by C. M. Murphy
"Do me a favor," Cassidy said as she put her business card on the counter. "Give her my card when you see her. I think I can help her with her fainting spells. My niece had the same thing."
Haniel nodded to the professor and put the card in his back pocket.
"I appreciate your help," Cassidy said, but she could see the young man was distracted. She hoped he would see Bernie's daughter again. None of this was supposed to happen this way, and Cassidy needed to figure out why. The professor left the shoe repair shop determined to re-read that letter from Bernadette and call an old friend for help.
It had taken forever to persuade Doug that she was okay. Luckily, he had class tonight, and she'd convinced him not to skip. They made plans to carpool to work together the next day and hang out after.
Alma had parked her Chevy Sprint hatchback in the driveway of Tita Win Win's house, eager to rush up to her mother-in-law suite over the garage. She loved that apartment. It was the right combination of having her own place and being near family. She felt like Fonzie. Except Fonzie spent more time with the Cunninghams than Alma spent with her aunt.
A wave of guilt swept over Alma. She told herself that Tita Win Win never said much about it, so her aunt likely didn't mind not seeing Alma. Maybe she even preferred it.
Alma and her aunt weren't close. She only remembered her aunt visiting her once in Florida when Alma was in elementary school and sick. Tita Win Win had just become a doctor, and she'd come down to help. Alma wondered what Win Win knew that her father didn't. He'd been a doctor, and Tita Win Win specialized in geriatrics. How did she know how to help a nine-year-old girl? Maybe it was something that ran in the family. Regardless, once Alma felt better, Win had left. She hadn't seen her until the funeral last year.
Alma locked her car and darted up the white wooden staircase next to the garage. Her mother-in-law apartment, including the staircase, was shaded by a nearby lemon tree.
Alma smiled as she opened the door to her small place. She'd grown up with shag carpeting and boring brown furniture. Tita Win Win had decorated this apartment with light yellow walls and crisp, cream countertops for the kitchenette. The blond, wood laminate floor made the one-room abode look bright and clean.
Alma set her purse on her dining table that doubled as her desk and got herself something to drink, giddy with the excitement of finding a new treasure. She took a sip of her Diet Coke and set it down on the counter.
She knew it was stupid to be this excited about what was essentially playing pretend. Alma had played by herself and talked to herself since she was a kid. Except when she was a kid, she had an imaginary friend named Kayli. Alma laughed when remembering Kayli. In her teenage years she'd pretend to talk to rock stars or famous actors, but as a little kid, she talked to Kayli—her future grown-up self. How egotistical! And why Alma thought she'd have a different name as a grown-up was beyond her.
A stab of embarrassment combined with a touch of guilt struck Alma as she pulled the watch from her pocket. A grown woman of twenty shouldn't be playing pretend.
Most people give up their imaginary friends at a young age, but her little sessions didn't hurt anybody and gave her something to look forward to. Although, part of her wondered if she should be doing more with her life than just imagining she was somewhere else as someone else in her studio apartment.
Alma turned on the digital clock radio she kept next to her bed as was her ritual. She always turned on music in case she accidentally talked out loud. She didn't want the neighbors or her aunt to overhear her.
Alma turned her attention to the watch, and her reservations fell way. She sat on her unmade bed and waited for her imagination to take over. Sometimes her treasures would take her into fantasies of the past. It amazed her how much history she remembered from school. It was as if her little finds triggered her memory somehow.
She turned the watch over in her hand. It was old, but her imagination formed something more common than a palace or servants' quarters or cobblestone streets that she typically imagined. Instead, she found herself dreaming of just a regular house. It didn't look different from a house she'd find in her neighborhood now. Alma found herself sitting on the floor of a large kitchen.
"Want to play jacks?" a woman said to her. "We used to play it when I was little."
"Dora!" Alma heard herself say, her voice was high and childlike.
"You want to watch your Dora DVD?" the woman asked, tickling her.
