Red Is for Remembrance

by Laurie Faria Stolarz

  She opens her eyes several seconds later and I direct her to fill the pillowcase with the cotton stuffing, still concentrating on her dreams. “Now add in the dream pillow mixture,” I say, handing her the mixing bowl.

  Porsha scoops it all out using her fingers. “Can I add something else?” she asks, opening her night table drawer and pulling out a journal.

  “Like what?” I ask, impressed that she’s taking initiative.

  She flips the journal open to the middle and tears out a page. “Just some of my thoughts—some of the stuff I dream about. I like to write it down sometimes.”

  “A dream journal,” I say, thinking of Jacob. Actually this whole scene reminds me a little of him—of us—doing a spell together.

  “So now what?” Porsha asks.

  “Zip the pillow back up, run it three times through the incense fumes, and repeat after me: ‘May this dream pillow enhance my dreams while I sleep; may the visions be clear and may I hold them so deep.’”

  Porsha repeats the chant, passing the pillow through the smoke.

  “So mote it be,” I whisper.

  “So mote it be,” Porsha repeats. She hugs the pillow into her middle and picks up the healing-receiving crystal, pressing it into her palm. “Do you want to talk about my nightmares now?” she asks.

  “Are you ready?”

  She nods. “I think I am.”

  While Porsha knots her hair back in a rubber band, I grab a notebook and pen to get down to business. She seems a bit more relaxed now after the dream pillow spell. Still clutching the pillow into her middle, she sits on the bed facing me. Lavender incense rises up in long, grayish tendrils from atop her desk.

  “Do you want to tell me about the letter T?” I ask her.

  Porsha rolls up her sleeve, revealing a T burned into her arm the size of a thumbprint. “I did this after I first dreamed about the boy.”

  “What does it mean?”

  She shakes her head. “I think it might be his initial.”

  “His initial?” I repeat, thinking of Tim, telling myself that it can’t be true—the T must stand for something else, something related to Jacob.

  Porsha nods. “I keep dreaming about him in the woods. He’s not alone. There’s some other guy there and he’s angry at the boy. He’s punishing him.”

  “For what?”

  “Knowing too much, I think. It’s like he’s smarter than everybody else—or at least he thinks he is. The guy is showing him that he’s wrong.”

  “How is he punishing him?”

  “They start out just talking, but then it gets heated. The boy is defensive, which makes the other guy blow up.”

  “And what happens?”

  “There’s a fight. I see a gun. And then I see blood,” Porsha whispers. “All I see after that is blood.”

  “Do you know where these woods are . . . or when all of this is supposed to happen?”

  “Here,” she whispers. “Massachusetts. I’ve seen a car in my dreams—a big, clunky one. It has a Cape Cod sticker on the back with a picture of a crab.”

  “The Cape?” My heart jumps.

  “Yeah,” Porsha says, squeezing the crystal I gave her. “Why?”

  “Can you see the boy you’re dreaming about?”

  She nods. “He looks around my age—fifteen or sixteen. He has blond hair . . . sort of longish on the top, and he isn’t very tall.”

  “Are you sure about the age?” I ask, anxiety high in my voice.

  She shrugs. “I think so. Why?”

  My chest tightens. My face feels like it’s sweating. I take a deep breath to calm myself down, but it’s like I can’t get enough air, like my heart has just shattered into a million glass pieces.

  “Stacey, are you okay?”

  Is it possible that she’s wrong about the age? That Jacob dyed his hair blond? That she’s mistaken about his height?

  I bite my bottom lip to keep from screaming out and do my best to nod like everything’s okay, even though it isn’t. Nothing will ever be okay again.

  Because the boy she’s dreaming about isn’t Jacob.

  “Are you okay?” she repeats.

  I clench my teeth, telling myself that it has to be okay, that I have no choice. “Just go on,” I tell her, my voice barely more than a whisper. It suddenly occurs to me as an afterthought that, given Porsha’s description of the boy, it isn’t Tim either.

  “He’s involved in some commune or clan or something,” Porsha continues. “I keep seeing the ocean and a fishing boat . . . and people living in these rustic cabins—no TV, limited electricity, people getting water from a well . . . ”

  I nod some more, trying to focus, trying my best to make sense of it all. Why would she be dreaming about some boy on the Cape—a place where I just spent the worst three months of my life? “When is all of this supposed to happen?”

  Porsha rolls her other sleeve up, where she’s got tomorrow’s date written on her forearm in thick black marker.

  “Do you know the time of day?”

  “Morning, I think.”

  “But you’re not sure?”

  She shakes her head. “It’s dark, but I’m pretty sure it’s early morning because I saw the sun rise up through a webbing of trees. But I almost feel like, by that time—sunrise—it’s too late.”

  “We need to go there,” I say.

  “Where?”

  I shake my head, realizing that it’d be almost pointless to head down to the Cape without doing a little research first. “I need you to get some sleep,” I say, standing up from the bed. “Keep the pillow clutched against you and tell yourself that you’re going to dream, that the dreams will point us in the right direction. Try asking your dream questions.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You’re in charge of what you dream,” I explain, “at least to a point. Remember that.”

