Dream Me(18)

“Big shots? I thought everyone here was a big shot.”

“True. But Mr. Buell is the king of the hill.”

Well at least LeGrand was from Tennessee so he was one less future classmate I’d have to worry about.

“They get the VIP treatment,” Bing said. “Of course everyone does, but they get the extra special VIP treatment. They’re major investors in the club.” Bing raised his eyebrows to make sure I got it.

I already knew everything there was to know about the VIP treatment, extra special and otherwise.





BABE’S BLOG


LEARNING THE LOCAL CUSTOMS AND THEIR POSSIBLE CONSEQUENCES . . .

Walking to the truck after work, Mom and I trade first-day-at-work stories but we’re both pretty tired so the conversation fizzles after a few minutes. Dad’s happy to have his girls by his side so he hardly speaks, but the smile on his face says it all.

I roll down the window during the drive home. After being stuck inside an air conditioned building all day, the heat is a release. It loosens the tight muscles in the back of my neck and shoulders and eases away my tension. It’s that special peaceful time just before sunset, when day and night reach equilibrium and the world stops to exhale. I’m never up early enough to know if the world inhales before sunrise.

About a quarter-mile before the Trout Lane turnoff we notice a roadside stand, if you could call it that. Really, it’s a sun-faded umbrella that barely throws off enough shade to cover two folding chairs. Seated in one chair is a skinny old man and in the other chair is a plump old lady. In between them, a fat steaming barrel with the torn side of a cardboard box duct-taped to its side. Boiled Peanuts $1.50 is scrawled in permanent marker on the makeshift sign.

My dad pulls the car off the side of the road.

“You haven’t lived until you’ve tried boiled peanuts,” he says.

The old woman doesn’t seem excited at the prospect of making a sale. She continues to stare straight ahead at the road, her hands folded across her lap as though daring us to make her stand up. Her gray head is covered with cushiony pink rollers held in place with a scarf tied into a knot at the front of her head. She nods at my dad and me as we approach.

The man is her opposite. All excited by our presence, he flashes a smile that shows so many missing teeth it’s hard to envision how he eats. He springs from his chair and walks over to greet us, his head bobbing enthusiastically at the end of a neck that looks too scrawny to support any weight at all. He wears a tank-style undershirt and a pair of baggy denim overalls. He turns his head to the side and hocks a gob of something dark and nasty onto the ground by his feet. It simmers in the sun for a second before vanishing into the sandy soil, leaving only a drab stain to mark the spot where it had been.

“Care for some boiled peanuts today, folks?” Only it sounds like he’s saying biled.

Dad orders two portions, which the old guy scoops out of the steaming brown liquid I hope is nothing more than peanut-shell-stained water. He wraps them in a newspaper and hands them to me while Dad pays.

“I don’t understand why someone would ruin a perfectly good peanut,” Mom says once we’re back in the truck. “After all these years, hasn’t mankind already perfected the way to prepare it?”

“Don’t knock it ‘til you try it,” Dad says.

And he’s right. They’re soft and salty and delicious.

__________

I’m exhausted by the time we get home. A bellyful of boiled peanuts has robbed me of my desire for dinner, in fact my stomach is in spasm. I think about calling Perry. I miss him and really need someone to talk to. I wonder how long before we can resume our relationship, forgetting about the love part and carrying on with the friend part. We get each other in a way that’s too real to throw away, but I know it’s not fair. Do I honestly think I could share my Zat infatuation with Perry? A make-believe boy? I doubt Perry will be ready to transition into friendship any time soon.

When my phone chimes an incoming text, for a second I think it must be Perry. Instead it’s Mai, who I never actually expected to hear from outside of the fish market.

Wanna do something tomorrow after work?

And then a few more texts back and forth as to the time, the place, the event. We settle on the Piggly Wiggly parking lot (where else?) at 6:00 p.m. From there we’ll drive together and get dinner at the beach.

I never make it out of my room to say good night to my parents. I just collapse on my bed with the noisy AC wall unit carrying me off into dreamland.

__________

ARE YOU READY FOR THE DREAM AGAIN? I WASN’T . . .

The dream is back.

I’m a little kid riding my bike around Grandpa’s neighborhood. This is the only real neighborhood I’ve ever known outside a country club. Small, but carefully maintained stucco houses line the street. Many of them have red tiled roofs, tidy lawns and walkways that lead straight from the sidewalk to the front doors. Grandpa sits on the front step of his house and watches me turn the corner at the end of the block until I’m out of sight.

“Babe!” I hear him call out. “Babe! Stay where I can see you.”

But I can’t see him anymore, and I don’t know how to get back to the little white stucco house. One house looks exactly like the other. I ride through unfamiliar streets, growing bigger and bigger like Alice in Wonderland until my knees are sore from hitting up against the handlebars. I get off the bike, which is now ridiculously small, and I wonder how I’ve come so far on a tricycle.