Dreamland
Chapter 6
“Caitlin,” my mother said that night, as I waited for Rogerson to pick me up. “I'm just not sure about this.” I was standing at the top of the stairs, looking out the front window from which I could see the stoplight that led into Lakeview. With the leaves off the trees, I could see its colors clearly, and each time it turned green I held my breath and waited for him to slide into sight on the other side of our glass storm door. My father, in his chair, put down the paper and looked at me. “About what?” he said. My mother walked across the room and adjusted her newest Victorian doll, the Shopkeeper, a short,
portly man carrying what looked like a sack of flour. “Caitlin met this boy today,” she began, smoothing her fingers over the doll's shiny balding head, “and now she's going out with him.”
The light changed again, this time to red. I looked at my watch: quarter of seven. He'd said seven, but I'd been ready since five-?thirty. “Who is he?” my father asked.
“Rogerson Biscoe's son,” she said, dropping her hand from the Shopkeeper and reaching to move the milk pitcher in the tiny tea set sitting on the end table. “The one that was the standout point guard, or the other one?” my father said.
I watched as the light dropped from red to green again. “The other one,” my mother said quietly. “Oh,” my father replied. I didn't even bother to turn around and defend him, or me. When my mother had seen me in the kitchen with Rogerson, she asked me how I knew him and I said from school. It turned out his “long story” for being at Senior Days started with some kind of misdemeanor and ended with community service, which led to lemon cookies and punch and me. Obviously Kelly Brandt's hunch about Rogerson had been correct. My parents also knew his parents: His mother was Bobbi Biscoe, a local realtor with big blond hair whose face appeared, it seemed, on practically every residential For Sale sign in town. She was always giving the thumbs-?up, her head cocked confidently to one side. She was also in Junior League. Rogerson Senior was the head of a local pharmaceutical corporation and golfed at the same country club as my father. And older brother Peyton, after leading Perkins Day to the state championships the year before, was in his freshman year at the university. Normally, this would have been enough for them to approve of anyone. But Rogerson apparently had a lot of “long stories,” some of which he'd shared with me when he drove me home from the Senior Center that afternoon. He said, when I asked, that he went to Perkins Day, the elite prep school on the other side of town, where he was a fifth-?year senior; he'd “taken some time off,” apparently because of “some problems with administration.” He didn't elaborate. His family lived in the Arbors, a development of luxury homes based around a golf course: Their house was on the edge of the ninth hole. Rogerson lived in the pool house, where he could come and go as he liked. He was back in school, working part-?time at a garage that fixed foreign cars, and working off his community service volunteering at the Senior Center on snack detail. Sure, he may have “had some problems,” but he seemed to be on the right track now. I wasn't worried, even if my mother was. Now she walked across the room, brow furrowed, and moved the County Squire doll closer to the magazine rack. “I just think .. .” she began in her light, passive-?aggressive way, then trailed off, waiting for someone to take the bait. “What?” my father said, folding the paper and laying it on the end table beside him. “You had a very long day today,” she said to me, still bustling around. “I'm worried you might be tired.” “I'm not,” I said. “I'm fine.” “You have that big game on Monday afternoon,” she added, reaching to smooth the skirt of the Ladies' Choir Soloist, whose mouth was posed in a wide, creepy kind of O, mid-?note. “Not to mention Homecoming on Friday. I wouldn't be surprised if you had some extra practices this week.” “Mom, it's only Saturday,” I said, as the light dropped to green again, through the trees. “Well, I'm just saying,” she said, glancing at my father before crossing the room to sit on the couch, her hand already reaching out to slide a row of glass thimbles there a bit to the right, “that I don't think this is a good idea.” The last two words she said in a clipped, even voice, her eyes on my father, waiting for his response. Bingo. He looked up, at her, then at me. “Caitlin,” he said, as the light turned red again. “Maybe this isn't the best night for you to go out.” “It's Saturday night,” I protested, turning away from the light to look at him. “Dad, come on. I did school stuff all day. It's the weekend.” “You have a math test on Monday, too,” my mother added in a low voice, picking up one of the thimbles and examining it. I felt an itchy uncomfortableness climb up the back of my neck, hating that she was this involved in my life, knowing my cheerleading schedule, my classes, my every move, as if we were somehow one person. This was the way she'd been with Cass, so proudly taping every schedule to the fridge. I'd always thought Cass liked it: I'd almost envied her. Now, I wasn't so sure. My father picked his paper up again, unfolding it