Blue Is for Nightmares

by Laurie Faria Stolarz

  "You don't know that." I watch him as he walks away, until his figure has blended into the sea of matching blue blazers. The last thing I want to believe is that he has anything to do with this.

  "What are you staring at?" Drea asks. "Picture will last longer."

  "I thought I saw PJ," I say.

  "Yeah, right," Drea says. "I don't know why you bother; Chad can be such a jerk. I'm so glad I refused to give him my homework."

  "Refused or forgot?" Amber asks. "You were kind of preoccupied this morning."

  Drea ignores the question. She glances at the phone and smiles. "Let's see who Chad was really talking to. Can you redial on a pay phone?"

  "Negative," Amber says. "But we could call the operator and tell them to dial back the last number. We can just say

  that it's an emergency and we can't remember the last digit or something."

  "It'll never work," Drea says. "But let's try it."

  Amber picks up the receiver, dials a zero, and waits a few seconds. "Hello? Why aren't you picking up?" She finger- punches the zero a bunch more times before hanging up. "Oh my god, what if this was, like, an emergency or something?"

  The phone rings. We look at each other, unsure of what to do, if we should get it. Two rings.

  Three. Amber's mouth quivers, as though she's about to say something, but instead she picks up the receiver. "Hello? Yes." She covers her free ear to hear better. "What?" She lifts the receiver from her ear, but instead of hanging it up, she passes it to Drea. "It's for you."

  Drea crinkles her eyebrows, confused. She takes the phone, and Amber and I huddle in close to listen. "Hello?" Drea says.

  There's a long pause before a static-filled voice--his voice--speaks to us. "Sorry I couldn't stick around to chat, Drea. But I'll be sure to call you later when it's more private and we can talk about more intimate things, like your bra."

  "My bra?"

  "Pink. Lace trim around the cups. Size 34B."

  Oh! My! God! I press my eyes shut, jar my mouth, and let a long, audible huff of air spew out my mouth. He has my laundry.

  Drea dangles the phone in between two fingers and starts to hyperventilate. I take the receiver from her and the voice continues in my ear: "Tell your friends it isn't nice to I17

  eavesdrop on other people's phone calls. I don't want to talk to them, Drea. I want to talk to you. I want to be with you. And soon, that will happen."

  The phone clicks on the other end. I drop the receiver so that it dangles inches from the ground.

  Amber snatches a notebook out of some freshman's hand and starts fanning Drea's face with it.

  -Just breathe," Amber says. "Try and catch your breath."

  "I can't do this anymore," Drea mumbles between puffs. -I can't...." Her voice trails off in a series of desperate gasps.

  "I know" I take her hands and help her to sit down on the cement curbing. "I think maybe you should go home for a week or so, until this is over."

  -You should, Drea," Amber says.

  Drea shakes her head and swats Amber's notebook- fanning away. "I'll be okay" she says, regaining her breath.

  'Are you sure?" I ask. -Do you want to go lie down?"

  -I'm fine."

  The dial tone plays from the receiver like a horrible reminder that he's still with us somehow.

  "He's screwing with us," Amber says.

  Drea straightens up a bit. "How did he know we were going to come here? How does he know about my bra?"

  Yikes. I didn't want to tell her about the bra or the hanky in the first place, because I didn't want to admit about the pee-stained laundry I just wanted to put the whole incident behind me and hope it didn't come back.

  "How did he know we'd be together?" Drea looks at Amber and me for answers, as if we have them.

  "Because he's screwing with us," Amber says. "Whoever is behind this knows all of us pretty well. He knows that I have the pay phone numbers listed in my address book and that's why he didn't block the call."

  And he knew we'd come running out here to find him," I finish.

  "I bet he can see us," Amber says, peering around the quad. "He's probably watching us right now. Probably has a cell phone."

  "Then why would he use the pay phone?" Drea asks, the color returning to her cheeks.

  "To throw us off track," Amber says. "That's what I'd do." "He's always a step ahead," Drea says.

  I draw up on Drea's sweater, pluck the protection bottle from her waist, and place it in her hands.

