Dreamology (16 page)

I UNLOAD SOME
potting soil in Nan's garden, pausing to shoo Jerry away from a snail he is sniffing, when my phone buzzes. My heartbeat picks up speed as I look to see if it's a text from Max, but it isn't. It's about my mother. Apparently I forgot about the Google alert I set up for her a few years back. When we figured out what Google alerts were all about, most of my friends chose televisions stars or pop singers.
Who is he dating now? What did she buy at the supermarket?
But my mother was just as elusive to me as any celebrity, perhaps more so. It just never worked . . . until now.

PRIMATOLOGIST MADELEINE BAXTER

TO ATTEND ENVIRONMENTAL RALLY IN DC

AND SPEAK AT THE SMITHSONIAN ON THE ROLE

OF DEFORESTATION IN THE ACCELERATION OF

SPECIES EXTINCTION AND CLIMATE CHANGE

I stare at my phone, stunned, then put it back in my pocket and walk into the house, where my father is reading
National Geographic
in the living room.

He speaks before I can. “Did you know that in certain indigenous cultures of Papua New Guinea, yams are considered sacred?”

“I did not,” I say. “But, Dad . . .”

“If a man grows a large yam among his crop, he must give it to his neighbor, thereby shaming him, until the neighbor is able to grow a larger one himself . . .”

“Dad,” I say.

“I don't know if they ever even
eat
them!” he cries. “Really makes you rethink our favorite Thanksgiving dish, doesn't it?”

“Dad,”
I practically yell. I have no patience for his factoids today.

“Sorry, yes?” He looks up now, as though seeing me for the first time.

Now that I have his attention, I pause. He's not going to like this. Taking a breath, I decide to just rip the Band-Aid off. “Did you know that Madeleine is coming to DC?” I ask.

My father's face flashes from happy to grim to perfectly controlled. “I wish you would just call her
Mom
,” he says. When I don't say anything in response, he asks, “How did you know that?”

“I have a Google alert for her,” I answer matter-of-factly. The less I beat around the bush, the less he will be able to lead me off course in this conversation.

“I see . . .” he says, laying down the magazine and folding his hands in his lap, thinking.

“Do you think we'll see her?” I ask.

“It's possible,” he says, glancing at his watch, out the window, anywhere but my face.

“Possible?” I ask. And I want to say,
That my mother might decide to swing by to see her own daughter for the first time in ten years?
But I don't say that part.

“Sure, of course,” he says, looking back down at his reading again. “We should email and check.”

“You mean you'll email her?” I ask. I know I'm pushing, but why is it up to me? He is my dad. He is supposed to take care of me. He is supposed to be able to ask my mother when she is coming home.

“Sure,” he says, turning a page in the magazine. “I can do that.”

He's being deliberately vague, noncommittal. And I want to scream. At him for letting me down, for being unable to talk about something so important. At my mom for being such a crappy mom in the first place, for never being here when I need her. At Max for saying he didn't mean it, for walking away on the quad and leaving me all by myself.

At all of them, for leaving me alone.

“You wanna cool it with that tiny shovel?” I hear Oliver say behind me. I'm crouched over the soil back in Nan's garden, planting succulents to grow in a cold frame for the wall at the science center. But now that I look, I seem to have been doing more harm than good. Less planting, more rampant soil stabbing with my trowel.

“Sorry.” I peer around to look at him. “Rough morning. Actually, what are you doing today? I could really use an adventure right about now.”

I stand up, wiping my hands on my knees, and only now do I see that something is off about Oliver. He hasn't moved from the front gate, and is standing a little rigid, his hands clutched to his sides.

“Actually, no,” he says. “That's not why I'm here. I wanted to . . .” He stops, frustrated, then tries again. “Alice, how could you do what you did?”

I sigh. “I know. Oliver, I can explain. The dreams . . .”

