In Your Dreams Bobby Anderson

by Maidwell, Sandra Jane

  “I do want to be with you,” she said. She let the knife fall and put her arms around his neck. “I’m so scared.”

  The words were barely a whisper in his ear, but they made his heart beat hard in his chest. For so long he had been drifting. His career had pushed him forward, but it also felt slightly out of his control, as if it were a slippery thing in his hands. But when he was with Maggie, the direction his life took didn’t seem to matter so much. It was just about her and being with her that mattered. And at that moment, the only thing that mattered was saving her.

  “Don’t be scared,” he said. “I’ll be by your side.”

  “What’s that?” Maggie pointed out to sea.

  Bobby squinted his eyes and tried to make out the distant shape bobbing up and down on the waves. “Looks like a boat!” Good girl. She had done it.

  “Is it coming this way?”

  “I don’t know. I hope so. Maybe the tide will bring it to the beach.” Bobby hoped she would take the hint.

  They both waited, and sure enough the tiny shape grew until it was just a few feet away. At last it rested on the sand and Bobby ran down to pull it farther up onto the beach.

  It was a typical sort of fishing boat, with Queen Mary painted in fancy letters on the hull, and some fishing nets in a messy heap at the bow. There were also some buckets with bait in them and a cooler box. Well, Maggie was doing her best, he supposed.

  With a swift leap on deck, he made his way to the cooler. He lifted the lid and peered inside. There were a couple of cold Cokes, a bottle of water, and some saran wrapped sandwiches. Bobby sighed. Maggie obviously did not know much about survival. “This will do,” he called out cheerfully.

  With some effort, Maggie rose from the sand. It pained Bobbie to see her so weak. “Wait, let me help you.” He jumped down and ran back to her. As he got close, he saw her hands. Her elegant fingers were gone. In their place were claws. Long scraggily witch-like claws. Maggie followed his horrified stare and started screaming.

  CHAPTER 30

  “Did you speak to her?” Susan’s voice was a nervous shrill. “Did you? Bobby! Did you speak to my sister?”

  “Damn!” Bobby rubbed his face with his hands and felt exhausted. It had been a long night and the morning was already breaking.

  “Come on, Bobby. The nurses will start pouring in here at any moment. Tell me, did you speak to her?”

  “Yes, we spoke”

  “Oh my God! So it’s true. You really can communicate with my sister. Do you realize how amazing that is?”

  Bobby nodded. But what Susan didn’t understand, or didn’t realize, was that it wasn’t as simple as all that. He couldn’t just go in and tell Maggie to wake up. She obviously didn’t know about the accident and was confused and scared.

  “So, are you guys getting off the island?” Emily asked.

  “Yeah,” said Judge. “Any progress?”

  “Well, we have a boat, and it looks like we might be getting off the island, but she saw her hands and got really upset. That’s when I woke up.”

  “Her hands?”

  “Yes. They were claws, more like. It terrified her. I think she is more and more aware of her situation, and I’m not sure she can handle it.”

  “What if she gets so scared she doesn’t want to wake up?” Susan asked in a panic. “We could end up losing her for good.” New tears sprang to her eyes and she wiped them away impatiently. “Without her hands she won’t want to live anymore.” Susan started sobbing and let the tears fall freely.

  “I know.” Bobby put his arms around Susan and hugged her to him. It was so strange to be hugging the girl he thought he loved, the girl who looked like the love of his life, but who wasn’t any of those things. “I’m doing all I can, and I won’t give up. I promise.”

  He left Susan and went to sit on Maggie’s bed. He kissed her on the forehead. “Sweetie. It’s all right. I’m here for you.”

  “How are her hands?” Judge was still there, even though the room seemed to have forgotten him.

  “How do you think they are?” Susan snapped at him. “They are completely burnt up.”

  “Yeah, I know that, but really, how are they? Can Bobby take a look? Sometimes not knowing something is worse than knowing it.”

  “He has a point,” Emily said. “If Bobby can somehow let Maggie know it’s not so bad, maybe she won’t be as scared about coming back to us.”