  "He may be a step ahead now," I say. "But he won't be for long."

  fift-c-en

  It's just past ten o'clock and Drea and I have each taken our stations in bed. Me trying to work through a bunch of word problems for trig, Drea mapping out a Chaucer essay. I tried taking a snooze right after dinner, but I think insomnia has kicked in. I'm hoping the word problems will help do the trick.

  It's dead quiet between us. I guess it's an understatement to say we haven't exactly been getting along lately. But it's

  also an understatement to say we've both had our reasons to go into bitch mode. I almost wish Amber were around to chisel through the ice wall between our beds, but she ended up studying with PJ tonight. It's true what Drea says about the two of them--they really should go out again.

  But Amber is from the school of "My parents were high school sweethearts and still make out like crazy so I refuse to be in a relationship that isn't as perfect as theirs." I guess we all have our hang-ups.

  Personally, I don't know what I'm thinking half the time, flirting with Chad, right in front of Drea. But sometimes I just can't help myself, can't bridle the raging hormones I feel beating through my bones, stirring up my blood.

  Sort of a shiny friend-thing to do, I know. But I also know I've been blaming my sour-grapes routine on a serious lack of sleep, when I think it's more like a serious lack of self-confidence.

  I glance up at Maura's watercolor picture of us sitting on the porch swing, playing cards. I take a deep breath and stifle the self-pity I feel tearing up in my eyes. Maybe what I need is a good dose of Mom. I grab the phone and call her, but unfortunately she isn't home or isn't picking up, so I leave her a message to call me back.

  "Drea," I say, flipping my trig book shut, "do you want to talk?"

  'Actually, I do." She comes and sits across from me on the bed. "Look, I know I've been a major bitch lately. Earlier, with Chad, during the whole protection bottle thing, the hockey jersey...

  I'm just totally flipping out here, Stacey, and I don't know what to do."

  "I feel like I've been the bitch," I say.

  "Oh, please," she says, "a little respect here for the Queen B."

  Drea and I end up staying up, doing something we haven't done in a very long time: acting normal. We paint our toenails watermelon pink, give each other banana facials, and yogurt-condition each other's hair. We top off all our beautifying with what else but food our own version of Rice Krispie treats with what's left in the room: cornflakes and peanut butter.

  The night is deliciously normal, taking us away for a spell from the horrible reality that sits above us like a black cloud, waiting to pour. But once the food is washed away and the last Krispie treat eaten, the downpour begins and I feel compelled to ask Drea about the guy who's been calling and her relationship with him.

  "I just thought it was a wrong number gone right." Drea lays across the end of my bed, her cheek pressed against her paisley pillow, staring off at the wall.

  "How often did you talk to him?"

  "Not that often. I don't know, maybe five or six times." "What do you know about him?"

  "Not much. Like I said, he didn't want to exchange names. We mostly just talked about situations--you know, like how each other felt about certain things."

  "Like what?"

  "Like dating stuff.- She laughs--a nervous giggle--and rolls over onto her back.

  "What kind of dating stuff?"

  "You know, the kind of stuff you do on dates."r />
  "You mean s-e-x stuff?"

  "Well, yeah. I mean, not all the time, but sometimes." he holds a leg up midair to peek at her watermelon-pink toenails, annoyance growing in her voice. "It wasn't what you're thinking, Stacey. I mean, he was really nice at first. It diidn't bother me. It needs to bother the person for it to be considered harassment or something."

  Is she crazy? I want to ask her that, want to slap her silly.

  .mean, what is she thinking? How could she just go on tallking to some perv like that, some guy she doesn't even lc-now?

  But instead of pointing out every single red flag in their screwed-up little relationship, I listen, trying my best not to juKige, biting my tongue at all the serious deviations in corninton sense: questions about petting versus grinding, about wihat each of them was wearing at the time of the conversaition. And my own personal favorite: him starting to refer to them as a couple, getting all jealous when Drea wasn't anound to answer his calls, and Drea going along with it.

