Dreamland Social Club(64)

“Well, last year we tried to build a Helter Skelter slide from the gym windows.” Babette played with one of her seven looped earrings for a second. “With one of those inflatable slide things, but decorated to look cooler. But the whole thing was a disaster.”

“What did the first club do?” Jane asked. “Is there a list in there?”

“Oh,” Babette said, “yeah, that’s pretty much all this book is, notes about stunts.” She started to flip through the official Dreamland Social Club notebook.

“Do you mind?” Jane held out her hands, and Babette handed the book over. Jane turned back to the beginning and to the pages that came right after the club’s statement of purpose, the rules of membership. When she found the list of stunts from the club’s first year she said, “It says here that they made a papier-maché version of the beast in The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms and put it on the roof of the school.”

“Turn the page,” Babette said. “There’s a picture.”

Jane turned and found the photo taped into the book and studied it. “I saw that movie,” Jane said. “My brother has it.”

They hadn’t talked about Marcus in any real way in a long time, not since they’d both accepted that Jane knew more about her brother and Rita than Babette really wanted to know. Jane regretted even mentioning him.

“Any good?” Babette asked. She’d become a professional at this nonchalance thing over the winter.

“Not really,” Jane said. “No.”

Babette looked at her watch. “I better go.” She stood. “So I’ll see you Sunday at the meeting?”

“That’s really it?” Jane held out the book and Babette took it. “I’m a member?”

“That’s really it.”

They both shook their heads.

“Here,” Babette said, handing the book back. “Why don’t you take it home? There are some old questionnaires in there, in the envelope in the back.”

“My mom’s?”

Babette just nodded.





Jane sat with the book in her room when she got home and started to flip through the opening pages, where more rules were laid out.

“In addition to not speaking about the existence or activities of the club when not at an official meeting, members are asked to refrain from claiming membership in yearbooks or on résumés and the like. The founder of the club will claim credit for its foundation in one publication of record, The Coney Island High Tide, solely to put the club in the history books.”

It all seemed sort of dopey to Jane, in a way, but it was also thrilling to glimpse these insights into her mother’s world. It wasn’t her journal, no, but it was sort of close. She turned to the envelope taped to the book’s inside back cover and saw a note written on the envelope: The official Dreamland Social Club Membership Questionnaire is NOT mandatory for membership, but if members are inclined to answer a few random probing questions so that future generations might glimpse the inclinations and personas of some former members, so be it: She flipped through the stack until she saw the one with Clementine written in the top slot for “Name (first only).”





What’s your earliest memory?

Waking up to the noise of my parents’ crazy parties.

What sound makes you happy?

Silence.

What was the last dream you had that you remember?

I dreamed I was the singer of a band that had a sort of B-movie dragon as the drummer.

Name one thing you want to do before you die.

See the world. Or at least part of it.

Why is a raven like a writing desk?

Because you cannot ride either one of them like a bicycle.

What’s the best thing about being you?

I have a lot of secrets and an active imagination. Seriously good daydreamer.





Setting the page down, Jane lay back on her bed. She’d been hoping for more insight, but there were some clues, weren’t there? That the girl her mother had been had been pretty similar to the woman she’d become, or at least the woman Jane remembered. She’d wanted to travel before she died, and the fact that she had accomplished that struck Jane as a good thing, a happy thought. But what did it mean if one of the best things about being you was that you were a serious daydreamer? It meant you were good at escaping, which meant that you had a life worth escaping from, which was sort of sad. Then again, all those games—Elephant Hotel, the house under the roller coaster—that was a kind of daydreaming, a kind of reverie, too, and a good kind.

Secrets.

That word again.

Going to her desk, where the mermaid doll sat with its secret keys stuffed back inside where they’d spent the winter, Jane pulled them back out again.

Thunder. Jump. Wonder.

Those had all been sorted out—for the most part, anyway. The Wonder key still nagged, but not as much as the Bath key. And when her fingers found it, she felt a new determination to try to figure out what it was. Electric Bathing wasn’t a clue, wasn’t the answer. Still, it was out there. So she took the key off the ring and put it on her keychain with her house keys so that it would be with her when the answer presented itself.





CHAPTER two


HER FATHER CAME HOME that Saturday afternoon with a garment bag and wanted to model his new suit. Jane couldn’t think of the last time her father had bought a suit and admitted it looked good on him, though possibly just because it was new. “What’s the occasion?” she asked, feeling playful. “Hot date?”