Between Dreams

by Cynthia Austin

  “Okay, okay,” Ray answered, unable to say no to his younger sister.

  He turned to me. “You wanna go to my house for a little bit while I clean out my room?”

  I shook my head. I loved Teresa but I could only take her in small doses. I’d had enough of her to last me until June. “I think I’ll just head home, change out of these clothes, and then go for a run.”

  He smiled. “Okay. I shouldn’t be gone too long. See you back at the house in a couple of hours?”

  “When do you have to go back to L.A.?”

  Ray flashed me a sneaky smile. “Not until Friday. I lied and told everyone my grandpa’s in the hospital.”

  I shook my head and laughed. “Hey, I almost forgot to tell you, Nouri wants me to go back to L.A. with you. She says she’ll stay and take care of Granny.”

  His reaction wasn’t what I’d expected. He looked happy but the surprise outweighed it. “Okay, so you don’t want to wait here until I come back in June?”

  I shrugged. “I could. It’s only for a few months,” I said, thinking about my new friend and how staying here wouldn’t be that bad after all.

  As if reading my mind, Ray shook his head. “On second thought, I better take you back with me where I’ll be able to keep an eye on you.”

  My response dripped with sarcasm. “Yeah, because I’m the one who needs to be watched.”

  The horn to the Suburban began to wail. “Come on, Ray. Hurry it up already!” Kendall yelled out of the back window.

  We kissed goodbye and Ray was off. I watched the tail lights of the Chevy fade away down the street and I couldn’t help but wonder.

  Maybe he doesn’t want me to go back to L.A. with him. Maybe he hasn’t ended things with Lilly after all.

  I blew a loose hair out from in front of my face and slowly started for home.

  Am I ever going to be able to trust this man again?

  It was only 11:30 in the morning and I could feel the sun scorching down on me. I was hot and sweaty and my feet ached. The weatherman had reported on last night’s news forecast that we could expect the temperature to get into the triple digits today. I was willing to bet a hundred dollars that it was already at least 90 degrees out here. I wished I had brought my own truck today. Better yet, I wished I was still in bed. I hated giving in to Ray and subjecting myself to this crap about religion. In fact, it always seemed like I was the one giving in to him. Where was the balance? What did he ever do for me?

  My thoughts were interrupted by the roar of an engine behind me. I turned around and couldn’t believe my eyes.

  It was him. Instantly, I became nervous and keenly aware of the fact I was sweating. And, wearing a dress. At that moment, I had really wished I was wearing something else, like a pair of Nikes to provide me with a quick escape.

  He pulled up next to me in a ‘72 gray primer Firebird.

  “Do you want some candy, little girl?” Adrian mocked.

  “My granny told me never to stop and talk to strangers.” I played along as I looked straight ahead and kept walking.

  He laughed. “It’s pretty hot outside and I bet you could use a ride.”

  I looked into that old bucket of bolts and replied, “Yeah, but it looks even hotter inside that old car.”

  He smiled. “Only because you’d be lucky enough to sit next to me. I give off a lot of heat, you know.”

  He pretended to lick his finger and put it on his arm, making a sizzling sound like he was smoldering.

  That made me laugh.

  He warmly smiled. “All joking aside, I just happened to spot a girl in a pretty dress and I had to meet her—turns out I already have.”

  I kept up my pace as the car crept alongside of me. Trying to hide my embarrassment, I played along with his game. “Was she everything you’d hoped for?” I asked, unable to contain my grin.

  “More,” he concluded.

  I stopped dead in my tracks. The car stopped too, its loud engine rumbling like stomach pains from a large beast.

  What was it was about this guy? How could he make me forget all of my problems and replace them with this airy sensation of happiness?

  “I thought maybe you could give me a tour of that old cemetery in the daylight. I might have missed a few sights last night in the dark.”

  “Don’t you have a girlfriend?” I blurted out, unable to deal with yet another cheater. Ray was enough, I couldn’t handle two.

