Dream Things True

by Marie Marquardt

  “No one let him, Evan. I just took it.”

  “Yeah, OK,” Evan said, an anxious edge in his voice. “Well, anyway, there’s not much to remember. Conway, Peavey, and Paul burst into my room, carried me to the pool, half naked and screaming, and threw me in.”

  Alma huddled more tightly into a ball, wrapping her arms around her sopping jeans.

  “By the time I got back, you were pretty far gone. I got M.C. to come up and put you in a T-shirt. I didn’t think I’d be able to handle it.”

  So, Whit had been right. Nothing happened. Alma smiled, feeling both relieved and a little sheepish.

  “That’s embarrassing,” Alma said. “I don’t know how I got so wasted.”

  Evan shrugged. “I think those shots are pretty strong.” They were leaving things unspoken. Alma felt it. But it didn’t seem like either one of them had the energy to take it on.

  The boat started to slow as it came toward a large yellow boathouse.

  “This the one?” the driver asked.

  “Yes, sir. Thanks so much,” Evan said as he took Alma’s hand and helped her onto the dock. She smiled at the driver and tried to play along with whatever charade Evan had going.

  They stood shivering on the dock as the boat pulled away. Evan took Alma’s hand and led her toward the door.

  “This is M.C.’s boathouse. I know where the key’s hidden.”

  “What is it with you people and your hidden keys?” she asked.

  Evan didn’t hear her. He was rummaging around under a big empty flowerpot. Very original.

  He looked back at her and turned the key in the door.

  “I couldn’t go back in there, Alma. I’m sorry. I couldn’t face my uncle.”

  “I’m sorry, too, Evan,” she replied softly. “I should have tried harder to convince you not to come.”

  * * *

  They didn’t have to say anything more. They both sensed how broken and battered the other felt, and how desperately each needed to take refuge in the other. Evan closed the door softly behind them and kicked off his shoes. Alma leaned into the door, reaching down to remove her wet socks and shoes. They stood close, peeling away the dampness. Evan pulled his sopping sweatshirt over his head. It landed heavily on the slate floor of the entryway, tangled with a white T-shirt. He turned to face her, bare-chested, and looked directly into her eyes, with a question burning in his own.

  “Alma,” he whispered.

  She lifted her arms, and he reached down to grasp the edge of her sweater. He pulled it gently over her head. She shrugged out of it, feeling the pleasure of release from its clammy dampness.

  Sunlight streamed through a wall of windows, heating each patch of bare skin that emerged as they slowly undressed each other. Almost naked, they knelt together high above the deep water. Each studied the other’s body, touching it lightly, taking in its contours. And then, when the intensity of their desire threatened to overwhelm them, they tumbled together onto a soft antique prairie rug.

  Their hands searched urgently as their open mouths met. They kissed hard, pressing into each other, hoping that the taste of the other might quench the fire, or at least dull the bright radiance of its heat. When the shimmering radiance refused to dim, Alma fell back and held Evan tightly while he kissed her neck and shoulders, chest and stomach. The sunlight beat down on their gleaming bodies.

  Evan rose onto his knees and brought his mouth to Alma’s ear.

  “I don’t have anything,” he whispered urgently. “Is it OK?”

  Alma pulled away and opened her eyes.

  “Only once,” he continued, pleading, “We’ve waited so long.”

  Evan leaned forward to kiss her again, but Alma propped herself onto her elbows. An image of Whit, crumpled and crying on the dam, filled her mind. What did he have to do with this? A new image forced its way in: her body lying naked on Evan’s mother’s bathroom floor.

  “Was Conway there?” she heard herself asking. “In your room with me?”

  Evan sat up.

  “What the hell, Alma?” His tone almost frightened her. “What are you talking about?”

  “When they threw you in the pool, was Conway there?”

  She thought of the way Conway had looked at her as she stood across from him in the hallway, the urgency and anger in his voice when he offered her the shot, Whit’s terrible story, Evan’s account of Friday night, all that she couldn’t remember. Was it all just coincidence? She didn’t want to know the answer, but she forced herself to ask again.