  “But it is so bad,” Susan sighed. “And it’s not just her hands. She wasn’t wearing her damn shirt, remember? Her chest got the worst of it. And her hands, which were protecting her face, got the rest.”

  “Let me take a look, Susan. Please.” Bobby didn’t really want to see Maggie’s damaged body, but nothing could be as bad as those hands he saw in the dream. And maybe Judge was right. He had to at least try.

  Susan let out a long breath and took a decision. “I’ll call a nurse to take off her bandages. Just give me a second.” She went off to find a nurse and Bobby, Emily, and Judge were left awkwardly alone together.

  “This must be tough for you,” Emily said to Bobby.

  “You have no idea. And you? Do you still want to be a Hollywood star?”

  “A Hollywood star?” Judge asked. “Is that what you want?”

  “Just about ever since I was a little girl,” Emily blushed. It was so strange to talk openly about something she had kept a secret for so long, even from Susan. Looking back now, she couldn’t understand why she had been so secretive, or so embarrassed. Wanting to be a star was certainly nothing to be ashamed of.

  “And you were hoping Bobby could help you.” Judge was still a detective, after all.

  “I suppose so. I thought he could get me into that whole world.”

  “I see.”

  “And I can,” Bobby said. “I will, Emily. Trust me. I owe you a lot. If it wasn’t for you, I might not have found Maggie.”

  Judge coughed, but let it go. Hadn’t he found Maggie? It didn’t matter. All that mattered was that Emily was moving to California. That was excellent news. New York just wasn’t the place for him. He smiled smugly to himself. He couldn’t help it; this day had just got a whole lot better.

  “Thanks Bobby. I really appreciate it,” Emily said.

  The trio fell quiet, and thankfully Susan re-entered the room followed by a plump Jamaican nurse named Gail, who thought she had seen just about everything there was to be seen—until now. Now she was being asked to show this poor girl’s skin off to a famous movie star. Gail knew his face, of course. The handsome Bobby Anderson. Oh boy, he was a dream on and off the camera. And he was in her hospital. How professional did she have to be around him, she wondered. She couldn’t remember there being a protocol for celebrities.

  “This is Gail,” Susan announced. “She’s being really helpful, changing Maggie’s bandages today instead of tomorrow as scheduled.” Susan sounded like a kindergarten teacher introducing a fireman to a classroom of four year olds.

  “Oh, shoot. I just want to help. I love your movies, Bobby Anderson. I mean, Mr. Bobby Anderson,” Gail gushed. “How’s your latest one going? You done shooting yet?”—So much for protocol!

  “I—it’s fine,” Bobby stammered. We shot our last scene, and it’ll be out soon.”

  Gail stopped in her tracks and pointed a finger at Maggie, realization sinking in all over her face. “Is this the girl you came to New York for?” Gail was up to date with all the Hollywood gossip. What else was she going to read during a five-minute break, a novel? That would have driven her insane. She would forget the plot before she had time to get to the end.

  “Actually, no.” Bobby wasn’t quite sure how grateful he had to be to this nurse. Did it require that he tell her the whole story?

  “Bobby is a friend of the family,” Susan quickly stepped in. “I need to show him what’s happened to Maggie, like I explained to you just now.”

  “Yeah, sure honey.” Gail sauntered around the bed and started pulling up the sheets
and unfolding Maggie’s hands from their position. “I don’t know why he would have to see her burns, but I’m minding my own business. It’s part of hospital policy.”

  “Great,” Bobby mumbled, secretly wishing she wouldn’t allow him to see Maggie’s burns. He’d never seen real burns before, and he didn’t feel prepared.

  “It’s not pretty,” Gail warned him, as if to confirm his thoughts. “But at least it’s not getting any worse.”

  All four heads leaned into the bed as Gail removed the bandages. After a while of unwrapping, there was only one protective layer of light bandaging left, but Bobby could see that Maggie’s fingers were all still there. He breathed a sigh of relief.

  “What you so happy about?” Gail questioned him. “You just wait.” With that, Gail removed the last layer.