to the sports page. “Be home by curfew,” he said, into a picture of the university football coach lifting his hands in victory. “And study tomorrow. Right?” My mother, on the couch, turned and looked out the window, but she couldn't see the stoplight, turning from yellow to red again. “Right,” I said. “Okay.” Rogerson showed up exactly at seven, pulling to a stop at the end of our walkway. Our hall clock was chiming as I stepped outside. I didn't look back to see if my mother was watching as I started down the walk: I wanted this to be all mine, not part of any schedule or plan she could claim as her own. I wondered if Cass had felt the same way when she'd slipped out the door on that August morning and started toward a car idling there, waiting, for her. “Hi,” I said as I got into the car, shutting the door behind me. “Hey,” Rogerson said. Then he put the car in gear, turned around in the McLeans' driveway, and headed to the highway and the light I'd been watching all night. It was solid green as we coasted under it, and I looked over at Rogerson, wondering what he thought of me. He was in a brown sweater, jeans, and old scuffed loafers, a cigarette poking out of one side of his mouth. He didn't talk to me, and I couldn't think of a single thing to start a conversation that wouldn't sound even stupider if I said it aloud. After a few minutes he said he had an “errand to run” and had to “drop by some place for a second.”
This someplace turned out to be a huge house in the Arbors, at the end of a cul-?de- sac. There were about fifty cars parked along the street, but Rogerson pulled right up in the driveway. “Come on,” he said, getting out of the car, and I followed him. i didn't know what exactly I'd been expecting. Nothing had been normal about our relationship so far, so it wasn't like I'd been looking forward to a movie, pizza, and sipping one Coke with two straws, like I'd be doing with Mike Evans. Still, i had expected something. I just didn't know what it was. When I stepped inside the house, I knew I'd walked into a Perkins Day party. Everyone looked like they'd just that instant jumped out of a J. Crew catalog, all crewnecks and cashmere and straight, white teeth. “This way,” Rogerson said, leading me past a trickling indoor fountain by the front door. He seemed to know his way around, and as we passed a group of girls sitting drinking wine coolers by the fountain, they all stared at me, with the same kind of slit-?eyed look I always saw women give Rina. That was new. “Hey, Rogerson,” some girl said as we passed, and Rogerson nodded his head but didn't say hello. “Who was that?” I asked, just to say something, as we walked through the living room where the carpet felt thick and spongy beneath my feet. There was a loud quarters game going in the next room at the dining room table, which was long, seating at least twenty people. I watched as a quarter bounced down its length, missing the glass by a mile, and everyone booed. “Nobody,” he said, walking up to a closed door off the living room and knocking twice before pushing it open. It was a study, with deep wood walls and red carpet, a huge desk sitting in front of several built-?in shelves, each of which was crowded with trophies, framed pictures, and diplomas. There was a tall blond guy sitting at the desk, a lighter in his hand, about to light a bowl. A girl with red curly hair wearing ripped jeans and a Perkins Day sweatshirt was sitting on the desk blotter, smoking a cigarette, a huge cut-?glass ashtray balanced on one leg. “Rogerson,” the blond guy said, setting the bowl down beside one of those miniature Zen gardens with the rocks and sand, and standing up. “Been waiting on you.” “Yeah, well,” Rogerson said. “I'm here now.” “Good,” the guy said. He had that classic All-?American look, blond, blue-?eyed, tall, creamy skin. “What you got for me?” Rogerson reached into his pocket and pulled out a bag of pot, then held it up and shook it, evening out its contents. I don't know why this surprised me, but it did: He was serving cookies at Senior Days for “something,” but I'd imagined parking tickets or ten miles over the speed limit. He put the bag on the desk and slid it across to the blond guy, who picked it up and examined it, flicking the small green buds with his finger through the plastic. “How much?” he said. “Seventy-?five,” Rogerson told him. “And a pinch for me.” The guy nodded. “Okay,” he said. Then he looked at the redheaded girl, who stubbed out her cigarette in the ashtray and hopped off the desk, reaching into her back pocket for a wad of money, which she handed to him. He counted a few bills off, folded them, and slid them across the desk to Rogerson, who counted them quickly himself before sliding them into his own pocket. The guy sat back down, opened the Baggie, and started to pack the bowl. The redheaded girl looked at me, smiled, and said, “I'm Lauren.” “Caitlin,” I said. “Hi.” “Rogerson's so polite,” she said sarcastically, reaching out to poke him with her finger. As I looked more closely at the pictures on the shelves I could see she was in several of them: one in a soccer uniform with a ball in her lap, another in a long white dress, sitting on a green stretch of grass, her arms full of roses.
