Forty-Four Box Set, Books 1-10 (44) (86 page)

I looked behind me. Somehow Paloma was still sleeping.

“Okay,” I said. “Thanks. Next subject, please. We’re almost halfway to Portland and it feels like all we’ve done is eat crap and talk about Ty.”

“All right, I’ll drop it for now, but only if you promise me that you won’t wait forever for Mr. Beer to come riding back in on his white horse. Promise me you won’t turn into a spinster before my very eyes.”

“David, I’m 21.”

“Yeah, sure, but keep this up and one day soon you’ll be sitting on that large, lonesome sofa of yours with an afghan wrapped around you, all alone, watching reruns of
Murder, She Wrote
.”

“Just like that, huh?” I said. “I’ll go from 21 to being an old lady all alone.”

“Trust me,” he said. “It happens.”

“Okay, I promise that I won’t turn into a spinster before your very eyes. And I also promise that I will never, ever watch
Murder, She Wrote
, no matter how old I get.”

“Good,” he said, flicking crumbs off his black shirt. “I’m glad it’s all settled then.”

CHAPTER 4

We left the high desert behind us and drove up toward the mountain.

I helped David practice his lines. I read along with the script, playing the different parts, ready to prompt him if he forgot something. But he had it down pat and didn’t need any help at all. He had memorized the 15 pages of dialogue, word for word.

“Man, when did you start going over this?” I asked.

“Yesterday,” he said.

“Yesterday? That’s incredible. I don’t think I could memorize this in a week, even before my accident. How do you do it?”

“I don’t know,” he said, smiling. “It’s pretty easy for me.”

As we climbed closer to the pass, Mt. Hood came more and more into view. The pavement was dry, but David still kept his promise about going slow. After a few more miles we passed the sign for Timberline Lodge, where they had filmed
The Shining
. David started reciting some of the lines from the movie.

“Stop it, David. I feel like I’m trapped inside the car with Jack Nicholson.”

I was laughing when I said it, but it really did give me the creeps.

“Hey, did I ever tell you about the time I met Stephen King?” he said turning down the music.

“No.”

“It was in a supermarket when I was in high school. He lives close to my house.”

I had a hard time imagining Stephen King shopping for groceries.

“So was it scary meeting him?” I asked.

“Well, yeah, Abby Craig. He’s, like, you know, Stephen King. But he was really nice. I’m just mad I saw him in the supermarket. I mean, how embarrassing is that? I won’t even tell you what I had in my shopping cart!”

David started laughing again and it wasn’t long before it turned into a low wheeze. I prepared myself to take over the wheel, but he regained control after a minute.

“Did you actually talk to him or just stare?” I said when he pulled himself together.

“Of course I talked to him. I told him I loved his books and then dashed away.”

“That’s so cool,” I said. “I haven’t ever met any celebrities before. So what books of his have you read?”

“None, silly. It’s all I could come up with at the time. I like to think that I’ve become better at thinking on my feet since then.”

“Let’s hope so.”

“Are we there yet?” Paloma suddenly said in a sleepy voice.

“Almost, Sleeping Beauty,” David said. “How was your nap?”

“It was right.”

“
Orale pues
,” he tried to say.

“Stop hurting my ears, white boy,” Paloma said.

I didn’t really know any Spanish, but I didn’t need to, to know that he had taken a cleaver to it.

CHAPTER 5

Erin was out of town, covering a story on the coast. David dropped us off in front of her downtown riverfront condo.

“Knock ‘em dead tomorrow, David,” I said. “And go easy tonight.”

“Yes, mommy,” he said before driving off into the Portland afternoon. “I’ll keep you posted.”

He sped away like he was suddenly free, the squeal of his tires echoing off the tall buildings and bouncing along the busy city street.

The condo building was what I imagined a four-star hotel would be like. There was even a doorman and a front desk in the large, modern lobby.

“I’ll go get the key,” I said to Paloma.

