Dream Boy (17 page)

When I tracked him down, Will was driving a bucket of balls at All Starz, Chilton’s finest (and only) mini-golf/driving range/batting cage/bowling alley/arcade establishment.

“Hey you,” I talked to his back. “I didn’t think you played golf.”

He dropped another ball on the tee. “This isn’t golf,” he said without turning around. “It’s anger management.” He swung back and whacked the ball, hard. It flew high and long, just passing the 220-yard mark.

“Why do you need anger management?” Most of the time Will was the mellowest guy I knew. Of course today the back of his T-shirt read “WAR IS NOT THE ANSWER. Unless the question is ‘What is raw spelled backward?’”

His T-shirts were kind of like mood rings. And even though his moods were generally in the meh range, there were slight fluctuations: giddy meh (“Free Shrugs!”); grumpy meh (“Three Things I Hate: T-shirts, Irony, Lists”); annoyed meh (“Dear Math, I’m not your therapist. Solve your own problems.”); annoying meh (“It’s Tuesday!” which he only wore on Wednesdays). And the War T-shirt? Well, maybe I should have expected a little more edge from the offset.

He whacked another ball—230 yards. “I didn’t think I’d see you today,” he said.

“You haven’t seen me yet,” I said. “Check out the toes.”

He turned and I wriggled the blue toenails in my flip-flopped feet—a little cold given the weather, but still.

“You came here to show me your toes?”

“No, I came here,” I started. I came here to what? To tell you that my new boyfriend is a dream? And so is your best friend (besides me, of course). Oh, and I’m pretty sure
you
dreamed my worst enemy, and there’s a possibility that all of us are doomed. How does one say that exactly?

“I came here to beat your ass in mini-golf,” I said.

He grinned this time. “Get a club and help me finish off this bucket, and then we’ll see.”

I didn’t say anything on the first hole. I gave myself a little time just to enjoy the sunlight, the vibrant green turf and the elaborately tacky statuary of the various Greco-Roman gods that adorned the golf course.

But as we approached the fifth hole (Aphrodite, one arm outstretched in a graceful arc, the other cupping an almost bare breast), I bit the bullet.

“You know she kind of looks like Stephanie,” I began, poking my club at the statue.

“Stephanie?” As if he’d never heard of the girl.

“
Gonzales
.” I watched his face carefully, looking for, I don’t know, a flicker of guilt or something.

Will putted and shrugged. “Yeah, maybe. Around the pits.”

“So…” I trailed off.

“So?” he echoed.

“So, what do you think of her?”

“She must get pretty cold come February,” he said.

“Not
her
. Stephanie. What do you think of Stephanie?”

“I don’t.”

“Aren’t you…Don’t you sometimes?”

His eyes narrowed. “What are you talking about?”

“You know, I’d forgotten this, but when she transferred at the start of our sophomore year, you hung out with her some, right?”

“She was new. I helped her find her classrooms.”

“But didn’t we see you guys at the mall?” I’d just started dating Daniel then, and was so hyped up on my own hormones that I’d hardly thought twice about Will and “the new girl.” But now I was thinking about it three times. Four.

“Maybe. What are you getting at?”

“Nothing.”

He looked doubtfully at me over his shoulder and knocked the ball. It banked off the far rim of the green and ricocheted toward the hole, where it rolled to a stop just two inches short.

“Good shot,” I said as he tapped the ball in.

We walked to the next hole, a loop-the-loop guarded by a statue of Hermes on one winged foot. The messenger god. Or maybe the god of florists.

“Listen, will you tell me something?” I asked Will.

“Something.”

“No, I’m serious. Will you not ask any questions, but just answer mine? It’s important.” I knew that asking him not to ask questions was sort of like asking him not to breathe.

“I could try,” he said. “Especially if it means I finally get to find out what is going on with you today.”

“Good.” I sat down on a little concrete bench beside a bush and he sat beside me, close enough that I could feel the heat of his body, a soft steam.

I started. “I want to know—and I know this sounds weird, but no questions—I want to know if you’ve had any dreams lately.”

Will was silent for a moment; then he said, his voice reluctant, tense, “Everybody dreams.”

“Dreams that you remember?”

He nodded.

“And have any of them been, you know, scary?” My voice dropped to a whisper. “Have you had any nightmares?”

