Dream #23: I’m in a crowd of people, trying to push past them, but I don’t even know which way I’m supposed to be going. The more I push, the tighter the crowd gets. Then I realize that everyone is looking at me and closing in on me. I’m suffocating as they press against me and no amount of struggling can help me escape. I feel hotter and hotter and I’m losing control of my body and mind. I wake up in a sweat.
That Saturday with Mom was so amazing. We did a whole bunch of touristy stuff, but all the while I was thinking, This is my city – I actually live here! Mom had booked a twenty-minute helicopter ride that was taking off from the Wall Street heliport at 4 p m., so we had time to catch the ferry out to Liberty Island and visit the statue before that.
It was a beautiful fall morning and the passengers packed the deck to look back at the receding skyscrapers glinting in the sun. Mom and I were pressed against the railing, hair blowing in the breeze. A tall, sandy-blond-haired man wearing a brown suede jacket was standing to the other side of Mom. He turned to her, raising his voice to be heard above the wind and the noise of the engines.
“I still find it incredible.”
Mom took a couple of seconds to realize that he was talking to her.
“Oh, I know – what a city!”
“No, I mean, I still find it incredible that the twin towers aren’t there anymore,” he explained.
“Oh...” was all Mom could say, clearly feeling uneasy to be discussing the tragic events of 9/11 with a genuine New Yorker.
“They weren’t the most beautiful buildings in Manhattan, but they were so beautifully symmetrical.”
She nodded, seeming unsure about where the conversation with this good-looking stranger was heading. I decided to take matters into my own hands. Because he was about Mom’s age, was very friendly, and... okay, fine – he was a total hottie.
“We just went to check out the Ground Zero memorial,” I chimed in.
Mom turned to me. “Kari, you make it sound like we dropped in at a new store in the mall!”
The man laughed. “I’m Bob. Is it your first time in New York?”
“No, no,’ answered Mom.
Bob tilted his head, confused.
“I mean, yes,” she went on, flustered. “It’s our first time, but we’re not tourists – we just moved here.”
“She’s Emily,” I said, giving Mom a little kick on her boot heel. WTF, do I have to do everything?
Mom gave me a fake-stern look, then held out her hand to the attractive stranger.
“Bob – I’m Emily.”
“Pleased to meet you.”
He took her hand and instead of shaking it, held onto it for a few seconds. I couldn’t see Mom’s expression because she was facing away from me, but I think even I was blushing, so she must have been too. Bob broke off the handshake and turned back to look at the city.
“Welcome to the greatest city in the world, ladies.”
This guy was perfect for Mom! I was praying that they’d chat some more and exchange phone numbers, but the ferry docked and we got separated from him as we joined the river of tourists filing onto Liberty Island.
I elbowed her in the ribs. “Mom – that guy!”
“What?” she feigned ignorance.
“He’s smoking hot! Ask him out.”
She laughed. “Are you kidding? I could never do that and you darn well know it!”
Yeah, I guess that was stretching it a bit. She’d probably never asked a guy out on a date in her whole life. I stood on tippy-toes, peering over the crowd to find Bob. I could see his head bobbing along (how appropriate with a name like that!) near the front. Good thing he was tall. If this was to have any chance of success, I’d need to take matters into my own hands.
The crowd started to spread out. This was my chance. Before Mom knew what was happening, I’d managed to squirm past a tightly-packed gang of Japanese tourists and sidled up to Bob. He turned around before I even reached him and smiled at me.
“Hey again, Kari!”
“Listen – you have to ask my mom out,” I said, conspiratorially. “Don’t tell her I spoke to you, she’ll kill me!”
He threw his head back and laughed loudly as I pushed my way back to Mom. I don’t think she even realized that I’d gone.
Twenty minutes later we’d made the slow climb up the inside of the statue. Bob was there waiting at the upper level. I was impressed – good strategy! As soon as Mom saw him she was caught in the charm of his twinkly eyes.
“We have to stop meeting like this,” he joked, and she broke into a grin. “In fact,” he continued, moving closer to her but never dropping his gaze, “I’d love to meet up with you somewhere else. Maybe dinner tomorrow night?”
“Oh!” she exclaimed, totally unprepared to deal with his forwardness, “but it’s Sunday tomorrow.”
This was lame.
“Yes it is! You’ll have the whole day to relax and work up an appetite.”
She wanted to say yes, I could feel it. But she just couldn’t do it.
