If Only in My Dreams Page 15

  Christmas music, she realizes with a smile, recognizing Perry Como’s croon… and going absolutely still.

  Drew Becker?

  Maybe.

  Well, who else could it have been?

  Jason?

  He did pop up on her voice mail, saying he had to talk to her about something important.

  He still has the keys. He could theoretically have done it.…

  But he wouldn’t. It would be too sweet a gesture, too… whimsical. As she was just reminding herself earlier, Jason doesn’t have a whimsical bone in his body.

  So… what, you think Drew Becker does?

  Chewing her lower lip, she ponders the likelihood that her new neighbor left the CD and the note. After all, they were just talking about Christmas, and how she would be spending the holiday alone this year.…

  And she did seem to have some kind of split-second connection with him when they first met in November, and again on the stoop the other day.

  Split-second being the key. And it wouldn’t be the first time she’s experienced a passing attraction to someone since Jason. Or before Jason, for that matter.

  Still…

  You’ve got more baggage than a cross-country flight.

  And Drew isn’t your type.

  So what’s up, then?

  You just want to focus your romantic attention on somebody other than the mythical Jed Landry, right?

  Wrong.

  Romantic? This isn’t about romance. This is about being neighborly. And gracious. And getting into the holiday spirit.

  That’s all this is about.

  In Drew’s apartment, Perry Como sings about a man who lives in Tennessee heading for Pennsylvania and some homemade pumpkin pie.

  Clara can’t help echoing along under her breath, “… some pumpkin pie.”

  That was always one of her favorite Christmas songs.

  Smiling, Clara walks slowly over to the door and raises her hand to knock.

  Then, mingling with the lyrics “… From Atlantic to Pacific,” Clara distinctly hears a laugh on the other side of the door.

  A female laugh.

  “… Betty…” rumbles a male voice.

  She immediately lowers her hand and turns away.

  So Mr. New-in-Town already has a girlfriend. Betty. That sure didn’t take long.

  Oh, come on, Clara. Why do you even care?

  Why? Because this is obviously Lust After Totally Inappropriate Men Week.

  First Jed Landry, now Drew Becker…

  Not that she’s lusting after Drew Becker.

  Still…

  Next thing you know, I’ll be calling Jason back, she thinks as she hurries up the last flight of stairs to her apartment, shaking her head in dismay.

  No way. She’s as finished with her ex as she is with…

  Well, with daydreaming—or any other dreaming—about Jed Landry.

  As for Drew Becker…

  Maybe he left the CD.

  And maybe he didn’t.

  Maybe it was the old lady.

  And maybe it wasn’t.

  She can only hope that somehow, everything will be much clearer after she’s had a good night’s sleep.

  Standing on the street in front of the Wilkenses’ bungalow, Jed is reassured by the lamplight spilling from the windows.

  Somebody’s still awake at almost ten o’clock on a Tuesday evening. With luck, it will be Arnold and not Maisie.

  Of course, the mere possibility that it might be Maisie who answers the door is almost enough to send Jed scurrying in the opposite direction.

  But if he does that, there will be no chance of getting to the city tonight. He can’t patch the tire on his father’s DeSoto—he tried and quickly figured out that it needs to be replaced. Unfortunately, the dealer is closed for the night.

  He then ran down a list of pals in an unsuccessful attempt to borrow a car or convince somebody to give him a lift to Manhattan. Nobody was ready, willing, or able.

  He saved Arnold for last, due to the Maisie factor.

  But it’s worth a shot. With any luck, she’s sound asleep and will never even realize the Packard is gone. He’ll promise Arnold that he’ll have it back in a couple of hours: just long enough to drive down to West Eleventh Street, find Clara, and…

  And then what?

  That’s the part he hasn’t worked out yet.

  But he will, while he’s driving.

  And if it gets any later, he’ll have to rule out the plan in its entirety. At least for tonight.