“Isn't he?” “Sorry,” Rogerson said. “This is Caitlin. Caitlin, Lauren and Walter.” “Hi,” Walter said to me, and I realized suddenly I recognized him from the Perkins football team, which had creamed us three weeks earlier at home. Lauren lit another cigarette, blowing smoke toward the picture of her holding the roses, while Walter packed the bowl and handed it to Rogerson, a lighter balanced on top of it. He took a hit and handed it to me. “No, thanks,” I said. “You sure?” he asked. “Yeah.” He shrugged. “She's a cheerleader,” he explained to Lauren as he handed her the bowl. She took a big hit and promptly started coughing, her face turning red. “She's got a reputation to protect.” “And she's going out with you?” Lauren said, between hacks. “I know,” Rogerson said. “Must be the hair.” “Must be,” Lauren said, picking up her pack of cigarettes and shaking one out into her hand. “ 'Cause we know it's not your charm.” “Ha,” Rogerson said, his expression flat. “Ha, ha,” she said, and smiled at me. I smiled back, still not quite sure I was in on the joke. Later, after we'd left and gotten back into the car, I said, “So Walter plays for the football team, right? How long have you known him?” He looked at me and half-?smiled, then reached to shake a cigarette out of the pack wedged under the visor. “You know,” he said thoughtfully, “you ask a lot of questions.” “I do not,” I said indignantly. I didn't even know why he bothered to ask me out. It was like I wasn't even there. “You, like, haven't even talked to me since you picked me up.” “Talked?” he said. The lighter popped out with a click and he reached forward to grab it.
“Yes.” He pressed the lighter to the cigarette. “Okay, then. What do you want to talk about?” “I... I don't know,” I said. “I mean it's not like I want sparkling conversation....” He raised his eyebrows at me, replacing the lighter. There was something so striking about him. Even the smallest gesture or expression seemed important. “But,” I added, getting back to the point, “I just wondered why you asked me out tonight, if you didn't really want me here. That's all.” He thought about this. “You want to know why I asked you out?” “Well,” I said, rethinking that. Now I wasn't so sure I wanted the answer to that particular question. “Not necessatily.” He put out the cigarette in the ashtray, then turned a bit so he was facing me. “Do you want me to take you home?” I looked back at the house. It was huge, the windows all lit up, shapes and bodies moving back and forth across the yellow light inside. Every other Saturday night I'd been at a party just like this with Rina, in another part of town, playing quarters and waiting for something to happen. “No,” I said. “I'm fine.” “All right then,” he said easily, starting up the engine. “I've gotta go by one more place, but that's it. Okay?” “Yeah,” I said. “Okay.” And he put his hand on my leg, his fingers spread across my knee, as he put the car in gear and drove us away. The next place was a trailer, out in the country. We crossed over Topper Lake, past the radio towers and several cow pastures before finally turning onto a dirt road so riddled with potholes we slowed to a crawl navigating them. “Lost my tailpipe here last spring,” Rogerson explained as we bumped along. “Real pain in the ass.”
