Hugo & Rose (14 page)

Goodness,
she thought.
“Married. Three kids.” Is that all that my life boils down to?

But Hugo smiled. “I have a daughter. She lives in Florida with her mother.”

Rose was quiet a moment. There was more there, obviously, a distant child, a divorce. There must be pain, shame, loss, there beneath that sentence.

But she had no right to it. She had no right to pry into the disappointments of his life … she had just met this man who sat across from her.

She switched the subject. “You said no one calls you Hugo anymore.”

His face colored. Embarrassed, he looked away. “I … changed it. After high school. I go by David, now.”

“But not in the dreams.”

“There are a lot of things about me that are different in our dreams.” He put his hand behind his ear and waggled his glasses at her. He jiggled the softness of his potbelly, grinning.

Rose giggled.

“But you're still
you … Here.
”

He shrugged. “I guess. How much is anyone really themselves in their dreams? The real me is fat and losing my hair and managing a fast-food restaurant. But when I'm asleep…”

He trailed off, but Rose knew what he was thinking about. On the island they were heroes. On the island they were beautiful and strong and young.

“Do you ever dream of anything else?” Rose had almost whispered it.

Hugo shook his head. Quiet.

“What do you think it means?”

“I don't know.”

*   *   *

He walked her to her car. Squinting in the sunlight, they said one of those strange formal good-byes one gives to people one may or may not ever see again.

Because at that point they were still unsure.

Even having discovered the miracle of their dreams, they both knew that there was no logical juncture in their waking lives for a relationship. Rose was a married mom with a minivan. Hugo was …

Well, Hugo was
David
in his waking life. And as David he had his own proportion of responsibilities and obligations … even if they were less formal than Rose's.

There was a moment, though, at the end of their good-bye, when to an outsider it would have been clear that they would see each other again, even if to them it was not. They had said their finals and Hugo was heading away. Rose watched him for a moment before searching through her purse for her keys.

His hug caught her by surprise.

He had turned and rushed back to her, wrapping his arms around her, trapping her purse between their bellies. It was the first time they had actually touched. The first time they had confirmed the fleshy truth of the other.

“I'm so glad,” he whispered in Rose's ear. “I'm so glad you're real.”

Her chin lifted above the warmth of his shoulder. She caught the faint smell of caramel.

*   *   *

Rose was on time to pick up Penny at Mrs. D's. There was an open bag of M&M's on the table, evidence that certain dietary indiscretions had taken place. Penny's breath was dark with chocolaty sweetness when she kissed Rose on her arrival, her tongue stained with streaks of blue and red. But Rose was too content to say anything to the Widow Delvecchio about the dangers of childhood obesity and using food as rewards. Instead she smiled as she handed over the neat pile of bills to the old woman. “Wave good-bye, Penny. Say thank you.”

The buzzy, happy feeling had followed Rose all the way home from the mall.

When the boys got home, she took everybody to the park for some air. She even treated herself to a drive-through latte on the way there, and she sat on a bench and watched Adam and Isaac chase each other over the play structures, sipping it, thinking of Hugo and all those packets of sugar.

Isaac came bursting out of a tunnel, his eyes looking for her. “Mom! Adam's doing it wrong!”

Adam emerged behind him, his face guilty.

His brother ran up to her, breathless. “He wants Hugo to rescue you from a witch, but I told him that there wasn't ever anybody else on the island—not even a witch, so we can't do that!”

Adam was watching his mother. Rose shrugged. “You guys can do what you like … if Adam wants there to be a witch, then pretend there's a witch.”

Adam grinned. Isaac insisted, “But that's not the
way
. That's not right!”

Rose took his wrist gently, smiled at him. “Zackie, it's only a story. You guys can do whatever you want to it.”

He scowled at her. She leaned close to his ear. “Do this for five minutes, okay? Be a big boy for me.”

He rolled his eyes. “Oh-kaaay.” He and Adam ran back into the structure. “But you have to be the witch, okay, Addy?”

*   *   *

Josh was home early enough to have dinner with the kids. Rose chopped vegetables and sprinkled flour onto the countertop, supervising the children as they made pizzas.

Whatever shift Josh had sensed in Rose had clearly bloomed now. She was playful with the children, taking pretend chomps at the toppings in their fingers. They would snatch them from her, giggling, then offer them again.

He wondered if maybe she had started taking antidepressants without telling him … it wasn't unprecedented for Rose to keep something like that private. She often kept things that she was “handling” from him, not wanting to worry him.

She was so strong, his Rose.

The boys begged for Daddy to put them to bed, and he obliged, rushing through the books they requested, eager to get back to his wife.

He emerged from their room, wondering if there was a bottle of wine somewhere in the house that they could take to the bedroom, but Rose was not downstairs.

He heard her voice, quietly singing on Penny's monitor.

“See the pyramids along the Nile, Watch the sunrise from a tropic isle, Just remember, darling, all the while…”

Penny's garbled voice joined her mother's: “
You belong to me…”
Though as Pen sang it, it sounded like “You be-wong to me.”

His sweet, sweet Rose.

She smiled when she saw him standing by the monitors in the kitchen.

“She's having trouble settling. Too much fun before bedtime.”

“You're amazing.” He pulled her into a kiss.

Rose let his kiss wash over her. He could tell she wasn't thinking about the dishes as he did it or the chores that needed to be done. She was just there, with him, leaning into his body.

When they pulled apart, she gave him a sleepy smile.

“Today was a good day” was all she said.

*   *   *

They were in the Plank Orb.

Pale filtered sunlight streamed in through the portholes, setting a watery glow in the small cabin. The air was humid, warm, and close. The wood of the vessel moaned and creaked, under pressure.

Rose's hands were on the length of chain. She was pulling it toward her, threading the bead of the Orb.

