I went to bed thinking about the man from the gallery, and the way his silvery gray eyes had captured mine. About how I’d felt he would affect my life in some profound way when I’d met him. How would he do this if I never see him again? That was the last thing I remember thinking before I slipped into a dream.
No. A nightmare. In it, I’d been riding one of the trolleys, a cold San Francisco breeze whisking my long hair off my shoulders. Everything was vivid. The red car. The cold pole beneath my fingers. The shade of my light brown hair. The blue sky. The scent of the nearby ocean. Then suddenly my mother was there, riding with me, and she was smiling and happy in a way I haven’t been since she died. I don’t remember feeling happy in the dream, either. I remember feeling scared. And with good reason. A moment later, the trolley started to roll down a hill and it wouldn’t stop. It was flying downward, faster and faster, and I was screaming, my heart in my throat. The trolley jumped the tracks and I clung to the pole, watching the water get closer and closer. Frantically, I searched for my mother, but she was just . . . gone. I was alone as the trolley slammed into the water.
The next thing I knew I was sitting up in bed, screaming bloody murder, my hand clutching my neck. I’m not sure how long it took me to calm down, but when I finally realized I was in my bed, in my apartment, I could smell my mother’s vanilla and honey perfume, suffocating me, filling my nostrils and the entire bedroom. I swear, I felt my mother in my room.
She made me have that hellish nightmare. I’m aware that that sounds crazy and I’m not one who believes in ghost stories, but I know she did this. I just don’t understand what it means. I thought she loved me—but then, I learned so much about her in her final days; things I sometimes wish I didn’t know, but others I’m glad I do. It is only because of what I know now that I am willing to see what this nightmare might be telling me. Maybe I was always alone. Maybe that’s why my mind placed my mother in my dream state and ripped her away.
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Josh, the good-looking banker I went out with a couple times last month, came into the bar tonight asking why I hadn’t returned his calls. How do you tell a guy that you dated him and had sex with him because you were lonely, and the net effect was still lonely? It wasn’t that the sex was bad; it wasn’t. I enjoyed it. I had an orgasm. I mean, that should account for something, because face it, how many first-time sexual encounters equal orgasm?
Well, maybe they do for some people, but not me. I tend to think too much the first time with a man. Not that I’ve had a lot of men in my bed. In fact, Josh is only the third. But I can just give myself an orgasm and it’s much less complicated.
He’s really a perfect guy—or he would be in my mother’s book. Good-looking, self-made, loves his parents, and all that good stuff. He has money and appreciates everything he has, because he earned it himself. I just don’t have it in me to play the relationship game right now. And maybe I can’t appreciate or deserve someone like him until I know who I am.
I ended up telling him I was working crazy hours and I’d call him next week. I shouldn’t have told him that. Why did I give him hope? I know how much hope can hurt.
Friday, December 10, 2010
I can’t get the man from the gallery out of my mind, but I thought at least the nightmares had ended. Then I had the same hellish one last night, on the same trolley with my mother. I spent the morning and afternoon haunted by it, and for once I was thankful that Friday nights are so chaotic. That meant I’d be too busy to think about it or him.
But it’s nearly ten o’clock, and I’ve barely had a break. I’ve been slammed with customers, yet that sick, horrible feeling when I’m plunging toward the water still suffocates me. It’s frustrating and upsetting that I cannot get this nightmare out of my mind. It’s affecting my job, and the tips I make to pay the bills.
I can’t get rid of this sense that something is wrong, something bad is going to happen. I haven’t felt like this since the week before my mother died. It’s driving me crazy, and all I want to do is make this feeling go away. But I can’t.