Dreams

“And what is so important about this particular party?” Brenna asked on the way home, “I mean I'm just getting over my hangover now and you want me to possibly get another one?”
“I don't know,” I said slowly, “And you don't have to get a hangover, you know.”

“Then what, Sara, is the point of going to this party.”

To see Conrad, I thought. I shrugged, “Just thought it'd be fun.”

She sighed and pulled a new pack of cigarettes out of her purse. “Want a smoke?”
“No,” I said, “And when did you start smoking.”

We pulled up to a red light and she tapped one of the box, lighting it with a match before blowing it out and throwing it out the window. “I don't know. Ben gave me this last night and I tried it during lunch today. Not bad stuff.”

“Did you ever pay attention to anything in health class,” I asked.

She smiled and punched my arm playfully, “Oh calm down, you're acting like I'm killing myself.”

“Keep smoking and you will.”

“Sara, when did you become such a mother hen?”

“I'm just trying to help you, Brenna. Smoking isn't good for you.”

“As well as getting drunk at clubs with guys you barely know, right? Or falling for someone you met yesterday right?”

I rolled my eyes, “I'm just saying, quit while you're ahead.”

We pulled into her driveway, “Well, I will if I wanna,” she said, stepping out of the car and extinguishing the bud with her foot before tossing it in the grass. “But now I gotta go get ready for a date with Ben, so I'll see you later alright?”

She looked at me, hoping I wasn't mad at her for smoking as well as her attitude. I forced a smile because I knew that was what she wanted to see before stepping out of the car myself and closing my door with a solid thud. “Sure, have fun!”

Brenna came around the car and gave me a quick hug before saying thanks and running up the porch steps into her house. I sighed, starting toward my house kicking little pebbles with my flip-flips and thinking about Dartmouth. With another day almost gone, I was one day closer to leaving the place I grew up in.

I sat on the porch swing and kicked my legs back and forth methodically. I listened to hinges squeaking and the chirp of nearby birds all around me. A lawn mower roared somewhere nearby and I watched the sun leave a fiery red trail along the perfect blue sky as it began to disappear behind the horizon.

“Hi honey,” my mom said as she passed by me, “I didn't even hear you come home.”
I smiled slightly and turned toward her, “I just wanted to relax a little bit. It's been a long day.”
She sat next to me on the swinging bench and put an arm around my shoulders, “Did you talk to Chad today?”

I rolled my eyes and shook my head, “No, I don't even like him that much.”

“Well it appears that he likes you quite a bit.”

“I know, but honestly I cannot stand that kid.”

“Why? He looks like the type you went out with in high school...”

“That was sophomore year, Mom, and let's just say I learned my lesson and raised my standards a bit since then.”

She laughed and squeezed my shoulder, “So who's the other boy?”

I looked at her, surprised, as an image of Conrad appeared in my head. “What?”

“Oh please, Sara. I can tell in your eyes you're falling for someone else.”

I shook my head and laughed nervously, “I don't know what you're talking about, Mom.”

“Oh, look at that, your pupils are dilated. You know what that means don't you? That means you are lying.” My mother smiled, proud of herself that she had cracked my 'code', as she likes to call it.

“No one,” I muttered.

“Ah well you'll tell me later, when you are ready.”

“Don't I always?” I asked with a laugh.

She patted my leg as the oven alarm went off, “Well that's dinner calling me. Could you water the plants out front? They're getting so dry in this weather.”

I nodded as she stood up and went inside, the screen door slamming behind her. Squirrels ran past me as I made my way down the porch steps. The knob of the hose squeaked as I turned it and with a spatter of water, it began to spray the dry flowers. Almost instantly they sprang back to life, gaining color and stature. I smiled and whistled to myself, letting the first true feeling of summer wash over me.

Then it was ruined as a blue Ford Escape drove by, music blaring out the opened windows. I swallowed down the lump that had risen in my throat, and watched as Brenna slammed her front door shut and ran toward Ben.

