07. Clay

Leila arrived home just as the street lights turned on. She felt like she’d brought back a bit of the ocean with her. She could still smell it when she inhaled, taste it on her skin. Being this peaceful and drained at the same time only came from two experiences that Leila had known in her young life: crying, and swimming in the ocean. During the last stretch of the drive back, the conversation had been spent and the three friends coiled like baby ferrets in their seats for a moment of restful introspection. Leila had gently run her fingertips through her scalp to loosen the grains of sand lodged there from a day of cavorting in that ambivalent world of endless wonder and painful limitations.

As she said her thanks and bid everyone a good night, Leila walked to the front door of her house and stopped for a moment before knocking. It felt unnatural being here, in this fortress of stress, while in such a spiritual state of exhaustion and contentedness. It’s like tossing a tortoise into the ocean, how can you expect it to thrive?

She was about to knock when her brother opened the door, and caught her with her fist in the air. “Power to you, too,” he said as he lifted his own fist and stepped around her, “you better get your ass inside, dad was asking when you were getting back.”

 “I’m going. Got a gig?” The assumption was based on the fact that Josh was wearing one of his good black shirts, emblazoned across the front in album cover art. He was also wearing enough cologne to freshen a barn, and so much gel in his ponytail that he looked like he was sporting a dark blonde helmet.

“Nah, just rehearsal, then we’re going out to watch another band play. How was the beach?” The question took Leila by surprise, as did any show of legitimate interest her brother ever showed in her, as rare as teeth on a frog.

“It was good. The weather was nice, the water wasn’t too cold.”  Reduced to first grade sentence structure again… it’s a wonder these people don’t have me committed. “Well, I’ll see you later.”

“Yeah, tomorrow probably. Night.”

She saw her brother walk to the curb and out of sight. Standing alone for a spell, she at last decided to go in and try to seclude herself in her room as soon as possible. There was a lot to think about.

The door lock clicked under her fingers. The entire house was still and dark. She turned on the outside lights and tried to feel for the presence of her parents in the social area of their home. She couldn’t hear the TV in the den, or movement in the kitchen. Part of her wanted to be swallowed by the earth and spat out in her room, where she wouldn’t have to talk to her parents at all. As it was, she knew she had to announce her arrival, at least. She managed a meager “I’m home. I’m going to take a shower now.” Not three steps of the way to her room she heard her mother’s voice calling from the breakfast table in the kitchen, “Come here for a minute, please.”

It’s not good. It can’t be good, the last time I heard that exact tone and volume was… can’t remember when, but it was bad. What did I do? This can’t be just about the clothes. Or maybe it is, maybe it’s just about the clothes. Maybe she has more clothes for me to fold now, that won’t be so bad, will it?

In the few seconds needed to trek from the foyer to the kitchen she thought all this. When she got to the table her heart dropped. In all correctness, it dropped, made a hole on the floor, drilled through layer after layer of rock and kept going until it reached the center of the Earth, where it sizzled like a torched dandelion head.

Both her parents were sitting at the breakfast table. Laid in front of them was a letter with the intricate masthead of MJC embossed on the top left corner, and the unmistakable, double-looped signature of the school’s principal signed at the bottom.

Leila had once read in a magazine article that crime suspects being held for questioning tend to fall asleep if they’re guilty. The reasoning behind this behavior is that they realize they’ve been caught, it’s over. So they relax. Never had something reeked of bullshit so bad in all her life. Standing there in front of her parents and that letter, the only thing that made sense for her to do was run to the nearest bus station, buy a ticket out of the state under a fake name and make a fresh start.

She had received that letter the day before. She’d been asked to step into the principal’s office, and Mrs. Wales made a shallow attempt at getting to the bottom of Leila’s lopsided grades, stating that the letter was to let her parents know she was in danger of failing Biology and, for the second term in a row, Math and History. Leila had not entertained the uppity lady’s watered-down attempts at concern, and stated with extreme simplicity that she was going to work towards getting back on the right path. She then took the letter, stuffed it in her backpack without even bothering to read it, and decided to pretend it had gone the way of her patience for these empty people shells.

Now here she was, the offensive letter sitting on the table, pretending to be unaware of the trouble it was about to bring about.

“Sit down.” If she didn’t know her father and had overheard him say this, Leila would have thought he was addressing a puppy in training with this command for the tenth time. She pulled up the chair opposite her mother and sat on her hands, as if she was trying to anchor herself to this world before she lost all will to stick to it.