  Adrian looked down at the floor of his car before responding, “I don’t remember telling you anything about a girlfriend, but I guess I could ask you the same question.”

  I opened the heavy door and got into the car. The seat sat really low to the ground so I had to be careful with my dress as I settled in. Adrian gave the car a little gas and my head flew back, hitting the headrest.

  As we headed down the winding, narrow road towards the cemetery, he looked at me as I explained, “I guess I just assumed you had a girlfriend because you said that you were here for someone. Then you mentioned knowing a girl with a similar necklace like mine and well, I guess I just assumed…” I let my voice fade out.

  “So, what’s your theme song today?” he asked, changing the subject to a lighter tone. “Has it changed within the last twelve hours that we’ve been apart?”

  I smiled at the fact he knew exactly how long it had been since we’d last seen each other. It was kind of romantic to have a guy count down the minutes since our goodnight.

  “Yes.” I smiled. “There’s a new song playing in my head, but I’d rather not say.” I was too shy to reveal the new song that now related to my life was sung as a duet by Ed Sheeran and Taylor Swift. The lyrics revealed that since eighteen hours ago, all she sees is green eyes and blah, blah, blah. That’s exactly how I was feeling. Ever since I met Adrian last night, he was all I could think about. I just wasn’t ready to state this revelation yet, or ever.

  “So, it’s no longer about your boyfriend then?” he prompted, bringing the conversation right back to awkward central.

  I smiled and shook my head. “No. It’s not about him.” I looked up at Adrian, meeting his gaze, hoping if I stared at him long enough he could read my thoughts and it could save me the embarrassment of telling him that all I’ve thought about since last night was him. No such luck.

  “Maybe I’ll tell you another time. Right now, let’s talk about something else,” I suggested.

  “Where were you coming from dressed like that?”

  I inhaled a deep breath and slowly exhaled.

  Boy, was it hot in this car!

  I didn’t know how he could stand it. I was really missing the inside of the church at this point and the cool blow of their air conditioner.

  “Church,” I responded, wiping the perspiration off my forehead. I could see out of the corner of my eyes he was looking at me with that look of indiscretion on his face.

  “What?” I asked, unable to contain myself any longer. “Is it so hard for you to believe that someone like me could attend church on a Sunday?”

  He smiled and shook his head. “No, it’s not. It just kind of struck me as odd, you being religious and all,” he answered, moving his eyes back to the road.

  “Well, Mr. McAllister, your perspective of me seems to be right on the money, but my other half deeply believes in attending God’s good service once a week,” I responded with a tinge of resentment.

  “So you go, even though he’s not here with you?” he asked, showing his distaste for the influence Ray had on me.

  “Let’s just say that last night didn’t end after we parted ways,” I explained. “Ray came home.”

  Adrian didn’t look very happy about my revelation.

  “So you’re not buying that whole religion crap, then,” he prompted, completely ignoring the fact that my boyfriend had come home last night.

  “No,” I began my rant, “church is a complete load of crap. Have you ever heard that saying ‘If you’re scared go to church’? I always think about that quote
when I have to sit through Mass. I think that all of the people in there are giving themselves over to some higher, invisible power because they’re scared. Church is for the weak-minded. Especially Ray. He thinks he can spend Monday through Saturday treating me like crap, breaking all sorts of cardinal sins in the process, and then be forgiven on Sunday. Well, that’s ludicrous because Saturday is when confession takes place and well, since he doesn’t go on Saturday, then he doesn’t receive forgiveness and he shouldn’t be receiving communion on Sunday, but he takes it anyway. It’s just so hypocritical. Plus, I don’t buy into those silly, little bible stories. They don’t make any sense to me.”

  I rambled on, unleashing all of this anger I didn’t even realize I had. I guess in my subconscious I had always felt this way and that’s why I couldn’t go forward with the baptism. There was something about Adrian that made it easier for me to let out my true feelings. I didn’t know him that well, but I felt like I could say anything when he was around.

