Hidden in Dreams (19 page)

“Nothing about that crowd out there is normal.”

“No, what I mean is, her name was just there on the list. You know, ‘Stay tuned to see Dr. Elena Burroughs live at eleven.’ Like that. But this thing, it’s just exploded in our faces.” The doors opened. He directed them down the side corridor. People emerged and watched them from every doorway. “Makeup is down on your right, Dr. Burroughs.”

“Isn’t Dr. Rawlings appearing with me?”

“I’ve got it down as just you, Dr. Burroughs. But I could go ask.”

“Yes. Do that. Please. And I need a word in private with Dr. Rawlings.”

“Sure thing.” He opened the makeup door and spoke quickly, and a young woman exited the room. “Just let her know when you’re ready.”

The makeup room was narrow and long, with a light-rimmed mirror taking up one entire wall. The waist-high counter was filled with every imaginable cosmetic and brush and hairspray. A stack of broad napkins anchored both ends. Elena slipped onto one white leather stool because her knees felt weak. “They have me going on
live
?”

“It sounded that way.”

“On national television? Jacob, I don’t have anything to say!”

“Be a professional. Tell them the truth. No varnish. Don’t let them bully you into saying anything more than what you’re comfortable—”

“Will you pray with me?”

He stared at himself in the mirror. But Elena was uncertain
what exactly it was he saw. His past, his reputation, his way of life. Whatever it was, she actually saw the change come over him. The intent manner in which he studied his own reflection, and the tightening of his features. “I’m not ready to take that step.”

“I understand,” she said softly. “Maybe somewhere down the line. But I can’t let all of this pressure me into doing something that doesn’t feel right.”

“Jacob, you don’t have to explain. Would you tell them I need another moment, please?”

He realized he was being dismissed. He looked at her through the mirror, and started to say something more. She could sense the conflict behind his eyes. In the end, though, he simply nodded and left the room.

After he had left, Elena remained as she was for an instant, staring at the place where he had been. In her heart, she sensed a door softly closing.

She opened her phone and dialed the number from memory. When Reed Thompson came on the phone, Elena said, “I’m about to go live on CNN. I can’t do this on my own.”

“What can I do?”

“Pray with me.”

His reply was immediate. “Let’s bow our heads.”

•    •    •

As soon as Elena’s makeup was done, she entered the center of a maelstrom.

Because the news was fed live to the cable channel, the entire production unit hummed with a frantic energy. Yet the atmosphere was also extremely professional. There was no shouting, hand waving, or hysterics. What she saw were the glittering faces of people forced to run through every day chopping and slicing their waking moments into tight five-second bursts. And they loved it. The vast production space was filled with young people
who were thrilled with their work. Even when they were extremely worried. Like now.

She was handed from one person to the next. All of them showed her a bright cheerfulness and hurried her along. She heard herself referred to as “the eleven-fifteen.” As in, the time-slot she was slated to fill. They all knew her name; they knew the topic she was to discuss. They all said how glad they were she would make time for them. Elena had the impression they spoke the same words to a hundred different faces every day, and remembered none of them.

“Okay, Dr. Burroughs. I’m going to walk you out and sit you next to Betty. You should address your answers to her. Try not to look at the cameras at all.” The woman was in her thirties, but under the glare of the television lights she had the tight-edged features of someone who had lived hard, pushed harder, and missed her big chance. She still wore her hair with the shellacked perfection of a person born for the camera’s eye. But she had a clipboard and headphones and her ID said
PRODUCTION.
“You will be on for twelve minutes. It’s best to keep your answers short and to the point. Any questions?”

Elena shook her head. She found herself isolated from the energy and the scene, and preferred not to speak.

But the woman took her silence for fear and said, “Everything is going to be good. We’re on your side here, Dr. Burroughs. We just want to get the word out to as large an audience as possible. Okay?”

“Yes,” Elena said, but mostly so the woman would not pester her anymore. Elena was held by a very strong sensation, as though she were shielded from not just these people and their agendas but the energy and the place as well. She moved among them, and yet they did not reach her. Not where it mattered.

If she had to put a name to it, she would have called it peace.

“Okay, here we go.”

Elena was led onto a carpeted dais and up two steps to a curved desk of blond wood. The presenter of the nation’s most watched television business news journal had half risen from her chair in order to see off her last guest. Then she turned and offered Elena the smile that had galvanized a thousand on-air arguments. “Dr. Burroughs, I have so been looking forward to meeting you.”

“Commercials over in ninety,” the producer said, moving away.

“It seems as though the whole world is talking about you and your little group. I thought we might begin with a late-breaking item from one of your dreamers, then allow you to respond. Is that acceptable?”

“Of course.” The wall behind her chair was seamless glass shaded a pale aqua. Behind this were rows of computer terminals and staffers and researchers. All of them wore headphones. The far wall was lined by an LED ticker that streamed a constant flow of stock data. The atmosphere was in direct contrast to the newscaster’s voice. This was part of her persona, the calm at the center of whatever storm happened to be brewing that day.

And today, it was Elena and the dreamers.

But Elena remained utterly removed from the pressure. Calm. Alert. And ready.

The woman must have noticed this. A steely glint entered her gaze. Clearly she enjoyed stripping away her guest’s power or calm or whatever shield they had brought with them to reveal their hidden flaws and weaknesses to the public eye.

“Five seconds.”

“Let’s begin, shall we?” The woman turned to the camera, introduced herself, and then said, “Our next guest has suddenly appeared on the world stage, claiming to represent a cluster of dreamers who can foretell the future. Welcome, Dr. Elena Burroughs.”

“Thank you.”