She was already laughing at something he said but frowned slightly when he beeped the horn and motioned me to come over. I put up a finger, telling him to wait a second, and I turned the hose off before walking slowly toward where his car was parked on the road. When I reached his open window, Brenna was saying something how I was an “environmentalist” and that I “did my part in saving the world whenever I could.”
I just listened as one of my eyebrows rose.

“Sara, Chad wanted me to give this to you.” He handed over a folded piece of paper and I sighed. What was with all the notes today?

“Thanks,” I muttered, “Have a good night.”

Brenna smiled at me excitedly and I fake-smiled back knowing she was too absorbed in Ben's swishy brown hair and nice car to notice it wasn't real. “I'll call you later!” She yelled out the window as the Ford began driving away. I waved and watched the tail lights glow red as Ben screeched to a stop at the end of the road; and as he turned left to leave the neighborhood, I glanced up to the tie-dyed colored sky and wondered, just wondered, what it would be like to leave and never look back.

I finished watering the plants and looked at the note Ben had given me. Although I wondered what it said, I folded it into a square and slipped it in my back pocket to be looked at later.
When I stepped inside my house, the smell of french fries and steak hung in the humid air. My stomach growled and I washed my hands in the bathroom off of the kitchen while listening to my mother hum a song I've never heard and a crowd cheering on the TV in the other room.

“Was somebody outside? Those kids always play their music so darn loud.”

“Yeah,” I answered, making my way toward the dinner table, “Ben was picking Brenna up.”
My mother nodded and bit her lip which she did whenever she wanted to ask something. “Did I, um, see Brenna smoking today?”

I looked at my mother and composed my best lying face, “Nope.”

She scrutinized my expression for a moment before shrugging and saying, “I was at the mall today and I swore I saw her smoking. Must have been a mistake.”

I nodded slowly, “Must have.”

“Dinner's ready honey!” My mother yelled into the den and my father came in, already licking his lips. “Hey kiddo,” he said to me, taking his usual seat in front of the patio door, “How was your first day of work?”

I shrugged and drew circles on the table with my finger, “Pretty good. I need the money and it's easy work, I guess.”

“Easy work?” My father said, a smirk already playing at the tips of his lips. “We need to find a new job for this girl then,” he said and my mother smiled, putting the french fries into a bowl.
“I'm sure she's just sugar-coating it,” she replied, “How easy can work be?”

“Easy,” I answered, “All I do it ring people up and check the supplies in the back room. Can't get much harder. Or easier for that matter.”

My dad shook his head, already snatching a fry out the bowl before my mother had even put it on the table. She slapped his hand lightly and said, “Wait for everyone to sit down, Greg.”
I smiled slightly. I always imagined my parents as those couples in movies, who enjoy each others presence all day, every day and barely fight. Throughout my eighteen years, we had been a pretty happy family and I loved how strong it could be, how I could always depend on my mom's advice whenever I needed help or my dad's dry sense of humor that always made you laugh.

After everything was on the table and we said grace, my father went straight for the french fries and I rolled my eyes. Of course.

We ate for a few minutes in silence, just filling our empty bellies, when my mother asked, “Did you pay the credit card bill?”

My father looked up from his plate and swallowed what he was chewing before he asked, “Which one?”

“The Visa.”

His eyebrows merged and he replied, “No, I thought you were.”

My mother sighed, “School's been out of session for a while now, I received my last big check last month. You know I can't pay that right now.”

“You should have been able to, I just made a deposit the other day.”

“Yes, and I spent part of that buying a new shower bar and curtain because it broke, remember?”

My father put down his fork, “Mary, I told you we had another one in the attic.”
“Like I can find anything in that mess!”

“And that's why why we were going to organize it this summer.”

“Like I'll hold my breath for that to come true.”

“Maybe I could get it done if you stopped picking other projects to do first – like the bedroom, or the patio or –.”

My mother put her napkin down on the table and narrowed her eyes, “So suddenly this is my fault when I thought you were going to pay the bill!”

“Mom...dad...” I said, looking back and forth between them.