  “So yeah, to answer your question, Adrian; I don’t buy into religion. I think it’s a load of crap because it teaches you to be satisfied by not understanding the world. For example, if a kid asks their mom how they were created, the mom proceeds to tell them the story of Adam and Eve.”

  I still had that damn story on my mind from that crazy dream I had the night before. Adrian flinched and put his hand to his head, closing his eyes briefly.

  “Hey, are you okay?” I asked.

  He shook his head, as if attempting to shake his jumbled thoughts from his mind. He looked at me and gave me a reassuring smile, “Yeah, I’m fine. Too much whiskey last night, I suppose.”

  He smirked, as if he was revealing our secret rendezvous of the night before. “So you were saying?”

  I continued my blathering. “The story just doesn’t make sense. God created the world in seven days and then made Adam from some dirt and Eve from his rib bone. You can’t just make people from crap like that. It doesn’t make sense. But as a child, we just accept it and keep these foolish stories in the back of our mind because our mommies told us they were true. They’re nothing more than made up stories.”

  He pulled onto the shoulder of the road, parking in the dirt. The old cemetery didn’t have a parking lot. He turned off the car but left the windows rolled down.

  “So then how do you suppose we were created?” he challenged.

  I smiled and carefully thought about the best way to answer his question. Once again, thinking of Ray’s variety of religion, I answered, “Maybe we weren’t. Maybe this life is like what the Buddhists believe; this world is nothing more than an illusion. There is no birth and there is no death. We have manifested into this world because the conditions just happened to be sufficient at the time. When the conditions are no longer sufficient, we will cease to exist.”

  I sat still and feebly attempted to backtrack on my erratic thoughts, “That’s a little too deep. We obviously came from somewhere. I’m just not so quick to give all of the credit to one man that no one’s ever met.”

  Adrian flashed me his perfect smile and said, “Good answer. I like a strong woman who doesn’t give in to everyone else’s way of life.” He leaned over so his face was inches from mine. I think he did this to cause my heart to begin sputtering out of control. I wondered if he could hear it as it pounded against my chest.

  “By the way,” he whispered, “did I tell you how much I like your dress?”

  Take that, Ray!

  He scooted back into his seat just as fast as he had brought his face to mine. I was beginning to see he enjoyed being unpredictable and unreadable. I sat back in the leather seat, crossed my arms, and concentrated on catching my breath.

  I blurted out, “Did I tell you that I’m not supposed to see you anymore?”

  He looked at me, his face full of amusement. “Me…what did I do?”

  “You kept me out too late,” I said matter-of-factly. “It’s not proper to keep a girl out all night long, you know. I told you I shouldn’t have gone back to your house.”

  He shrugged.” It was your choice.”

  “Yeah, now I guess I have to pay the price.”

  A sneaky smile spread across his face. “So what are you doing with me right now then?”

  I matched his smile, my eyes glistening with mischief. “You know how it is. When someone forbids you to do something it makes that object a hundred times more desirable.”

  He looked straight ahead at the road. “Lucky me.”

  Truth be told, I didn’t know what I was doing sitting in this car with Adrian on top of a secluded hill hidden away by the tall eucalyptus trees. I was in unfamiliar territory here lying to Ray and running off with a stranger.

  I thought back to my first meeting with Adrian at the grocery store. I was so overcome by his attractiveness that I could hardly utter a single word to him. Now after spending one night with him I couldn’t refrain from voicing all of my tasteless thoughts.

  Adrian turned and smiled at me. “So you’re not going to obey, are you?”

  “Obey?” I snorted. “What, like I’m a dog and he barked a command at me? Give me a break.”

  “Did you tell him no, then?”

  I shrugged. “I didn’t say anything at all.”

  “So he assumes you agreed to his request.”

  “I don’t know what Ray assumes. You know what they say about people who assume. It makes an ass out of u and me.”

  He laughed. “Hopefully he doesn’t have any of his minions watching you and reporting back.”

  “I don’t care if he does. We’re just friends and he’s not the boss of me.”

