Blue Is for Nightmares (2 page)

But I pretend not to hear, burying my nose into the capital
G
inked in my palm, thinking how my spell didn't work. I love Drea like a sister, but I don't want to dream about her anymore. Don't want to know the future before it happens.

Don't want to relive what happened three years ago.

I peek up at the watercolor picture on the wall. Me and Maura, the little girl I used to baby-sit, sitting together on a wooden porch swing.

"What do you think?" Drea asks, referring to the window, her patchwork. She's covered the hole completely by clipping Chad's hockey jersey across the width of both curtains, his number zero staring down at me like some subliminal message.

I give her the okay sign.

"Hopefully that will keep the cold out, but I'd bundle up for tonight. Who knows, maybe I'll give Chad a call. He could keep me warm." She raises her eyebrows and smiles.

I wonder if she knows how I feel about him, if she just drops these little bombs to drive me crazy.

"Tell you what," she says, "you clean up the glass and I'll charge the repairs tomorrow. I'm sure we can get someone in to replace it. Especially if we complain to security" She grabs her purse and begins combing through its contents. It's a designer brand, bought in Florence during her summer vacation--two-tone brown with tiny capital Fs printed all over the surface. She pulls out a matching F-printed wallet and slides a couple of dollars between her fingers. "I'm going down to the lobby to stock up on Diet Cokes. Wanna come?"

"No, thanks. I'll stay and clean up the glass."

She shrugs and turns on her platform heels. I watch her leave before creeping out of bed. The cotton fabric of my sweatpants clings between and at the back of my thighs in a warm and sopping wedge. The bed sheets, as well, are drenched, a bitter scent rising up from the puddle in the center. As icky as this whole scene is, I'm becoming more and more accustomed to it, the way I imagine mothers become accustomed to changing dirty diapers. Still, I have never had this problem before, even as a child. And what makes it worse is that I can't bear telling anyone, not even Drea.

I scurry through my disarrayed dresser drawers in search of another pair of blue sweatpants. I pull out a pair of dark jeans, a black sweatshirt, two pairs of corduroys, and a wool sweater before finally finding a pair. Only they're gray. Hopefully Drea won't notice.

I peel the sweatpants down my legs and kick them under my bed. The reflection of myself in the full-length mirror at the back of the door startles me--blanched skin dotted with eyes, nose, and mouth. A bit more blemished than my usual clear complexion. Brown eyes with red, wiry veins running through. Hair that hangs in dark clumps around my shoulders; hair that used to have body and luster, and be the envy of all my friends.

I turn sideways and my gaze travels down my body, noting my smallish waist--and the butt that's started to bubble out. Legs, nowhere near as shapely as they were this summer in my blue cut-off shorts. I wonder how long it's been since I looked in the mirror, when all these changes happened.

But I already know. I felt and looked so much better before I came back to school, before I started having these nightmares.

I wipe up my legs as best I can with a damp facecloth, yank on the pair of gray sweatpants, and glance over at the shoe rack in the corner of the room. Staring up from it is the pair of yellow sneakers I'm wearing in my nightmare. Each shoe has a thick, wooden bead threaded through the bottom lace. And embedded on the bead is the insignia for neutrality, two halves of the moon joined together by a line. They're my favorite sneakers, but I haven't worn them since the beginning of the year--because of my nightmares.

I slide open my night table drawer and pluck out a musk- scented incense cone and a bottle of lavender. The cone is

about as tall as my thumb and carries a boylike scent when burned. I spill a few droplets of the oil onto my finger before wetting around the circumference of the cone. The combined scents are just enough to cover up the eau de toilette I've been creating since the beginning of school, and luckily Madame Discharge doesn't complain.

I know I need to hurry. Drea will be back any minute. I squat down beside my bed and grab a handful of plastic shopping bags. I've been making a habit out of taking a couple extra from the grocery store each time I go; now I have a whole stash.

I rip the soiled sheets from the bed, revealing the plastic bags I've placed underneath as a lining to protect the mattress. They're wet. I roll them up as best I can, stuff them under my night table, and then scurry to lay a few fresh ones down. The clean fitted sheet is a bit more difficult. I wrestle the first corner on, manage the opposite corner, try for the third, but then the first corner snaps back.

