Dreamland

by Sarah Dessen

  Rogerson looked at me, to confirm this, and I wondered, suddenly, just what would happen if I didn’t agree. I felt strangely flattered, protected, as I walked over to stand beside my boyfriend, who kept his eyes solid on Mike Evans, even as I wrapped my fingers around his.

  “Come on,” I said. “I’m late already.”

  Rogerson looked like he wasn’t quite sure about this, even as I smoothed my hand over his damp shoulder, his wet hair brushing against my skin. “It’s nothing.”

  He left with me, then. And Mike Evans was brave enough to wait until we were out of sight before he called out, “Think about what I said, Caitlin. Okay?” his voice bouncing down the empty school corridors.

  Rogerson and I were standing at the front doors. I could barely see the car through the rain, falling thick and fast, in sheets.

  “What did he say?” Rogerson asked me, taking one last glance back as if still contemplating finishing what Mike had started.

  “Nothing important,” I said. Then he pushed the door open and I pulled my jacket over my head, the rain already whistling in my ears, as we started to make a run for it together.

  Cass’s first real boyfriend, Jason Packer—the boy who had broken her heart—was part of our family for the two years they dated. He came for Thanksgiving dinner, exchanged Christmas gifts with my family, and helped my father install the track lighting in our upstairs hallway. He was accepted to the point that we gave up maintaining what my mother called “company behavior.” It was like we were all dating Jason Packer, and when he dumped Cass, each of us took it a little personally.

  I didn’t expect things to be this way with Rogerson.

  We’d been together about three weeks when I finally had to bring him inside for a Formal Introduction. After her initial hesitation—and once I’d proven I wasn’t blowing off everything else to be with him—my mother surprised me by asking about Rogerson occasionally, the way she did about cheerleading or school, although more out of duty than of real interest. My father was doing his part from the comfort of his chair: he’d reach over and flip on the front porch light when Rogerson and I had been parked for more than twenty minutes, reminding me that I was due inside.

  This was strange to me. I had expected my parents to be even more vigilant about my relationship with Rogerson because of Cass running away. After all, they’d already lost one daughter to a boy they didn’t know.

  Maybe it was because they knew what his father did, who his brother was, had seen his mother’s face on For Sale signs staked into a million lawns, and this made him safer, somehow. The other option—that somehow, losing me would be less of a loss, never as hard as the one already suffered—was something I pushed out of my head each time it rose up, nagging.

  It was a Friday night, during my parents’ and Boo and Stewart’s weekly Trivial Pursuit war. I was standing in the bathroom, putting on lipstick, when my mother called out, “Caitlin, honey, when Rogerson comes, ask him to say hello, won’t you?”

  I blinked at my reflection, then cut off the light and stepped out into the hallway. My parents, Boo, and Stewart were in their customary Friday night places, sitting around the dining room table, with the Trivial Pursuit board spread out in the middle. My father was studying a card in his hand, his eyes narrowed; Stewart sat beside him, chewing, a bag of dried figs on the table next to him. My mother and Boo were at the other end of the table, stirring their tea with their heads bowed, discussing strategy.

  “Why?” I said, and my mother looked up at me, eyebrows raised.

  “Well, you’ve certainly been spending a lot of time together,” she replied. “We should at least meet the boy face-to-face. Don’t you think, Jack?”

  My father glanced over at me, smiling mildly. “Sure,” he said. “Bring him in.”

  Introducing Rogerson was one thing. Doing it during the Friday Night war was another altogether.

  It had been going on for at least five years, ever since Boo had given my father a Trivial Pursuit game for a birthday present. The first game had begun innocently enough, played over coffee and cookies—my mother and Boo versus Stewart and my father. But over time and many games, things were said. Assumptions made. Challenges extended. It was as if they were drunk on trivia, and every Friday was a bender.

  “I don’t know,” I said to my mother as Rogerson’s car slid into sight by our mailbox. “We kind of have plans....”

  “It will only take a second,” she said cheerfully, letting her spoon clink against the edge of her mug. “Come on, Caitlin.”