“That would be perfect, Mom,” I interjected. “I wanted to rent a bunch of movies this weekend. You know, the kind that have vampires in them and make you roll your eyes and sigh a lot when I watch them.”
Bob kept looking at her and I could tell Mom was of two minds. She found him cute, but she was scared. And who could blame her? No boyfriend in ten years, and now, within a couple of months of moving to the Big Apple, she was being hit on by a blond version of George Clooney!
“Can I call you?” he asked. “Please?”
He actually raised his clasped hands in mock pleading as he said this. I felt Mom soften – her resistance had crumbled.
“Sure.”
She fished a business card out of her purse and handed it to him.
“Thank you – I’ll call you later. And... I’ll get out of here now so we don’t stand around awkwardly not knowing what to say to each other.”
Mom laughed and covered her mouth with her hand out of shyness. She’s so adorable sometimes. Bob winked at me surreptitiously as he walked past us and headed for the exit.
Mom was in a great mood during the helicopter ride. I’d only ever been on a plane a handful of times and this was way more fun. It was kind of bumpy and Mom squeezed my hand a bit too tight when we took off, but man, what a buzz! We were in the front rubbing shoulders with the pilot. There were four other tourists in the back, looking envious at our incredible view out the rounded glass front of the helicopter. For twenty minutes I felt like I was a seagull, swooping around the Statue where we’d met Bob only an hour before, then gliding up the Hudson river, across Harlem and the new Yankee Stadium. Manhattan is insane – the skyscrapers packed so tight and the park in the middle of it all, with its woods, paths and ponds.
As we headed south again, back along the edge of the park, Mom suddenly shouted to me, “Hey – I think that’s my building!”
I looked down to where she was pointing.
“What do you mean?”
“Just north of Columbus Circle – that’s where I work! How cool is that?”
I really wasn’t sure which building she was talking about.
“Can you take me there later?”
“What do you mean?” she frowned.
“I’d like to see your office.”
“Why?”
“Because.”
“Because what?”
“Duh! Because it’s, like, super exciting that you’re working in the center of the universe!”
She laughed. “It’s just an office with a bunch of cubicles and computers.”
“I don’t care, I just want to know what to picture when I’m imagining you sitting at your desk.”
That was the best I could come up with, and it wasn’t very good. My real motive was that I thought maybe I could unearth some information about the Temple of Truth while I was there. Noon was in my thoughts like you wouldn't believe, and I had to find out more about his sketchy religion.
“Would you rather take me on a workday?” I asked. “I could come after school.”
She thought about this for a second as the pilot started playing that cheesy Frank Sinatra song over our headphones.
“No, best not, honey. Look, I’m kind of bushed now, but we’ll go tomorrow morning.”
“Perfect! It’ll keep your mind off the date with Bob.”
She shook her head and rolled her eyes at me, smiling. I could tell that she was excited about this potential man in her life and it made me really happy to see her acting a bit like a teenager for a change, rather than a responsible bread-winner and parent. We were so caught up in the romance of it all that neither Mom nor I thought to ask ourselves this question: if Bob had lived in New York for years, what was he doing visiting the Statue of Liberty?
* * * * *
Late the next morning we took the subway up from Chelsea to the 40-story office tower where Mom worked. She flashed her keycard at the bored-looking security guard in the gleaming lobby.
“What about her?” he asked, gesturing with a half-eaten sugared doughnut. “Does she have a pass?”
“Oh,” said Mom, surprised. “She’s my daughter.”
“Well, I gotta see some ID and she’s gotta sign in.”
“No problem,” I answered for Mom.
The last thing I wanted was to be denied access. I showed him my student ID and he frowned at it, rubbing crumbs off his bristly mustache.
“She’s only sixteen,” implored Mom. “She just wants to see where I work.”
He sighed and grabbed the clipboard with the sign-in sheet. After noting my student ID number he handed it to me with a bored, “Sign here.”
“Thanks,” said Mom, though she didn’t seem all that grateful.
There was a bank of five elevators, all waiting with doors open on the ground floor. I guess no one was working on a sunny Sunday afternoon. We stepped inside the middle one and were soon whisked up to the 8th floor.
We exited in front of a glass door engraved with the same Temple of Truth logo I’d seen at the entrance to The Warrington. Mom swiped her keycard and the door unlocked. I was apprehensive as we entered the office. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but I was quickly disappointed by its blandness. There was a large open space with a reception desk and rows of cubicles. Nothing weird. Nothing suspicious.
“So. Here we are,” announced Mom. “Most of these guys are on my team. You know – programmers and researchers.”