“What, the dreams
made
you do it, Alice? The dreams control your mind now? I believe you when you say you and Wolfe dream about each other. But I can't believe that.” Oliver is frowning at me, his shoulders clenched. He's never looked at me this way before.

“Oliver.”

“He's not your boyfriend, Alice.”

“I know that,” I start to say.

“He's not yours, Alice. He belongs to Celeste. And Celeste is a good person; she doesn't deserve this. He's hers. He's not yours.”

“But he was mine!” I finally yell. “He was
mine
. For years. For my entire life, he was mine. My best friend, my boyfriend. My partner. I can't just turn it off,” I say, realizing suddenly that Oliver is not the person I want to be yelling this at. The person I want to be yelling at is Max. I also realize, when I say those words out loud, that while they are exactly how I feel about Max, they are exactly how Max feels about me, and what he was trying to tell me in the elevator that night. That sometimes you can't just turn it off, even when you know it's wrong. “People can't just turn off how they feel because someone tells them to,” I say to Oliver now, more quietly than before. “You wouldn't understand.”

“Yeah, I would, actually,” Oliver says without meeting my eyes, and I now understand that there are two broken hearts in this tiny succulent garden. And that just because my feelings for Oliver were innocent, doesn't mean his were.

“I promise I will make things right with Celeste, first thing tomorrow. She deserves better,” I tell Oliver. Then I hold my gaze on him until he finally meets my eyes, and add, “So do you.”

Oliver waves a hand dismissively. “Whatever,” he says with a smile. “I'll get over it.”

“I'm sure you will,” I say.

“But you have to be the one to tell Sally the Segway. Because I can't watch her pine for Frank anymore,” he adds. “She's driving me crazy.”

As Oliver leaves the garden that afternoon, I watch him nearly careen into an elderly woman on the sidewalk. Like a nineteenth-century nobleman, Oliver steps aside and bows gracefully, bidding the woman good afternoon, and she smiles back in delight. Oliver winks.

If I knew what was best for me, if I were someone else, I would fall in love with him. For his wit and charm and sense of adventure. The way he looks out for me, the way he's not afraid to say what he wants.

But unfortunately, I'm not someone else. I'm me. And unfortunately, I have to be aware of the fact that Max Wolfe exists in the world. And, unfortunately, nobody else stands a chance.

“LET ME SEE
if I have this straight,” Sophie says. “You and Max have been in love for years, and you finally kissed in real life. But in real life, Max is dating Celeste. And now Celeste is mad at you, and Oliver is, too, because he is in love with you, but you aren't in love with him, you're in love with Max, who you, incidentally, also haven't spoken to in two days.”

“I would give anything in the world to tell you that even one sentence of that is wrong,” I say into my phone.

“Jesus,” Sophie exclaims. “My biggest challenge lately is how to get the new junior, Marco Medina, to notice I exist.”

“Oh no,” I groan. “What have you been doing?” I love Sophie, but she's not the most tactful, and she's extremely confident. It's not always a winning combination.

“My mom said to just keep saying hi to him, so I've been doing that,” Sophie says.

“That doesn't sound too bad,” I say.

“I may be saying it a bit too aggressively,” she admits. “The other day he all but ran away when I greeted him. You know, all,
Hi!
” She shouts the last part into the phone. “Anyway, you haven't forgotten that I'm coming to visit, right?” she says.

“Of course not!” I say, reminding myself to go back into our last email chain and see which date we chose.

“Great,” she says, sounding excited. “I can't wait to see all the drama in person.”

Celeste isn't in Terrarium Club on Wednesday afternoon, and I feel sick about it. “Go ahead, eat me,” I mutter aloud to the man-eating plant. “I deserve it.” But then Parker dismisses us and I walk out of the greenhouse and find Celeste waiting by Frank, and then I feel sick all over again.

“It's highly likely that she's going to kill you,” Jeremiah observes as he walks by me with his signature hurried gait, on his way to where his mom is waiting at the curb in a white BMW.

“How do you know?” I snap.

