While I Was Away(46)

“What's it supposed to mean,” she mumbled, turning away from him and staring off into the distance.

Alright, she would start from the beginning. She'd been in a coma, that was a fact. And Johannes Lund, male nurse extraordinaire, had taken care of her – also a fact.

And now she was sitting in a diner she'd never been in before, yet she'd somehow known exactly what it would look like inside. She knew what half the items on the menu were without reading it, and she'd known there would be a chatty middle aged waitress. So the diner could also be classified as a fact, she supposed.

The cabin at the end of her dream, Jones had all but said he'd created it, and she now felt secure in guessing that the diner was also from him. Ocean had said Lund would spend all his breaks and lunches in her room, talking to her and working with her. He must have talked about the diner.

Goddamn right he talked about it, and then I dreamed about it. Just like the cabin. Probably like a lot of things. Jesus, between his voice and my brain, we spun an entire world together.

“Jones spent time here,” she said out loud.

“Jones?”

“Nurse Lund,” she rolled her eyes. She was tired of the multiple titles. “When I was in the coma, I think he talked to me about this place. That's why it feels so familiar to me.”

“Ah. You think you retained some of what he said while you were out?”

That's putting it mildly.

“Yes. Yes, I think I did. And I think he talked about other things, too, and if I can remember them and focus on them, I bet I could find him,” she started getting excited.

It was a bit of a leap, but she had faith in him. She had faith in them.

So while River went to pay for his two meals, Adele hurried outside and stared back at the diner. The exterior looked identical to the one in her dreams, and she was positive she'd never been to one like it in her waking life. So what else in her dream had been utterly unfamiliar to her?

Most of the settings, if she thought about them long enough, could be traced back to something in her own past. The poppy field and the tornado were straight out of her favorite movie, The Wizard of Oz. Her parents' house was obvious, her love of Disney movies had made a solid impression on her dream world, and she'd always been a fan of the beach as a child.

But she couldn't remember having been anywhere like The Tunnel, where they'd kissed for the first time ever – maybe it had been one of his memories imprinting itself on her dreams. But where would she find a space like that in real life?

What else was there?

The magnolia tree – she'd never actually seen one in real life, and it had been a very important feature in that other world. A pink tree with deep roots, threatening to keep her in the coma forever. A physical representation of her comatose self. But why a tree she'd never seen before? Maybe it was a sign, maybe he'd gone to wherever magnolia trees were!

But a quick search on her phone told her that magnolia trees mostly only existed in the southern states. She couldn't exactly hop a plane to Georgia and go searching for magnolia trees – a tour of the deep south just wasn't possible right now.

“Bad news?” River asked as he hurried down the steps to meet her. She was glaring at her phone.

“Do you know where there might be any magnolia trees in this city?” she asked, and he laughed at her.

“Magnolias? In L.A.? I don't know,” he chuckled. “You're the one who's from here. I don't think they grow around here, though. Aren't they in like Louisiana, places like that?”

Adele groaned as they headed back towards his dusty truck.

“I know, but I can't go to Louisiana, it's too far.”

“Too far for what?”

“Too far to ...”

She stopped walked. She'd been about to say “too far to get to” when the ball in her mind had dropped. Yes, Louisiana was too far – too far to drive to. The hospital had put Jones on a mandatory one week leave of absence, and the waitress had said he drove out of town that morning. Drove. Wherever he went, it couldn't have been too far away, not if he was coming back in a couple days.

“I need a map,” she said, jogging the rest of the way to the truck.

While River drove them back to her apartment, Adele stared at the maps program on her phone, going back and forth between it and a search engine. It was ridiculous, the entire state of California was practically a vacation destination, and the southern area in particular. From L.A., a person could easily drive to San Diego, Death Valley, Las Vegas, San Francisco, Yosemite, even Mexico.

Where would you go, Jones? I know you. I know you better than anyone else. I can do this. Where would you go?

“If you were going on vacation somewhere down here,” she spoke fast as they pulled up to her building. “And you wanted to go somewhere you could relax, get away from stress and stuff, where would you go?”

River thought about it for a while, waiting till he'd parked before answering.

“If I wanted to de-stress, I'd go to the beach,” he answered. Adele frowned. It didn't feel right. Jones hadn't minded the beach in her dreams, they'd played in the ocean plenty of times, but he'd never seemed particularly drawn to it, either.

“Where else?” she asked, pinching her fingers together over her screen, then drawing them apart, zooming in and out of the map.