It’s a gorgeous day at the flea market, and I am gazing into a cracked antique mirror, trying on a neon alpaca poncho.
“It looks great on you,” the vendor says, and when I turn, I realize it’s Kate Moss.
“Would you wear it?” I ask.
“Darling, of course,” she coos in her sexy British accent.
I pull at the yellow fringe, unsure. “I want to know what Max thinks. Do you know where he went?”
“I think I saw him heading toward the books section,” she replies, straightening some vintage lace dresses.
I wander off, still wearing the poncho. Up ahead I spot Max striding away from me among the brightly colored tents. I yell his name, but he doesn’t turn. It’s busy today, and I am dodging shoppers left and right. Eventually I lose him.
I make it to the book vendors and Max isn’t there. But Dean Hammer is.
“Have you seen Max?” I ask.
“He said he wanted to grab some ice cream,” the dean replies. “What do you think of these?” He turns to face me, wearing red, heart-shaped sunglasses.
“Love them!” I cry. And this time I don’t walk, I run. I can feel panic rising up within me. I look by the food trucks, the smell of fresh Nutella crepes following me. I sift through a wall of colorful scarves, scrambling to get to the other side. Everywhere I go, he seems to have just left.
“You just missed him,” my grandmother says in the jewelry section. She is standing at the stall next to me in a pink Chanel suit, trying on a diamond brooch with gigantic peacock feathers. Jerry is on a leash by her side in a velvet bow tie.
“Where did he go?” I plead.
“He seemed unhappy,” Nan says. “Did you get in a fight?”
“Nanny, listen to me.” I put a hand on her small, fragile shoulder. “Where did Max go?”
“I think he said he wanted to take a swim.” Nan smiles, her mind somewhere else already.
I run out of the market and down Vanderbilt Avenue until I reach the Navy Yard, somehow knowing exactly where to go. He’s waiting for you, like he always is, I tell myself as I sprint out onto the docks. But when I reach the end, breathless, there is still no Max. Just endless water. When I turn back the way I came, I find water there too, gray and unwelcoming. There is no way back, no way forward, and, worst of all, no one here to tell me everything will be all right.
I am utterly alone.
14
We Are All Surrealists
IT’S NOT LIKE I don’t know what a bad dream is. And I know, of course, that I’ve had them before, because bad dreams are why I went to CDD in the first place. It’s just that I’ve never been able to remember any. It’s as though all that CDD did, the magical worlds they created, didn’t just give me something new and something better, they wiped away all the bad, too. Until now.
The entire day after the flea market dream I feel off, like I’m coming down with something. Like someone slipped something weird into my coffee or, worse, like someone has been slipping something in there all along, something to make me happy, and today they decided to stop. And nothing is making it better. Not the three coffees I’ve had since breakfast, not the bike ride to school in the brisk fall morning under a piercing blue sky. Not the A I got on my English paper or the fact that in Terrarium Club I actually managed to build an arrangement with nobody’s instructions. It’s not like I’m depressed or anything, I’m just not right. Which makes me all the more eager to get to CDD today and start to fix it.
“Upstairs.” Lillian just points to the ceiling when I dash through the door of CDD. I realized when I arrived at Frank after Terrarium Club clutching my newest orb that I had nothing to store it in safely, and I had to rest it carefully in Frank’s basket as I walked him the two miles from Bennett to MIT.
“Thanks,” I say. “By the way, this is for you.” I set the tiny ecosystem down on her desk and don’t look back as I dash up the stairs, where Petermann is waiting patiently in his office and Max’s leg is jiggling.
“Sorry I’m late! I had a precarious terrarium situation, don’t ask,” I announce, looking at Dr. Petermann. I’m afraid to look at Max after our elevator run-in. I’m not fuming anymore, but I’m still angry. And even though last night was just a dream, I still can’t help but feel hurt by the way he ran from me.
“It’s no trouble, Alice,” Dr. Petermann says, and I’m surprised to see he’s wearing the same heart-shaped glasses Dean Hammer was wearing in my dream.
“Alice?” Petermann says.
I blink.
“Are you all right?”
I blink again, and his glasses look completely normal. “I think so . . .” Then I look over at Max and notice him smirking as he turns a silver skull paperweight over in his hands.
“What?” I ask.
“Nothing,” he says, standing up straighter, like he’s been caught, his face going serious again.