Alma squealed and woke up laughing in her bed. Her radio blared an obnoxious commercial for discount electronics. The digital display read 11:30 at night. She turned off the radio and got up to brush her teeth for bed. It was odd that she'd fallen asleep. But her dream had put her in a happy mood. It seemed so real. What had she wanted? A DVD? It made sense at the time, but like most dreams once she awoke, her dream logic escaped her.
Alma changed into a baggy T-shirt and returned to bed. She fell asleep with the watch resting under her arm.
"I'm home!" her mother called out from the living room.
She ran from her bedroom down the hallway, through the kitchen, and into the living room, her socks slipping on the tile of the kitchen and then the laminate wood floor.
"Mom, did you get one?" she asked, excited.
Her mother held up the thin gray plastic-and-glass object. "I did."
A confused feeling descended over Alma as she stopped running. She'd known what this thing was when she'd run over here, but now she didn't.
"What's wrong?" her mother asked.
"I don't know," Alma said. "Where—" she stopped talking. The sound of her voice disturbed her. It was the voice of young child again, but not as young as before. She looked around. The kitchen she'd run through was the same as before. Where was she? Who was she?
Her mother kneeled down to be eye level with her. "Are you okay, sweetie?"
Alma looked at the woman. "You're my mom?" she heard her strange new voice say.
"Sweetie," her mom said. "This is important. Can you tell me your name?"
"Alma."
Her mother swept down and hugged her. Alma hugged back and looked over her mother's shoulder at the rest of the room. Although the living room looked like a typical living room, some of the things inside it seemed just a little off even though Alma couldn't put her finger on exactly why that was.
Her mother pulled herself out of the embrace and smiled at Alma. "I hoped you'd come and see me. I have so much to tell you."
Alma heard a buzzing sound from far away that distracted her. She turned to see where it was coming from, but she couldn't see it. She held her ears and turned her head.
Alma's mother said something, but the buzzing grew louder, and Alma couldn't make out what her mother was saying over the noise.
Her mother put her arms on Alma's shoulders and looked into Alma's eyes. Alma watched her mouth move. It looked like her mom had asked if Alma could hear her.
Alma shook her head no.
Her mom put her arm around one of Alma's shoulders so they were side by side, and held up the rectangular glass and plastic object that Alma had been so excited about. Her mother looked at the object, so Alma did too.
The rectangle had what looked like a kind of TV screen. It took a moment for Alma to register that it was their reflection. Was the object some kind of fancy mirror? Alma marveled at the screen. She looked like a kid, and her mom was just a few years older than Alma was in real life.
A ray of light burst from the rectangular object like a camera flash bulb. Her mother brought the object closer, and Alma stared at it. A photograph! On the little TV screen!
Then, Alma's mom turned the object over and pointed to the little picture on the back—a silhouette of an apple with a bite out of it.
The buzzing grew louder, and Alma found herself in bed staring at her alarm clock radio. The buzzer screamed at her to wake up. She hit the black button.
A dream. A detailed, weird, and wonderful dream. Alma sat up in bed and discove
red the watch in her bed. She'd forgotten to put it away. Alma smiled and tucked it away in the drawer of her nightstand. She liked her realistic dreams even more than her fantasies. She was sure it was the watch. What a find!
The dread she'd felt for the last few days was replaced by a giddy happiness. She sprang out of bed and into the bathroom to get ready for work. She turned on the shower, and while she waited for the hot water, she stared at her reflection in the mirror. Alma could almost see herself as that girl of ten or eleven. She smiled, remembering the photograph.
The bathroom filled up with steam, and Alma stepped in the shower. Unlike most dreams that faded as time went by, the more she thought about her dream, the more her mind added details. The dream built on itself.
A little spider ran up the white tiles toward the ceiling. Alma could almost hear her mother singing "Itsy Bitsy Spider." It felt more like a memory than a dream. She'd never fantasized about a real person. And now she'd more than daydreamed; she'd dreamed of her mother—a realistic, vivid dream. Tears formed in Alma's eyes as her hot shower began to cool.
