Dreaming of You and Me

by Kristy Tate

  Darby pressed her lips together. “Or you just didn’t like what he had to say.”

  “I didn’t trust him.”

  “Fair enough,” Darby said, piercing her vegetables on with her fork.

  “I just have to wait for my parents to get back. They can’t hide from me forever.”

  Darby’s fork froze midair as if a thought had just occurred to her.

  “What?” Nora asked.

  “I love you, sweetie,” Darby said.

  “I love you, too, but why did you say that?”

  “I just thought you should know.”

  “Thank you,” Nora said.

  PLAY PRACTICE REHEARSAL resumed the on Monday after the long Thanksgiving weekend. Nora scheduled her time so tightly that she didn’t have time to even think about Cole, let alone speak to him. She had hoped that the four days away would prove the adage out of sight really meant out of mind, but as soon as Nora caught a glimpse of Cole after the long weekend, she felt completely out of her mind.

  “Well!” Marcy, who was playing the role of Alice, said, “after such a fall as this, I shall think nothing of tumbling down the stairs! How brave they’ll all think me at home!”

  Marcy took center stage while her counterparts stood in the wings. Everything was black—the walls, the curtains, the back, and —even Marcy’s clothes, which was probably just a coincidence. It all matched Nora’s mood.

  “Why, I wouldn’t say anything about it, even if I fell off the top of the house!” Marcy continued. “Down, down, down. Will this fall never come to an end? I wonder how many miles I’ve fallen by this time. I must be getting somewhere near the center of the earth. Let me see: that would be four thousand miles down, I think, yes, that’s about the right distance—but then I wonder what latitude or longitude I’ve got to.”

  Nora perched on her chair, trying to ignore Cole, who sat beside her. She could completely relate to Alice, because somehow Lewis Caroll had described her feelings perfectly.

  She slid Cole a glance. He lounged beside her, his ankle propped up on his knee, his gaze on the stage, a small smile hovering on his full, red, kissable lips. Will this fall never come to an end? she wondered.

  “I wonder if I shall fall right through the earth!” Marcy exclaimed. “How funny it’ll seem to come out among the people that walk with their heads downward! The Antipathies, I think, but I shall have to ask them what the name of the country is, you know. Please, ma’am, is this New Zealand or Australia? And what an ignorant little girl she’ll think me for asking! No, it’ll never do to ask: perhaps I shall see it written up somewhere. Down, down, down. Will I never stop?”

  A commotion at the back of the auditorium made Nora spin around. A middle-aged woman with blond hair and dark roots was arguing with Irena. She didn’t look like the typical Canterbury parent. For one thing, in her tight jeans and clingy sweater, she looked paunchy where most of the Canterbury moms were as lean and sleek as the European cars they drove.

  “Who is that with Irena?” Nora whispered to Cole.

  Cole stood to join them. “My mom.”

  Nora’s world whirred. She gripped the arms of her chair, holding on.

  “What a curious feeling!” said Marcy after drinking from the bottle. “I must be shutting up like a telescope.” She slammed the bottle on the table. Then she reached for the Twinkie pretending to be cake and nibbled on it. “Curiouser and curiouser!” cried Marcy. “Now I’m opening out like the largest telescope that ever was! Good-bye, feet! Oh, my poor little feet, I wonder who will put on your shoes and stockings for you now, dears? I’m sure I shan’t be able! I shall be a great deal too far off to trouble myself about you: you must manage the best way you can; but I must be kind to them, or perhaps they won’t walk the way I want to go!”

  Nora forced herself to stare at the stage and Marcy, even though she longed to run up the aisle and join Cole and his mom! What was happening? She tried to look casual as she threw a glance over her shoulder.

  Cole and the woman had disappeared, but Irena walked down the aisle and filled the chair Cole had just vacated.

  “Dear, dear! How queer everything is today!” Marcy exclaimed.

  “Not queer,” Darrel prompted from the wings. “Strange.”

  Marcy broke character. “That’s not what the script says. It says, ‘queer.’”

  “But we need to change it,” Darrel argued. “We have to be politically correct.”