“Everyone knows,” Jeremiah says. “Even me.”

“Relax,” Celeste says when I get closer, one hand on her hip. She's wearing another amazing outfit—black leather leggings and a draped gray wool sweater. “You look like a puppy that did something bad.”

“That's because I did,” I say.

“Of course you did,” Celeste calmly replies. “But the only thing worse than kissing another girl's boyfriend is turning that girl into something to be scared of. Victimizing yourself is not cool.”

I really wish she wasn't being so mature about this. It would make my life a lot easier.

“I know,” I say. “You have no idea how sorry I am for what happened.” And then I understand why Max said what he did. Because I
am
sorry. And he is sorry, too. And no matter how we feel about each other, you just don't do that to a girl like this.

“It's just weird, I thought I could spot girls like you,” Celeste says. “The boyfriend stealers. They act like they're your friend but you can always sort of tell they aren't, you always know they aren't totally there. They have another agenda, another target, and you are just a prop to help them get to it.” She reaches down and absently dings Frank's bell a few times as she chooses the right words. “But not you. You genuinely did not seem like that person to me. I was really beginning to think we could be friends. So I don't want to kick your butt, I just want to know . . . what happened? So I can readjust my sense of the world again, and go back to Terrarium Club in peace.”

“I promise I'm not that kind of girl,” I say. “I know it seems like I am, because I did what I did, but . . .” I bite my lip,
frustrated. This is too hard to explain. “Can you come with me?”

“Where?” Celeste asks.

“I need to show you something. This will sound ridiculous without proof.”

“This is what you wanted to show me?” Celeste asks as we approach the CDD rotunda. “Some creepy old building in the middle of MIT? What are you going to do, kidnap me and hide me here so you can have Max all to yourself?” She takes a deep breath. “Sorry, I have a pretty active imagination. It tends to alienate people once they get to know me.”

“That actually explains a lot,” I say, wondering if Max has a type. That's when I notice the neon-orange sign taped to the front of the CDD double doors.

THIS PROPERTY IS CLOSED PER ORDER OF THE CITY OF CAMBRIDGE AND ALL ACTIVITIES HEREIN HAVE BEEN SUSPENDED PENDING AN INVESTIGATION

—THE CITY OF CAMBRIDGE

“What the hell?” I say. I was just here three days ago.

“Seriously, why are we here?” Celeste says. “You've got two minutes to clear the air before I take off.”

For a moment, I freeze. This is a disaster. I needed to show Celeste CDD for her to believe me. Oliver might have believed me without proof, because Oliver is Oliver. But not Celeste. I've done enough to make her doubt me already. I run the
options through my head. I could sneak her in, but now that there's an official police warning outside, that seems unwise.

Just then I see Lillian rounding the rotunda, and I think all is not lost. But she turns around and starts walking the other way when she sees me.

“Lillian!” I cry out, rushing after her when she doesn't turn. “Lillian!” I say. “What is going on?”

I grab her by the oversized scarf she's wearing and spin her like a mummy until she faces me. “Ow!” she says, straightening her scarf again. “I wasn't going to break in or anything. I just needed to get something at my desk. I was going to be in and out. They kicked us out yesterday with no warning at all.”

“Why?” I ask.

“Petermann,” Lillian responds. She spits out his name like it's a bad grape, like she can hardly bear to have it on her lips.

“Who is Petermann?” Celeste has come up next to me by now.

“Who are you?” Lillian asks.

“Celeste,” Celeste says.

“What do you want?” Lillian frowns. This girl seriously needs to take an etiquette course.

“I wish I knew!” Celeste says, exasperated, and looks at me.

I take a deep breath. I can make this work to my advantage. “Lillian, would you please explain to Celeste what our relationship is?”

“We don't have one,” Lillian says matter-of-factly.

“No, we don't have a
friendship
,” I say slowly, like I'm teaching a kindergartener how to spell. “What I mean is, how do you
know
me?”