She'd woken up knowing what it felt like to have a mother. Except it wasn't true.
Even though it felt real, that woman couldn't have been her real mother. For one, it was two different women. How could that be? And her mind had to have just made up her mom, like all her other hours of daydreams and make-believe about history. An empty longing gnawed at Alma's insides. She had almost no knowledge of her real mother—just one singular photograph Tita Win had given her when Alma was in the second grade. Her father never spoke of her mom, and Alma had stopped asking. The woman Alma had seen looked nothing like the photograph—except that she was Filipina. Alma's mind had just made up a woman, and Alma's inner need for connection had filled it with weird dreams.
Alma remembered how she'd fallen at the shoe repair shop. Had she hit her head?
She turned off the now-cold water, stepped out of the shower, and mourned the loss of her mother anew.
The sound of a loud knock on her apartment door snapped her out of her haze of grief. Doug's voice was calling her name. She rushed out of bathroom into the main room of her apartment and spotted the time on her microwave. Quarter to nine. She was late!
Chapter Four
"You don't want to go out?" Doug asked as they walked to the parking lot after work. "Are you feeling all right?"
"Yes," Alma said, annoyed. He'd been asking that all day. The memories, or rather pseudo-memories of her mother, had preoccupied Alma. The more she thought about her dream mom, the more she remembered. Some of the things didn't make sense. They couldn't be real.
Doug unlocked the passenger door for Alma and opened it, but instead of going to his side of the car like usual, her best friend just stood there.
"What?" she asked.
"You were late coming down this morning. You've been quiet all day, and you don't want to hang out. Are you mad at me?"
"Doug, I'm sorry. You should have gone ahead without me."
"I thought you might be in a coma or something in there. You're never late. You worry too much for that. Are you sure you're feeling okay?" Doug put his hand on Alma's forehead.
"Knock it off," Alma said, pushing his hand away and poking him in the side. She knew he was ticklish.
"Okay, okay," he said. "But seriously. Did I do something?"
"I'm just tired."
Her friend nodded and walked over to the driver's side of the car.
Alma climbed into the passenger seat and reached for the seatbelt. All she wanted to do was go home, hold that watch, and dream about her fantasy mom. But had her obsession with her fantasy world gone too far? When she'd just daydreamed about being someone else in another place and another time, it seemed weird but harmless. Now she was rushing away from her only friend to go home and dream of an imaginary mother.
With the exception of her Tita Win Win, Doug was the only person Alma thought she could really count on. And Alma hadn't been much of a friend today. Between her dream and her sad thoughts in the shower, she'd been late and made Doug late, too.
Doug slid into the driver's seat with a sigh.
"I'll buy you tacos," Alma said.
"Really?" he said. The hopeful expression on her best friend's face cemented her decision. What kind of person couldn't spare time for tacos with her best friend?
"At La Fogata," Alma said.
"Yes!" Doug said as he took his portable CD player out of his glove box and plugged it into the cigarette lighter.
"What do you want? U2, The Cranberries, Nirvana?" he asked as he rummaged in the glove box through his CD cases.
"Cranberries," Alma said.
He slipped the CD into the player, and the music started by the time he was backing out of the parking space.
"Let's split some guacamole!" Doug said as he hit the skip button several times until he got to the song he wanted.
"I'm up for that," Alma said, feigning excitement. The quiet jangly introduction to the song "Linger" played in the background as Alma stared out the window. The truth was all she wanted to do was rush home and daydream of her mother—even if it wasn't her real mother. But that would have to wait. Real friends and real life first.
Mexican food with Doug had been fun, but the moment her best friend's car backed out of the driveway, Alma dashed up the wooden stairs to her apartment. Once inside, she headed straight for her nightstand, grabbed her new treasure out of the drawer, and kicked off her shoes.
The same pang of shame revisited Alma. She really out to be over this by now. This was kid stuff. She sighed remembering Kayli. Her imaginary friend had been so realistic that when Alma was sick, she hadn't noticed being bedridden. But after Alma got better, she'd forgotten Kayli until recently. Had her fantasies stemmed from a deep-seated loneliness and a need to feel connected? When she was a kid, could it have been a longing to connect with a mother she'd never known? And now was it grief for her father?