  “That’s dumb!” Marcy argued. “Lewis Carroll used the weird word ‘queer’ and I think we should, too.”

  “Word connotations change,” Darrel said. “What do you think?” she asked Nora.

  Nora didn’t respond.

  “Nora!” Darrel called out.

  Nora raised her hand and waved at both of them. “I don’t care. No one cares.”

  “Well, the gay community might feel differently!” Darrel said.

  “Just go on, we can talk about it later,” Nora said.

  Even though nothing had been decided, Marcy shot Darrel a triumphant look and plunged back in. “And yesterday things went on just as usual. I wonder if I’ve been changed in the night. Let me think: was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little different. But if I’m not the same. The next question is, who in the world am I? Ah, that’s the great puzzle!”

  But who was that person who had left with Cole? Was she his mother as he’d said? That was the real puzzle. Nora glanced at her watch and saw that it was almost dinner time. She bounced to her feet. “Great job, everyone! We’ll pick up here tomorrow!”

  Darrel huffed out on to the stage. “We still have ten minutes.”

  Nora stuffed her script into her bag. “Look, I’m tired and I’m sure the girls are exhausted. You know what they say in show business, it’s best to leave before the party ends.”

  “No one says that,” Darrel said.

  “I’m pretty sure Oprah said something like that when she canceled her show.”

  “No one here is Oprah,” Darrel argued.

  “We’re done for the day,” Nora said.

  Irena laid her hand on her arm. “You probably have some questions for me.”

  Nora didn’t even wait for the girls to leave the room. “Cole isn’t your son?”

  “Of course, he’s my son, just not my biological son.”

  Nora’s knees went weak and she sat back down. Irena eased into the chair beside her.

  “I married Cole’s father when Cole was just a little guy. He bounced between our home and his mom’s until he was about ten. After that, he refused to go back to his mom’s house. She resurfaces when...” She paused before adding, the word, “occasionally. He loves her, of course.”

  “But he loves you more?”

  Irena placed her hand on Nora’s and gently squeezed. “It’s not like that. We can all love lots of different people in many different ways.”

  Nora thought about Blake and Teddy and nodded.

  “One love never negates or supersedes another.” She winked at Nora. “Although some people are harder to live with than others.”

  NORA WAITED A FEW HOURS before throwing on her jacket and wandering past Cole’s bunkhouse. The lights were off, the windows dark. She forced herself to move past, pretending to just be out for a night time stroll. Somewhere in the distance, a coyote howled. Nora shivered and tucked her chin into the collar of her jacket. Her breath formed a cloud in front of her. A scrunch of gravel told her she wasn’t alone.

  Cole.

  He stood in a shaft of moonlight, staring at her. She launched herself at him and wrapped her arms around him. It took her a moment to realize he wasn’t hugging her back. She backed away. He smelled of tobacco and beer. She wrinkled her nose at the unfamiliar smell. He was like a different person.

  “What was that for?” he asked, gently pushing her away.

  “I just... you looked like you could use a hug.”

  He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Ye
ah. Thanks,” he said, but he didn’t look grateful. “If you don’t mind.” He nodded at his dark and empty house.

  “Oh sure. You don’t want to talk?”

  “No, I...” He glanced up at the stars as if he wanted them to tell him something. He lowered his gaze to meet Nora’s. “I don’t like drama—and I’m not talking about your play. Good night.”

  Nora stood staring at the door Cole had passed through. A light inside his house switched on, but she couldn’t see past his blinds. What. Had. Just. Happened?

  Nora pulled her jacket around her, hugging herself. Of course, what was he supposed to think? He had no idea she had thought she was his sister. He had just thought that she wasn’t interested because that was what she had told him. Why had she thought she could do an about- face and expect him to do the same?

  PLAY REHEARSALS DOMINATED Nora’s life. Of course, she’d written the schedule and script, herself so she had no one else to blame.

  “I wish I hadn’t cried so much!” Marcy flailed her arms around, pretending to swim. “I shall be punished for it now, I suppose, by being drowned in my own tears! That will be a queer thing, to be sure! However, everything is queer to-day.”

