Dreamology(58)

“What? We had a connection,” he says.

My heart can’t help but swell at the sight of this Max. This is the Max I know and love. Open and relaxed and happy. I go to rest a hand on his back but pull it away almost instantly, unsure of what’s okay anymore. Max gives me a look I can’t decipher.

I wish things were simpler. That this was just a normal day hanging out with friends at a normal alpaca farm. And Max was my normal boyfriend, who I didn’t dream about. I wish Sophie lived here. I wish I hadn’t seen my dog ride by me on a motorcycle today. I wish we weren’t losing our grip on reality.

We find Alfred, Oliver, and Sophie standing on the porch. Sophie is holding a beautiful cream-colored sweater she just purchased, and Oliver is holding a box of sugar cookies shaped like alpacas.

“I’m sorry, Mildred!” Oliver cries, before biting off one of the alpaca cookie heads. “But you are delicious. What?” he asks between chews when he notices the way I’m looking at him.

“Nothing,” I say, breaking off a sugar cookie alpaca leg as we turn back toward the main road. “I’m just happy. I wish it could stay this way.”

“Why can’t it?” Oliver looks genuinely confused.

“Because things are about to change,” I answer.

“Not if we don’t let them.” Oliver shrugs like it’s all so simple, and I wish it were.

“So, how far are we from the college?” I ask Max as we pile back into the car.

“Only about ten minutes,” he replies, looking at Google Maps on his phone. “So we should have answers in no time.” A feeling of sadness rises up in my throat. After we find Margaret, nothing is going to be the same.

But as we drive through the campus of Wells College, I start to relax. It’s strikingly beautiful, an abundance of pathways weaving around pristine brick buildings and giant leafy trees, and all of it resting atop vast, well-manicured lawns. A perfect little academic haven.

At least, at first.

“I’m afraid I can’t help you with that,” Doreen McGinty says between gum snaps over the top of her desk at the faculty center. We already tried Margaret Yang’s office in the biology wing, and it was locked, and now we are hoping Doreen can provide us with a home address. Doreen’s hair is both very large and very permed, like it hasn’t been changed since the late eighties.

“She kind of looks like an alpaca,” Max says under his breath as Doreen chews her gum, and I put my hand over my mouth to stifle a giggle.

“No personal addresses are to be given out to students, academic policy. My sincerest apologies,” Doreen explains. But she does not sound very sincere.

“But we aren’t students!” Sophie pipes up, trying to be helpful, and the rest of us groan.

“Then I definitely can’t give it to you,” Doreen says.

“What about when she holds her office hours?” Max tries. “Can you tell us that?”

“That I could give to you if you were students, but not if you aren’t,” Doreen replies.

“Doreen,” Oliver says, coming over and leaning one arm casually along the top of her desk. “Let me ask you two questions. One. Has anyone ever told you that you bear a striking resemblance to a young Princess Diana? Because you do, Doreen. And two, hypothetically, if you were a few students who weren’t technically enrolled at the moment . . .” He makes little quotation marks with his hands.

“So not students,” Doreen deadpans.

“Tomato-tomahto,” Oliver says. “Anyway, if so . . . how would you go about finding a professor?”

“Sure, I can help you with that,” Doreen says, shuffling in her desk for something.

“I knew you could, Doreen.” Oliver bats his eyelashes.

Doreen thwacks a thick stack of pamphlets down on top of her desk. “Applications for enrollment,” she states. “Fill these out, and I can answer your questions when you get in next year.”

Fifteen minutes later, we’re sitting on a bench outside the coffee shop in the center of Wells, feeling totally hopeless.

“My charms always work on Dean Hammer’s assistant,” Oliver says, stunned. “Reference an attractive public figure from the eighties or nineties, then slip in your request, boom.”

“We aren’t in Kansas anymore,” I say. “We’re in Maine.”

“Maybe you should try actually working for what you want instead of playing games all the time,” Max says. I give him a look that says, Whoa, and he just shrugs.

“Spare me, Wolfe,” Oliver replies. “I don’t see you doing anything to fix the situation.”

“I’d love to do that, Healy, but you seem to always be getting in my way,” Max says.

“How can I possibly be getting in your way when you spend most of the time pretending I don’t exist?” Oliver almost-sneers, and Max is quiet.

“I don’t pretend you don’t exist,” Max says finally. “We grew apart. Our lives are different than they used to be.”

“You ditched me, dude,” Oliver says. “Don’t try and deny it. We wouldn’t even be hanging out right now if it wasn’t for Alice.” In response, Max looks pained. I can tell he knows Oliver is sort of right.

“So what are we going to do?” I ask, breaking the tension.