Everywhere I look there are bubbles, fat and wobbly, as though someone gave a class of preschoolers too much candy and then handed them bubble wands. The shiny spheres glide toward me like happy Martians. We come in peace. I try to pet one, but it pops.
“We have to turn off the washing machine!” my mom cries. She is standing by the overworked appliance, which gyrates and gurgles, dripping foam like it’s right out of Fantasia. She’s wearing a green safari jacket and camo boots. But the binoculars that hang around her neck are bright blue and bedazzled, sparkling endlessly.
“I’ll get it,” I offer, and climb inside the washer. But it catches me, whirling me to and fro like a riptide, until I tumble out into a clear blue ocean. All around me, floating in the water, are rubber duckies and plastic tugboats and also some bras and socks.
“Alice,” I hear Max call out to me. His voice is muffled through the water, but he sounds happy. “Alice, come here! I think I found it.” The surface of the water seems like a million miles away, but I am never out of breath.
When I reach the top, I’m at the edge of a swimming pool. I hop out, soaking in a gold one-piece, and Lillian from CDD is there, holding a fuzzy golden retriever puppy and smiling.
“Here,” she says. “This is for you.”
I take the puppy, but it squirms out of my arms and runs to a set of lawn chairs, where a guy is holding an iPad in front of his face.
“Max?” I say, pushing the iPad out of the way. But it’s not Max, it’s Oliver.
“What are you watching?” I ask.
He holds up the iPad and doesn’t say anything. He just smiles. On the screen is Max, and he’s talking to me.
“Alice, I found it!” he says to the camera. “Come here!”
“How?” I say desperately. “I don’t know how to get inside!”
“Don’t be silly,” he says. “You know how.”
“Max, I can’t!” I cry. But he just shakes his head and walks off screen. Frustrated, I hurl the iPad into the pool.
“That was rude,” Oliver says. But when I turn to apologize, I see Oliver is now a peacock, and it’s wearing glasses.
7
And, They’re Vegan!
“TODAY WE’LL BEGIN our discussion of one of social psych’s most popular topics,” Mr. Levy is saying. I am barely listening, because I’m totally distracted by Max’s eyelashes. They’re so long that even though he is sitting one row in front of me, just to the left, I can still see their tips peeking out past his profile. I know these lashes. Beyond today, beyond last week. I’ve known these lashes forever.
But that doesn’t mean these eyelashes know me. Ever since I left CDD, the stolen ID tucked into the back pocket of my jeans, I’ve been thinking about those peacocks. Clearly, the Center for Dream Discovery is an eccentric place, and I had been a part of it. What’s more, I’d apparently had such vivid nightmares as a kid that I’d actually required professional help to fix them. What does that say about how far my imagination can go? Who knows what my mind is capable of? I can’t explain it yet, but I must have seen a picture of Max somewhere and my brain handled the rest. Which is not just embarrassing and pathetic, it also breaks my heart. To know that, really, I’ve been alone in this all along.
“The topic we’ll be discussing today is love,” Levy says now, and I finally look up at the board.
“But first we have to start with the basics,” he continues. “Attachment. Can anyone tell me who is responsible for the study of attachment? Kevin?”
“Um, Freud?” Kevin MacIntire mumbles almost inaudibly. He’s a big kid who has yet to grow into himself. I catch him staring at me sometimes in class with a dazed expression, but he’s never even said hello.
“MacIntire, you’ve answered Freud to almost every question I’ve asked this year. I commend the perseverance, but do your reading. Max, what do you have for me?” Levy jerks his chin upward slightly, giving Max the go-ahead.
“John Bowlby,” Max says without so much as a pause. As usual, he sits up straight in his chair, never looking anywhere but the board, Levy, or his notebook to take neat, concise notes. I would know, because I’m usually watching him. He has these perfect wrists. Strong but delicate at the same time, with smooth skin, the joint sitting well past the cuff of his oatmeal-colored sweater, which he has pushed up below his elbows. I’m transfixed by them, how beautiful they are, and how funny it is that such a vulnerable, intimate part of a person can be in front of us every day, yet we rarely take note of it.