Something To Dream On (19 page)

The smell of lemons and freshly baked cookies hits me as I step into the house. Yumm! I will totally forgo healthy eating for one of those!

To the right, an unheard voice beckons my attention. The presence is warm, yet its call sends shivers up my spine. Just two steps away hangs destiny. While Jensen and Arlene are locked in another hug, I make way to the artistic interpretation of my dreams. My lips part as I stare and try to decipher the image. It turns my heart weightless with joy, yet my forehead aches from being smacked with fear. How well this image matches both my dream and that Tarot reading seems unreal.

A beam of light bursts into the room, and then disappears. My heart races at what feels like a flash of lightning. The Tarot reading! The lightening bolt on The Tower card!

The front door clicks shut, and I turn to find myself alone and feeling stupid for being frightened by sunlight that seeped through the door when it was opened. I look back to the painting and my stomach twists. What does it all mean? Arlene painted this for Jensen, so one of them must be tied into the meaning behind my dream. The light flares again as Jensen and Arlene return from grabbing our bags out of Bertha.

Arlene invites us into the family room for cookies and lemonade. I follow, walking away from the painting, yet feeling drawn backward into fate.

The photos on the family room wall repeatedly catch my eyes, but my inner vision is all kinds of murky. I want to pay closer attention to Arlene’s funny stories of Jensen as a child and the pranks his family would play on each other, but only one thing is on my mind. “Arlene, Jensen told me you painted the starlit landscape in the foyer. What inspired it?”

Arlene sips her lemonade and reclines in her chair, yet I expect dramatic music to fill the background at my inquiry of forbidden knowledge. I’ve seen too many soap operas.

“It came from a dream that Dad had when Jensen was little. Maybe it was because Native Americans can become captivating when we talk about visions, but the way Dad told it made it seem so significant that I wanted to capture it.”

“I miss Granddad,” Jensen says with downcast eyes, “but I am kind of grateful that he missed all of the bad things that happened. Eddie and I really let him down.”

Arlene touches her hand to his arm. “Honey, we are past that now, remember?”

He squeezes her hand, and his eyes gaze to her in earnest. “There are some things I’ll never get over, but I want it that way. Sometimes remembering you were once an idiot can keep you from becoming one again. Just because I’ve found my way home doesn’t mean there isn’t more for me to learn.” Jensen looks to a photo on the wall of a man and two boys. The man has that same air of dignity and strength that I saw in Jensen the day we met. I take Jensen’s hand and give him a smile. He forces one back.

I’m being selfish. As much as that painting haunts me, it was done for Jensen. Maybe there is something in there that can help him move forward. “Arlene, do you know what the vision meant?”

Arlene speaks directly to Jensen. “The ground represents the paths we walk every day. Some patches bring us happiness, others blight. Sometimes you have to walk through the bad to get to the good.”

He nods while giving a little smirk. I hope I can keep his smile building. “What about those stars?” I ask. “Why are the center ones so bright? Is it his future?”

Arlene’s demeanor goes through an odd transformation. She sets down her glass with care and blinks slowly once, then again. It’s how I might look if I were pondering the meaning of life. “Dad said, Jensen will have two sources of light that are heaven sent. The first he would stumble across, and that would be the one to ground him. It would then return to the center of the sky so spirits could be released to their full potentials. Though he is never to seek them out, he is always to be open and to accept them for what they bring into his world.”

“Sounds like Lizetta and Etta to me,” Jensen says.

Yes! This makes so much sense! The Tower was Etta on the side of the road. Jensen stumbled across her, and she became the grounding force that led him to me. Simple.

But if the grounding force returns to the sky, doesn’t that mean death? That sounds really bad for Etta. Maybe we should have brought her with us.

What am I thinking? She’s safe as can be with Griffin, and her health is improving everyday.

I reach for a cookie when a centipede crawls up my spine. There is no bug, but that doesn’t stop me from scratching. The night Jensen told me about his past, he said that I ground him. Then it was a beautiful thing to hear. Now the memory freaks me out. If I am the one who grounds him, who is the other woman? In my dream she claims glory, meaning Jensen and I are doomed.

Nah! Etta is both the first woman and The Tower. It’s simple.

Yeah, if it’s so simple, why did a pang just grip through my gut? And why is Arlene shifting in her seat? “Did your father say anything else?” I ask.

Her brow scrunches. “Come to think of it, he had me do something odd with the ground. Then he rattled on about how it held the key to the prophecy.”

“Prophecy?” That word is freaking the living monkey poo out of me.
 
“Your dad didn’t say when all this might happen, did he?”