“Okay, but hurry,” she said. “I don’t want to get shanghaied by housekeeping.”

“I’ll be right back.”

“Wow,” Paloma said when we walked through the door a few minutes later. “I thought reporters didn’t make jack.”

We both looked at the spectacular view of the Willamette River below us with Mt. Hood off in the background.

“Yeah, most don’t,” I said. “But Erin’s family is pretty well off.”

“You can say that again.”

“Erin’s family is pretty well off,” I repeated.

Paloma and I had fun. We went out to dinner at a Thai restaurant and then did some Christmas shopping at Pioneer Square. When we got back to the condo, we changed into our pajamas, watched
Twilight
, and ate
Dulce de Leche
ice cream.

“You ever think about him?” she asked after the movie.

“Who, Edward?” I said. “Jacob?”

“Ha, ha,” Paloma said. “No, Clyde.”

“Only every day. You?”

“Yeah. Sometimes it feels like a dream. Which I suppose is progress. I mean, it didn’t feel like a dream when it was happening.”

She must have been recovering faster than I was, because it still felt real to me. All too real. But the worst part was not remembering the things I did when he was inside me.

“Well, we came through it,” I said. “We survived.”

She smiled and put down her ice cream. Then she stood up.

“Come, on,” she said, holding out her hand. “Help me sing it.”

She started dancing and singing
I Will Survive
.

“I’ve got all my life to live, I’ve got all my love to give…”

She pulled me up and I found myself hesitating at first but then dancing and singing right beside her. It surprised me. By the end of the song I was as into it as she was.

“Good times,” she said.

“Good times,” I said, smiling. “But I’m all danced out.”

We said good night and then each headed off to our own master suites.

***

As the lights of the city danced outside the floor-to-ceiling window, I texted Kate and checked my messages. I wrote Ty and told him I was in Portland, closing it with “Wish you were here.”

I felt tired but not quite sleepy yet, so I turned on the TV and flipped through the channels for a while, finally settling on a group of frantic chefs rushing around a studio kitchen, making entrées with grape leaves and polenta.

Then I drifted into a soft sleep, floating like one of the feathers inside the comforter, light and peaceful, dropping down from the sky, falling, falling, falling into the darkness below.

CHAPTER 6

I woke up on the cold, hard ground. I got to my feet and noticed I wasn’t wearing any shoes. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I could make out a faint light in the distance.

I started walking toward it. It became colder with each step I took. I was soon shivering. I walked faster toward the light.

And at some point, all that had been darkness turned to white. I had to squint to fight off the pain.

I was alone in the brightness, trying to make sense of it. Nothing had an outline. There was only the white. It began to snow. Soft at first and then heavy, the flakes falling hard all around me, piling up in drifts at my bare feet.

And then I saw it. Up ahead, something on the ground.

I ran toward it, balling my hands into fists against the cold.

I could see something other than white.

I saw the color red, bright against the snow.

It was just ahead now.

I could see it, bright and flowing, the color moving like a box of melted crayons, edging toward me like a small river.

It was beautiful. The color. The contrast of it on the white.

But then I stopped, frozen in horror as I realized what it was.

Blood.

A river of it coming toward me.

“No!” I screamed.

But the blood kept coming at me through the snow. A bell rang in the background. I turned away and started running back from where I had come. Screaming and running and screaming again and again. Back toward the darkness. Away from the light. Away from the blood.

Away from all that blood.

CHAPTER 7

I had been cold in the dream, but I woke up covered in sweat, my hair plastered down around my scalp. Whatever it was, whether a dream or a vision, it had scared me. I had seen color, just like in my last vision when I was sitting in the grass with Jesse. But in this one, it was only one color. The color of blood.

I took a hot shower and went back to bed, afraid of what was waiting there for me.

***

“I’m not a barista or nothing but here you go,” Paloma said in the morning, handing me a cup of coffee.