  Bobby gasped and stepped backwards. Maggie’s fingers were there all right, but they were completely disfigured. Her skin overlapped, twisting like veins in and out of each other. Fingers seemed to join other fingers as the scar tissue competed with itself to gain access to more scar tissue. Bobby could see clearly that these hands would never, could never, create beautiful music again.

  “Oh, my,” Judge said, and cleared his throat. “Now, Bobby, I know this looks bad, but at least she has them all. My mother was in a fire once. That’s a long story I’m not going to talk about, but she lost more than a finger. So I think your girl is lucky.”

  “Of course she’s lucky,” nurse Gail almost shouted at them. “If you want to see “unlucky” I can take you to any number of our other rooms.”

  “That’s fine,” Bobby hurriedly reassured her. We think she’s lucky. It felt hard to say it, but he realized it was true. A disfigured hand was hardly the end of the world. “What about the rest of her body?”

  “I’m not undressing her, you hear; but the doctor can show you a picture. He’ll be here in about thirty minutes, if you can hold on. Don’t know why you have to see it, though. Are you her boyfriend?”

  “It’s like I said,” Susan answered her. “He’s a friend of the family. Thank you.”

  “You know,” Emily spoke up, “if she was wearing gloves, you wouldn’t even know that about her hand. I know—” Emily put up her hand to stop Susan’s barrage of comments. “I know she can’t play the damn violin and cello. I know! But at least she can go out and not be embarrassed. Maybe she valued her face more than her music. Did you ever think of that, Susan? And didn’t she tell you, Bobby, that she didn’t want to hear classical music anymore? Maybe she isn’t as bad off as you’re thinking, Sue.”

  Susan opened her mouth to protest, but Emily went on. “Your sister has a lot to look forward to apart from music.”

  “Now you don’t understand,” Susan retorted angrily. “Imagine if someone told you that you couldn’t do the thing you loved ever again. Ever! Just because she doesn’t want to hear classical music does not mean she wants to give up her instruments. This will be devastating for her.”

  “Well, what do you suggest?”

  “Well, I’m sure I don’t know!”

  “Ladies, ladies.” Judge stepped forward. “We need to bring Maggie back first and worry about how she takes the news later.”

  Susan and Emily nodded solemnly in agreement.

  “And,” Judge went on, “it seems she already saw her hands and it shocked her so bad it sent Bobby back here again.”

  They nodded again.

  “So, I like Emily’s idea about the gloves. Let Bobby get back to her and show her how it’s not so bad and that she’ll be all right. Maybe that way she’ll find it easier to come back to us.”

  “Oh boy.” Susan looked worried.

  “What now?” Bobby asked.

  “It’s getting late. Look, guys…” Susan paced around the room, thinking. “My mom is probably going to be here in about an hour and she won’t understand any of this.”

  “I don’t even understand it,” Gail said, “and I’ve seen a lot of stuff go on in this hospital.”

  Everyone jumped in surprise. They had forgotten that the nurse was still there.

  “You see?” Susan indicated towards Gail. “How can we explain this to my mother?”

  No one replied.

  “Well, we can’t.” Susan continued. “So we have to do what we have to do, now, before she gets here. Judge, I’ll go with what you just said. If I’ve learnt anything, it’s that my sister can hear us, can’t you sis?”

  Susan leaned over the bed and looked at Maggie. “You can hear me, can’t you? Well, you are going to have to wake up, Maggie, and you are going to have to deal with all of this. You can’t just stay in a coma. They are saying that they’re going to—”

  “Hey! Hold on there,” Bobby interrupted. “I’m sure no one is going to do anything, right Susan?”

  “Bobby!” Susan looked appalled with herself. “W―what I meant was, sis, well, your hands are fine, and you look wonderful.”

  Bobby sighed. This was getting complicated. He wished saving Maggie didn’t involve all these people: Emily, Judge, Susan, and even Gail there, washing Maggie’s hands and applying a lotion to the scar tissue.

  “It really isn’t all that bad, people,” Gail said as she worked. “With time, all this skin is going to stretch, and if the patient works at it, mobility will return. Maybe not well enough to play at the Philharmonic, but well enough to do most anything else.”

  “That was her dream,” Susan whispered.

