t even look at me.”

  Whit leaned farther out over the dam, and then allowed his body to ricochet backward.

  “But we were so far gone, or at least I was,” he continued. “Evan and his mom were in Greece. God only knows where his dad was.”

  Whit spun around and leaned against the wall, looking up at the sky. “I told Conway I remembered where they hide the key—under the big white planter by the guest house. So we stumbled into Conway’s god-awful Hummer and drove there from a party at Paul’s house. We had a girl with us. She was so wasted she could barely stand, and young. Christ, she was young.”

  Whit seemed to be trying hard to make the story sound funny, but it clearly wasn’t funny, and below the humor was a sort of trauma pushing its way out. He looked down at his feet.

  “We ended up in Aunt BeBe’s bathroom, the three of us. I don’t remember much else.”

  He turned and leaned out over the railing and rocked back and forth.

  “I don’t even remember her name. I’m pretty sure I never knew her name.”

  Alma felt like she might throw up.

  “She was Latina, like you. She had tons of curly hair. Thick. And she was so young. I guess I already said that. She let us take turns, and then she passed out, and we didn’t know where to take her, so we left. We just wandered off and left her on the floor of Aunt BeBe’s bathroom.”

  “Let you?” she asked, her voice rising in anger. “There’s no such thing as ‘letting’ in that situation, Whit. You know that, right?”

  He looked directly at Alma, his eyes glassy and bloodshot, rimmed in red with purplish circles underneath.

  “It’s marble, Aunt BeBe’s bathroom floor. It must have been cold,” he said.

  Alma felt dizzy. She grasped the metal railing and held tight.

  “Say something,” she heard him plead.

  “What do you want me to say, Whit?” she asked, looking away from him.

  She wanted him to know that his story was the exact opposite of funny. She was horrified to think that she might know this curly-haired Latina, that Conway might have drugged her. She probably did know the girl. Gilberton was a small town, and in the Latino community, everyone knew everyone.

  But it didn’t matter. Whether she knew the girl or not, what Whit and Conway had done was wrong in so many ways that Alma didn’t even know where to begin.

  “God, I’m a mess,” she heard him say.

  “Yeah.”

  She watched Whit bury his face in his hands. He sat down on the gravel bridge and started to sob. His battered pewter flask fell onto the gravel beside him.

  Alma didn’t know what to do. She was too disgusted to touch him, too angry to lean down and try to comfort him. As far as she was concerned, Whit deserved to be in agony. So she left him crying on the edge of the dam and wandered off in search of his mother’s Aleve.

  * * *

  Evan went to the lake, searching for Alma. He saw her on the dock in front of Mr. Wilson’s drugstore, balanced on a piling like a tightrope walker, with a half-empty plastic bag dangling from her hand. Her back was turned away from him, and she was surrounded by an almost perfect silence.

  Alma extended her leg behind her and let it dip around to the side. She moved slowly and methodically.

  A loud grumbling punctured the silence as a sleek antique speedboat pulled away from the marina.

  The next thing he saw was Alma tumbling toward the black water. She had lost her balance. Without thinking, he ran across the dry grass and onto the dock. He hurled his body toward where she had fallen, toward the white plastic bag that slowly began to drift.

  Evan grasped Alma’s hand, and they both paddled frantically through the freezing, murky water. They heaved themselves onto the dock and collapsed together.

  “Good Lord, that’s cold,” Evan exclaimed as he shook his head vigorously, releasing the frigid water from his hair.

  Alma hugged herself
tightly and replied through chattering teeth. “You shouldn’t have come in after me. Did you think I was gonna drown or something?” She sounded angry.

  The boat pulled up beside them and the driver called out.

  “You two OK?”

  “Yes, sir,” Evan replied, “A little cold, but OK.”

  “You got somewhere to go and get dried off?”

  Evan glanced back down the road toward Uncle Sexton’s house. There wasn’t a chance in hell that he’d be going back there. He had an idea.

  “Uh, yes, sir, but it’s across the lake. Any chance for a lift? It would be a cold walk back.”

  The man motioned for them to climb in, and they both tumbled into the back of the boat.

  * * *

  Alma watched as they pulled farther out from the dock and away from her stupid mistake. How many times had she done that—balanced at the edge of the water to still her mind? She’d never even come close to falling. The white plastic bag containing Mrs. Prentiss’s Aleve (and her twelve dollars and twenty-eight cents change) bobbed in the wake of the boat. She had no idea where they were going, and the wind pierced her skin like a thousand little needles. All she could think about was that Evan’s aunt wouldn’t get her medicine, and she’d be able to say that an “illegal” stole twenty dollars from her.

  Evan talked with the driver, motioning to a point across the lake. Then he sat beside her on the rear bench seat.

  “You OK?” he asked, having to speak loudly over the sound of the motor.

  “I’m freezing.”

  “Yeah, well, at least it’s not the second time in three days you’ve been dunked in cold water.”

  Alma looked at Evan, confused.

  “At my party?”

  She continued to stare blankly at him.

  “When they busted into my room?”

  Alma figured it was time to come clean with Evan.

  “I guess I had too much to drink the other night. And Conway gave me some disgusting shot that was spiked or something. I don’t remember anything that happened after we went to your room.”

  “Conway gave you a shot?” Evan asked, sounding stressed. “Who let him give you a shot?”