“Cool, cool,” I responded, looking around. Kiddie photos on desks, memos pinned to cubicle walls, yellow notes stuck on computer monitors... it could hardly have been more typical. Snore...
“And my office is over here,” she continued, striding toward the back of the room.
I followed her, taking in every scrap of information I could and checking out every object that caught my eye, but none of it was the slightest bit unusual. She opened a door marked “Emily Marriner – Chief Software Engineer” and entered the spacious corner office. Even though we weren’t particularly high up, she had a great view of Columbus Circle and the entrance to the park.
“Pretty neat, eh?” said Mom proudly. And you know what – she was right to be proud. She’d done super well for herself and totally deserved some props (as well as the salary that went with a job like hers).
“It’s awesome, Mom!” I congratulated her.
Her office was actually kinda bare. No bookshelf, no filing cabinet. I guess when you work in software, there’s not much call for paperwork. But I was desperate to find some kind of clue. Anything to give me the scoop on the ToT.
“Show me what you do,” I asked her casually.
“Oh jeez, it’s pretty darn boring! Just a bunch of algorithms and stats.”
“Like what? I wanna know! Just open your computer and show me something. Anything you like.”
I sat in her high-backed chair and swiveled around, putting on my best puppy dog eyes. They always worked when I wanted to get my way...
Her resistance crumbled. “Oh, that face! How can I say no to you?”
She leaned over me and typed in a password. Her screen came to life. It was the ToT logo with the words “Strictly Confidential Information” underneath it. Mom clicked on the logo and then a couple more times. A map of the world appeared. She moved the mouse pointer over the map. As it crossed the different countries, colorful charts popped up then disappeared.
“What’s that? What are those lines?” I asked.
“Okay, well that’s a graphical representation of variations in human DNA across various cultures and territories,” she explained.
I knew enough about biology to understand that she was helping them map out the differences in the genetic structure of human beings across the entire the world. But I decided to play dumb.
“So it’s, like, a genetic code?”
“Yes, honey – I’m impressed!”
“And what are they doing with all this information?”
She closed the program and logged out.
“Oh, I don’t know,” she said, then lowered her voice. “Probably trying to prove that they’re the Chosen People or something.”
“You really aren’t curious enough to ask your bosses?”
“It’s not that I’m not curious, it’s that I wouldn’t know who to ask,” she said, turning off the monitor. “Come on, let’s go grab a coffee in the park.”
“You mean you still haven’t met your boss?”
“Nope. And as long as the paychecks are deposited into my account, I’m not going to dig too deep.”
Wonderful. This visit was a total failure.
As we waited for the elevator, I looked around. “What’s in there?” I asked, motioning toward an unmarked metal door further down the hallway.
“Hmm?” she said as she glanced at her watch. I guess she was starting to think about her date with Bob.
“That door – it’s the office next to yours. What’s in there?”
“I don’t know.”
The elevator went ding. The doors opened.
“Have you ever seen anyone going in or out?” I inquired.
She shook her head as we entered. “No, why?”
“Isn’t that weird?” I wondered aloud.
She suddenly went all antsy and didn’t answer. Within seconds the elevator doors opened on the ground floor.
“Oh, shoot!” she exclaimed. “I left my purse in the office.”
“I’ll wait for you down here,” I said, stepping out of the elevator.
“Sure thing, honey,” she said through the closing doors.
I sauntered over to the reception desk. What did I have to lose by trying to coax some information out of the guard?
“Hey – what’s up?”
He just looked at me blankly from above the patch of sugar grains on his stubbly chin.
“Those Temple of Truth dudes are doing some totally rad shit up there. You ever run into any of the guys in charge? The priests or druids or preachers or elders or monks or whatever?”
Man, shut up Kari – you totally suck at this.
The guard eyed me like I was a skunk. I pretended I’d seen something of interest on the floor.
At that moment a ding signaled the return of the elevator to the lobby. I started to walk toward it, but instead of Mom, out stepped a man. A man I’d seen before. He realized I’d spotted him and froze. But where had I seen him? Where? He averted his gaze and ducked behind a towering, leafy indoor palm. Then I remembered. It was Noon’s father! He was in the classroom with Noon on my first morning at Chelsea Prep.
“Hello?” I called out. He broke from behind the palm and walked quickly, head down, along a corridor behind the bank of elevators. I followed as the security guard shouted something at me from the reception desk.
