DREAM SMASHERS

Dream Smashers -- chapter 23 & 24

DREAM SMASHERS

TWENTY-THREE

Monday, October 12th

I sit in the cafeteria, waiting for Rainy. School is weird. Not in the sense of freakish weird, but more along the lines that we are actually going weird. Both of us. Every day since she returned last Wednesday. Rainy insists on getting to class on time, which is a bit hard for me to fathom. They didn’t send her to rehab like we were told, but to California to stay with her grandmother she never met before. She only stayed there for a few days. I’m not sure what miracle occurred while she was there to cause her transformation. But whatever it was, it’s stuck with her these past few days.

            Think of Rainy, and she appears, skipping into the cafeteria. Well, not skipping, but walking with an extra beat to her step, red sucker in mouth, dark glasses on eyes, giant, Madonna-like bow in hair and lace gloves on hands. Typical. Attached to Rainy, these items make their way to the once deserted table where I’ve crashed my backpack and body into a hard plastic chair. We have our own table now. On occasion people come visit us, but for the most part, we’ve been hanging-out in Lonerville for a few days.

            Rainy pulls the sucker from her mouth. “Dude! Did you see that Angel chick hanging all over the new guy with the leather jacket?” She shoves the sucker back between her cheek and teeth, giving her the very attractive tumor-on-face look. “I bet she’s slept with a ton of guys before.” She smacks her books onto the table.

            “Rainy, she’s really not that bad. Actually, she’s pretty nice. Don’t you trust your brother to have any taste?” 

            She rolls her eyes. “Whatever.”

            I give her the one-over. “Did you change your clothes? I could have sworn you were wearing jeans this morning. No, I’m positive you wore Levi’s because I’m wearing my Levi’s and I specifically remember thinking how weird it was that we both decided to wear our Levi’s on the same day.”

            “Yeah, I missed fourth period because my home-ec partner decided she would prefer to see the cake mix all over me instead of in the pan.” She sighs, crinkles her nose, and smoothes her black stretch pants with her hand.

            I laugh out loud. The thought of Rainy trying to cook at all is a joke, but imagining her wearing the food is a giggle free-for-all.

            “Oh! And get this. There was a voicemail on my cell phone. Caleb wants to go out on a double-date this weekend!” She lets out an uncharacteristic squeal.

            I freeze, hoping that the squeal will go away. It does, but her smile doesn’t—which is a good thing. “Don’t do that ever again.”

            She looks about the cafeteria. “I don’t even know where that came from. He is cute though, huh?”

            “Are you serious? I remember a time when he wasn’t ‘all that’ and you ditched him.”

            “That was then and this is now. You’ve got a goody-goody-guy and it seems to be working out for you. Thought I’d give it a try, too.” She pushes her books out of the way and plops up onto the table. “Besides, I’m really digging the whole Jesus stuff. Jesus-freaks aren’t so bad after all.”

            I know exactly what she’s talking about. It’s like I’ve found a single person in the world who I can ‘just be’ around. Someone who doesn’t care how messed up my parent is or how cool I’m not at school. Don’t get me wrong, I’m cool, just not the kind of cool that makes people popular. Me and Rainy are our own special brand of cool.