“Did you get that from my backpack?”

“I was cleaning your room and I found it.”

“So you’re saying you go through my personal things without asking? Is that a thing we do now?”

Her own incensed reaction took Leila by surprise. She knew why she’d countered her mother’s answer so fiercely, though. Lola didn’t sound the least bit contrite for what she’d done. As if cleaning her room without her consent wasn’t invasive enough, her lack of shame implied she also justified going through her personal belongings. Leila was shaken by this; she had never been able to imagine herself going through anyone else’s things. Even on the occasion where she snooped around her parents’ room and found a stack of old letters, yellowed and worn at the edges, she’d only managed to skim through one of them before giving up on the task. They weren’t profound, but they struck her as being so intimate she immediately felt her parents’ scriptures repelling her eyes; the way she imagined the people in the Bible averted their sight in the presence of angels.

“When were you going to give us this letter?”

Sure dad, do that, piss on my concerns. Move on to the topic of your own interest while you just brush my fair objections off the table and into the waste basket. Throw my respect for you in there too, while you’re at it.

“I think I wasn’t going to. I guess I thought I could just fix it myself. I didn’t want you guys to worry about something that wasn’t going to be a problem for long. I can fix this.”

“Have you been lying about having homework? I have no idea what you do in your room all day but we believed you were doing your school work. I don’t understand how this could happen even after we cut down your TV time. Are your classes too hard?” The last question was thrown in as an afterthought by Leila’s father, like a “gesundheit”; instantly spoken although no one cared to figure out why. He didn’t even consider the possibility, and neither did she. It made as much sense as fitting a hawk for contact lenses. Everyone knew exactly what was expected of her, and the reason why she was unable to live up to said prospects was a puzzle for the ages.

“I’ll be fine, it’s taking a bit of getting used to, that’s all.” The words came out of her with as much force and conviction as the air escaping a week-old balloon.

“Do you think you need a tutor? I might be able to get someone to help you with math.”

Bless you, Dolores, you really do believe anything can be fixed with a snap of the fingers. But if there’s one thing I would dread more than sitting here witnessing you take me apart like a nine-piece jigsaw puzzle, it would be dealing with MORE TEACHERS.

“No, mom, give me a chance to do this by myself, please.”

“What do you plan to do differently? Whatever it is you’re doing now is clearly not working.” Leila felt like she had swallowed razors when she heard her father’s words. He had every right to ask, but no idea that this was the object of her search, what she had to “fix”. The material from her subjects was not impossible to breach; it just needed something from her that she had yet to figure out.

“I’ll work harder. I’ll start my homework on time. I’ll review my classes at home every day. Can I please just go shower now? The salt is hurting my eyes.”

Her parents shared a swift glance, then Lola dismissed her with a “We know you can do better. There is no question about your intelligence. You are a bright child, and even with your scholarship we’re sacrificing a lot to make sure you can attend this school,” she stressed this with a tap of her index finger over the letter on the table, “so make sure you aren’t wasting this valuable opportunity.”

“Yeah, thanks.” Leila’s voice cracked when uttering these words, but she didn’t stick around to see how her parents had reacted to her imminent breakdown. She picked up her knapsack and trudged the distance between the kitchen and her room, barely managing to keep her tears from rolling until she had closed and locked her door.

She could hear the low drone of her parents’ conversation in the kitchen. They were discussing her, and the mere thought made her feel like she was swallowing lava. What happened to this child, they surely said. Where did we go wrong, they pondered with knitted brows. It’s that damn TV and all those books. We had such high hopes, we were so proud. We must have steered her wrong at this turn and now she’s drifting off course. We have to bring her back.

Shame. What a tragic way to end such a perfect day. This is just so typical. Sure Leila, here, take a second of respite and nepenthe for the memory of your lost life of confidence and respect. The crow will be right there waiting for you when it wears off.

Her room was clean. It was an offensive neatness, because it was neither of her doing nor of her will. The pile of clothes was gone from her dresser, where a few perfume bottles and decorative trinkets now appraised her from neat rows, judging her for her lack of resolve to do something as simple as lining them up.

This is what my life boils down to now. People asking me to do the right thing, having all the right intentions, and getting nothing done. What IS wrong with me?

Not wanting to get inside her head too much, Leila decided to shower. She headed for her closet, opened the top drawer and fished for clean underwear. A pair of silky green pajamas her mother had made for her a few months back was also there, freshly laundered, so she picked that up as well and crept to the bathroom at the end of the hall.

