Another of my dreams...
I grew up with two boys from my small hometown, specifically Drake and Josh from the ridiculous Nickelodeon show. However, they were my best friends and not the stars of a sitcom, and summers passed in a blur with them. We had hundreds of adventures as kids, traveling to all parts of the globe with our vast imagination. I never had feelings past friendship for Josh, not as a child at least. It wasn't until years later, when they both returned home from college and we all sat on the beach by the blue ocean that I realized I was in love with him.
I wasn't sure if he felt the same and so we tiptoed around the subject, both unwilling to ruin what might otherwise stay a perfect friendship. He had changed so much from the husky boy he used to be. He was taller now, lean, with muscles flowing in places I daren't look for fear of giving myself away, that he might see the way my gaze lingered on the olive tone of his broad jawline or the ripe fullness of his beautiful mouth. I barely knew him anymore, and yet, I knew him better than I knew myself, and the irony of that did not escape me. We had been together since the days when pretenses were not to be bothered with, when one's word was as good as a written contract, and I wondered at the silent attraction that I was sure hovered between us, ached that we had lost the ability to telecommunicate.
The day came when I realized my grandmother was sick and I watched the agony on her face as she tried to get up from her chair, the twist of her hips too excruciating to bear. She lived in her wheelchair now, and the days of homemade chocolate chip cookies and sweet tea had come to a close. I sat with Drake and Josh in our old treehouse and they talked to me until the dam of tears broke and I cried a thousand tears for the pain in my grandmother's eyes. I never wanted her to be like that. She was too good to suffer such a fate.
Before I realized what was happening, Josh placed his hand on mine and the treehouse suddenly vanished, replaced by the whiz of rushing scenery. I knew somehow that he was taking me through our childhood memories, the ones he had stored with precious care in the deepest part of his mind, kept there for a day when he might need them most. I saw the past and the future, kings and courtesans, and test flew the first airplane with Wilbur and Orville. We swam with the dolphins and slept in a rainforest and sailed with Christopher Columbus to the Americas. Josh's hand felt perfect in mine and I never wanted the journey to stop. The flow of pictures slowed and stopped until we stood together in front of the great Sphinx, our bare feet in the warm sand of Egypt, the pyramids looming in the distance as the setting sun cast fire on the dust.
I knew this was it. He was going to make love to me here, all alone, just me and him and the ghosts of the ancient gods and I had never wanted anything more in my entire life. I loved him so much that I hardly had room to breathe and I almost wanted to make the feeling stop, so covered in peace that I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. He kissed me when the night shrouded us and then the sun rose the next morning as his sandy fingers traced circles on my bare hip.
I wanted to tell the world how happy I was, but when I was ushered back into reality, no one seemed to care that my world was now paradise. Mother and father merely shook his hand and I wondered why they pretended not to know the boy who spent summers on their backporch until I realized that he was Tyler Cole, a flight attendant and intensely attractive man, but not the love of my life. I tried not to panic, assuring myself that I would find Josh again and went about introducing Tyler in as normal a fashion as possible, as if my entire world hadn't been turned upside down. He loved me, I knew, and I felt guilty that I only half-heartedly returned his affections. His arms felt wrong somehow, too strong. When his adept fingers kneaded the knots in my shoulders, I tried to ignore the pulsing in my blood, sure that my attraction was merely displaced because I couldn't find Josh.
Jessica LaRegina sat at the kitchen table when she met Tyler, scowling her disapproval as continued to sketch Marie Antoinette's slippers on sheets of white paper.
Suddenly Josh and Tyler and Jessica disappeared and I lived in New York City. I took the subway to work every morning where I worked as a writer for a magazine. As I meandered through the near-empty station, I began humming a tune that seemed to come from inside me, a song I didn't actually know but made up as I went along. There were no words, but the pristine tone of my voice echoed off the walls and I suddenly turned to see a group of people following in my footsteps, humming a back up harmony for the original melody that was escaping my lips of its own accord.
I smiled at the scene, somehow aware that I was dreaming because a morning like this was impossible. When I came out of the subway, there was a man waiting for me, a middle-aged black man dressed in a fedora and a theadbare suit, all varying shades of brown.
"You're good, you know," he said to me.
I was surprised, not sure what he was talking about.
"Back there in the subway. I heard you singing. I'm the owner of Phelini's and I'm directing a musical, an off-Broadway production, and I want you to try out. I haven't heard a voice as clear as yours in a very, very long time . Come see me - my store is at the corner of 9th and Broadway."
I was shocked and unsure I was actually awake as I thanked him and hurried to find Christina. She waited for me at our usual bench, the one where we caught the last bus into work. I tried to tell her about it, still confused as to how it had actually happened, and I asked what Phelini's was.
"Oh my goodness, only the biggest music store in NYC!! You're so lucky - don't test fate. You MUST try out!!"
Then Mr. Phelini was in front of us as he handed us each a red business card, and I remembered worrying that he was going to get hit by the purple bus if he didn't get out of the street.
He heard me gush to Christina about our future as Tony-winning Broadway stars, and the last thing I heard was the linger of his jovial laughter as he got behind the wheel of our bus and began to drive away.
I wondered if he had tricked us.
And then I woke up.
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