  Outside, Rogerson was waiting. I could see him illuminated in the green dashboard lights, leaning forward, looking in at me. I glanced back at the table. So far, the game had been pretty docile, save for a short disagreement over the capital of Indonesia.

  “Bring him in,” my father said, pushing the dice over to my mother, who handed them to Boo—the lucky roller. “We should know who you’re spending all your time with.”

  “It won’t be that bad,” Boo said, the dice clinking off her rings as she shook them up in her hand. “We’ll be on our best behavior, we promise.”

  I shut the door behind me and headed down the walk to Rogerson’s car. He sat there, waiting for me to get in, and when I didn’t, he rolled the window down and leaned over, looking up at me.

  “What’s the problem?” he said.

  “They want to meet you.”

  He blinked. “They?”

  I gestured back toward the house. “It’ll only take a second.”

  He sat there, considering this, then cut off the engine. “All right,” he said, opening his door and getting out. He was wearing jeans and Doc Martens, a bowling shirt with the name Tony written in script over the pocket, and a leather jacket, his hair loose and wilder than usual. “Wait,” he said as we started up the walk. He stopped, reaching into his pocket with one hand while collecting his dreads at his neck, then snapping the rubber band he’d fished out around them.

  “Good plan,” I said. “We’ll wait until next time to spring the hair on them.”

  “Usually a good idea,” he said.

  The first thing I heard when we stepped inside was my mother’s voice, loud and argumentative.

  “It’s Tokyo, it has to be Tokyo,” she was snapping at Boo as we came up the stairs.

  “Need to give us an answer,” my father said in a level voice, his eyes on the tiny hourglass—stolen from our Pictionary game, in an effort to make Boo and my mother respond within a set time limit—as the sand slipped through.

  “Don’t rush me!” my mother shrieked. “You always do that. You know it makes me crazy, and you do it anyway. It’s like some kind of psychological warfare.”

  “Margaret,” my father said, “either you know the answer or you don’t.”

  “Mom?” I said.

  “Just a second,” she said. “First city in the world to have population of one million ... first city ...”

  “New York,” Boo said. “I have this strong aural feeling it’s New York.”

  “No, no,” my mother replied, frustrated. “It’s ... it’s ...”

  “And time is ... up,” my father said, holding up the hourglass for proof. “Stewart, roll the dice.”

  “Mother of pearl!” my mother said angrily, and Stewart laughed. She never actually cussed, but her variations were just as good.

  “Take it easy,” Boo said. “We’ll get them next time.”

  “It had to be New York,” my mother protested. “Why didn’t we just say New York?”

  “I have no idea,” Boo said darkly, and they both fell silent, not talking to each other, while Stewart rolled the dice.

  I decided to just bite the bullet while the frenzy had died down. “Mom? Dad? This is Rogerson Biscoe.”

  Now they were all looking at us, or more specifically, at Rogerson. I watched as they took in his dark, olive skin, his deep green eyes, the bowling shirt. And, of course, the hair.

  Boo, as always, was the first to speak. “Hel
lo, Rogerson,” Boo said. “I’m Boo Connell.”

  “Stewart,” Stewart chimed in, waving.

  “Hi,” Rogerson said.

  My mother gave him a polite smile as she extended her hand. “Hello, Rogerson,” she said, as he shook it. “Do you, by chance, happen to know the first city to have a population of one million?”

  “Margaret, honestly,” my father said. “Your turn is over.”

  “Only because you flustered me!” she shot back, reaching to stir her coffee.

  “Um,” Rogerson said. “It’s London. Right?”

  My mother studied his face, then looked at my father, who flipped the card over and glanced at it. “He’s right,” he said.

  “My goodness! London!” she said, slapping her hand on the table and making all the glasses jump. “Of course. London!”

  “Pull up a chair for the boy!” Boo said, yanking one over beside her. “I am claiming him for our cause. Have a seat, Rogerson.”

  “No, no,” my father protested, already reaching for the top of the box, where the rules were. He lived for the rules, knew them by heart, and referred to them constantly during the game. “It specifically says that no team shall have more than—”

  “We need to go,” I said loudly over them. “Really.”