She stood before the mirror and smoothed her hands over her face. Her teens had brought her many changes, from the –rather late- onset of puberty, to school issues she’d never had to deal with before. Acne was another unwelcome gift, and skin that bore enough oil to shine a coffee table. But right now, even after the beach and crying, her eyes were shining and her skin was clear. The shower was already running, creating a soothing atmosphere. I look quite lovely, considering the circumstances.

There was a knock on the door, to which she responded in even stride, “Just a minute, please.” The water was no longer running. Her hair had made itself an ornament, resting on the crown of her head. It was held in shapely ringlets with the aid of a humble black hair tie. She didn’t rush into her pajamas. The emerald green silk slipped on with a whispered caress. For a moment, before unlocking the door, she allowed herself to be engulfed by the mist in body and mind. She pushed the door open and realized with no surprise that it was hinged in the opposite direction.

I’m dreaming again.

Waiting for her on the other side was the boy she’d seen in her dreams the night before, dressed quite simply in denim jeans and jacket, a white t-shirt and white sneakers. His hair was still the same dark blonde, the color of ripened wheat, but it now sat obediently on his head in tresses that reached his chin. His greeting was a simple 

“Hey.”

“Hey to you too. Are you going to wake me up again?”

“I wasn’t planning on it. Then again this is your dream, so technically you’re the only one who can get anything done here.”

None of the conflicting emotions that had plagued her previous dreams were present now. She was perfectly at ease talking to the boy, as if he were someone she’d known all her life. Evelyn and Vin were her best friends, but not even they elicited the same poise and nonchalance she now experienced before this enigmatic character.

She walked with him down the hallway and to the living room, where they sat on opposite sides of the sofa. Leila couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling that she’d seen the boy somewhere before. But even if she could place her suspicions, she wouldn’t allow herself to entertain the notion that someone in the conscious world could have such a nonthreatening, soothing effect on her. Even in a dream that seemed impossible.

“Are you gonna tell me your name? It seems fitting, since you seem to enjoy crashing my dreams, so at least I should be able to know what to call you.”

The boy smiled, showing a neat row of teeth that reminded Leila of the smooth underside of seashells.

“I’m Clay.” Something in the way he’d said this unsettled Leila, it felt like he had doubted himself for a second, he’d held his breath for a tick before speaking. Even so, once voiced it seemed to true and obvious that she didn’t question it again. His name was Clay.

“Are we doing something special tonight, Clay?”

“Well, nah, I figured we’d just hang out here for a while.” As the boy said this, his gaze shifted from Leila at his side to face forward, his hair waving in a sudden wind. The young girl followed suit and was surprised to find the monumental expanse of a nocturnal beach stretching before her.

It was not the same beach she had been to that day. It was a rocky escarpment that cut into the coastline. The waves crashed with a booming roar into the colossal black barrier; deploying a spray so fine it reached Leila and Clay’s natural balcony as a chilled mist. The pair was sitting on a comfortable natural niche, reminiscent of an eagle’s nest, complete with a cozy, nearly ergonomic curvature and mossy carpeting. There was no apparent way to approach the seat from above or below, nor a safe or plausible way to get from that spot to the top of the jagged wall, which spanned at least a couple of tens of meters above them.

None of this bothered Leila, neither the cold nor the precarious perch in which she sat, none of it could possibly matter when presented with such a sight as the one that splayed ahead of her. The ocean water was a deep blue, speckled with shimmering lights that seemed to duplicate the fledging Milky Way above, with stars painted in easy millions, all alight in silver, blues, pinks and purples.

The ocean is heaven’s mirror. The twinkling stars dance and cavort in the water, pleased at their appearance. I don’t know the last time I saw a happier scene.

“So, is there anything you want to talk about?” Leila had turned before Clay said this, as if she was already expecting him to talk.

“I’m not a very interesting person, Clay. And being here is, in all likelihood, the most impressive thing that I’ve ever experienced.” Leila didn’t feel any of her usual self-consciousness as she spoke. She wasn’t being self-deprecating. She didn’t even feel like she was exaggerating in her declaration. As it was, Clay’s presence was so warm and welcoming to her, she didn’t feel the need to put on any of her usual affectations. She did realize, though, that she loved the sound of his voice. He has a voice like rain. She decided all at once that his voice was the sound of rain, the smell of cinnamon tea and the feeling of slipping on fuzzy socks on a cold day. And she wanted to hear more, so she willed the conversation along. “You, on the other hand, seem to be an interesting and unique individual. What if you tell me something about yourself?”

