Dreamland

by Sarah Dessen

  “It’s so weird,” Corinna was saying, still watching the screen. “She looks just like you. She could be you, you know?”

  The camera cut away quickly, as the woman in the bright pantsuit responded to some comment from the audience. When they went back to Lamont, Cass was gone.

  “I know,” I told Corinna, and for once I was the only one who knew how untrue it really was. “I know.”

  I knew how much Rogerson hated to wait. The only time I’d ever seen him lose his temper was when Dave was set to meet us at his house and showed up thirty minutes late. Rogerson was punctual to the second.

  So I left Corinna’s at four-thirty-five, which gave me ten minutes to get across town to my house to meet him. I was sitting at the light by the high school, nervously watching the clock, when I saw Rina a few cars ahead of me. She’d cut the one class we had together, in fifth period, but it was just like her to skip school but show up for cheerleading practice. Rina, for all her bad judgment, was surprisingly dependable.

  Watching her, even from three cars back, I could tell something was wrong. She was smoking and kept fiddling with her radio, reaching up every few seconds to wipe her eyes with her shirtsleeve or run her fingers through her hair. Every once in a while she’d start singing along with the radio, slamming her hand on the steering wheel to emphasize one chorus or line, and then her shoulders would start shaking.

  It was clear. Rina was driving and crying.

  After every crisis, breakup or blowout, the first thing Rina did was bolt to her car. She’d crank up the stereo and start on her standard loop—out past the high school into the country, across the highway to Topper Lake, where she’d park at one of the overlooks and feel tortured for a while. Then she’d circle through a few of her old neighborhoods, drive by her second stepdad’s house to curse his front yard, and go home. It wasn’t really about where she went, in my opinion: It was the motion she liked, which prevented just about everyone from seeing her being weak. I, however, had spend endless nights riding shotgun, listening to one of her many mix tapes of lost love/done me wrong/screw you songs and watching scenery rush by, her hiccuping sobs just barely audible under the music and the sound of the wind coming through my window.

  Now, I knew I was barely going to make it to meet Rogerson on time as it was. Rina hadn’t seen me, and from the looks of things she’d already done the country and was headed out to the lake. But as I watched her punch in the car cigarette lighter with a jab of her hand, then wipe her eyes, I just couldn’t go home.

  When the light finally changed I managed to pull up beside her after dodging around an elderly woman in a Cutlass with a handicapped sticker, who promptly flipped me off.

  “Rina!” I shouted, but the radio was up loud—something sad and gooey—and she didn’t hear me. I hit the horn, twice, startling the minivan with a Pro-Choice sticker in front of me, which quickly changed lanes. We kept cruising neck and neck, with Rina full-out bawling now, singing along with the radio, tears running down her face, completely oblivious to both me and the speed limit. I reached under my seat and searched around until I came up with an empty plastic Coke bottle, which I then hurled at her windshield. She jerked back from the wheel as it bounced off, then whipped her head around, eyes wide, and finally saw me.

  “Shit!” she screamed, hitting the automatic window control to open the one nearest me. “What the hell you are doing?”

  “Pull over,” I yelled back. There was a Quik Zip coming up on the left. She shot me an evil look, hit her turn signal, and took a wide arc into the parking lot, coming to an abrupt stop in front of a pay phone. I pulled up behind her.

  “You could have killed me,” she snapped, slamming her door as she got out. She was wearing a fuzzy sweater, black skirt, and tights, her hair tumbling over her shoulders. A group of public works guys, all in bright orange vests, hollered at her as they drove past, circling the gas pumps.

  “I was worried about you,” I said. “What happened?”

  She sighed, crossing her arms over her chest and leaning back against her car. “It’s all,” she began, dramatically, “over.”

  It was four-fifty; I was officially late. And Rina always took her time explaining herself. “Is this about Bill?” I asked.

  She nodded, drawing out a piece of hair and twisting it around her finger. “Last night,” she began, “I went to meet Jeff at the Yogurt Paradise at the mall during his break to discuss our relationship.”

  “Right,” I said, trying to move her along. I could just see Rogerson sitting in front of my house.