  “Roll the dice, roll the dice!” my mother said to my father. Boo had already pulled Rogerson down in the chair beside her and handed him some dried figs, which he was holding, politely, but not eating. He looked up at me, half-smiling, and I just wanted to die of embarrassment.

  “Okay,” Boo said, patting Rogerson on the arm as she drew out a card. “Stewart and Jack. This was thought in ancient times to be solidified sunshine or petrified tears of the gods. Go!” And my mother turned the hourglass and slammed it on the table.

  My father, brow furrowed, and Stewart, chewing thoughtfully on a fig, considered this.

  “Need to give us an answer,” my mother said, needling my father. “Hurry now.”

  “I don’t know,” my father said, shooting her a look. “Solidified sunshine or tears of the gods ... so it has to be some kind of natural resource....”

  “Running out of time,” my mother said, and my father looked at Stewart, who just shook his head, spitting out a bit of fig into a napkin. When the hourglass was empty, my mother clucked her tongue, sliding the dice back to her side of the board.

  “Okay, then, Rogerson,” Boo said, hiding the card in her hand. “What do you think?”

  Rogerson looked at me, and I rolled my eyes. “Amber,” he said. “Fossilized resin. Right?”

  Boo nodded, and my mother’s eyes widened, looking up at me, impressed, as if I’d created him myself from scrap. “My goodness, Rogerson,” she said.

  “You are brilliant,” Boo said, squeezing his arm. “A boy genius! How do you know so much?”

  “We really have to go,” I said again.

  “I don’t know,” Rogerson said. “Just watch a lot of Jeopardy, I guess.”

  “Roll the dice, Margaret,” my father said, standing up. “Rogerson, it was good to meet you.”

  “You too, sir,” Rogerson said, shaking his hand. Next he offered it to Stewart, who instead stood up and hugged him while my father looked embarrassed.

  “You kids have fun,” Boo said, squeezing my arm as we finally began to head to the door.

  “Don’t stay out too late,” my mother added.

  Outside, Rogerson pulled the rubber band out as we walked to the car, shaking his head to let his hair get loose.

  “I’m sorry,” I blurted out as soon as the door swung shut behind us. “They just ... they get crazy when they play that game. It’s like a drug or something.”

  “It’s all right,” he said, and from the house, behind us, I heard someone yelling, then a chorus of boos.

  We got into the car and he started the engine, flicking on the lights as he put the car in gear. The radio blasted on as well—Led Zeppelin. I reached forward and changed the station and he rolled his eyes at me.

  “So,” I said. “How do you know all that stuff?”

  “You heard them,” he said, flicking down his visor to let a pack of cigarettes fall into his lap. “I’m brilliant.”

  “No kidding,” I said, sliding closer to him. “What else don’t I know about you?”

  He shook his head, punching in the car lighter with one hand. “You’ll find out soon enough,” he said. “I got a million of ’em.”

  “Oh, that’s right,” I said. “You’re a complex man of mystery.”

  He shrugged. “It comes with the hair. You know.”

  “Yeah,” I said, reaching over to smooth my hand over his face—my new mysterious, brilliant boyfriend. “I know.”

  When Rogerson and I weren’t in the car we were at his pool house, shoes off, making out on his perfectly made bed. Maybe because I was forging my own, new, non-Cass way, things had been moving fast with us from the start. Up until then, my experience with guys had been limited to a couple of boyfriends. One, Anthony Wayan, I’d met at camp. We’d been hot and heavy for three weeks, but once he went back home to Maine things just died out, typical summer romance. Then, sophomore year, I’d dated a junior named Emmet Peck who I sat next to in Ecology class. We were together a full four months, and he’d wanted me to sleep with him. But as much as I liked him, something always stopped me—he was a nice guy, yet ultimately forgettable. And I wanted my first time to be with someone I would always remember.

  I already felt that way about Rogerson. But I still wanted to take my time, not have it happen in some mad rush or on a random Tuesday afternoon. He seemed to understand this, and when I told him to stop—and even for me, it was always hard—he complied, the only protest a little bit of grumbling into my neck as his hands moved back up into the safe zone. But each time it got harder, and I knew I couldn’t wait too long.