  His mind made up, jaw set in determination, he walks up the shoveled path to the front door. After only a moment’s hesitation, he raises the brass knocker and lowers it. Gently. Just two times. So as not to wake the formidable lady of the house.

  Too late, he realizes when the door is thrown open by none other than Maisie herself.

  It’s all Jed can do not to recoil in horror.

  Standing on the doorstep, Arnold’s wife seems to tower over him like some kind of creature from a Bela Lugosi or Boris Karloff film. Her face is covered in some kind of white goo, her belly protrudes at a frighteningly distorted angle from her sweeping robe, and her hair is covered by a kerchief tied high atop her skull.

  “Say, Maisie, is Arnold around?” Jed attempts to ask casually, hating the slight squeak in his voice. It’s the first day of kindergarten all over again, and he’s just been informed by Maisie that he spelled his own name wrong.

  He dared to argue with her, only to be told, All right, then, your name must be Jug! Jug Lundy! Miss Corcoran, Jed thinks his name is Jug Lundy! Everyone, this is Jug Lundy!

  Luckily, that nickname lasted only about ten minutes.

  But Tattletale Maisie followed her all the way to the altar.

  “Do you have any idea what time it is? Arnold is asleep!”

  “Actually, I figured he might be awake and you might be asleep since you’re… sleeping… for… two.…” He trails off with a halfhearted smile that isn’t returned.

  “Do you honestly think I can get a moment’s sleep with this?” Maisie gestures at her belly. Without waiting to hear what he thinks—as if she ever has cared—she continues, “I’m telling you, Jed, I’m uncomfortable sitting, lying, standing, walking…”

  Yelling, Jed thinks. Nagging, harping, complaining…

  “This is just the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” she goes on. “Which is why men don’t have to do it.”

  Right, and women don’t have to go to war, Jed wants to point out.

  “Gee whiz, Maisie, that’s too bad,” he murmurs instead, thinking this was a mistake. Big, big mistake.

  “Jed, seriously… what are you doing here?”

  “I was going to ask Arnold for a favor, but—”

  “What kind of favor?”

  “Oh, never mind.”

  “Maybe I can help.”

  Seriously doubting it, yet willing to grab on to a shred of hope for seeing Clara tonight, Jed explains that he wanted to borrow their Packard for a few hours.

  “Why?”

  “I have to go down to Manhattan to… pick up some merchandise,” he lies, feeling guilty. But no way is he about to tell Maisie about his real mission.

  “Well, I’m sorry, Jed, but we can’t help you. We need our car here because I could go into labor at any second.”

  Maisie in labor. Now there’s a scary notion.

  Poor Arnold.

  “Thanks anyway, Maisie,” Jed says, turning away. “Good luck with everything.”

  “You, too.”

  Yeah. Luck. That’s what it’s going to take at this point. Luck, or the milk train, which doesn’t come through for another couple of hours. He can hardly show up at Clara’s door in the wee hours.

  Jed shuffles the five blocks back to Chestnut Street, his breath puffing white in the chilly night air.

  He might as well forget about finding Clara tonight.

  But he isn’t giving up.

  No, sir.

  N
ights are the worst.

  Lying alone in the dark, Clara can no longer keep the reality of her illness at bay. No matter how exhausted she is—especially tonight—she finds herself restlessly immersed in dire deliberation about what her future might hold.

  That, and the increasingly haunting lyrics of “Midnight Train to Georgia,” about how it’s better to live in his world than live without him in hers.

  Finally, realizing that sleep will indefinitely elude her if she stays in bed, she gets up and goes to the living room, turning on every light along the way to dispense the wee-hour December gloom.

  Knowing there will be nothing worth watching on television at 2:40 on a Sunday morning, she doesn’t bother to pick up the remote. She sits on the couch and flips through Thursday’s unopened mail, remembering that she didn’t even bother to remove it from the box the past two days.

  No, she’s had other things on her mind.