Alma lay down on the bed still holding the watch. Her real mom had died when Alma was born, and Alma's memory held only one image of her mother in it—the photo of her Filipino mother pregnant, with big sunglasses, and her hair flipped at the bottom like Marlo Thomas on That Girl. Alma had always wondered what her mother's eyes looked like. But despite not being able to see her mother's eyes, Alma had gotten the impression that her mother was sad at the time the picture was taken.
An image popped into Alma's mind.
This was how her daydreams started, little images. No elaborate plots. Just simple everyday moments that sometimes grew into more. In some ways she preferred the less elaborate daydreams. The simplicity of them made her fantasy seem more realistic. Alma stared at the ceiling with the old timepiece in her hand and waited for her daydream to deepen. A dizzy and almost drunken feeling descended on Alma.
A scene flooded into her mind. It was of her mother looking in the mirror. Alma watched as her mother stood in the bathroom fixing her hair. As her mother puffed up the sides of her flipped do with the palm of her hands, Alma felt like she could feel her mother's hair. A thought sprang into Alma's mind about her red headband, and her mother rummaged for it in the basket on her crowded bathroom sink counter.
She found the headband and slipped it on. It would go perfect with her dress. A giddy happiness swept over Alma as her eyelids got heavy. Her mother padded down the hallway wearing her indoor slippers and went to the kitchen. Alma got the sense her mother was talking to her, but her eyelids grew heavier and heavier. And her dream jumbled. The taste of coffee. Her mug seemed to go missing. The glint of light from a spoon. Alma fell asleep.
Alma opened her eyes and sat up on her bed, the watch still in her hand. She smiled. She'd seen her mother's eyes. Alma rushed to her bathroom mirror and looked into it, half surprised to see her own face in it instead of her mother's.
So odd. It was as if Alma had been her mother. Alma wondered if she would have seen more of her mom if she hadn't fallen asleep.
S
he decided she needed a cup of coffee and headed for her kitchenette to microwave some hot water. Alma preferred instant coffee. It saved time. She filled the mug with tap water, popped it into the microwave, and waited for the timer to ding. Standing in front of the microwave, a little tack hole in the wall caught Alma's attention. It was from a wall calendar that had long since been thrown away. The stupid thing had been too heavy for the tack, and it kept falling down.
The little cracks in the wall surrounding the dark hole looked like spindly legs. The buzzed drunken feeling from earlier returned. Alma chalked it up to being tired and let herself enjoy it even though that made no logical sense.
She stared at the wall until her vision blurred. It made the little cracks seem like they were moving. The hole in the wall, the body of what now looked like a spider, grew. Alma stepped closer to see it better. The sight puzzled her. In one moment it looked like an ordinary pin hole, and a second later it regained its spidery appearance.
She reached out and touched the hole with her index finger. The tip of her finger met a gooey tar-like stickiness. Alma pulled her finger away, and part of the hole stuck to her finger as it stretched open. Like in a dream, the oddity of the situation inspired curiosity more than fear.
A silver thread dangled from the opening. A real spider ran along it. A web! The spider turned toward her. In its inky blackness, Alma swore she saw a face smile, but then the spider scurried up the web and onto the white wall.
That's when Alma noticed the hole in the wall had grown on its own. It was now waist high and about six inches wider than her shoulders. For the first time, fear crept into Alma's consciousness.
Her mind imagined the hole swallowing her entire apartment with her in it. The spider turned to her again. A memory of a book she read as a kid popped into her thoughts, Charlotte's Web. And Alma realized this must be a dream. The spider on the wall was her Charlotte, and it had reminded her that she was dreaming.
Alma stepped closer to the hole. She heard the gentle buzz of an oscillating fan. The spider crawled into the hole, and the hole in the wall now led to another room, a bathroom.