  “Strange!” Darrel called out from the wings.

  Marcy frowned at Darrel but didn’t break her swim stroke. Lily, pretending to be the mouse, came onto the stage. She rowed an imaginary boat.

  “Would it be of any use, now,” Marcy asked the nearly empty auditorium, “to speak to this mouse? Everything is so out-of-the-way down here, that I should think very likely it can talk: at any rate, there’s no harm in trying.” She swam toward Lily. “O Mouse, do you know the way out of this pool? I am very tired of swimming about here, O Mouse!”

  Cole walked in and plopped onto the chair beside Nora. She tried to ignore the tingles shooting across her skin and his scent. He had washed away the tobacco and alcohol stench that had clung to him last night and seemed more like himself. But distant. She told herself she couldn’t blame him for this, but a part of her still did. She had caused the damage, true, but now that she knew they could be together, that’s that was what they needed to be.

  “Perhaps it doesn’t understand English,” Marcy said. “I daresay it’s a French mouse, come over with William the Conqueror.” She addressed Lily again. “Ou est ma chatte?”

  Lily jumped in fright.

  “Oh, I beg your pardon!” Marcy cried. “I quite forgot you didn’t like cats.”

  “Not like cats!” cried Lily the mouse, in a shrill, passionate voice. “Would you like cats if you were me?”

  Without taking his eyes off the stage, Cole whispered, “I’m sorry if I was abrupt last night. My mom is...difficult.”

  “It’s okay,” Nora whispered. “My mom can be hard, too. I get it. But...”

  “What?”

  “Why didn’t you tell me Irena wasn’t your mom?”

  “Irena is my mom,” Cole said.

  “Yes, but...”

  “What difference does it make?” Cole asked, his voice hard.

  Nora tried to think of a response while Marcy continued.

  “Well, perhaps not,” said Marcy in a soothing tone. “Don’t be angry about it. And yet I wish I could show you our cat Dinah. I think you’d take a fancy to cats if you could only see her. She is such a dear quiet thing, and she sits purring so nicely by the fire, licking her paws and washing her face—and she is such a nice soft thing to nurse—and she’s such a capital one for catching mice—oh, I beg your pardon!’ cried Marcy.

  Lily pretended to splash her oar about.

  “We won’t talk about her anymore if you’d rather not,” Marcy said.

  “As if I would talk on such a subject!” Lily exclaimed. “Our family always hated cats: nasty, low, vulgar things!”

  “Are you—are you fond—of—of dogs?” When Lily didn’t answer, Marcy went on, “There is such a nice little dog near our house I should like to show you! A little bright-eyed terrier, you know, with oh, such long curly brown hair! And it’ll fetch things when you throw them, and it’ll sit up and beg for its dinner, and all sorts of things—I can’t remember half of them—and it belongs to a farmer, you know, and he says it’s so useful, it’s worth a hundred pounds! He says it kills all the rats and—oh dear!”’ Marcy cried as Lily rowed her imaginary boat away. “I’m afraid I’ve offended it again!”

  “Would you like to come to dinner?” Nora asked Cole in a low whisper.

  He gave her a surprised look.

  “Say yes,” she whispered.

  “Okay,” he said slowly.

  She gave him a warm smile. “Great.”

  “What time?”

  She glanced at her watch. “Six?”

  “Okay.”

  Marcy called after Lily, “Mouse dear! Do come back again, and we won’t talk about cats or dogs either, if you don’t like them!”

  NORA LIT THE CANDLES on the table and switched off the lights. Then she turned them back on. She double- checked her lipstick. Smoothed down her silky blouse. Considered kicking off her heels and putting on slippers. She was trying too hard. Overthinking. She needed to relax. Cole thought of her as a friend. Because she had told him that was all they could be. Now, she wanted to change his mind, but how could she do that without admitting that she had thought they were siblings?