  Drea relays all of this information in no more than five se,conds, her eyes focused up at the ceiling, like she's embarrassed by it all. And I'm trying to respect her, doing my best ndt to show even a single speck of horror on my face, nod- dog in all the right places. But she's looking at me now, lips scfunched up like she wants to be sick, and so I feel compelled to ask:

  "What's wrong?"

  "I told him about, you know, how far I've gone." "What do you mean, how far?"

  "Stacey?!" She rolls her eyes. "I mean how far... how far around the bases."

  Oh.

  "I told him how me and Chad flew through second, made it to third, started for home run, but then got struck out."

  Drea must sense my confusion because she rolls her eyes for the second time this evening and blurts, "We struck out, Stacey! We were all ready to do it, had all the supplies we needed, but then I guess I sort of freaked, and so we decided not to."

  She makes it sound like some camping trip. Still, I'm not sure I want to be hearing any of this, but I listen anyway. We talk about their conversations for a good hour. And at the end of it Drea seems, oddly enough, more relaxed, less jittery, I think, because I haven't said much more than uh huh and em hmm the whole time. But now my somewhat-silence is bugging her because she's propped herself up on her elbows, awaiting my response.

  "So?" she asks.

  "So what?" I answer, trying to erase the mental images now planted in my brain of my best friend and love object almost home-running. "What do you want me to say?"

  "Do you think I was wrong?"

  "I don't think it's a question of right or wrong, Drea." A big fat lie. "I think you probably did what you felt was comfortable for you at the time."

  "Well, it was kind of wrong," Drea says. "I mean, now that I think about it, I must have been completely nuts." An understatement.

  "I mean, he could be some crazy psycho pedophile ax- murderer for all I know," she continues.

  "Em hmm."

  "That's why I don't want to tell my parents about it, or anyone. I just feel so dumb. I really thought he--you know, cared about me. It was kind of nice."

  I give Drea a hug and twist my fingers through her hair, catching a bit of yogurt residue on my finger. "You're not dumb."

  "It was just because, I don't know, he was nice and you weren't around that first time he called, and I had just gotten off the phone with my mom, and she told me all this stuff about how I might be spending next summer with just her at Grampy's house, and I don't know, it was just...

  33

  easy.

  "I know about slipping into easy" I say. "Sometimes it fits pretty nice."

  "Plus, that first time he called, I kind of thought it was Chad, but now I don't know. I mean, I think I'd be able to tell Chad's voice after all this time."

  "Maybe, like you said, it's more than one person. Or maybe whoever it is is using one of those voice changer thingies."

  "Do you think it's Chad?" Drea asks.

  "I don't know. I don't want to think it's him, but it sort of makes sense, especially since he had the jersey. I definitely think it's someone on campus. Someone our age who knows everybody, who knows the workings of this place."

  "Who?"

  "I don't know," I say. "But we're gonna find out."

  After I've given her a full French braid, Drea returns to her bed and snuggles up for sleep. That's when the phone rings.

  I pick it up. "Hello?"

  "Hi, Stacey. I got your message. I hope I'm not calling too late." It's my mother. I sink back into the comfort of my covers, just hearing her voice, a little piece of home.

  "No, Mom," I say. "This is a perfect time."

  Sixtun

  After my short stint of normalcy with Drea, and a surprisingly pleasant phone conversation with Mom, I fasten the silver dream necklace around my neck, fall asleep pretty easily, and don't wake up until morning.

  Except I don't have a nightmare, don't remember any of my dreams, and am starting to feel like a complete and utter failure.

  While Drea and Amber go off to classes, I call the school secretary, feigning stomach cramps, and wallow in the misery of my bed. I try to get myself to fall back asleep. I light incense, count stars, and start a dream journal, but nothing works. I'm so completely awake I want to throw up.

  This is how I spend my entire day. Stacey Brown, Sleep Loser. Stacey Brown, who ditches school and can't even enjoy the playing-hooky basics of sleeping in.

  Drea and Amber come straight to the room after classes and I confess to them my failures.