I rounded the corner and noticed the door to a stairwell swinging shut at the end of the corridor. The guard clickety-clacked across the marble floor behind me. I sprinted down the corridor and flung the door open. Breathlessly, I looked up and down the metal staircase. But it was deserted. How could he have reached the floor above or below so quickly? I held my breath, listening, but there was nothing.
Then the guard caught up with me. “What are you doing?” he panted, hands on thighs, leaning over his large gut.
Good question. What was I doing?
“I don’t know,” I admitted. I heard the elevator ding again in the lobby. “I thought it was someone I knew,” was all I could say.
Mom must have heard us talking and peered around the corner.
“What’s going on, Kari?”
“Nothing. Nothing.”
Maybe if I said it twice, I’d be able to convince her?
The guard stood up straight, having barely gotten his breath back. “Mrs. Marriner – if you sign in a guest you’re responsible for them at all times they’re in the building.”
“What did she do?” asked Mom, concerned.
The guard was stumped. “Just a warning, ma’am.”
I rejoined Mom, who was looking quizzically from me to the guard.
“Let’s get you ready for your big date,” I said, elbowing her.
She rolled her eyes.
“No pressure though,” I added, winking, and grabbed her arm.
The guard returned to his post. As we left through the revolving doors I threw a last glance back over my shoulder, hoping to catch Noon’s father. But the lobby was empty and I was left wondering why he had run away and how he had managed to disappear into thin air.
So... Mom’s big date. I can’t pretend that I didn’t stay awake that night just to see what time she got home. When I did hear the front door it was nearly midnight, and I took this as a positive sign. The next morning I couldn’t wait to hear her dish some dirt on the evening with Bob. I cornered her as she emerged from the bathroom, towel wrapped around her head.
“So? How’d it go with Bob the Beautiful?” I smirked.
She shook her head, grinning.
“What?! You’re not gonna tell me?” I said, wide-eyed.
“I guess I’m just not the kind of girl who kisses and tells!”
“Ah-ha!” I pounced on her slip. “So there were kisses!”
She marched purposefully into her room and threw the towel onto the bed. She turned to face me and stood there, hands on hips, debating with herself the wisdom of revealing this information to me.
“Okay, fine. We kissed.”
“Yes!” I squealed, jumping up and down.
“Gosh, if I’d known it was so easy to make you happy, I never would have bought you those $200 Uggs.”
“And?” I continued. “What else?”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“Okay, okay. But do you like him?” I asked hopefully.
She pretended to be nonchalant. “Sure, he’s a nice guy.”
But I could tell she had been charmed. There was a spring in her step and a twinkle in her eye. The unmistakable signs of my mother finally overcoming her tragic past and opening up a little.
We left together for work and school, hormones exploding and thoughts swamped by Noon and Bob respectively. The present was exciting and the future seemed filled with possibilities.
But that morning turned out to be the high-point. Over the next few weeks, Bob became as elusive as the warmth of the sun. Mom kept herself busy with work, but I could tell that she was disappointed when a month went by between their first and second dates. And, after that, when Bob announced over the phone that he’d be leaving town for the holiday season, I saw her face fall.
As for Noon... he didn’t show up in class that morning. Nor the day after. Or the one after that. In fact, the week just flew by, and it was only on the Friday afternoon that I cautiously asked Mr. Jefferson whether Noon was going to be sick for a while.
“Oh.. no,” he said distractedly, “He won’t be back.”
“What?!” I exclaimed, making the teacher jump. “What happened?”
“He moved away, that’s all.”
I couldn’t believe it.
Mr. Jefferson could sense my disappointment. “I guess he didn’t have a chance to tell you. His father was posted overseas.”
Overseas? My mind flashed back to the world map on Mom’s computer at the Temple of Truth. And to Noon’s father fleeing from me so bizarrely that same day. I had really felt a connection with Noon. Something more than that, in fact. Both emotional and physical. And now I had to face up to the probability that I might never see him again.
The other weird occurrence (and I couldn’t help but wonder if the two were somehow linked) was that Aranara disappeared at the exact same time. Actually, I shouldn’t really use the word “disappeared”. It was as if she had ceased to exist.
When I asked around school, no one else had even heard of her, apart from Cruz. I eventually went to the secretary’s office and thought up a reason to request some information. There was literally no record of her at Chelsea Prep. No registration, no student records. Yet Noon had clearly known who she was – she wasn’t just a figment of my imagination.
This only added to Noon’s mystery. But exam time came around fast, and before I knew it, school was out for the holidays.