  “And we did just talk—for the most part. But then at the end, you know, things got a little physical—”

  “At the Yogurt Paradise?” I said.

  “We were just kissing,” she snapped. “God. But, as luck would of course have it, Bill just happened to be walking by on his way to the cafeteria and saw us.”

  “Yikes.”

  “Oh, it gets better. He was with his entire family, Caitlin,” she said in a low voice, as tears filled her eyes again. She looked down at her hands, picking at a pinky nail. “It was his Granny Nunell’s birthday. She’s, like, ninety. I met her a few weeks ago and she loved me. But you should have seen the look she shot me last night. The woman has a walker, but she meant me harm. No doubt about it.”

  “Ouch,” I said, trying to be subtle in taking a glance at my watch: five minutes had passed.

  “So I’m just busted,” she said, wiping her eyes. “I mean, there’s his aunt Camille, and his mom and dad, his Gran-Gran—”

  “Gran-Gran?”

  “—and Bill, who is just staring at me, and I’m sitting there with Jeff’s hand on my leg. He didn’t even say anything. He just walked away. It was awful. Terrible.” She crossed her arms again, tossing her hair out of her face, Jeff-style. “So of course I can’t face him at school today. But I figure I can’t miss the squad meeting, so I sneak in the back door.”

  “I missed it,” I told her.

  “No kidding. And as your friend,” she added, changing tacks to become all business, “I should tell you that you need to be watching your back. There was a vote today, and everyone but me was in favor of a confrontation about your level of serious commitment to the school and the squad.”

  “Oh, God,” I said. A cheerleading intervention. Just what I needed. And now, it was five after five. But Rogerson would understand. He knew about the ceremony. We could buy the present tomorrow.

  “So anyway,” Rina said, flicking her wrist as she switched gears again, “Bill was waiting for me after the meeting.”

  “What did he say?”

  “What could he say?” she wailed. “He asked for his ring back.” She put her hand on her throat, where the silver chain now hung empty, kinked a little bit from where the ring had been. “He gave me back my pictures and that shirt I gave him for his birthday. And then ...” And she stopped, waving her hand in front of her face, unable to continue.

  I waited. By now, I knew Rogerson was leaving my house, gunning up the street, wondering where I was. I could feel a slow burn starting in my stomach.

  “... then,” she began again, catching her breath, “he told me he was disappointed in me. Which was, like, the worst. I mean, call me a bitch, or even a slut, that I can handle, you know? But to say that ... that was just mean.” She crossed her arms over her chest, looking down at her feet, eyes closed. It was starting to get dark, the lights of the Quik Zip bright and warm behind her.

  I walked over and put my arm around her shoulder, leaning my head against hers. “He wasn’t right for you anyway,” I told her, like I had so many times before. “He was too—”

  “—good,” she finished for me, and laughed, still crying a little bit. “Good men just don’t suit me.”

  “That’s right,” I said, brushing her hair out of her face. “That’s exactly right.”

  I stayed there with her for a while longer, letting her cry and saying all those best friend things—You’ll be okay, Don
’t worry, I’m here, Let it out, Screw him—while the Quik Zip bustled with people pumping gas and rushing home, the smell of hot dogs wafting out each time the door was pushed open, mixing with the strangely warm December breeze. But all the while, my mind was on Rogerson, seeing him in my mind driving across town, angry and wondering why I, too, had somehow let him down.

  When I got home it was six o’clock, Rogerson was nowhere in sight, and my parents were finishing dinner with Boo and Stewart. The whole house smelled like steak and the Lamont Whipper Show was on, muted, in the living room.

  “Honey, where have you been?” my mother asked, turning around in her chair as I came up the stairs. “I was getting worried. The ceremony starts in less than an hour and if we want to get a good parking place ...”

  “Are you hungry?” Boo said, reaching over to poke at something in a casserole dish with a big wooden spoon. “There’s plenty of tempeh goat cheese salad left here.”