“Do you know where we're going?”

She looked up at Hugo. He leaned against the wall, his arms casual on his knees. He was relaxed. Restful.

Rose gave the chain one last yank. “No. But I know we're almost there.”

She sat back opposite him. This was what they always did in the Orb, sat across from each other and talked, passed the time while they waited to get wherever they were going.

“Something's different.”

He was right. Something
was
different. “I feel it, too.”

Rose noticed a particular whorl in the wood behind Hugo's head. A distinctive eye made by the pattern of the grain.

It had been in the comic book Hugo had drawn.

Had he remembered the details of their dreams that specifically? So well that he could duplicate the very configuration of the whorls of the wood in his drawing?

Or were their dreaming minds creating that distinct pattern there because they had seen it drawn in the comic book?

Rose didn't remember noticing it before.

But then again, she didn't remember
not
noticing it.

It was this strange overlay of awareness that Rose had never had before.
Hugo was real
.… And though he was sitting right across from her right now, bobbing along under the water, he was also
somewhere else
.
Asleep.

He laughed. “I keep picturing you in your pajamas.”

“Me too!”

“Well, at least I'm not wearing them.” He nodded at her.

Rose looked down. She was indeed
wearing pajamas.
Whereas she usually wore a skirt and blouse while she was on the island, she was now in an oddly frilly nightgown. It was a light blue color, sleeveless, with a ruffled bib and buttons on its chest. It had that slick acetate sheen to it … the kind she remembered from the sleepwear of her childhood.

“Trust me, I do
not
have a nightgown like this.”

Hugo looked at it a little closer. “I think my mom did.”

Rose raised her eyebrows at him.
Really?

Hugo rolled his eyes and shrugged as the bottom of the Orb thumped up against the sandy floor of the
somewhere they were going.
There was a shush-shushing as it dragged to a stop.

“Wanna see where we are?”

Rose crouched under the porthole, turning its brass wheel.

She opened it into the emerald world of the Lagoon.

The Orb had banked against a shallow spot in the calm cerulean pool. Fiddleheads blanketed the shore with their soft spray of leaves. Overhead, the branches of the trees meshed into a lacy canopy, with clumps of gray-green moss hanging from them. The roots of these trees were massive, defining the edges of the pool with their twisting reach.

In a few hours, Rose knew there would be fireflies here, hovering over the ground, lighting up over the water. When they did that, the Lagoon felt like a field of dizzy shifting stars.

Rose lowered herself down the side of the Orb. The water was warm, lapping at her ankles as Hugo emerged.

Rose looked back at him. “Did I tell you that Adam asked me if the Lagoon looked like Dagobah?”

“Where Yoda lives?” Hugo hefted himself over the lip of the porthole.

“I told him it was prettier. Greener.”

Rose waded to the shore and sat on one of the roots. The reflection of the trees in the water rippled as Hugo jumped down.

“You've never talked about your family before … here, I mean.”

“I've also never worn your mom's pajamas before and yet … here we are.” Rose smiled at him.

But he was right.

That was what had changed. This was the first time that either of them had acknowledged that there was a world beyond the island. A world with sons and mothers and the films of George Lucas.

It was a strange feeling.

A wind raced across the water. The trees shivered.

Hugo and Rose spotted it at the same time.

Deep in the wood, obscured by branches, stood the dark figure of a
man
. Watching them.

Rose gasped, uncertain for a moment that she was seeing what she was seeing. It must be a Buck, away from the herd. Or the clumping of shadows in the forest, tricking her eyes.

But then the figure turned and Rose's eyes confirmed it. Without a doubt it was a man, no mistaking it now that she could make out his arms and legs … legs that were running, carrying him away from Hugo and Rose. Fleeing.

“We can't lose him!” Hugo was already moving, his arms wrapping around the trunk of the closest tree. His feet found their purchase and he was climbing, impossibly fast, up into the canopy.

Rose pulled her feet under her, toes landing on the rough skin of the tree root. If Hugo was going to travel the trees, she would keep to the ground … closer to the figure. She leaped from the root, her front leg landing on the next span, some six feet away.

Above her the branches bent down with the weight of Hugo upon them … he alighted on the edge of the topmost limbs before throwing himself toward the next tree.

Rose bounded from root to root, leaping over the hollows between the trees, her hair streaming behind her. Ahead the figure swerved, trying to lose them.

A cracking sounded from above.

“I can't see him!”

“Go left!” Rose was closing the distance between this dark man and herself. Growing closer as the trees began to thin out … the width between their roots growing longer.

Rose's mind was racing with the implications.
Someone else! Someone else on the island! Where had he come from? Why was he running? Was he leading them to somewhere? Or something? Had he been there all along as well, only to just discover them now?

In between the trees, Rose could see that the swamp was soon to give way to a familiar rise of grassy hills. Beyond those hills lay Castle City.

A sharp pain suddenly pierced her foot, and then she was falling, tumbling into the space between the tree roots. She put her hands out to brace the impact, gravity driving her down toward the loam.

The blow knocked the wind out of her. Rose pulled her head from the ground, her palms covered in forest debris. She blinked her eyes.

She wasn't alone.

In the corner of her vision she sensed movement. It was close. Not five feet away. In the pit
with
her.

Rose threw herself back against the tree root, ready to defend herself.

Across the hollow,
she
did the same thing.

A
mirror
.

Rose's reflection stared back at her from an antique gilt frame that leaned against a stack of old dining room chairs, their seats upholstered in threadbare silk. A battered steamer trunk sat next to them, its surface gray with dust, the leather of its straps deteriorated with age.

Rose saw herself and leaned forward to get a closer look.
What a strange place to store furniture. Who put it here?

“Rosie!… Rosie!” Hugo's voice was excited, not too distant.