  She sighs. “What does that mean?”

  “It means you need to ask your subconscious questions —Why am I here? Who are you? Where am I?”

  “Easy.” She fakes a smile.

  “Not easy,” I correct. “It takes practice, but it’s a useful tool if you want to know more. In the meantime, I’m going online to see if I can find some info on any cultish communities on the Cape.”

  “Let me come with you.”

  “No,” I say. “I need you to have another premonition. Call me as soon as you wake up. We don’t have time to waste.”

  I leave Porsha’s house and bolt over to the library to do a little online research, grateful for the distraction. I spend at least an hour Googling mainly C-words: Cape Cod communities, communes, cults, camps, and crab bumper stickers.

  But instead of pulling me away, it brings me back—seeing all the promotional pictures of beaches and cottages, remembering how happy we all were to rent our own place there last summer. It tears me up, remembering those last few months—Amber and me in the cottage on our own, her trying to convince me to keep on living, but me just wishing that I was dead.

  I take a deep breath and try to refocus, continuing to plug away at my search. I spend an additional half-hour taking all kinds of notes, clicking on links that look even a little promising. In the end, I wind up with evidence of four cultish groups, all with cryptic details about their provincial ways of life, just like Porsha described, but none with any specific details about their whereabouts.

  I let out a sigh and head back to the dorm, suddenly feeling more depressed than ever. Maybe the whole reason that I’m destined to help Porsha is to see that Jacob really is gone—just like my ability to hope.

  When I get back to the room, PJ and Amber are there. They’re sitting on her bed, tangled up in each other’s limbs and making out hardcore—there’s even visible tongue.

&
nbsp; “Hey,” I say, in an effort to be polite.

  But they’re obviously too busy to respond. Several seconds later Amber breaks the liplock, her sunny golden lipstick smeared all over her mouth. “We missed you at dinner,” she says. “Slimy noodles with clear glaze.”

  “Sounds delectable.”

  “Did you meet with Porsha?”

  I nod.

  “How’s it going with her?”

  “Good,” I say. “I think we’re on to something.”

  “Can I help?” she asks, blowing out a lime green Bubble Yum bubble.

  “Or me,” PJ asks, snatching the bubble up with a finger and cramming it into his mouth.

  “Not now,” I say, “but I’ll let you know.”

  Amber stays locked on me for a couple more seconds before PJ tackles her down, stuffing the gum back into her mouth with his tongue. While the happy couple resumes their bubble gum swapping, I lay back on my bed. There’s a part of me that wants to ask Amber for help—to cry on her shoulder and help me figure things out. But I don’t. It’s not that I don’t think she’d drop everything to spend time with me; it’s just that she seems so happy right now and maybe one of us should be. Maybe, when it comes down to it, I need to let Jacob go, once and for all.

  I open my night table drawer and grab his dream journal. In it, he writes about the nightmares he was having—nightmares that predicted his own death. He wanted me to have the journal; the last entry says that if anything happens to him, I’m to get it. He even inscribed it to me—“To Stacey, forever, with love.”

  I run my fingers over the inscription, feeling a tingling sensation pulse through my skin. The phone rings a few seconds later, interrupting me. I snag the receiver, eager for it to be Porsha, with some insightful news about her dreams. Instead it’s Hayden looking for Janie. I take a message and then dial Porsha’s number. Apparently she’s still asleep, but Tamara promises that she’ll have Porsha call me just as soon as she wakes up, regardless of what time it is. I give her Amber’s cell phone number, just in case I decide to go out for some air, assuming Amber’s a little too preoccupied with PJ to mind if I borrow her phone for a while.

  I hang up and glance over at Janie’s side of the room, catching sight of the book she’s got sitting on her bed—The Complete Idiot’s Guide to World Religions, with a bookmark sticking out the middle. It makes me smile slightly. I continue to look around, my gaze wandering to the window and the waxing moon, and then to PJ and Amber going at it on her bed. It’s like life is happening all around me—people are moving on, things are changing—but I’m still in the same place, in the world of the dead, when all I really want to do is feel alive again.

  I fight the urge to turn another page in Jacob’s journal, closing it up instead, and snag the phone to dial Tim’s number.

  “Hey,” he says.

  “Hi.” I clear my throat. “What are you doing?”

  “Just hanging out, watching some movies . . . and you?”

  “Nothing . . . just sitting here.”

  “Sounds exciting,” he jokes.

  I pull at the fringe on my pillow, wondering how to phrase it, how to get the words out without sounding completely desperate. But then I just say it. “Care for a little company?”

  “Sure,” he says, a smile in his voice. “Come on over.”

  “Great.” I smile too. “I’ll be there in a bit.”

  Before leaving the room, I try to tell Amber that I’m borrowing her cell phone, but she’s still too preoccupied with PJ to care. I also end up borrowing a little of her makeup—courage in the form of mascara, lipstick, and blush.

  When I get to Tim’s dorm, I’m anything but confident, wondering if maybe I should turn back before it’s too late. But instead I knock on the door.

  Tim is all smiles when he sees me. “You look great,” he says, inviting me in.