“Umm … Not that I remember. I wanted to write it down, but he said that since he saw it in a vision, only the vision should remain.” Arlene cocks her head, then shakes it. I feel like she is dismissing a thought. Suddenly her hand smacks the arm of her chair. “I just thought of another funny story! One morning, Dad turned back Eddie’s clock by an hour. Once he was ready for school, Eddie realized what time it really was and went back to bed. Then Dad reset everything to the exact position it had been in before Eddie woke. When the alarm went off again, Dad convinced him that he dreamt getting up. Dad would have gotten away with it too, if Eddie hadn’t shaved the first time around.”

Jensen laughs at the memory, and I do my best to play along. “Jimmy would freak if I did that to him!” Ugh! Why can’t she give me something concrete? The cards were right. I’m going to die, but it will be because all this stressing out will cause a brain hemorrhage.

I finally get a bite of a Rocky Road cookie. It’s flavorless to me. In my mind, that just reinforces there is something very, very wrong.

It’s dark as sin as I leave the house. If Jensen’s home, I’m gonna hang out there—again—and see if I can catch
her
.

My heels remind me of a pounding hammer as I head for the car. I miss the click of stilettos. The heels on these boots I found at the thrift store are clunky, but at least they are tall and way better than combat boots. Now I feel less like a dork.

The streetlights around here suck. I can’t see shit as I fumble through my keys while on the approach to my car. The toes of my right foot step on something thick and soft, and my ankle twists out. Shit! My left foot trips over the heel of my right. I throw my arms out, but my right elbow smacks the pavement. Fuck, that hurts!

Massaging my throbbing ankle does nothing to ease the pain. I catch sight of what tripped me and scamper up. “Holy shit!” It’s some furry, dead thing. Gah! Is that a rat?

I put my weight on my left foot, and then kick the thing with my right. Fucking shit that hurt! The thing sails into the light.

I hobble over and look down at the stuffed pig that has likely sprained my ankle. How the fuck am I going to drive over there now? Crap, I need a drink!

CHAPTER TWELVE

Tuesday, July 4

Larry has his ass firmly planted on the sofa while watching
Attack of The Killer Tomatoes
, smoking weed, and drinking Jack. I wish there were another way to get what he’s got. A respectable job, another source—anything so that I don’t have to beg him for the fix I don’t need. Thankfully, it only took a few days for my ankle to heal; else I’d really be in a state.

I only allow myself to use that stuff on the weekend. Even though it is a Tuesday, it’s a holiday and some people took yesterday off. That makes today part of a long weekend.

Larry doesn’t even look at me when I step up to him. His eyes stay on the TV as he hands me the goods. I reach out, and he yanks it back. “Talk to Jensen recently?”

“No. He’s made it clear that he’s finished with both of us, so I’m done.” I am so not done. I just want to do this my way, because Larry’s way sucks.

He tucks my fix under his butt. “Yes, you are.”

Shit. I’ve got nothing. No fix. No money. Not even a leaf of weed or a shot of booze.

He fakes a sigh of pity. “Well, I suppose there is another way.”

Now I get eye contact, just before his eyes go to his zipper. “Oh, hell no!” Related or not, the guy is vile. I’m not touching that rod of syphilis for anything.

He shrugs it off with a laugh. “Maybe you should pay your ex a visit then. You get him back, the band gets to sign on the dotted line, the money rolls in, and you get a modest salary as backstage manager. Simple. Else …”

His eyes go back to his zipper. Gross! “What the hell am I supposed to do that I haven’t already done?”

He looks to his pants again.

“I’ve already tried that with him. How about you let me come up with a real plan?”

Larry shrugs and unzips his pants. I make for the door, and I swear to God, I still hear his laughter as I drive off.

I don’t know what makes me more of an idiot—wanting a fix, considering succumbing to Larry for it, or watching the outside of my ex-boyfriend’s apartment while trying to get the courage to exit the car. I still have no idea what type of car his girlfriend drives, but the only car I see here is Jensen’s monstrosity. That thing is the sickest color Satan ever puked up.

This is so not going to work. Why am I even bothering with this lame attempt?

Because Larry has what I want. There. I admitted it. Big whoop! If this fails, then I’ll go back to my plan to become besties with whatever piece of trampitude Jensen is banging.

I make for the stairs. What do I say? “If you don’t come back to the band so they can sign that contract,
if
the record company still gives a crap after all this time, I’ll keep being used like a blow-up doll by your former friends?” Better yet, how about the truth. “Dammit, Jensen, I loved you. Your leaving turned me into a mess. That little experiment we did with heroin is now a lifestyle for me. Please help, because without you I may not make it.”

Now I’m on to something. I started earning his trust last time. I’ll stick with the truth, because now that he has seen that I can be on his side, maybe he will believe me when I tell him that I need his help.

I don’t need his help. I need Larry’s.

Fuck, I need Jensen’s help.

Shit, when am I going to accept that I just plain need help?

I’m about to hit the first stair when the door opens. Jensen steps out with that mutt of his.