Dreamology(52)

Hi, he mouths.

“Hi,” I say back out loud.

Max shakes his head with a smile and motions me over.

“This is the silent floor,” he whispers. “Do you want to sit down?”

I nod, and pull up a chair next to his desk.

Neither of us says anything for a moment.

“We have a problem,” I finally whisper.

“I know.” Max nods. “I know we have a lot to talk about, and I promise we will, but right now this exam is all I can think about—”

“No,” I say, putting a hand out to stop him. “Not about . . . that.” Because there’s a lot to say about that, but right now there are more important things to deal with. “About Petermann. It seems he’s . . . been arrested.” I feel bad telling him this on the eve of his history test. After how nervous he was Sunday, it’s going to throw him for a loop. But we have to figure out what we’re going to do.

“I know,” Max says.

I sit up straighter. “You do? How?”

Max pauses. “Celeste told me,” he answers, and I slump again.

“Of course,” I say, working hard to make my tone light. “Did she tell you I took her there? I was just trying to make things right, to make her understand.”

“I know you were,” Max says. “And it means a lot. Thank you.”

“So things are okay between you two?” I ask casually, doodling with a pen on his worksheet and forgetting the real reason I came here for a moment. “You and Celeste?”

“We’ll see.” Max shrugs, and my doodles morph into furious whirling scribbles.

Max reaches a hand out, and I think he actually might brush my cheek, but instead he pulls something out of my hair, which turns out to be a dried Cheerio. Not again, I think, as I stare at it.

“Where did this come from?” Max asks.

“I have no idea.”

Then Max does something that totally surprises me. He starts laughing. Hard.

“Well, I’m so glad I could entertain you!” I exclaim.

Max catches his breath. Then he speaks. “I broke up with Celeste,” he says. “That’s when she told me about CDD.”

“You did?” I ask, looking at him and putting my pen down slowly. A girl with mousy brown hair at the desk a few feet away gets up in a huff, shoves her books in her bag, and walks off.

“Yeah,” Max says. “I did.”

I don’t move. I’m not sure what this means. Did he do it for me? Are we going to be together now, finally? This isn’t exactly how I’d pictured this moment in my head.

“So does that mean . . .” I start to say.

“It doesn’t mean anything, except that I broke up with Celeste,” Max says gently, but matter-of-factly, like he was expecting the question. “You know I care about you, Alice, but this has so far been the weirdest semester of my life. Right now, I think I just need some time to figure things out.”

No, I think to myself, this is definitely not how I pictured this going at all. But I also know there are more important things to deal with. Like the matter of our sanity.

“So what are we going to do?” I ask. “About the dreams. Especially with everything Petermann told us on Sunday, we need answers now more than ever. And CDD is totally shut down. Things are only getting weirder around here.”

Max just shakes his head. “I honestly don’t know.”

“But you always have the answer for everything,” I say.

“I know,” Max says. “But I’m not sure I have the answer for this.”

When I walk into the kitchen that night, bossa nova is playing loudly from the record player, and it looks like there has been a mass murder of baking materials on the countertop. There is powdery substance covering virtually every surface. Sugar and flour, cocoa powder, chocolate chips, and large smudges of oily butter.

My father is standing at the counter in an apron, frosting a cake with the dexterity of a world-renowned painter. Except that when I look closer, I see the cake is basically concave, and he is using the frosting to piece it back together.

“Well, this looks like progress,” I observe.

“Ha-ha,” my dad says. “I try so hard, but I never get it right.”

“Have you ever considered just accepting the fact that you are not very good at baking?” I ask.

My dad looks at me like I am nuts. “No,” he says. “I have not. And I can’t believe you would even ask me that.” The seriousness of his statement is harder to accept when he turns to me and I see he is wearing the apron he purchased in Florence, which turns his entire body into a naked marble statue . . . of a woman.

“Ugh, Dad, gross,” I say, putting a hand in front of my face. “But also, it’s just a cake. You can buy them, you know.” I sneak a little bit of frosting on my finger and lick it off. It’s surprisingly tasty.

“They’re just breasts, Alice,” my dad says, removing the apron to reveal his usual cashmere-and-corduroy ensemble. “Also, I am a scientist. Do you think I just give up every time a result isn’t satisfactory?”

“No,” I grumble.

“What have I always taught you?” he asks, pointing a batter-covered spatula at me a little too closely.