“What?” My parents said together and I suddenly was extremely focused on the ficus plant outside the patio door.

“I was just going to say that I'm going to my room.”

My mother nodded and turned back to dad, “I thought we decided last year that from June on, you would have to pay most of the bills because I didn't have any income.”

“Well you seem to have thought wrong because I don't remember this agreement.”
I climbed the stairs slowly and thought about how all parents fought – it's what they do – but somehow this didn't seem to comfort me.

By the time I reached my bedroom door, all I heard was the sounds of plates crashing in the sink and the patter of water running against them. A door slammed shut, probably my father's study, and I slipped into my room without making a sound – afraid it might somehow disrupt the balance in my home even more.

I sat on the window seat in my bedroom and thought for a bit about happy families. Were any families happy forever? I strongly doubted it and I looked past my window pane into Brenna's room which was directly across from mine. Of course she wasn't there so it was mostly dark except for the dull, gray light of dusk streaming in. Her bed and bureau were dark splotches, and it only made me wish harder that Brenna would walk right in her bedroom door, turn on her nightstand light and write a note saying something that would make me laugh and forget the fight that had just occurred in my perfect, happy family.

**

There was a patter on my window and I stirred in my bed. When I didn't hear it again and I started to drift back off to sleep when I heard, “Sara! Get your butt out here!”

I groaned and slid off of my bed and opened my window. Brenna stood beneath it, hands on her hips and looking up at me. “What are you doing?” I said, “It's 2 o'clock in the morning!”
“Come out on your porch, I need to talk to you!”

“Can't it wait –?”

“No. Now get out here before Mrs. Bergerson yells at us...again.”

Mrs. Bergerson was the grumpy, old lady who lives across from us. Her husband had passed away some years back, so now her cat Snuggles was her only company. She yells at anyone who made any noise past 9 o'clock at night and 7 in the morning, and Brenna and I had gotten in trouble with her a few too many times. Nowadays we have learned that any middle of the night rendezvous are to be done in absolute silence.

“Just a second,” I muttered and she smiled as I pushed myself away from the window and began tip-toeing out of my room. Passing my parents' door, I could hear them both breathing lightly, methodically and once I reached the stairs, I sprinted down them and out the door.
Brenna was sitting on the front steps and I took a spot next to her, leaning back on my elbows. “So how was your date?”

She beamed at me and stood up, spinning around in tiny circles. It was very humid, the type that you can feel the moisture on your skin and makes the air you breathe ten times heavier. Frogs croaked, but the sleeping neighborhood was completely silent – besides us of course.

“Oh, Sara. It was amazing. I think I'm in love with that kid. Ben, I mean.” She glanced up at the full moon and sighed, “He took me to an Italian restaurant – you know how much I love Italian – and it was the best food I've ever eaten, I swear.”

I smiled. I couldn't even remember a time when she was this thrilled about a date. “And then...?” I nudged her and Brenna swayed back and forth on her toes.”

“And then we went to a lake by his house, and it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. The sun was setting and the sky was every color you could imagine...and then we watched the moon rise – so large and silver in the sky. I said it was simply breath-taking and he was looking at me when he said, 'I know' and he kissed me!” She beamed and leaned her head up to the sky again, as if the stars and moon were witness to this magnificent event. “And now,” Brenna continued, “I can't stop looking at the moon – it's kind of proof all of this happened, you know? It's kind of like, they had all seen it happen and it's like he's with me even when he isn't. Do you understand what I'm saying?”

I shook my head and said, “I've never really ever understood love.”
“So is that it?” She asked, “I'm really in love?”

I took another look at her upturned face at the sky and watched the silver of the moon envelop her hopeful expression. Her eyes gleamed and the smile still had not worn off of her lips. I stood up beside her and turned my face toward the sky myself and searched for what she saw in the stars. With both of our heads turned upwards and the moon covering every square inch of our world in it's silver varnish, I answered, “Yes,” partly because I knew that's what she wanted to hear and partly because it might be true.

And then she took my hand, squeezed it, and whispered, “I knew it.”