  “Did Conway carry you to the pool? Did you see him there, or was he in the room with me?”

  Evan jumped to his feet and walked away from her, wearing nothing but his boxer shorts. Alma curled up, modesty descending on her like a ton of lead.

  “Please, Evan, just answer me.”

  Evan ran his hand through his hair. “Peavey and Paul carried me. I don’t know where Conway was.”

  “Think about it,” she demanded.

  “God almighty, Alma. What the hell is this all about?”

  “I just need for you to remember,” she said slowly. “Please.”

  Evan slumped onto the edge of a couch and rested his face in his hands. The sun moved behind a cloud, and the room dimmed.

  “No, I guess he wasn’t there.”

  “And when you came back to your room? Was I alone?”

  “Yeah.” Evan nodded into his hands.

  “Was I the way you left me?”

  Evan looked up.

  “Was I?” Alma commanded.

  “No, you took off your dress and your bra.”

  Alma felt cold, suddenly. She grabbed a quilt from the couch and wrapped herself in it.

  “But I was passed out.”

  “Not quite,” Evan said. “You were out of it. It felt wrong to want you so much. You were so, uh, wasted. So I got Mary Catherine to help.”

  It hurt Alma to look at him, to see him breathing so deeply. He was still struggling to bring his desire under control.

  “She was drunk, too,” Evan said. “But she said something about Conway.”

  Alma thought she might vomit.

  “Evan, please try to remember what she said.”

  “She said he came out from my bathroom and told her he wanted to help. She called him a perv and kicked him out.”

  Alma glanced around urgently. Her stomach heaved. All she saw were closed doors, so she lurched toward the sink in the small kitchenette. She stood over the sink in her underwear. Again and again, she hurled bits of mayonnaise-laden chicken into the basin.

  * * *

  Evan turned on the heat. The light from outside was almost completely gone, but the room stayed warm. He was afraid to turn on the lights. He didn’t want anyone to find them. He gave Alma a glass of water and wrapped her in the quilt. He wrapped himself in a towel and put their wet clothes in the dryer. Then he sat on the couch, watching Alma shrink deeper and deeper inside the quilt on the other end. The dryer tumbled repetitively in the background, and he listened to her talk. She told him about Whit and Conway and the way they took advantage of a drunken girl in his own house. She called it “sexual assault.” She said the words, over and over, as if naming the act would make it disappear.

  Each time she said it, he thought how strange it would be for them to have watched each other do that. Conway probably hated himself for watching Whit, or for wanting Whit to see him.

  “He wanted to do it to me, Evan,” Alma said.

  “What? No,” Evan said.

  “He cornered me alone and made me take a shot.”

  Evan felt his chest collapse. She was right.

  How did he let this happen?

  “Do you see where I’m going with this, Evan? Because I don’t think I can say it out loud.”

  Evan nodded. Prickly heat spread through his chest and his face.

  “Why were you alone with Conway? Where the hell was Mary Catherine? Where was I?”

  “I don’t know, Evan. Don’t g
et mad at me. I just needed to get away from him, so I took it.”

  “Jesus, Alma, I’m not mad. It’s just, everyone knows…”

  “Everyone knows?” Alma cried out. “What the hell is wrong with you people?”

  He forced his reluctant mind to return to that night, to recollect every detail while Alma waited in silence.

  “Alma,” he said, “just calm down. You’re right about Conway. He likes to fool around with wasted girls.”

  “It’s not called ‘fooling around,’” Alma said. “It’s called ‘sexual assault.’ And if everyone knows then why the hell don’t you stop him? I mean, Madre de Dios, are you telling me that Conway is going around raping girls, and everyone just knows?”

  Alma’s head fell into her hands.

  “Oh, Christ, Alma. Oh, Jesus.” He was starting to sweat. Evan worked hard to knit together the evidence. He grasped his elbows and rocked back and forth, trying not to let the rage and remorse overtake him.

  Then it all came together.

  “I don’t think he hurt you. He didn’t have time. I was down there for ten minutes.”