  Like time warps, and dead soldiers, and getting fired, and old lady stalkers…

  No, don’t you dare even start with any of that, she warns herself, having managed so far to ward off disturbing thoughts about everything but the cancer.

  She goes to the kitchen and puts a cup of water into the microwave. Chamomile tea will help her relax.

  Waiting for the water to heat, she realizes that it’s too quiet. Almost eerily so, despite the hum of the microwave and a distant siren floating up to the closed window.

  You can’t help but become immersed in your own disturbing thoughts when it’s this quiet. Thoughts, and old song lyrics that persist in running through your head.

  Returning abruptly to the living room, she puts on the new Bing Crosby CD.

  Instantly soothed as the opening strains fill the room, she smiles at the irony: Bing’s “Silent Night” has dispelled her own uncomfortably silent night.

  She retraces her steps to the kitchen and returns moments later, steaming mug of tea in hand.

  Now what?

  “Slee-eep in heavenly peace,” Bing croons from the stereo.

  “Yeah, don’t I wish,” Clara murmurs.

  She can’t seem to relax. Not with her thoughts repeatedly turning to the looming lumpectomy and the treatment to follow.

  What if none of it is successful?

  What if the doctors missed something?

  What if the cancer has already spread, is spreading now.…

  No! Stop that, Clara.

  She needs a distraction. Something other than tea and tunes.

  Maybe if she reads…

  Looking around for a magazine, she finds herself zeroing in on her desk in the far corner. More specifically, on the case containing her laptop.

  She hasn’t checked her e-mail in a couple of days.

  It takes a few moments for the laptop to power up and go through its various scans against viruses and the like, thanks to all the protective software Jason installed for her.

  She can’t help but note the irony: Her computer is shielded against toxic invaders, but her body is not.

  You’d think with all the marvels of modern technology that somebody would come up with some sort of… cancer-proofing device. Yes, a wristband or medallion, or a microchip that could be implanted to ward off carcinogens and instantly kill malignant cells.

  Maybe someday…

  After all, look how far we’ve come since the forties, Clara can’t help thinking, remembering Jed’s father, and her grandmother.

  You’ve got mail, a disembodied voice informs her.

  Clara ignores it, thinking about Jed’s father.

  Lucky Landry.

  Lucky Landry?

  Could she possibly have made that up?

  Maybe she read it somewhere when she was doing her research up in Glenhaven Park… though she doesn’t recall coming across any information about Jed’s father.

  What was his real name?

  Arthur?

  No, Abner.

  She contemplates that. Did Abner, aka Lucky Landry, even exist? If so, did he really die of cancer?

  Clara opens a search engine, then sits, fingers poised over the keyboard, wondering what to type.

  She settles on Jed Landry.

  Her fingers are shaking so badly as she types that it takes several tries to hit the right letters. She hits ENTER and waits, holding her breath, her e-mail and her mug of tea entirely forgotten now.

  The long rectangle on the lower left corner of the screen begins to shade in as the page opens. Clara watches it, wondering what she’ll find.

  All at once, she finds herself facing a lengthy list of Jed Landry hits.

  She opens the first link—and is frustrated to find the official Michael Marshall Web site, with home page news about his latest role. With a sigh, she goes back to the search page results and begins to open and close links with growing frustration. The first dozen or so are related to Denton’s movie: cast lists, articles, Michael’s fan pages. Then she hits the jackpot with an excerpt from an archived article from the Glenhaven Gazette.

  It’s dated July 15, 1944.

  ANOTHER LOCAL MAN CONFIRMED LOST IN EUROPE

  A telegram from the War Department last night officially brought to ten the number of local casualties in the first wave of the Allied invasion at Normandy on June 6. Previously reported missing in action, Sergeant Jed Landry of 21 Chestnut Street, son of Mrs. Lois Landry and the late…

  Heart pounding, she clicks on the link to the full article.…

  And discovers that she has to register on the paper’s online site and pay to access the archives.