Clay tightened his lip and snuffed, as if taken aback by the question, then gave off a quick, singular chuckle and scratched at his scalp through his blonde, now slightly frizzy locks, “I think maybe you give me too much credit there, I wouldn’t know where to begin telling you about myself, but only because I don’t consider myself that interesting either. So you see we have something in common already.” He ended the sentence with a studied smile that reminded Leila of pageant queens looking satisfied after plugging world peace.

“No, look, it’s easy. Here’s what we’ll do: I ask you a question, and then you ask me a question. Does that sound fair?”

“Quite magnanimous, I do say.” Leila felt her smile widening at Clay’s flat attempt at a British accent. He immediately added, “Okay, now it’s my turn to ask a question.”

“Oh, you sneaky snake!” Leila said from her side of the seat. Clay emitted an impish chortle and doubled onto his left side when he noticed Leila’s intention to give him a playful shove. Just as her hand was about to make contact, a large wave hit the side of the barrier, sending up a massive spray that managed to hit Leila in the eye. Her hand stopped midway to its destination and went up to her eye to rub the offended spot.

“Are you okay?” The concern in his voice made Leila’s insides feel like they were shrinking for a fleeting second. She moaned, drew air through her teeth and finally looked up at him with a brazen grin.

“Yes. Okay, now it’s my turn.”

“Look who’s being sneaky now!”

“In all fairness I’m nothing if not a quick study. Okay, my question is… how old are you?”

“Fifteen. What’s your biggest fear?”

“I guess that’s a tie between my dad’s anger and cockroackes.” Clay snickered at this answer. “What’s your favorite color?”

“Green. What’s been your proudest moment?”

“I used to think it was getting into Belmonte, the school I go to. But that’s been nothing but trouble now, so I’d have to go with the moment I got an award for a short story I wrote. Standing on a podium with a plaque on my hands, I really did believe for a second that all my dreams were in my reach.” Leila mimicked a proud stance and holding the plaque as she spoke. When she finished, she deflated and looked off into the ocean, setting her sight on the distant horizon. The feeling of Clay’s intense stare made her turn to look at him. What are you doing? I can’t figure out that look. Do you feel sorry for me? No, that’s not it. You’re not judging me, you… care?

“Anyway, I get a question now.” Clay’s eyes widened as Leila blurted this, and then he blinked and shrugged in his place as if to compose himself. Leila continued, “Same question, what’s been your proudest moment?”

Clay wormed around in his seat and craned his neck, as if going around his mind searching for the right answer. He looked down at the swell and answered, “I’d have to say it was being able to do this.”

Leila sat in strained expectation, waiting for him to pull a beehive out of his hair or something just as outrageous. But he just sat still and silent, adding nothing to his statement.  She found herself blurting, “What do you mean by ’this’?”

“Hold up, now, it’s my turn to ask a question.” Leila could tell he was faking seriousness under a smile. “My next question is… when did you start doing this? And I will be nice and elaborate, which will also explain my last answer. By “this”, I mean being aware in your dreams.”

“Is that what you call this? Because I wouldn’t really know what to tell you. I’ve always had really vivid dreams, ever since I was little. My brother used to talk in his sleep or wake up thinking he was still dreaming. We shared a room back then and my parents would run in and take him out because I’d get scared seeing him like that. I never did that, I had dreams that felt real.”

Clay seemed engrossed. He tilted his chin slightly, encouraging her to tell him more. She sighed and continued, “Well, like I remember one time I dreamed that I got a puppy. I always pestered my parents for one when I was little. Anyway, in that one dream my parents gave me this little white fluff ball, a teacup pom, so poofy it seemed like the wind could pick it up and carry it away like a dandelion seed. That was probably the happiest I’d ever felt up to that point in my life. I called her Pim. I played with her all day and then set her down to sleep next to my bed. I woke up the next day, in the real world, looking for her and of course she was gone. I asked my mom where my puppy had gone and she said she didn’t know what I was talking about, that there never was a puppy and I wouldn’t get one until I was mature enough to keep my room clean and do all my chores without being nagged, at the very least. I went to my room and cried for hours. I never asked for a puppy again.”

There was a pregnant pause in the conversation. Leila didn’t feel the physical discomfort that accompanied getting choked up, but her thoughts felt weighed down by the memory. Clay respected her moment, but eventually spoke up and stated empathically, “That’s really sad.”