  “I laid out that blue dress for you to wear and bought you some new panty hose,” my mother added. “You should hurry and take a shower, though, because you really cut it close by—”

  “I know,” I said, already kicking off my shoes as I headed into my room. I was just about to shut the door behind me when my mother yelled one last thing.

  “Rogerson came by looking for you,” she called out over my father and Stewart talking. “He seemed to think you two had plans for this afternoon.”

  I eased my door open, sticking my head back out. “What else did he say?”

  She shrugged, dabbing at her mouth with her napkin. “I told him you’d be back soon because of the ceremony. And he said that he’d call you later.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Okay. Thanks.” I shut my door slowly, telling myself that all this time I’d been worried for nothing. We were just going shopping, anyway. He understood. It was no big deal.

  The ceremony was just as I expected: endless trophies, a flimsy certificate, and a corsage for me. Rina had recovered, at least temporarily, and was completely composed as she was escorted to the stage and our seats there, in a quick rearrangement, by a defensive back. Bill escorted Eliza Drake, while I—for punishment, clearly—was paired with the field-goal kicker, a short guy named Thad Wicker who resembled a short, stubby, chewed-on pencil with bad breath and a sinus condition.

  Rogerson showed up just as Principal Hawthorne was making his final speech. I saw the door open, just a crack, and he slipped in and leaned against the wall. I was so surprised to see him, happy he was even interested enough to come. His hair was wet—the warm weather had turned to rain, suddenly, as we drove to the ceremony—and he was glancing around the room and the crowd, looking for me. When he saw me he lifted his chin, then glanced around the room and stuck his hands in his pockets.

  “A lot of people,” Principal Hawthorne was saying, “sometimes question the value of sports in an education. For me, the facts are clear....”

  I’d only known Rogerson for three months, but I could recognize instantly the subtle signs of him growing irritated: I’d been to enough parties where I’d felt him watching me, impatient, even as I tried to pull myself away from Rina so we could leave. And I knew he only looked at his watch when he thought his time was being wasted. I started to get a strange sense that maybe the afternoon had been a big deal, after all.

  Principal Hawthorne kept talking and all I could do was just sit there, watching Rogerson as he fidgeted, glancing around, bored. He checked his watch again. Shifted his feet. Brushed his hand across his head. Checked his watch.

  “And so, on behalf of Jackson High School I would like to thank all of these fine athletes and their families for a great season....”

  I looked at Principal Hawthorne, willing him to finish, even as he gripped the lectern harder, his voice rising across the faces in the audience. Beside me Rina pinched my leg, then smiled at me when I glanced at her. I smiled back, still listening, and knotted the hem of my dress up tight in my fist, squeezing it hard.

  Hawthorne would not shut up. “I thank you for your hard work, your school spirit, and your good sportsmanship. We are very, very proud.”

  Rina was still smiling. She nodded at Rogerson, and when I looked back to where he’d been standing, just seconds before, the door was swinging shut and he was gone.

  “Thank you and have a good evening!” And everyone started clapping, the auditorium seeming hotter than ever as I got up out of my chair and pushed off the stage, down the steps past the swarms and clogs of people.

  “Caitlin, honey,” my mother called out, and then she was right in front of me, with Boo beside her. “Let’s get a picture of you in that beautiful corsage.”

  I stood there, forcing myself to smile.

  “Oh, dear,” she said, pulling down the camera to examine it. “This isn’t working, for some reason. Why isn’t this working?” Boo leaned over to help, both of them bending over it.

  “Lens cap,” I said. There were all these bodies brushing past me, and the auditorium was so hot: I could smell someone sweating.

  “What?” my mother said.

  “The lens cap,” I said, reaching over and pulling it off. “There.”

  “Well, Margaret, I’m glad to see you’ve learned so much in photography class,” Boo said, smiling at me.

  “Oh, goodness!” my mother said, laughing as she stepped back to set up her shot. “I always do that, don’t I?”

  I nodded, feeling a hot flush crawl up my neck.

  “Now, that’s better ... okay! Smile, Caitlin. Smile!”

  I was smiling. And sweating. I had to go. The flash popped in front of my eyes and I saw stars.