He closed his eyes for a half-second, and when he opened them, he looked relieved. “No.”

“You’re sure?”

“I don’t remember any nightmares,” he said.

Living with my dad had taught me that sometimes you could tell more from what a person
wasn’t
saying than from what he
was
saying. I got the feeling Will wasn’t saying something now.

“So what
did
you dream?”

I could tell he wanted to ask me what was going on—deflect my question with another question. But he didn’t. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for me to answer that.”

“Why not?”

“Tell me why you’re asking,” he said.

“I said no questions.”

“That’s not a question. It’s a request.” He kept his eyes on the patch of scrubby ground at our feet.

I put my fingers on his jaw and turned his face toward me. “It’s important, Will. That’s why.”

“Okay.” He took a deep breath. “I guess maybe I had a…” he looked down at the ground again, “just regular, you know, guy dream.”

“Guy dream?” I asked, clueless. “You dreamed about guys?”

He shook his head, “God, Annabelle,
no
. I mean…I can’t believe we’re talking about this. I mean the kind of dreams guys have.”

It took a second before it hit me. “Oh!” I said, too loudly. “You mean THOSE dreams.”

“Yeah, well.”

“Who about?” I shouldn’t have asked, but I wanted to know.

“Why the hell are you asking all this?”

“Were they about Stephanie?”

“Stop it, Annabelle.”

“Talon?”

“Will you stop?”

“Maybe some dream girl who doesn’t even exist?” Doesn’t exist
yet
, I thought
.

Will stood and picked up his club. “Look, do you want to finish this game or what?”

“You’re such a freaking
guy
!” I said, standing up, too, and shoving him a little.

He caught my wrists and held them where they were, pressed against his chest. “You noticed.”

My throat went dry. I could feel the steady throb of his heart under my right palm.

“Well, yeah.” And then it hit me, that voice on the roof under the amazing starlit sky…the voice like home…it had been Will’s. He was the one on that blanket, his legs entwined with some girl’s. The dream I’d slipped into had been Will’s.

I pulled my hands away from his chest, but not before I had felt something else—something inside my own rib cage—clench and then clench again and then, finally, release.

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll play, but first, one more question—and this one you have to answer.” I looked up into his eyes. “Last year, did you or did you not dream up Stephanie Gonzales?”

He didn’t answer at first. He just looked back at me. I could see the cogs in his mind fit it all into place. “I knew it,” he said finally. “He’s one of them, too.”

Part of me was glad that Will knew about Martin—knew and believed, so I didn’t have to suffer through one of those
Yes-I-sound-crazy-but-before-you-call-for-a-straitjacket-just-hear-me-out
moments. The other part of me was pissed as hell that he’d had the same secret, only he hadn’t shared it. What was he afraid of? That I wouldn’t believe him?

Okay, granted, I hadn’t believed Martin when he’d told me that Will had dreamed up Stephanie, and that was after I’d already knew such things were possible. Still.

“How come you never told me?” I asked.

“Putt.”

I hit the ball without looking at it.

“How come?”

A birthday party of six-year-olds had come onto the course and suddenly a dozen kids were running from hole to hole. “Look! It loops!” “You can’t be purple! I’m purple!” And (pointing at the statue of Poseidon), “Why isn’t that dude wearing clothes?”

I scanned the crowd. No blond-haired, white-eyed girl in a dress. There were no nightmares in mini-golf. At least not today.

Will went over to the hole, pulled his ball out of the cup, and pocketed it. He put his club over his shoulder and walked off the course to a little gazebo with a picnic table. I grabbed my ball and followed.

“There wasn’t much to tell,” he said. “I didn’t know what was going on at first and when I tried to talk to Stephanie about it, she denied everything. There wasn’t anything scientific about it. I must have done a million Internet searches. Psychic dreams and brain waves and hypnosis and mind control. Nothing made sense except maybe déjà vu. And Stephanie acted like I was nuts whenever I tried to bring it up. I thought maybe I
was
nuts. Besides, there are some things you just don’t want to talk about. To think I unleashed Stephanie Gonzales on the world? It’s nothing to be proud of.”

“I thought you could tell me anything.”