I nodded as we crested a huge crater, my head rising up to whack the ceiling so hard it brought tears to my eyes. Finally we pulled into a short dirt driveway, parking right outside a white double-?wide with a rusted swing set and a warped baby pool in the yard. “You better stay here,” he said to me as I reached to open my door. “I'll be just a second, okay?” “Okay,” I said, glancing around me. I could see only woods, a huge crescent moon overhead, and another trailerthis one yellow, and more rustedthrough a few scrubby pines to my left. The trailer door opened as Rogerson walked up the steps, revealing a stocky blond woman with a baby on her hip. She had her hair pulled up on top of her head, Pebbles Flintstone- style, and was wearing a faded Gucci T-?shirt and jeans. The baby reached out for Roger-?son as he stepped inside and she shifted him to her other hip, his pacifier falling out of his mouth and down the steps in the process. She didn't notice, and he was still reaching for it, his face twisted in a cry, as she let the door fall shut. I sat there in the car for eighteen and a half minutes. I knew this because the glowing blue clock on the dash was right in front of me, and I felt like I was watching my life tick away, minute by minute, in a place where I could stay forever and no one could ever find me. i was so fixated on this that I jumped, my heart racing, when Rogerson tapped on the windshield in front of my face. “Sorry about that,” he said as he got inside. “Got held up.” “It's okay,” I said, “but I think I want to go” And then he leaned over and kissed me, hard, his hand reaching behind my neck and holding me there, his mouth smoky and sweet. I kissed him back with that huge moon shining down on us, and thought the whole time of that ctock, still counting down, minute by minute, hour by hour, forever. We ended up back in the Arbors, cutting through side streets and past the country club to pull up in front of another house, where cars were also lining the street. Rogerson parked behind a silver Lexus, then reached under his seat and fiddled around for something, his brow furrowed, until he found it.
“Bingo,” he said in a low voice, and as he opened his clenched fist i saw a ceramic bowl in his palm. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small Baggie, packing the bowl quickly, then handed it to me.
“Oh, no thanks,” I said. “Reputation and all that.” “It's your choice,” he said, shrugging. “But if i were you, I'd take a hit. You're gonna need it.” “For what?” I said. “Just trust me.” He reached in his pocket for a lighter and a flame jumped up between us, illuminating both our faces in a warm, yellow light. “Okay?” I'd been taught since sixth grade about Peer Pressure and Bad Influences and Just Saying No. But for all he knew, I could be the kind of girl that smoked. I could be anything. I lit the bowl and took a big drag, feeling the smoke tangle in my throat, making me cough hard, fast. Tears came to my eyes as I handed it back to him, already feeling something change in me, as if I was slowly falling into warm water, one inch at a time. When we finished the bowl, Rogerson tapped it out, stuck it back under the seat, and leaned forward to kiss me again. It felt good, and I could have stayed there doing that forever, I was sure, but he pulled away and smiled at me. “Ready?” he said. “Sure,” I replied, not even knowing what I was getting into. “Then look right here,” he said, holding up a finger, and when I did he squirted something in my mouth that tasted strange and fresh, surprising me so much it made me gag, then start coughing again. “Whoa,” he said, pounding me on the back. “Watch out there. Sorry about that.” “What is that?” I said, still coughing. “Breath spray,” he said, shooting two quick squirts into his own mouth. “Breakfast of champions.” “Next time,” I told him, still coughing, “warn me.” “Gotcha,” he said. “Let's go.”