“Tell me, Elena. Should I sell my shares of GM?”

“I can only describe what you have already heard. The dreams are very specific. To discuss anything further would be both wrong and potentially dangerous.”

“And yet some of your little group are doing just that. Speaking out.”

“They are not on this program. I am.”

“Actually, one of them is.” She turned to the camera and said, “Joining us from France is another dreamer who has quite a different perspective on what is going on here.”

The pudgy face appeared on the feed to Elena’s right. The young man showed a bitterly cynical attitude as he dismissed the dreams as a sham. Just another type of mass hysteria. He finished by declaring, “They tried to shut me up. But I’m not going along with their little charade a moment longer.”

The newscaster turned back to Elena with a satisfied smirk. “Would you care to respond?”

“They are certainly free to form their own opinions. But these dreams do not follow any known pattern of hysteria.”

“Would you explain?”

Elena found herself adopting the precision of a clinician facing a hostile audience. But gone was her former cold shield. It was no longer necessary. Instead, she was calm. Open. “I freely accept that we are in completely open territory. You and your viewers know the contents of what we have dreamed. I can’t tell you anything else. We have shared these images out of concern for the world’s economy.”

“Wouldn’t you say that such huge unknowns make these dreams highly dangerous? I mean, really, Dr. Burroughs. Think of the risk you are suggesting the world’s leaders take, all because—”

“I’m not suggesting they do anything,” Elena replied.

“But you just said—”

“The dreams are what they are. Given the pattern revealed by the Portuguese default, there is evidence to suggest they might hold some value. But that is all I can say.”

“Your attitude is certainly very cavalier. ‘Here’s the answer to the world’s problems. Do what you want.’”

“On the contrary; all we can say is what we have experienced.”

“So you’re telling us we must simply wait for the next deluge of bad news from
beyond
.”

“This is not a game,” Elena replied. “We can’t say whether there will ever be anything more. We are simply reporting on what we have witnessed. Nothing more.”

The newscaster disliked her inability to pierce Elena’s shield, and it showed in how her smile turned brittle and her words took on a new bite. “It would seem to me that you and these other so-called forecasters are on a mad power trip.”

Elena remained utterly untouched. It was, she knew, a living miracle. “You are wrong about this,” she replied. “As you are wrong about everything else.”

•    •    •

After the interview, Elena bade Jacob farewell and returned to the Atlanta airport by taxi. Jacob clearly wanted to take her, but Elena insisted. She felt utterly drained. She did not want to talk or even have any need to think. She closed her eyes to the city’s snarled rush-hour traffic and drifted.

As she waited for her flight to board, Elena cradled her phone in her hands, debating whether to call Reed. She kept telling herself that she should at least thank him. But she was conflicted. And she was uncertain as to when his patience with her needs might run out. Then as she was boarding, the phone buzzed and Reed’s number showed on the readout. She felt a
sudden welling at heart-level and had to swallow hard before managing a hello.

“Are you all right?”

“Sort of. I guess. It’s over, that’s the most important thing.”

“Where are you?”

“Waiting in line to board the flight home.”

“Can I meet you?”

She started to protest. Elena had made a profession of standing on her own, of making do without the help of others. But her need to see him was so strong it broke through all the years of barriers, as if they had never even existed. “I can’t think of anything I would like more.”

The commuter jet was jammed. The plane held some thirty people in narrow seats. She spotted her two guards among those boarding and nodded a greeting. The pair seemed uncertain whether they should even acknowledge her. But she thought it was time to set aside all such casual artifices. Especially from herself.

She emerged from airport security to find Reed waiting as promised. She rushed over, wanting desperately to tell him about her day and so much else.

And suddenly found herself in his arms.

Elena gave herself fully to the embrace. She breathed in the smell of him. She found herself ravenous for the strength in his arms. She kissed him, a brief touch of lips upon lips, and thought she had never tasted anything so fine.

He looked at her then, and murmured, “Welcome home, Elena.”

18

E
lena had not eaten any dinner. The day’s tension had left her without an appetite. But when Reed suggested they stop by his home for a bite, she suddenly found herself famished. Father and daughter refused her offer of help, and ordered her to relax. Elena walked through the home’s front rooms. Large windows faced the circular drive, which was rimmed by lamps in handblown glass. The light through the gauze drapes was a soft gold in color. Elena entered the formal parlor and studied the oil painting on the side wall. She knew it had to be of Reed’s late wife. In the dim light the image glowed and the eyes moved with her. Elena could well understand the questions behind the portrait’s smile. She was asking the same questions herself.

Stacy’s light footsteps sounded from the central hall. “Should I turn on some lights?”

“It’s nice like this.” Elena continued to study the portrait. “You are amazingly like your mother.”

“She’s so much more beautiful than me.”

“I don’t find that at all.”

Stacy gave no indication she had even heard. “When I was little, I used to curl up on a divan they had in their bedroom back in Washington. It was between the bed and Mom’s dressing table. I would sit there with this green turtle I used to carry everywhere. His name was Malcolm. And I’d watch Mom get ready. Dad was often somewhere doing something important. And Mom often joined him for the evening events. She taught European history at the American University. When I was born, she cut back to one class each semester, so she could spend time with me.”

Elena slipped into a high-backed chair by the fireplace. Stacy went on, “Mom kept the baby quilt from my crib on the divan. It was the softest thing I had ever felt. I held that in one hand and Malcolm in the other and watched her get ready. She’d put on her makeup and dress and then bring the jewelry box over so I could help her choose what piece to wear. My favorite was a string of pearls she inherited from her grandmother when she was my age. She told me that every time she put them on. And someday she wanted to give them to my daughter.”