  “Thanks. So do you.” I take a deep breath, trying to swallow down the guilt I feel just being here.

  “I’m glad you called me,” he says, taking my coat.

  “Yeah. Me, too.” I look away and walk past him into the room. He’s got a stack of movies piled high on his desk—mostly science fiction flicks.

  “Can I get you a beer?” he asks.

  I shake my head, but then reconsider, trying to remind myself to relax, that I have every right to be here, and that I can’t keep living in the past. “Sure,” I say.

  “Great.” Tim pulls two cans of Bud from his fridge. He opens mine and then hands it to me.

  “Thanks.” I take a big, long sip and look up at him. He looks perfect—hair disheveled to perfection, a mustard-colored Abercrombie sweatshirt, and khaki pants with just enough wrinkle.

  “So,” he says, “do you want to watch something?”

  I shake my head, since I know I couldn’t possibly concentrate on a movie right now.

  “Are you okay?” he asks. “You seem a bit distracted.”

  “Yeah,” I say, taking another sip and looking around the room. The setup kind of reminds me of Jacob’s dorm room at Hillcrest—bed against the far wall, night table beside it, and faux-wood desk in the far left corner. There are piles of dirty laundry strategically littered about the floor, out of step, and there’s a bunch of posters on the walls—sporting stuff mostly . . . the Red Sox, the Bruins, the Celtics. It’s also apparent that PJ has moved in. There’s a bed in the corner piled high with junk food wrappers and pizza boxes.

  “Hungry?” he asks.

  I shake my head. “I’m sorry. There’s just a lot on my mind, I guess.”

  “Care to unload on me?”

  “You’re so nice,” I say, suddenly feeling even guiltier.

  He nods and smiles again. He smells like fresh musk and grapefruit, like he just stepped out of the shower. “I’ll have to agree,” he jokes.

  “Maybe we could just sit for a while,” I ask, gesturing to his bed.

  “Sure.” Tim arches his eyebrows for just a second, perhaps surprised by the suggestion.

  Before giving myself the chance to overthink it, I take a seat at the foot of his bed, noticing right away how comfortable it feels.

  “So what’s going on with you?” he asks, plopping down just inches away from me.

  I shrug. “What do you mean?”

  “Why are you so nervous?” He nudges me with an elbow. “We’re just hanging out.”

  “I know.”

  “Then what?”

  I avoid the question by looking around the room for some divergence, something to talk about, my gaze finally falling on a pair of PJ’s SpongeBob boxer shorts thrown over a chair. “How are you and your new roommate getting along?”

  “It could be worse,” he says, frowning toward the stack of pizza boxes piled high on PJ’s bed. It appears as though there’s a fuzzy glob of cheese melted to the top of one of the boxes.

  “I guess you did sort of get pressured into letting him stay with you.”

  “It’s not so bad.” Tim shrugs. “I mean, aside from having to stock up on stuff like Lysol and air freshener. He isn’t here that much.”

  “I know.” I sigh.

  “Is that a bad thing?”

  More shrugging. “It’s just that he and Amber have gotten really close all of a sudden.”

  “And you’re not happy about it?”

  “No. I mean, I am happy—for her, for them. It’s just . . . when did all of this happen, you know . . . the two of them back together after all this time?”

  “Are you upset because she didn’t talk to you about it first?”

  I shake my head, knowing that it’s more because I didn’t see their quickie reunion coming. I mean, what’s wrong with me?

  Tim strokes my back, making me feel all jumpy inside. It’s just so weird—having someo
ne else touch me like this, someone who I know has intentions beyond just being a good friend. “Life happens,” he whispers.

  I nod, telling myself that nothing could be truer.

  “Do you want another beer?” he asks.

  I shake my head and force myself to look into his eyes. “I just want to forget.”

  “Forget what?”

  But instead of answering, I lean into him, pressing my lips against his. It takes Tim a moment to digest what I’m doing and kiss me back. The next thing I know, our beer cans hit the floor with a clank and my mouth mashes harder against his, my tongue pushing through his lips.

  “Wait,” he says, pushing me away slightly. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

  But I ignore him, forcing my eyes to close. I straddle him on the bed, going in for more kisses, telling myself to just go with it, to like the way it feels.

  And to forget that I’m not with Jacob.

  Tim glides his hands up and down my back as I work at his shirt, pulling it up over his head.

  “Wait,” Tim repeats, forcing me to stop.

  “What?” I hiss.

  “Slow down. What’s the rush?”

  “Just be quiet,” I whisper.

  Tim allows me to kiss him once more before stopping us again. “We need to slow down. It’s not that I don’t like you, it’s just—”

  “Forget it,” I say, knowing that he’s absolutely right and that I’ve made a huge mistake.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “I don’t what I’m doing.”

  Tim tries to sit up in bed and I move myself off him. “I should go,” I say.

  “You don’t have to.”

  “I do.” I grab my coat and head for the door, feeling increasingly embarrassed by the moment.

  It’s just after nine when I get back to the room. Amber and Janie are out. I sit down at the edge of my bed, trying to mentally get a handle on what an absolute idiot I am. I mean, what was I thinking?