  “Remind me again why you were in church today?” he countered, knowing full well that I only went there to appease Ray.

  “A relationship is a two-way street, you know. Remember that? We both do things we may not agree with but we do it to make one another happy.”

  He looked into my eyes. “So what does he do for you?”

  “He came home looking for me last night, didn’t he?”

  “That was only to satisfy his selfish mind. He thought you were cheating on him. He came home to rein you in. He’ll leave again when he feels he’s regained control.”

  I was beginning to believe I was right in my assumption about people from New Jersey. “I hope you didn’t cancel your flight back home yet.”

  “Why do you deal with it all?”

  I took my seatbelt off and just sat there quietly. Adrian never took his eyes off of me as he waited for an answer.

  “I don’t know. The whole thing is crazy, right? To love someone who hurts you so much,” I wistfully responded.

  He reached over and placed his palm on top of mine. It was actually the first time that he’d touched me since our first handshake. I looked up and met his burning gaze. He wrapped his fingers in between mine and brought my hand up to his chin, where he rested it as if in deep thought.

  “No,” he answered insightfully, “it’s crazier to think that someone who hurts you so bad actually loves you.”

  His words stung like a slap to my face. I knew he was just trying to be a friend and help me see clearly but it still angered me. We’d only known each other for about twelve hours and it was his belief he could just come into my life and make judgments about Ray and me? That had not gone over well.

  Chrissy didn’t even talk to me like that and she’s known me since kindergarten. I looked back at him in disbelief, waiting for an apology, but he never offered one. I pulled my hand away from his and opened the car door.

  “Maybe we can check the cemetery out another time. I really don’t feel up to it anymore,” I angrily shouted back as I headed down the road in the direction of home. As I stormed off, feeling the heat of the midday sun, I wished I had worn better walking shoes.

  Chapter Eleven

  Cemetery Drive

  Instead of heading home, I decided to enter the cemetery and cool off a bit. I pulled my headphones out of my purse and plugg
ed them into my phone. Placing the buds in my ears, I turned up the volume as high as it would go and listened to Static X play loudly out of the speakers.

  I glanced down at the temperature on my phone. It read 90 degrees and it was only mid-morning. This kind of weather was bizarre even for California. Here we were in the middle of April and it felt like an Indian summer as the hot sun blazed down on me. The newsman had warned us all winter long about the upcoming drought. We’d hit some kind of record, making this year the driest winter since 1800, or thereabouts. Distancing myself from Adrian’s car, I stepped out onto the street.

  I used to come to this cemetery every day. I had worked it into my running routine, making two stops to rest; the cemetery and the old rickety train trestle located on the other side of town.

  Both places reminded me of my mother.

  I crossed the street and headed toward the black iron gates of the entrance, ignoring the large No Trespassing sign posted on the gate. Now that I was out of Adrian’s sight, I removed the headphones from my ears and threw them back into my purse. I’d rather listen to the sounds of nature than Wayne Static’s Scooby-doo voice pummeling my eardrums. The birds were chirping somewhere in the pine trees and I heard a crow caw in the distance. The cemetery was quite a hike, being built on a steep, unforgiving hill. It was daunting to even the fittest person around. I hiked to the top, taking the decrepit wooden steps that stared up at me with an age that told me they had been built 100 years before.

  Just as I reached the top, I jumped at the sound of a screech. I felt my heart leap out of my chest. Whirling my head around, I was relieved to see that it was the unbridled cacophony of a small boy hiking with his mother on the opposite side of the chain-linked fence. I frowned at both of them for the startling intrusion. I began breathing again.

  The cemetery was located next to a park, and the park had various hiking trails that led throughout the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. It was nothing out of the ordinary to see a family out here hiking, even with a child that badly needed a muzzle.

  Finally making it to the peak of the hill, I took a seat on top of a nearby headstone and gazed down at the distasteful view of yellow weeds and thirsty trees. Their bare branches looked like arms stretching to the skies as they pleaded for rain.