  -Bummer," Amber says.

  I'm starting to feel even less confident than I did before, and that's what prompts the next couple hours. I try to convince Drea to go to campus police, to tell them about everything that's been going on.

  Finally, after much sweat shed from Amber and I, Drea agrees and she and Amber head off to talk to them. I, on the verge of pulling out each of my hairs, one by one, offer to join them, but Drea wants me to stay in bed and try to catch some snooze.

  Joy.

  Just barely six o'clock in the evening, it already looks like well past nine outside. I decide to take an herbal sponge- bath in the sink in our room, hoping the blending of water and flowers will help do the trick.

  Gram used to swear to taking baths before spells and before bed. Baths, not showers. There is a difference, according to her. She said the body needs to be purified in preparation for that which is sacred, that the senses don't work to their fullest when the energy hasn't been cleansed. Of course, it's hard to take a bath when your school only has stand-up showers. Especially when those stand-up showers can only handle two inches of water when the drain is blocked before water starts spilling out onto the floor.

  I plug the drain with the stopper and fill up the sink to three-quarters of the way full with lukewarm water. It's one of those old-fashioned sinks white porcelain with silver 0fixtures--

  attached to the wall on my side of the room. To the water, I add the carnation petals from the flower I borrowed out of the vase in the dorm lobby. Then I add in droplets of rosemary, peppermint, and patchouli oils, and a handful of mint leaves--all soothing, clarifying herbs and flowers that will hopefully help me sleep long and soundly and, most importantly, will help make my dreams more insightful.

  I unscrew the cap off the bottle of talcum powder and sift a tablespoonful into a ceramic cup. To it, I add four tablespoons of honey and stir. The talcum powder will help clarify images in my dreams that might confuse me, while the honey will help my dreams stick in place, so I can remember. I spoon the mixture into the sink with a finger and then mix the stew of water with my hand, encouraging all the ingredients to blend and intensify I lay a towel on the floor for spillage, change into my red and ratty terrycloth robe--a favorite in my growing collection of comfort clothing--and dip a sea-sponge into the water. Leaving my robe open, I begin with my legs, sponging down the length, breathing in the floral vapors as I reach down to my feet. "Oils and wat
er, flower and herb, give me vision, give me sight on my walk this night." I re

  peat the chant three times aloud, imagining the sea of oils mixing and purifying my skin and the air I breathe. I redip the sponge and move up to my belly, then up a bit more to my neck and shoulders. I close my eyes and concentrate on the nature CD I fed into Drea's player--trickling water seasoned with just the right amount of birdsong. It's the last ingredient to a recipe that will help tranquilize my spirit so that I can experience insightful dreams, ones that aren't blocked by my own fears.

  I know why my dreams haven't been so telling these past couple days. Gram used to say that in order to have insightful dreams, you need to be brave enough to accept the consequences. At the time she told me this, sitting across from her over tea, playing gin rummy and eating butter biscuits, I didn't really understand what she meant, but now it makes perfect sense.

  I know I haven't been brave about dreaming. I know my subconscious side is probably picking up on the fact that I'm scared to death. A part of me died inside when I failed Maura. I can't fail again because if I do, what remains of me will die as well. And then there'll be nothing left.

  I glide the sponge over my face, concentrating on the idea of strength, imagining the water washing away any trace of fear. The exercise empowers me, restores the energy I've been missing. I glance down at my amethyst ring and kiss the stone, imagining Gram's cheek, fully believing that, in some way, she's here with me.

  I wrap myself up in the robe and move over to my night table. I reach inside the drawer for a yellow wax crayon and a note pad. I need to think of a question I can ask my dream.

  Something clever. Something that might reveal the truth in more than one way. But the only question I end up scribbling down is the one that seems most obvious: WHO IS AFTER DREA?

  I fold it up, slip it inside the dream bag, and deposit it into my pillowcase. Then I crawl into bed, close my eyes, and imagine warm teabags sitting atop the lids. With each breath, I picture the waning moon, growing more narrow and shallow, until it's no more than a speck of light.