“Oh,” Lillian says. “You were a research subject at the Center for Dream Discovery, where I used to work.”

“How often did I visit?”

“Twice a week.”

“With who?”

“Your boyfriend, Max.”

My jaw clenches at this, and I glance at Celeste out of the corner of my eye, only to find her looking at me with hatred. “No, as we discussed, Max is not my boyfriend.”

“Whatever you say . . .” Lillian rolls her eyes. This isn't quite going as planned, but I can still fix it.

“And why were Max and I here exactly?” I press her.

Lillian has been looking around the quad absently, where people are reading on benches or hustling from building to building. But now she straightens up. “I thought that was confidential.”

“I'm now giving you permission to explain,” I tell her, crossing my arms.

Lillian sighs. “You and Max were here because you came here as children, for your nightmares, and somehow through the study ended up dreaming of each other. It's my understanding that you've dreamed of each other your whole lives, and you were coming to CDD so you could fix it.”

“Great, thank you, Lillian,” I start to say.

But Lillian isn't finished. “Because you had fallen in love and neither of you knew how to handle it. Anyway, who is this?”

I smile tightly. “Lillian, Celeste is Max's girlfriend.”

Celeste's eyebrows shoot up and her mouth forms a tiny, perfect little pout.

“Oh,” is all Lillian says in reply. “Anyway, I'd better go. I'd like to grab my stuff and get out of here before the police come back.”

“Where is Petermann?” I ask again.

“Jail, I assume,” Lillian says.

“What are you talking about?”

“Petermann was arrested,” Lillian says. “It was the parrots. Petermann was involved in the illegal parrot trade. He was obsessed with birds, the rarer the better. They say he could go to jail.”

“Jail for a couple Italian birds with attitude problems?” I ask.

“They were really smart birds, Alice.”

“So let me get this straight,” Celeste says a while later as we each lean against a pillar by the steps of CDD. We've been here in silence while I bite my fingernails and Celeste has been chewing on her lip, as I wait for her to say something. It's all on the table now. She just has to believe it.

“You and Max came here to have your dreams analyzed so you could effectively be rid of each other forever?” She pushes herself off the building and pulls her leather bag over her arm. “Okay.”

“Okay?” I ask.

“Yeah, okay, I get it. Frankly, because this crap is just too crazy to make up. But this doesn't mean we are friends. Plus, you have other stuff to worry about.”

“Like what specifically?” I ask, and I really do want to know, because there are too many things she could be talking about.

“Like how you are going to fix this mess when the scientist performing the procedures is in lockup,” Celeste answers, before walking off across the lawn.

I stare after her, because of course, as usual, she's right. If CDD is closed indefinitely, then we'll never get to the bottom of the dreams. And if we never figure out why we dream about each other, we'll never be able to stop it. All of this, the drama and confusion, will just keep happening again and again.

I look down at my brown boots and take a deep breath, and when I exhale, the ground ripples under my feet, like I just blew across a perfectly still lake. Except this isn't a lake, it's a lawn at MIT.
Not again
, I think, before breathing in deeply, pursing my lips, and pushing all the air out of me, this time harder. Sure enough, it's not just the grass that ripples, but the ground itself.

I pause for a moment, then raise one of my boots and stomp
it down on the grass, hard, and watch a wave of green earth rise and swell, undulating across the lawn. It would be beautiful if it weren't so weird. I stomp both legs down and the next wave is even bigger, maybe even knee high, which is when I look up suddenly and notice it's heading right for Celeste as she walks into the distance. It's just about to topple her over when I scream out her name like she's about to get hit by a truck.

“What?” She turns around, annoyed. And just like that, the grassy wave has disappeared.

“Um, I'm . . . never mind,” I call out, feeling pathetic, and also mildly insane.

Celeste just shakes her head and keeps walking. “You really are a weird one, Alice Rowe,” she says out loud.

This was about so much more than me and Max and all the drama we were causing. This was about our sanity.