  Cursing under her breath, she does her best to hurry through the painstaking process: choosing a user name and password, digging out her credit card, entering personal and payment information.…

  Then, all at once, there it is.

  The complete article, accompanied by a photo of Jed in uniform. It’s the same photo she saw in the library’s historical exhibit, yet suddenly, the man in it is a stranger.

  He looks so different from the Jed Landry she met in the five-and-dime.…

  In my dream, she reminds herself.

  There is no twinkle in this Jed’s eyes, which are framed by a faint but distinctly visible network of fine lines. They’re focused on some far-off point, slightly narrowed, as though he doesn’t like what he sees. His jaw is set in resignation. The stubbly, unruly dark hair is now military-short.

  It’s almost as though he knows, Clara thinks, staring into his face. As if he knows, but somehow, he isn’t afraid.

  Tearing herself away from the picture, she scans the article’s lead again, picking up where she left off.

  With the name Abner.

  Jed’s father.

  Could I possibly have known that, and forgotten? Clara wonders anxiously. And my subconscious conveniently plugged it into my dream?

  What about his death? How did Abner Landry die? If she just had a date, then she could check.

  Wait a minute.

  Didn’t Jed say something about it being the anniversary? Yes! What was it, exactly, that he said?

  Two years ago today, actually.

  Heart pounding, Clara scrolls through the Gazette archives until she finds the first of December, 1939.

  Page by page, she clicks through the paper, searching for a death notice. But there isn’t one for Abner Landry, just for a Minerva Medford who died at the ripe old age of ninety on November 28.…

  Wait a minute.

  Realizing that it takes a few days after a death before an obituary appears in the paper, Clara impulsively switches to the edition from December 3, 1939.

  A few clicks… and there it is.

  On page four, beneath the headline COMMUNITY PILLAR SUCCUMBS TO LUNG CANCER…

  Lung cancer.

  Just like Jed said in her dream.

  Scanning the article, she gasps, spotting a familiar phrase: Commonly known by his childhood nickname, Lucky…

  There is no way. Absolutely no way that any of this is pure coinciden
ce, or that Clara somehow noted, then forgot about, all of the information and it made its way from her subconscious to her dream.

  And yet, it couldn’t be anything but a dream, Clara tells herself firmly, her hand poised, trembling, on the mouse pad.

  A dream, an episode, a hallucination, a fugue…

  Abruptly bringing up the search engine over the open newspaper archive, she enters the words dissociative fugue.

  Choosing the first of thousands of hits that pop up, she is linked to a clinical information site. She scans the criteria: spontaneous travel from familiar surroundings… most commonly following disasters, wars, or situations of extreme personal distress… the afflicted person forgets his or her true identity… when the person “wakes up,” he or she has little or no recollection of what transpired during the fugue state…

  Clara quickly closes out of that screen.

  But I never once forgot who I really am while I was going through it, she thinks, and when it was over, I didn’t forget what happened in my state of…

  Well, whatever it was.

  So it doesn’t fit.

  Nothing fits.

  She closes her eyes, trying to remember every detail of that short, fateful train trip. She remembers talking to Lisa and the extras, and facing the back of the train as it sped along, and how she bumped her head when she was thrown toward the back of the train as it slowed abruptly.…

  Wait a minute.

  Karen brought this up during Clara’s account at the therapy session last night, too.

  If the train suddenly braked, wouldn’t she have been thrown forward?

  Of course she would have. If you’re riding in a car and somebody slams on the brakes, you fly forward, toward the windshield, not back against the seat. That’s why you wear a seat belt.

  Why, then, on the train, did Clara have the sensation of being thrown backward?

  She has no idea.

  No, she’s quite clueless about the laws of physics.

  Shaking her head, she returns her attention to the computer and the open Glenhaven Gazette site. Reluctant to see Jed’s unfamiliar photo again, and to read about the circumstances of his—or his father’s—death, she hesitates.

  Then, on a whim, she pulls up the newspaper for December 1, 1941.