“You were busy with Daniel.” He turned and watched one of the six-year-olds turn his putter into a bazooka. Pow-pow-pow-pow-pow. “I think he got us,” Will said, reaching for his putter again.

“Don’t shoot back,” I told him, and he dropped it. “Macy White is one, too. Did you know?” I thought I’d try her before I broke the news about Paolo.

He waited a second, thinking. “I do now.”

“So why couldn’t you tell me about Stephanie afterward? You know, when Daniel dumped me for his dream?” There. I’d said it.

“A. I didn’t know Macy was a dream, and B. I couldn’t tell you anything after that. I tried.”

“Not hard enough,” I said, though I knew I was being unfair. After Daniel dumped me, I was a black hole of self-pity. Whatever came near just got sucked in and converted into my own toxic matter. Will could have said, “By the way, Stephanie Gonzales? I created her, you know,” and all I would have thought was, “Life sucks, nobody loves me.”

“So Paolo,” I began.

“I know,” he said.

“You
do
? How long have you known?”

“Day one,” Will said. “Though I didn’t really know for sure. I just knew I got along with him better than anyone else in this town, present company excepted. That’s not exactly the reality I was used to, was it? I asked a lot of questions and some of his answers were from left field. It wasn’t too hard to figure out, especially after Stephanie. But I needed—I needed a friend. I wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth.” He rolled his green golf ball down a ridge in the picnic table and watched it plop to the ground. “That phrase dates back to the fifteen hundreds, by the way.”

“Thanks for the history lesson.”

“Who dreamed him? You seem to have all of the inside information.”

“Serena.” I still hadn’t been able to reach her.

“Now that I didn’t predict. Anyone else we know on your dream list? Ernshaw? Akiko?”

“Masterson,” I said.

“That sounds about right.” He looked at me sideways. “What if I told you I was one of them?”

“I’ve known you forever.”

“I’m just saying
what
if
,” he said.

“You’re not even funny, Will.” My eyes searched his eyes, which were wide open. My voice turned pleading. “You’re not…”

There was enough not right with my world. I didn’t need that.

He dropped the banter then. “What’s going on, Annabelle?”

“You don’t want to know,” I said.

“You know that’s not true.” He stood up and balanced the putter on his palm, and waited.

I took a breath and spilled. “That nightmare I told you about? There’s a girl in it. It’s like she’s been following me. Martin thinks she wants to become real, the way dreams become real. She might already be. He thinks,” I took a deep breath, “he thinks she’s going to come for me.” It sounded like a line from a movie, the kind I was never going to watch again.

The putter fell to the ground and Will left it there.

He took a step toward me. His hazel eyes looked green now, and intense. “Tell me you’re joking.”

“Do I look like I’m joking?”

He cupped my face with his hand. “You look, you look…” and his words fell away. He lowered his head just a bit. We were so close, there was hardly a breath between us. Standing there, I could ignore the birthday party kids. I could ignore the chill that, in the shade, had turned my bare toes to cubes of ice. I could even ignore the incomprehensible urge I felt just then to stretch myself up on those toes a tiny bit more so that I could touch his lips, just to see what they felt like against mine.

But I couldn’t ignore what was coming.

Will left me for a total of seventeen minutes, which was all the time it took him to get ready for homecoming. Then he followed me to my house so I could change. When I came downstairs, he was sitting on the floor, eating a peanut butter sandwich and getting rug lint all over his pants while he played Mega-Minotaur with Nick.

“Don’t you have to pick up Talon?” I asked.

“She’s meeting us here.”

“Did you get her a corsage?” I said. “Because if you didn’t you still have time.”

“On the table.” It was next to his camera. An orchid.

Martin got to my house before Talon did.

“Are you okay?” he asked, leaning down to kiss my cheek.

I gave him a watery smile.

“You look like a dream.”

I wasn’t sure about his word choice, but I did a little twirl in my frothy pink dress.

“If you dream about cupcakes,” Will muttered in a low enough voice that I probably shouldn’t have been able to hear it. I looked over, hurt, until I saw his eyes. And then I wanted to laugh, too.

“And Will,” Martin said in a flat voice. “You’re here.”

“Yep,” Will said. “I suppose you want me to turn her over to you now?”

“Please,” Martin said. He’d somehow found a tie that perfectly matched his eyes and I wondered how he did that—acquired an entire, eye-matching wardrobe.