We got out of the car and started up the driveway, walking around three Mercedes and a Jaguar on the way. As we walked Rogerson was making fast business of tucking in his shirt and smoothing back his hair. This struck me as funny, for some reason. “What are you doing?” I asked him. Everything seemed kind of fuzzy and mild, as if I was actually standing off to the side watching but not really involved. “It's the hair,” he said seriously, pulling it back at the base of his neck and fastening it with something. “It scares them.” I laughed out loud and it sounded strange, fast and sharp: Ha! “Scares who?” I said. And at that moment he reached out and grabbed my hand, squeezing it just as above us, up the rolling curve of the thick green lawn, the huge front door opened and I saw Bobbi Biscoe, star of a million For Sale signs, standing there. Up close, I could see she had the same dark coloring as RogersonI found out later that she was Greekand the same thick, curly hair. “Rogerson Biscoe!” she called out. She was smiling but her voice sounded angry, irritated, and the contrast was strange. Rogerson pulled me close to him, locking his fingers tighter into mine. “Where have you been?” “Mom,” Rogerson said. “You were supposed to be here to meet and greet,” she scolded him between clenched teethstill smilingas we got closer. She was in a short black cocktail dress and heels and in person she looked older than her picture. There was a half ring of pink lipstick on the mouth of the glass in her hand, which she took another big gulp of as she narrowed her eyes at Rogerson. “Your father is not pleased, and for once I do not feel like sticking up for you when” “Mom,” Rogerson said again, calmly, “this is Caitlin O'Koren.” She looked at me quickly, as if she hadn't even noticed I was standing there, then made no secret of looking up and down once, as if sizing me up. “Is Margaret O'Koren your mother?” she asked me, and I swallowed hard, aware of how dry my mouth was. “Yes,” I said, standing up straighter. “She is.” She nodded, finishing off her drink and reaching around her back to stick it on a small table behind her, then took her fingers and fluffed a small piece of hair over her forehead, drawing it out. “Well, come in, then,” she said to Rogerson in a tired voice, pushing the door the rest of the way open. “He's in there.” The house was enormous, the entryway opening up into a huge room with high cathedral ceilings, where the voices of the fifty or so people chatting and eating canap?s rose up and mingled overhead into one musical sort of buzz. There was a thick pack of people straight ahead of us, all centered around an older man with ruddy skin who was holding a drink and appeared to be telling a joke that hadn't yet reached the punch line. “I'll be right back,” Rogerson said into my ear, then let go of my hand and started down the stairs, leaving me there. There was a sudden loud burst of laughter as the joke finished, and then his mother appeared at my elbow. “Caitlin, honey, come help check on the spinach phyllo,” she said smoothly, hooking her arm in mine and walking me down a short hallway to the kitchen, where a group of people in white shirts and black ties were all bustling around arranging fruit and cheese on various platters. Everything seemed to be going in fast forward, while I felt like I was hardly moving, my feet and head heavy and thick. “What can I get you to drink?” “Um,” I said. My tongue was sticking to my lips but I wasn't ready to risk having to do anything with my hands, so I said, “I'm fine.” “Well,” she said, lowering her voice as if speaking to me confidentially, “I need another.” She walked to a counter, bypassing two caterers arguing over clam strips, and picked up a bottle of wine, pouring herself a big glass. “Ingrid, sweetheart, what's happening with the phyllo?”
“It's coming, ma'am,” a short woman in jeans, by the oven, said, twisting a dishtowel in her hand. “Just a minute or two.” “Marvelous,” Mrs. Biscoe said dryly, taking a sip of her drink. 'It's to die for, that phyllo," she said to me. Under the bright lights of the kitchen I could see the tiny imperfections of her face: small lines by her eyes, the uneven slope of her nose. These things were fascinating, and I found myself completely unable to stop staring at them. “Costs an aim and a leg, but what are you going to do?” I nodded, having lost ttack of the conversation. Where was Roger-?son? He'd dumped me, stoned, with, of all people, his mother. This had to be some kind of cruel test. He was probably already long gone, laughing hysterically about me with his real friends while I tried somehow to find my way home. “So,” Mrs. Biscoe said, fluffing that same piece of hair again as she jerked me out of this paranoid reverie, “how did you meet our Roger-?son?” There was a sudden crash in the corner of the kitchen as something was dropped, and someone cursed. Mrs. Biscoe turned around, looked over as if mildly interested, and shook her head. “At a party,” I stammered. “We met at a party.” “Oh, yes,” she said absently, as if she wasn't really listening, still looking at something over my head. “He likes those.” The door opened behind me, letting out two caterers and in Roger-?son, finally, who looked across the room at me and smiled. I had this wild thought that he was the only one in all this chaos who was just like me, and that was comforting and profound all at once. “Hey,” he said as he came closer, reaching to grab something off a passing tray and pop it in his mouth. “Doing okay?” “Rogerson, darling,” Mrs. Biscoe said, reaching over to smooth her hand over his hair. “Did you apologize to your father?” “Yep,” he said, still chewing. “Man, those triangle things are good, Mom.”
She looked at me. “Phyllo,” she explained, as if proving a point, before letting her hand drop onto his shoulder. “Oh,” I said. “Right.”
