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“This is Mandy, and she is ready to Get a Fresh Start,” said the host. Mandy appeared, looking a little overweight, a little nervous, and very excited. I felt hopeful for her.
“That’s better,” said Adrian, sinking down beside me. He put his arm around me. “You feeling better?”
I closed my eyes.
“So, what do you want to do while we’re here?” he asked.
“Hmm. I’m not sure.”
“Have you thought about Thanksgiving?”
“No.”
“Have you called your parents to let them know we’re here?”
“Not yet.”
“I think she looked better before,” said Adrian, changing the channel to a program about volcanoes.
“I liked her new look,” I said, annoyed that I was not going to see whether she learned to cook, lasso, or be a court reporter. I ignored the volcano program, considering who I would like to be, if I were free to create a new life for myself. An extreme makeover of my own. The question was, Could I be that strong? I looked down at the M&Ms caught in the hem of my shirt, and I pulled a piece of cat hair from my lips. It was doubtful.
Chapter 63
I left the living room and lay down on Alexa’s bed. Before I knew it, I was dreaming.
I was driving down a red clay highway, and all around me peacocks flew, swooping down in front of me. I had my windshield wipers flapping on high speed to scare them away; it was impossible to see where I was going. I decided to look out the side window instead.
I leaned out the window like a dog, feeling the wind gushing against my face as the car propelled itself along. The mountains in the distance were made of tidy pyramids of stacked oranges, and from slices in the skin of the oranges blood oozed. The sky was brilliant blue. Far, far in the distance, where the orange mountains’ peaks met that brilliant sky, was heaven.
The next thing I knew, I was up in the mountains, standing on the oranges. They were so large, or I was so small, that each pebbly bit of texture on the orange was like a bump the size of a fist.
Valencia was there: Living, breathing, real. I was younger than her, as I will always be. Despite that she was acting like her usual self, I sensed that her presence was a rare, special gift. I ached to touch her and be again, in a world with her in it. The jaded, weary version of myself from real life was leaking into the dream, semi-aware this was a fleeting, temporary encounter. I kept trying to hug her and she kept moving away from me. Longing and desperate, I was ruining it for my innocent self.
“Let’s play tennis,” she said. I noticed she was holding a tennis racquet.
“Sure. Do you have another racquet?”
“Didn’t you bring yours?”
“I forgot.”
“You can use mine.”
“But then you won’t have one.”
“I can find another.”
“Valencia, I miss you,” I told her, but she didn’t understand; she didn’t know she was dead. “Adrian could have saved you,” I told her, weeping now, out of control. She didn’t understand why I was crying.
“Saved me? Trust me, I’m fine.”
“Where’s Van?” I asked her.
“He’s in school.”
“If you keep sleeping now, you’ll be up all night,” said a voice. And before I completely came out of the dream I was caught in that space of still being in the dream, but knowing it’s a dream. Immediately followed by familiar, crushing disappointment. Dreams are the only portal to connect the living with the dead, and it is increasingly rare that they take me there. When they do it’s better than traveling anywhere on Earth.
Chapter 64