-Have another accident?" Drea is standing at the door, her arms full of Diet Cokes and chocolate bars from the lobby machines. "I hate it when that happens." She nods toward the bed sheets and I feel my face freeze.

-The hardest part is getting out the blood," she continues. "Usually I just send them to the cleaners. Is that why you changed?"

I nod.

-Ode to the joys of being a woman."

Relief
She doesn't know.

While Drea arranges her newly acquired lobby treats in an already crammed mini-fridge, I kick the soiled bedsheets

underneath my bed and finish muzzling the clean one over all four corners of the mattress.

"Decided to burn some incense, I smell," she says. "You've been burning a lot of that stuff lately"

I ignore the comment and walk barefoot over to the broken glass. I begin sweeping it up using a brush that hasn't touched my hair in days and my math notebook, feeling a tinge of self-pride that I'm finally putting both to good use.

I walk the clump over to the wastebasket, but then stop, mid-dump. I snatch my eyes shut.

Clench my teeth together. Hear a catlike cry whine out my throat. The sting shoots up my leg, up my spine, and forks into my shoulders and neck.

I missed a piece of glass. I lift my foot and turn it upward to look. The diamond-shaped chunk is still sticking out.

"I'll call the health center," Drea says. "Do you need an ambulance?"

"No. I think I can get it." I hobble over to my bed for a better look. I can see where the piece entered. A clean, sideways slit. I take a deep breath, grab the point that sticks out, and pluck the glass from my foot in one quick movement. A bright red piece, still dripping.

"Eauuw!" Drea dives headfirst into her bed, drowning her face into the sea of pink paisleys patterned across the comforter.

"I need you to go into my spell drawer," I tell her. "I need you to get me a potato."

'A potato?" Drea peeks out from the bed ruffle. "Please."

She diverts her eyes toward the ceiling as she makes her way past me and into the bottom drawer of my dresser. She plucks out a hearty Idaho Gold.

"Cut it in half. There should be a plastic knife on the silver tray in there."

"Should I be worried?" she asks.

"Only if you don't hurry up."

Drea slices the raw potato in half and hands it to me. I press the damp, white center against the flesh and hold it there for many moments to clot the bleeding, an old family remedy even my mother uses. I top the cut off with a few drops of lemon juice and then bandage it up with some tape from the first-aid kit.

"Are you sure you're going to be all right?" she asks. "I'm fine. Are
you
all right?"

'Actually I feel a little faint," she says. "Let me call the health center."

"For you or for me?" I joke. "It's two in the morning. It'll be fine for a few hours." I climb into bed and drag the covers up from the floor. "You know what's weird, though?"

"More weird than you and your potato?"

"Ha ha.- I grab the half-burned candle with Drea's initials and stuff it into my night table drawer.

"I cut my foot in my nightmare too."

"Hmm," she says. "That
is
weird. But sometimes nightmares come true."

I hesitate, wanting to say something, but don't. Even though I know I have to tell her soon. I have to tell someone.

It's 4:30 in the morning when the phone rings in our room. I'm up anyway, paging through back issues of
Teen People
for about the kagillionth time, trying to take my mind off those lilies in my nightmare.

I thankfully pause from last December's horoscope, the Taurean blurb reminding me how unsuccessful my love life has been, and nab the phone. "Hello?"

"Is Drea there?" An unfamiliar boy voice--lazy, muffled, distant.

I glance over at her. "She's sleeping," I say.

"Wake her."

"Um... no. But I'll have her call you at some normal time. You know, when people aren't sleeping? Can I ask who's calling?"

'A friend."

"Can you be more specific?"

But instead of answering, he hangs up. And so do I. "Who was that?" Drea grogs.

"Some guy who wanted to talk to you," I say. "But he wouldn't give me his name."

Drea smiles.

"You know who it is?" I ask.

"Maybe," she says.

"Who?"

"Just some guy I've been talking to."

The phone rings again. I pick it up. "Hello?"

This time it's quiet on the other end. "Hello?" I repeat. "Give it to me," Drea says.

I hand it to her and she turns away, cuddling up into a ball and talking in a whisper, so I can't hear her.