  I was beginning to understand that small smile Rina gave me whenever I asked her what she saw in Bill Skerrit.

  Rogerson seemed to almost like the fact that I was inexperienced, not just about sex, but most things. He enjoyed carting me around in my cheerleading outfit while he took bong hits or talked business with people who eyed me strangely, as if I was a cartoon, not quite real. This was the same reason, I was sure, that he’d been interested in me the first night we’d met. It was a fair trade. With Rogerson, I was someone else. Not Cass. Not even me. I took his wildness from him and tried to fold it into myself, filling up the empty spaces all those second-place finishes had left behind.

  There were so many things I already loved about him. The smell of his skin, always slightly musky and sweet. His hair, wild and dreadlocked, thick under my hands as I combed my fingers through it. The way he pressed his hand into the small of my back whenever I walked into any place ahead of him. He was so attentive, with one eye on me regardless of what else he was doing. Even with his back turned, he always seemed to know exactly where I was.

  Of course, there were the drugs. Rogerson operated a brisk business selling pot and other various illegals to the kids at Perkins Day and Jackson. Because of this and other distractions, added to the fact that he never seemed to mention school, I was surprised at the pool house one day, when he was on the phone, to find poking out of his backpack not only a calculus midterm (on which he scored a 98) but an English paper entitled “Storms and Sacrifice: Weather and Emotion in King Lear” for which he’d gotten an A-. Obviously Trivial Pursuit was not his only strength. Rogerson was what his guidance counselor called “driven but misdirected” (from a letter home I found under my seat in the car, crumpled and bent). He was a perfectionist, whether it came to measuring out a perfect quarter-ounce or knowing the complete French conditional tense.

  I, however, was struggling to keep my grades up, since I was suddenly spending so many weeknights (when my parents assumed I was doing cheerleading squad activities) with him. My mother, now distracted with Cass’s Lamont Whipper sightings, had eased off on her own involvement in my cheerlead
ing: something that almost would have bothered me, had I really taken the time to think about it. It was so easy, again, for Cass to take center stage.

  But it made lying that much easier. It became a given that I rode around with him for all his errands almost every night. It was like he just needed me there, even if I was sitting in the car chewing my pencil and working trigonometry proofs while he talked business and divided up bags inside various houses. If I did want to go home early or spend an evening at home, he’d always drive by my house at least once, slowing down and just idling, engine rumbling, until I went outside to talk to him.

  “Just come here for a second,” he’d say, rolling down his window and cutting off the engine as I came down the walk. “I’ll even let you listen to that stupid music you like so much.”

  “Rogerson,” I’d tell him, “I told you I have got to study. You don’t understand.”

  “I do, too,” he’d say, opening the car door and holding out his hand. Even if it was dark I could tell when his eyes were sleepy, half-stoned, which always made him mushier than normal. “One second. I just want to talk.”

  “Yeah, right,” I’d say.

  “I’m serious.” And then he’d smile at me, strict honest face. “You trust me, right?”

  This was his line. It was what always led to me giving in, regardless of the issue, and coming two or three steps closer to give him my hand.

  Which would, of course, lead to him pulling me inside the car and kissing me, which always made me somehow forget about studying the dates for the Italian Renaissance, or the periodic table, or Mac-beth, entirely.

  There were some nights, though, when something was wrong. He wouldn’t talk and just wanted to lean into me, putting his head on my chest while I ran my fingers through his hair until he fell asleep. I always wondered if his dad had hurt him again. But like most things with Rogerson, I was usually given half the puzzle or just one clue, never enough to piece together the full story.

  This is what I did know. That he was quiet and never spoke without thinking. That he drove like a maniac. That the only time I saw the small simmering of temper behind his cool demeanor was when someone was late or not where they said they’d be. That he liked his brother, tolerated his mother, and never mentioned his father at all. And that whenever I pressed him for details about any of these things, he would sidestep me so gracefully that I could never find a polite way to ask again.