  “To play at the Philharmonic? Shucks.” Gail sucked some spit between her teeth. “She’ll have other dreams, child. Nurse Gail knew all about dreams, the ones she’d given up and the ones she still held on to.

  These people were all young, with so many years and choices still ahead. Her dream used to be to become a doctor, but her parents couldn’t pay for so many years of medical school, and working and studying proved to be too difficult. She couldn’t cut it. So she changed her dream and became a nurse. Instead of a dream she had a job, and she found a new dream: to raise a family. Except her first son was shot and killed when he was only sixteen years old while walking home from school. It was a stray bullet not meant for him.

  Her next dream was to protect her daughter, Alice, and leave Jamaica. She and her husband packed up all their belongings and high tailed it out of there.

  Now her dream was to afford a decent wedding for Alice, who was planning on marrying her prince charming early next year. There were always dreams to replace the old ones, and always room for new ones too.

  Gail sighed and finished her chore of wrapping the poor girl’s hands. She would stop in later and give her breakfast, a tube of food attached directly to the stomach. Oh, how she hated working with the coma patients. Now, that Mr. Thompson down the corridor in room 109, he was a nice patient to work with. Burnt from head to toe and still as friendly as could be. It was people like him who inspired her to do her job. It wasn’t as heartbreaking as this young girl lying here in front of her. From what Gail knew about comas, the chances of coming out of one at all were not favorable. And if you were so lucky to come out, the chance of being the same person you were before you went in was almost zero.

  Once Gail had done her duties and exited the room, the small group got back to work.

  “Tell her something about Bobby again,” Emily suggested.

  “What else is there to tell her?” Susan said impatiently.

  “Tell her I had a car accident,” Bobby said. That should get her worried.

  “Guys,” Judge interrupted the brainstorming. “My guess is she can hear all of this. Don’t you think you should be planning in the hall?”

  “Well, too late for that, I guess.” Susan touched her sister’s cheek. “Sis? Can you please think of Bobby? Or think of me if you want to. But can you do it now? Bobby has something important to tell you.” Susan leaned in close to her sister’s ear and whispered, “I think he wants to ask you to marry him.”

  Bobby, Judge, and Emily gasped at the same time. “Susan!�
� Emily cried. “How could you?”

  “Shhh!” Judge indicated towards the patient.

  “Um, sh—should you have said that?” Bobby murmured, so that Maggie hopefully wouldn’t hear him.

  Susan mouthed, “Yes” and leaned in again. “If you don’t see him, he can’t ask you.”

  Bobby wished he had a bar of soap to smell at that moment, preferably vanilla. Was he ready to propose? Then he heard the most terrible sobs coming from Maggie. Had she snapped out of her coma? But when he looked again, he saw that they were in fact on the beach and she had wrapped herself into a ball on the sand. She was crying and rocking.

  Bobby longed more than ever now for that quiet newspaper morning with her, just once. No dramas. No sadness. No escape plans to figure out. And especially, no waking up with a bump on his head afterwards. Just a quiet newspaper weekend and a homemade cup of tea. Now that would be a great dream.

  CHAPTER 31

  Bobby went over to Maggie and touched the top of her head. She stopped rocking but refused to look at him. “Is it your hands?” he asked gently.

  Maggie nodded, but didn’t take her head out of her arms.

  “I hear they can be fixed.”

  “They can?” Susan didn’t sound convinced.

  “Sure. I mean, I’m not going to lie; you will have scars, but they’ll get better. There are people with much worse, you know,” Bobby said, quoting Gail.

  “What happened to me?” Maggie seemed genuinely confused. “I mean, what happened, really? How did we get on this island? Was it a plane crash? Were you on the plane too?”

  Bobby thought for a moment. What should he say? He realized that he could say anything, anything at all. “Yes, Maggie. It was a plane crash. I was traveling with my manager.” Bobby wasn’t quite sure what was coming out of his mouth, but he couldn’t stop his story now that he had started. “I spotted you in the departure lounge before we boarded. You were so beautiful and sweet and on your own. I didn’t know where you were headed, but thankfully you got on the plane after me. You brushed past my seat and you looked worried because, I don’t know, I guess you’d never flown before or something.”