Maybe Chad's available after all.

I look over at his jersey, tacked up over the broken window, and imagine him wearing it the sleeves scrunched up toward the elbow, a snug fit across the shoulders. I suddenly have the urge to go up, press my nose into the fabric, and lose myself in pheronaonal bliss. But I know Drea would get all pissy on me if I even ventured a toe within a three- foot radius of the relic.

After several minutes of a whisper-filled conversation, Drea hangs up, and I'm still gawking at the jersey. "So who is this guy?" I ask.

"Nobody," she giggles.

"What do you mean, 'nobody'?"

"I mean, I don't want to talk about it right now," she says.

"Why? What's the big deal?"

"Let's end it, okay? It's no big deal."

"Fine," I say, paging past a string of shampoo ads in the magazine. I have no idea why she's getting all secretive on me.

"Chad's jersey really came in handy" she says, changing the subject.

"How come you still have it?"

"I don't know." She twirls a strand of hair around her finger and brings it up to her lip, mustache-style. "It's comfy and it still smells like him--the cuddly cologne he wears, the way his skin smells after a shower."

"Do you think you guys will get back together?" I ask. "Naturally. We're so the same about everything. It's just a matter of time."

I squish down into my covers and try to conjure up his scent. The day we scarfed down mouthfuls of cherry pie at Hillcrest's homecoming pie-eating contest. The afternoon we spent searching for pinecones--an environmental science project--or cleaning up the campus for Earth Day. The time we almost kissed... and then did. But somehow, for some reason, even though the blood quakes through my veins just thinking about all these things, I can't remem her how he smelled the sexy, steamy scent that Drea is talking about.

There's a knock on the door. 'Anybody order room service?"

It's Amber, our friend from upstairs. I hobble over to the door, my foot still stinging from the glass cut, and let her in.

"I totally couldn't sleep," she says, pushing past me. 'And then I was walking by, heard you gals chattering away, and I figured I'd join you."

"Lucky us," Drea says.

"Oh my god." Amber folds her arms in front. "It's so totally freezing in here."

"We had an accident." Drea points toward the window. "Bummer." Amber glances at the jersey-patch-up job for about half a second.

'Amber, it's 4:40 A.M.," I say. "Why are you up?"

"Hunger. You girls got anything to eat? I'm
so
starving." She boogie-dances over to Drea's mini-fridge, the pink and green shoes patterned across her woolly pajamas hopping along with her.

She makes a "yuck" face at the selection inside--tongue slightly curled, sticking out to the side, one eye squinting, the other rolled upward--but then plucks out a granola bar. "So, why are
you
gals up?"

"We're up," I begin, "because some weird guy called Drea, but she won't talk about it."

"Who was it?" Amber asks.

"Just some guy" Drea says.

"Come on, Dray, you can do so much better than that," Amber says. "Info please."

"There is no info. It's just some guy I've been talking to. That's it."

22

"So, Chad's history?" Amber asks, winding one of her tiny orange pigtails around a periwinkle-blue nail-polished finger.

"Never history."

I reach for my school bag, slumped on the floor beside my bed, and pluck a deck of cards from the side compartment.

"Oh, Stacey," Amber begins, "tell me you're going to do a love spell. I'm so in. It's been a while, if you know what I mean."

"Oh, please," Drea says.

"Have some fun, will you? You're sixteen years old, in the prime of your life, at a coed boarding school with a boy to girl ratio of four to one. Advantage-in, if you know what I mean."

"For your information, I have lots of fun," Drea says. "I know. I read it on the wall in the boys'

bathroom." "What were
you
doing in the boys' bathroom?" I ask. "Writing stuff about myself.

Gotta let the boys know I'm

still in circulation."

"Maybe you'd have more luck if you took out a billboard ad on Route 128," Drea says. "What's it been, like, a year since you had a date?"

Amber sticks her tongue out at Drea, revealing a mouth- full of granola. "Six months, for your information. Almost as long as you and Chad have been broken up. God, you two were a lifetime ago."

"Eat your granola," Drea says.

"Takes more than granola to keep these lips shut," Amber says. "Listen, if you're not doing a love spell, I'm outta here. I've got toes to paint."