“Thanks,” I said.

“Bad dream?”

“Yeah.”

“I heard you struggling with something and thought about checking on you, but sometimes we have to work through that
cucuy
bogeyman shit on our own. I mean, that’s the good thing about nightmares, right? We wake up and realize they’re not real.”

“Yeah, I’ve had plenty of practice,” I said. “But I’m not sure I’m getting any better at it.”

When I told Paloma about it, I called it a dream, not a vision.

“Nasty,” she said, cracking eggs into a frying pan. “That sounds messed up.”

Rain splattered across the window over the breakfast bar as I placed the silverware and napkins on the counter. I could barely see the river seven floors below.

“More shopping this morning?” Paloma said.

“For sure.”

We sat eating quietly, listening to the rain. I tried to shake the feeling of dread that was still with me.

“I know you have more experience, but I know with me, I have two types of bad dreams,” she said after a while. “The ones that are connected to something I’ve experienced or seen or heard about and the ones that come out of nowhere. You know, completely random.”

I suddenly thought about seeing the sign for Timberline Lodge the day before and David doing those lines from the movie. I remembered that scene where blood is pouring out of the elevator like a tsunami. I shivered just thinking about it.

But then the morning, gray as it was, started working its magic on me. Since the accident, I had gone four years without seeing any real colors. My world was limited to blacks and whites and grays. But this was the second time in as many months now where I had seen color.

Could it be a sign that I was losing my color blindness? I suddenly felt excited at what the river of red in my dream might really mean.

CHAPTER 8

It was almost dark when David picked us up. The rain was still coming down and we were stuck in rush hour traffic. A city of taillights going nowhere fast.

But David was in a good mood, his face glowing from the wide grin that had probably been stuck there since his audition.

“I knew it,” I said, not waiting for him to tell me how it went. “I just knew it.”

“Yeah, you were right, Abby Craig. I think I ‘crossfire hurricaned’ them.”

Sitting in the back I could see his bright, crazy fast energy filling the car.

“That’s great, David,” Paloma said. “Congratulations.”

“Well, it’s just a feeling at this stage,” he said. “But it’s a good feeling.”

It was going to be a long way home, but I didn’t mind. It had been a good trip all around. The dream or vision or whatever it was, was feeling more and more like a dream. The music was loud in the background and David was loud in the foreground, telling us everything about the audition.

“I even got to meet one of the directors,” he said. “And that main actor was there too, you know, the star of the show. He stopped in for a moment to say hi, but he was looking right at me in particular when he said, ‘See you around.’ He said it just like that too, casual but super sincere and a little bit authoritative. ‘See you around.’”

“That’s awesome,” I said. “Were you nervous?”

“What kind of question is that, Abby?” Paloma said turning around. “Of course he was nervous.”

“Well, yes and no. Waiting was the worst. It was pure torture, I mean bad torture, watching the other actors go up and say their lines. There were some serious hotties there, up from California. You know, all bleached and tan and muscular and dimpled. Total eye candy, but I don’t think they were as good as me. Anyway, I was pretty nervous for the first few lines but then I got into the flow and let the character take me away.”

“That’s great, David,” I said. “I’m so happy for you.”

“When I took the stage, I went into a zone or something. It was like I
was
that skeptical detective. Some sort of mojo went on up there. When I finished, it took me a while to realize that I was up on a stage and I was just acting. It was like I knew it was where I belonged. It was really weird.”

“
Orale pues
,” Paloma said. She said it the way David had the day before.

“If only we felt that way in our nine-to-fives, right? Anyway, doesn’t mean I got the part. There were tons of other actors. But I’m happy with what I did.”

Large drops continued to pound the windshield as we finally left the traffic behind. The wipers were no match against the downpour even though they were flapping away as fast as they could go.

“So when do you find out?” I said.

“In a few days maybe. They still have another day of auditions tomorrow. Then they’ll call back a few. Fingers crossed!”