I shuffle over to the folding camp table and take a grateful sip of coffee from his mug as I sit down.
“Get your own,” he protests. But he knows I won’t, so he pours himself a new cup. “Come on,” he says then, standing up and extending a hand to me. “Time to go and see the lions.” His brown hair falls softly in his eyes, and the sun shines from behind his face, making him look almost otherworldly.
“Are there baby ones?” I ask hopefully.
“Of course,” he answers.
“How will we get there?” I ask.
“Did you sleep okay?” Max looks concerned. “The answer is hot air balloon, like always.”
Before I know it, the balloon is touching down among the lion pride, who watch us carefully from where they lie in the long grass, and my fingers go a little numb. But Max pulls a fluffy green tennis ball the size of a grapefruit from his back pocket.
“Ready? Ready?” he shouts, “Go get it!” and hurls the ball across the plains. The mother lion runs and grabs it like a giant golden retriever, then drops it panting at our feet and purrs as we scratch behind her ears.
“Looks like we’re in.” Max laughs.
I want to laugh, too, except I am struck by one terrible thought: This isn’t Max.
He looks like Max and he smiles like Max, he’s sweet and kind like Max. But he’s not my Max. He’s like a Max decoy. A standin. He isn’t him, and we aren’t us. This isn’t something we will each wake up in our beds tomorrow and share, one moment in time the rest of the world will never know about except Max and me. This is just a regular dream. I can’t explain it. I just know.
“Can we go now?” I ask Fake Dream Max.
“But we just got here!” Max cries.
“I really wanna go home,” I say, a little frantically now.
Fake Dream Max looks at me, confused, tilting his head to one side. “Okay, Alice,” he says with a nod. “We can go home now.”
35
Sparkly
I CAN’T HELP but feel that it’s rather rude of Jerry to keep barking incessantly in the front hall when some of us have better things to do, like lie in our beds hating everything.
That isn’t true, though, and I know it. Anytime I’m upset, my father will always ask me to think about everything good I have going on. I’m doing well in school, and I joined a few more clubs—BARA, the Bennett Animal Rescue Association, and the Photography Club, and I started my own weekly music podcast. I’ve even begun picking out potential schools I’d like to go to after Bennett. Now that we’ve talked about my mom, my dad and I are better than ever. I have a lot to be happy about.
I just don’t have Max.
Jerry barks again and I storm over to the intercom, pressing the button for the kitchen. “Dad?” I call. “Will you please let Jerry out? I’m sleeping.” It’s only when he doesn’t answer that I remember he left early this morning for a conference in St. Louis. I am alone, and Jerry needs to go to the bathroom.
I pull on a sweater and some boots and jog down the stairs, throwing on a gray wool coat.
“Jer?” I call. “Where are you?”
When I hear his bark from outside, I throw the door open, annoyed. “How on earth did you get out here?” I ask before noticing that something is very different, and I wonder if I haven’t actually woken up yet.
As usual, the front walk is covered in fallen leaves. But instead of reds and blues and browns, the leaves are neon pink.
And standing a few paces down, among the leaves, wearing a tuxedo, is Max.
And standing next to him, in a much tinier tuxedo, is Jerry.
And Max is holding a pizza box.
“What is this?” I barely manage to ask, slowly taking a few steps toward him.
“Here,” Max says, grinning, his eyes a little glassy. “Open it.”
I open the top of the box, feeling like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, and am stunned to see not a pizza, but a giant Oreo cookie cake.
“Am I dreaming?” I ask in all seriousness, looking around and rubbing my eyes.
“No, you’re not.” Max laughs, but his voice comes out a little choked. “And that’s exactly the point I’m trying to make.”
I tuck my hands inside the sleeves of my sweater and bite my lip. “I’m confused,” I say. “That day in the elevator . . .”