“Nope.”
Huh. “Well, I’ll let you know my verdict tomorrow, but so far I’m liking it. We’ll just take a short nap, okay?”
“Sure. Just a nap.”
“Hey, Daniel? Do you think if we fall asleep together, we’ll have the same dreams?”
“I hope not. My dreams can get filthy. You might never want to speak to me again.”
“My dreams might be filthier. I have super vivid ones. I could be dreaming right now.”
“You should count your fingers.”
“I can’t see them. It’s too dark.”
“Guess you’ll have to go on faith.” His hand stroked up and down my back. “You scared me tonight.”
“I didn’t mean to.”
“It’s okay. I’m still glad you’re here, even if we didn’t run the gauntlet.”
“We didn’t fall in a perilous pitfall, did we?”
“If we did, we can pull ourselves out.”
And for a moment, as I drifted off to sleep, listening to the soft thump of Daniel’s heartbeat, I believed that we really could.
Until I woke up the next morning to find his mother standing over us.
“We always know when we are awake that we cannot be dreaming.”
—Ruth Rendell,One Across, Two Down(1971)
24
“Get up,” Cherry said. “Now.”
Heart pounding, I flew off the couch and practically tripped over the blanket before I had time to realize that I wasn’t wearing pants. Daniel made a loud noise and jumped, but he saw his mom and immediately covered his boxers. “Jesus Christ,” he complained in a deep, sleep-rough voice. “What the hell, Mom?”
“What the hell is that you lied to me,” she said angrily. “You said you were taking her home last night. Now I come over here to find you two sleeping together?”
I wanted to die. I also wanted to put on my jeans, but she was standing next to them.
Daniel groaned and pulled his hair back out of his eyes. “We weren’t—we were only sleeping.”
Cherry snorted. “Sure. That’s what I’d tell Baba when I was your age. She didn’t believe me either. And I don’t think Dottie let you watch this place so you could have sex parties with your girlfriend.”
“Did you not just hear me?” he snapped back.
“I heard you just fine.” She pointed to the coffee table, where, next to the wilted lily from my hair, the box of condoms still sat. “And I see plenty fine too.”
Chum bucket!
“I know what it looks like,” Daniel said. “But it wasn’t even opened. See for yourself. Go on.Nothing happened.I asked her to stay here because—” He glanced at me. “It doesn’t matter. It was for her safety, and it’s none of your business.”
“I’m your mother. It will never stop being my business,” she said, throwing his shirt at him. “Go get dressed in the back. I want a word with Birdie alone, please.”
“Mom—”