  She didn’t have all the answers, but she did have a beautiful beef Wellington with a golden crust that smelled like heaven, grilled vegetables seasoned with lemon and rosemary- infused olive oil, homemade whole wheat rolls, and a strawberry and spinach salad tossed with goat cheese and sliced almonds. What if he was allergic to nuts? What if he was vegetarian? Nora sighed and double triple-checked her lipstick again. It looked garish on her pale face. She needed more sun. Maybe she wasn’t getting enough vitamin D. She should probably spend more time outside. Would Cole like to go for a walk after dinner? It was pretty chilly...and they both had school the next day.

  Finally, Cole knocked on the door and all her mind chatter ceased. She hurried to let him in. A cold breeze swirled around the room when Cole stepped inside.

  “Wow,” he said, “this place smells amazing. If I hadn’t just seen you at the school, I would have thought you’d been cooking all day.”

  Nora flushed with pleasure. “I like to cook. I really can’t understand people who don’t. If you like to eat—and who doesn’t?—you should like to cook.”

  “Not everyone feels that way.” Cole shrugged off his jacket and Nora took it and laid it on the arm of the sofa. Together, they headed for the small table nook in Nora’s kitchen.

  “Wow,” Cole said again, taking in the table with its red and white checked cloth, the cut crystal vase and cheery daisies, and the food.

  Nora tried to see it through his eyes and wondered what was going through his mind. Did he think she was trying too hard?

  “It was nothing,” Nora said. “I had put the beef in the crockpot this morning.”

  “But you weren’t expecting me this morning.”

  She motioned for him to take a seat, then settled into the chair directly opposite of him. “True, but I usually make enough so that I can freeze at least half of my meals.”

  “Do you have often have beef Wellington?”

  “Kudos to you! Most people wouldn’t recognize beef Wellington if it bit them in the face!” She picked up a knife and cut into the meat. A savory puff of steam wafted between them.

  “We bite Wellington,” Cole said, “but we so rarely expect it to bite us back.”

  She smiled and served him a generous portion. “But to answer your question—no. Like I said, I’d made the beef and vegetables a few weeks ago and so I just pulled them out of the freezer this morning. It was a simple matter of making the crust and salad after work. Well, and the chocolate soufflé.”

  “Wow,” he said again after his first bite. “I’m becoming redundant.”

  “Praise is never boring,” Nora said as she served up her own plate. S
he liked cooking and eating, but she really preferred watching others enjoy what she’d made. She toyed with her vegetables with her fork. “I’m adopted, too.”

  “You are?”

  She nodded. “I didn’t find out until...well, until right before we met.”

  “Really? That’s unusual, right? It’s the current trend to tell children as soon as possible.”

  “My parents must have missed that memo.”

  “How did they tell you? Did they offer an explanation for the long secret?”

  “They still haven’t.”

  Cole’s fork froze mid-air. “You haven’t talked to them about it?”

  “I’ve tried.” Nora chased a carrot around her plate before effectively stabbing it. “At my father’s retirement party, I came across some photos of my mom in a bikini. The dates were stamped on the back. In the pictures, my mom clearly isn’t pregnant, and she should have been.”

  “But maybe the dates were stamped when they were developed.”

  “I thought of that, but my mom’s best friend—or maybe now, former best friend—, let me in on the secret. My dad had had an affair, and, according to my mom’s friend, I am the love child. My parents, of course, are the best ones to answer my questions, but I haven’t been able to talk to them.”

  He whistled. “You haven’t talked to your parents in five months?”

  “Something like that.” She bit into the carrot and tried to swallow it too soon. After choking it down, she put set her fork on her plate and took a long drink of wine. “They aren’t warm and fuzzy. They never have been.”

  “My relationship with my birth mom isn’t exactly easy either,” Cole said. “She comes around when she needs money and she’s almost always on the verge of being drunk.” He took a sip of wine and then set his goblet down and pushed it away from his plate as if he wanted to distance himself from it. “I’m not sure if she’s always on the verge of being drunk, or if she just drinks before she comes to see me.” Cole cut into his beef. “It’s hard to think that my mom needs a bracing slug of brew before she can talk to me.”

  “It’s probably humiliating for her to have to ask her child for financial help. It’s usually the other way around, right? Ideally, parents support their children, not the other way around.”