“We're gonna go out back, okay?” Rogerson said, as his mother took another sip of wine, distracted. The kitchen was so noisy, full of voices and clanging, oven doors slamming shut, but she didn't seem to hear any of it. “Yes, okay,” she said, snapping to and standing up straighter to fluff that one bit of her bangs again. “But stay close. Right?” “Right,” Rogerson said, reaching for my hand and winding his tightly around it before leading me through a group of caterers to a door across the room. When I looked back I could see Mrs. Biscoe standing in front of the swinging kitchen door, framed for a second against the movement and color of the party. The door swung out behind her and for a moment it was like everything froze and she was just there, suspended. Then the door started to swing back and she stepped through, disappearing like a dove in a magician's handkerchief. Rogerson took me back to the pool house, where he lived. His room was probably the neatest I'd ever seen in my life. It looked like you could run a white-?gloved fingertip over any surface and never find one fleck of dust, with everything having a place and an order, from the CDs stacked alphabetically on the shelves over his bed to the way the towels were folded in the bathroom. It was the kind of place where you were conscious not to disrupt the neat vacuum lines on the carpet ot the perfectly plumped pillowssitting at exactly forty-?five-?degree angleson the couch. I would have assumed it was a maid's doing, but the first thing Rogerson did when we walked in was bend down to fix the base of a coatrack by the door so that its stand fit squarely in the middle of a tile there. This was all his.
I went to use the bathroommarveling at the shiny chrome sink and fixtures, the sharp cleanliness of the mirrorand when I came out someone was knocking at the door. “Hold on,” Rogerson said, starting back across the room, but the door was already opening and Rogerson's fatherthe older man I'd seen at the center of the party, telling jokes came in. He was wearing a golf sweater with a little gold insignia on it and dress pants and loafers. He couldn't see me.
“I told you to be here at seven o'clock,” he said to Rogerson, crossing the room with smooth strides. His face was pinkly red, flushed. Rogerson glanced at me, quickly, and the look on his face strange and unsteady made me step back instinctively into the darkness of the bathroom, my hand resting on the cool countertop there. “Dad,” he said. “I” “Look at me when I'm talking to you!” Mr. Biscoe said, and right as he crossed my line of vision, his face now beet-?red, he suddenly reached out and hit Rogerson, hard, across the temple. Rogerson's neck snapped back reflexively, and he lifted a hand to shield himself. “When I say you are to be somewhere, you are there. Understood?” Rogerson, hand over his face, nodded. I felt my stomach turning. I wasn't even sure I was breathing. “Are we clear?” Mr. Biscoe bellowed. I could see one vein, taut, sticking up in his neck. “Look at me.” “Yes,” Rogerson said, and his father reached over, irritated, and snatched his hand away from his face, gripping his wrist. “Yes. I understand.” “Good,” his father said. “Then we're clear.” He dropped Roger-?son's wrist, then reached up to hook a finger around his own collar, adjusting it, before turning back toward the door. I kept my eyes on the tiled bathroom floor, studying the colors: black and white, over and over, like a chessboard. I stayed still until I heard the door slam, and Rogerson stumbled backward to the bed, sitting down and spreading his fingers over the side of his face. I walked out of the bathroom and went to sit beside him, but he wouldn't look at me. “Rogerson,” I said, turning to face him. “Let me see.”
“Don't touch me,” he said in a low voice. “I'm fine.” His eyes were so dark, the place where he'd been hit flushed and red. “Please,” I said. “Come on.” “Don't,” he said, but when I reached over and put my hand over his he didn't shake me off. “Don't touch me.” “Rogerson,” I said, slowly pulling his hand away. I could feel his pulse beating at his temple under my forefinger, the skin red and hot there. “Don't touch me,” he said, so softly this time, and I took my finger and traced his eyebrow where he'd taken the brunt of the hit, the same way Cass had done to me so many times, her face changing as she saw again what she'd done. “Don't.” “Shh,” I said. “Don't touch me,” he whispered. “Don't.” But he was already leaning in, as my own hand worked to cover the hurt, his eyes closing as his forehead hit my chest and my finger traced the spot again and again that I knew so well. ROGERSON