  “It was a nice ceremony,” Stewart said as he came up beside me, as if I’d planned it myself. “Very uplifting.”

  “Show us your certificate,” my mother said, prodding me in the elbow. I handed it to her; I’d forgotten I was even holding it. “Isn’t that nice? Jack, isn’t this nice?”

  My father, who was standing a few seats down looking hot and uncomfortable in a tie I’d given him just a few years ago, green with dark black stripes, glanced at it and said, “Nice.”

  “I have to go,” I said quickly. “Rogerson’s here, so I’ll just get a ride home with him, okay?”

  “Well, I don’t know,” my mother said in a worried voice, looking at my father. “I thought we’d have coffee and dessert back at the house.”

  “Let her go,” my father said, ready to leave himself. “The traffic’s gonna be terrible. We should get going.”

  “Well, all right ...” my mother said in a light voice, trailing off again. She glanced again at my father, as if wanting him to intervene, but he already had his coat and was heading to the aisle. “But, Caitlin, do try to come back to the house, so we can all celebrate together. Okay?”

  “Okay.” I was starting to feel dizzy.

  “Let’s go,” my father, who had a low tolerance for crowds, repeated. He loosened his tie as he brushed past me, the crease in his forehead already folding in on itself. The room was hot and smelled like perfume mixed with sweat and people and dusty school heat.

  “Very nice,” Stewart said to me again as we walked up the aisle, with Boo and my mother behind us. I was hardly listening, my eyes on the crowd outside the door. “We’re very proud of you, Caitlin. Really.”

  “Thanks,” I said, stepping to the side to let a big fat lady in a pink suit between us. Once she passed I’d lost sight of Stewart and everyone else, so I slipped out the door and into the warm, moist air.

  I found Rogerson parked down by the soccer fields. I knocked on the passenger side window and he looked at me, then waited a second before leaning over and unlocking the door.

  I got in, shut the door, then leaned over to kiss him on the cheek, but he pulled back, turning his head away from me. The radio was playing—his music—but this time I didn’t change the station.

  “What’s wrong?” I said.

  “Nothing.”

  Outside, it was r
aining again, big drops splattering across the windshield. “I’m sorry the banquet ran long,” I said. “I really couldn’t do anything about it.”

  “Whatever,” he said, running the tips of his fingers over the steering wheel. He still hadn’t looked at me. “Where were you this afternoon?”

  “Oh, God,” I said. “I ran into Rina and she was, like, having this enormous crisis. She blew it with Bill, finally. Got totally busted.” And I laughed, but the laugh sounded weird, like it was too heavy and just fell.

  “Oh,” he said, shifting in his seat. “I waited for you for a long time.” He was looking straight ahead, to the soccer fields. I could see the rain falling sideways in the bright lights there.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “She was all upset, and the time just got away from me. Okay?”

  “Whatever.” And he kind of smiled at me, like he was ready to let it go. Like it was all right, we were okay now.

  We just sat there for a minute, both of us looking at the rain as it fell harder on the windshield.

  “It’s just that I wondered where you were,” he said, then ducked his head, picking at a seam on the steering wheel. “Since you said you’d be there and all.”

  The thing is that I thought we were okay. He had smiled at me, and I’d let out a big breath, assuming it was over. Now, as he brought it up again, I stopped thinking and got careless.

  “Oh, come on,” I said, reaching over playfully to knock him on the knee. “Don’t be such a big baby.”

  When he hit me, I didn’t see it coming. It was just a quick blur, a flash out of the corner of my eye, and then the side of my face just exploded, burning, as his hand slammed against me.

  The noise it made was a crack, like a gunshot. And it wasn’t like in the movies, where the person just stands there and takes it. I reeled back, hitting my head against my seat. My ears were ringing, my face flushed, and already, instantly, I had tears in my eyes.

  I said, out loud, “Oh, my God.”

  “Don’t ever fucking talk to me that way,” he said in a very low, quiet voice. Then he started the engine, slammed it into reverse, and fishtailed down the dirt parking lot before hitting traffic. We crawled down the slope of the main lot to the road, a line of brake lights lit up in front of us.