  Alma shot her head up and gave him a look that made it pretty clear. Ten minutes was plenty of time.

  Evan started to pace. “Listen, Alma. I looked at you. I watched you for a while. I mean, when I found you almost naked in my room.”

  Alma hugged the quilt even more tightly.

  “You had your underpants on. They were smooth against your skin, not like someone had tried to force them off or anything.”

  God, he hated this. He hated that the sweet memory of stealing a glance at her body was becoming evidence in some sort of investigation. Suddenly, he felt like a pervert instead of a boyfriend who was just completely in awe of his girlfriend.

  “Your hair was smooth. You were kind of curled up.” Evan’s forehead fell into his hand. “You probably don’t remember, but when they busted into the room, your dress was already halfway off, and, uh, your bra was unhooked.”

  “Oh, no.”

  “I was just starting to realize you were too drunk. I told you we needed to stop.”

  Alma looked down at the floor and squeezed her eyes shut. When she looked back up, she spoke quietly.

  “Thank you,” she said, “for stopping.”

  He sat down beside her.

  “You shouldn’t thank me for that, Alma,” Evan said. He bit down on his lip. “It wasn’t a favor. It was just the thing to do.”

  Alma nodded silently and looked away.

  “He may have touched you. But I don’t think he, you know, uh…”

  “Yeah, I know,” Alma said. Thank God she hadn’t used the word again.

  “He would have needed to take off your underpants.”

  “I guess you’re right,” Alma replied, looking away from him. “I didn’t bleed. I’m not sore.” She turned toward him. “All of that would happen, right?” she whispered. “I mean, on my first time.”

  Evan shrugged and took her hand in his. “You’re asking the wrong guy, Alma.”

  She edged toward him and rested her head in his lap. He stroked her hair gently, as innocently as possible.

  “I’m not ready,” she said, in a tone that was both gentle and firm.

  “We’ll wait,” he said, “for as long as you need to.”

  “OK,” she said, propping herself up to kiss him softly. And then she said something really strange: “Let’s hold out for moonlight and rose petals.”

  NINETEEN

  St. Jude, Plead for Us

  Sometime before four a.m., the helicopter roared through Alma’s unconscious mind, shining its blinding light onto that awful scene. She awoke, panting and sweating, with the sickly sweet taste lingering in her mouth. This time, she had seen the source of the saccharine sweetness: a red Jell-O shot forced into her mouth by Evan’s aunt Maggie.

  Yuck.

  Alma’s dream was back for the first time in months, and it was worse than ever. Call it superstition, but Alma worried, wide awake in her bed in the predawn hours, that if they didn’t get to the next part of Mrs. King’s plan soon, everything would go to hell in a handbasket.

  She texted Evan.

  Are you awake

  No. Why?

  I need to ask a favor

  At 4:15 in the morning?

  No. at 7

  You know I’ll do anything

  Take me to mass

  You mean church? Tomorrow’s monday. Go back to bed

  Meet me on the bench at 6:45. Catholics have church every day

  Good lord. Which one?

  Which church?

  No, which bench

  Fortitude?

  Sounds about right

  * * *

  Evan must have passed out because Alma’s text awoke him in the guest house, his bleeding hand wrapped haphazardly in his own T-shirt and Mary Catherine wrapped in a duvet, dozing on his bare chest.

  Evan held it together when he was with Alma. They waited until late and then walked the three miles around the lake to his car. She fell asleep on the drive home. He shook her awake and walked her to her front door. The moment he left her the rage overtook him. All of the insanely frustrating events of the past few days converged into an image: Conway tugging on Alma’s dress. He drove recklessly through the darkness, blinded by the image, using every last ounce of his will to keep his car from steering toward Conway’s driveway, to keep himself from beating Conway to a pulp. He could almost feel his hands aching with the sensation of it. Instead, he stormed into his empty house, slammed the doors loudly. He tried to take a long, hot shower, to watch pointless television, to listen to music so loud that the neighbors would hear. But even the angry screams coursing through the speakers couldn’t dampen his fury.