“Hey,” I lowered my voice so Nick wouldn’t hear. “You find anything out in town?”

“Not much. The only one who really remembers her is Esther Finch, but she couldn’t tell me anything we don’t already know. Powerful. Creepy. Acts helpless but isn’t. At least they’re all on the lookout; they’ll call if they see her.”

The door opened again and Talon made her grand entrance. She was wearing her black dress. Her dark hair was slicked down and she had a little spit curl on either side of her face. She looked amazing. Not at all like a cupcake.

“Wow,” Will said, and I felt a stab of, not jealousy, but something.

“Wow yourself,” she said.

She had a big black purse slung over her arm. It wiggled, and a wet nose poked out of the top of it.

“Spice?” I said.

“You don’t think I’m going to leave her alone, do you?” Talon looked at Martin and Will in a way that said we all knew what was going on now. “Besides, maybe Spice can help sniff out your psycho nightmare girl.”

I wasn’t so sure about Spice’s hunting abilities, but all I said was: “I don’t think they’ll let a dog into the dance.”

“Duh,” she said. “That’s why I have the purse.”

Will laughed, and picked up his camera, his hand almost steady. “Say bones!”

Spice barked when the flash went off.

Mom came in from the kitchen. “Oh, pictures!” She ran upstairs and came back with her own camera. Then she lined us up: first all four of us; then Martin and me; then Talon and Will; then Talon and me; then Nick and me; and then Martin, Will, and for some reason Nick, again. Spice, of course, was in all the pictures.

With everyone there, my mom looked almost happy, or at least like she was determined to be happy. But she had dark circles under her eyes that matched mine and she was still wearing the sweats she’d slept in. When Will picked up his camera and insisted on getting a shot of me and her together, she plucked Spice up with one hand, gripped me around the waist with the other, and gave an enthusiastic grin. It was pretty convincing, but it didn’t fool me. Apparently it didn’t fool Will, either.

He drew me aside a minute later when Mom was taking a portrait of Talon and Spice. “Your mom doesn’t know, does she?” he whispered.

I shook my head. “She’s still upset about my dad, I think.”

“Oh, good,” he said, and then quickly added. “Not
good
. But better than her worrying about the other stuff.”

“Do you think she’d let me out of this house if she had any idea about the other stuff?”

“Good point. Are you sure you need to go to this thing at all? I’d stay here with you.”

“Martin says—”

“Martin can say what he wants. I want you safe.”

“There is no safe for me, Will. Not while she’s around. She’ll be at homecoming, I’m pretty sure of it. I need to be there, too.”

“But—”

Martin came up behind us and touched me on the shoulder. “We’d better get going.”

My mother took one more picture of the entire group and I hoped it wasn’t the last picture she’d ever take of me. The one they’d use for my Missing poster. But the fact that I could be forever known as the girl in the fluffy pink dress was the least of my worries. I hugged her good-bye, and she looked pleased. “I love you, Mom,” I whispered. Then I walked over to Nick.

“You’re not going to hug me, are you?” he asked.

“Of course not.” I leaned over and gave him a quick peck.

“Hey!” he said, wiping his cheek.

“Later,” I said.

“Later, Fluke Fish,” Will called to Nick.

“Nematode,” Nick called.

Martin held the door open and the rest of us walked through it: me, then Talon, and then Will. Martin was a gentleman; he didn’t let it slam on Will’s foot.

“So,” Talon asked, shoving her cell phone in her purse, “do we take one car or two?”

“One,” Will said, at the same time Martin said, “Two.”

“We may need to split up,” Martin said reasonably. I hoped he meant “split up” as in divide and conquer and not “split up” as in dump me.

“Right, chief,” Will said. And it felt like that—like we were playing a game of cops and robbers. The dream police. No, not dream: nightmare.

Will held the car door open for Talon, and she and Spice slid into the passenger side. Talon gave me the thumbs-up sign and I gave her one back, even though I didn’t mean it.

A few weeks ago, I’d actually sort of wanted to go to homecoming, and then when Martin asked me I’d really wanted to go. Only now I wasn’t sure if I was going to be dancing with my boyfriend or with a milk-eyed nightmare. And I didn’t know if, after the DJ played the last tune, I’d make it home.