  Evan took a bottle of Johnnie Walker from the liquor cabinet in his dad’s office and sucked down several long, painful swigs. When the buzz came on strong instead of mellow, Evan knew that being alone was a very bad idea. He lurched out of the house, his tense body carrying him toward Conway while his battered mind urged him to stay away.

  When he saw a dim light coming through Mary Catherine’s window, Evan realized that she might offer him a way out. He texted M.C. to see if she was awake. Moments later, they met in the guest house, as they had many times. Until now, it was always to deal with Mary Catherine’s crises—some lame boyfriend or another who had broken her heart again.

  It was Evan’s turn to call in the favor.

  They finished the bottle, passing it back and forth as Evan fumed. Mary Catherine listened, stunned and horrified. Evan explained the jail, his talks with “Uncle Buddy” and Uncle Sexton, and then the hardest part. He hoped desperately that she would have a way to refute his story about Conway, to come up with an alternative explanation. Instead she confirmed everything, slowly reconstructing the events of Friday night.

  Evan probably frightened her when he grasped the near-empty bottle of Johnnie Walker by the neck and smashed it against the kitchen counter. Small shards of glass and the last drops of dark liquid splintered across the gleaming tile floor. But she didn’t show that she was scared. Instead, she knelt with him to pick up the fragments of the bottle, seeing that his hand had been gashed with a deep wound and watching the blood flow red. He remembered burying his face in his bloody hands. Then anger finally gave way to sorrow.

  Mary Catherine told him to take off his shirt. She wrapped his hand in it, and somehow, they both fell asleep on the couch.

  “It’s four fifteen,” he said, nudging her. “You should go home.”

  She heaved her body across his and pulled the duvet over her head.

  Evan lifted her from the couch and carried her from the guest house. The cold air jolted her awake.

  “Thanks,” he said. She kissed his cheek and stumbled away.

  Evan knew he wouldn’t sleep again, so he went inside, threw his bloodied shirt in the trash, and took another long, hot shower. He pulled the glass from his wound, bandaged it, and waite
d for morning to come.

  He arrived at school long before Alma’s bus, so he sat waiting on Fortitude, holding a cooling double cappuccino. When the bus came, Alma walked toward him and took the cup.

  “What happened?” she asked, noticing his bandaged hand.

  “Stupid accident,” he said. “The knife slipped when I was making a peanut butter sandwich last night.”

  She shrugged and led him to the car.

  His head was pounding so he didn’t mind the quiet as they drove to Santa Cruz. They went into the church, and Evan sat with Alma in the second pew of the almost empty sanctuary. He couldn’t believe he was skipping calculus for this. He had no idea what was going on since the entire service was in Spanish. All he knew was that there was a lot more standing, sitting, and kneeling here than in his church. He was pretty impressed that the three old ladies sitting in front of them kept up. His head still ached and his bandaged hand throbbed. How had he ended up feeling so ruined?

  The faint smell of incense combined with the warmth and the dim light created a perfect atmosphere for sleep. He wasn’t sure how much longer he would last.

  Hoping to enhance his appearance of piety, Evan made the mistake of closing his eyes. Why couldn’t he shake the image of Conway standing over Alma, tugging her dress up around her narrow hips?

  Alma nudged him. She was standing, watching the priest walk out of the church. At last, it was over. Alma dug in her purse and pulled out a candle—the kind you see in the “ethnic foods” section of the Bi-Lo. She motioned for Evan to follow as she walked from the sanctuary and into a room crammed full of statues and paintings and flickering candles.

  She placed her candle in front of a plastic statue of a bearded man in a white robe. He had a green drape over one shoulder. With his left hand, he held what looked like a big gold coin in front of his chest. His right hand had a long staff, like the one Jesus held on his preschool coloring pages of the “Good Shepherd.” There was a weird little flame over his head.

  “Is that Jesus?”

  “It’s St. Jude. Wanna light the candle?”

  “Um, OK,” he said, looking around for a pack of matches. She took a long stick that had been burned on one end and balanced it over the flame of the adjacent candle. That one had a weird image of a toddler all dressed up like a Spanish conquistador or something.