 Leila spoke up as if her ideas had breached the barrier between her cautious overthinking and her mouth, “No, that’s not the saddest part; you wanna know what the saddest part is? I felt like I was crying for a real puppy. My mind didn’t allow me to accept that it had just been something it had made up. So, to answer your question, I don’t know when it became this,” she motioned at the air between them with her palm, and then at the sea, “but if I had to give you a rough estimate, I’d say this is the second time I’ve experienced this. The first time was when I met you for the first time.”

In another bout of silence, the pair retreated into their thoughts. Leila often wondered what made a person insane. The line between vivid imagination and outright craziness often struck her as an unfathomable construct. Crying over a dream was crazy in hindsight, so was being able to reflect in dreams the way she was doing now. Making up people in her sleep was also starting to make her feel uneasy. This line of thought took her straight into her next question, which she delivered with little ceremony, “Clay, it’s my turn to ask now. Are you an actual person?”

Clay’s eyes widened then were hooded by his furrowed brow. Leila felt her insides tucking into themselves for a second and considered withdrawing the question. She reminded herself that this was, in all likelihood, not a real person, dismissed the unpleasant tug and held her ground.

He looked down and off to the side, then spoke, picking each word like a burrow from his socks as he went, “I know I can’t ask you another question until I answer, so I’m going to do my best here considering I don’t understand exactly what you mean.” He looked up at her and shrugged, “I’m as much a person as you are.”

She should have been satisfied with this answer, instead she found herself becoming insecure. This could very well be another trick of her mind, a cruel prank she was playing on herself. Her hand went up to her neck, where she found her pulse and noticed warmth that contrasted with the cold that would be expected of her surroundings. Awareness was giving way to reason, and reason was beginning to eat away at her dream.

“Why are you here?”

“Wow, this got deep all of a sudden. Well, I’m here to try and find my place in the world and do my best with the hand I was dealt. Same as anyone else I think.”

Leila felt a punch in the gut as she processed this answer. It felt fake. It wasn’t following with the pattern they had set for the conversation, he’d let her ask two questions in a row and then acted like the previous question hadn’t been discomforting. Clay was putting on an act. What kind boy gives an answer like that? Is he putting me on?

“I’m kidding.” Clay said, as if aware of her apprehensions. “I’m here to pose a challenge to you. We were meant to find each other. At some point you’ll have to figure out who I am. That’s the easy part. The hard part will be for you to figure out why I’m here. You’ll know the meaning of that by the time the challenge is met.”

While Leila worked on the bomb that had been laid in her mind with this declaration, Clay meditated for a moment and asked his next question, in apparent unawareness of Leila’s concerns. “Why are we here right now?”

Blood pumped in Leila’s veins as the final syllable coursed the air between them, the pressure resonating firmly in her ears and darkening the landscape, light returning once the beat elapsed. She could feel her heart engorging, ready to pound again and send her rolling into darkness one more time, reality creeping unwelcome into her mind. She felt something like rage welling in her.

“What do you mean? Didn’t you bring me here? You should know! Is this your dream or mine?”

Clay started speaking but Leila couldn’t make out the words coming out of his mouth. She could only hear the thump of her blood like a thousand base drums booming in unison. His face was contorted in a mask of concern and frustration. Leila could make out some of the words escaping the young man’s mouth: “same”, “question it”, “alone”, “trust”, “find out”.

The water was receding at a rapid pace. From her vantage point Leila felt like their balcony was being elevated, but it took her little to realize what was about to happen. The roar of the water was dull and deafening, growing louder and louder every second. She didn’t want to look, but she didn’t need to, her eyes were not the main vehicle for her perception anymore. She wanted answers from Clay, she wanted out of the dream, and both desires were wrestling in her deepest conscious.

“You have to give me answers, Clay, you can’t just leave me like this!”

“We have to go! I’m not kidding Leila, you have to wake up now!”

Leila willed herself to stay in the dream, not knowing how she was managing to hold on to it. Danger was present, as real as the droll thunder of the ocean about to crash against them both, threatening to integrate them into the vaporized mist of salt water.

In a desperate panic, Clay pounced and set his mouth close enough to Leila’s ear that she could feel his warm, wispy breath as he spoke to her as evenly as he could, considering he was, in effect, shouting like both their lives depended on it, “Leila listen, you have to go, you’re in danger!”

“Danger? Danger from what? Tell me!”

“You have to…” The ground shook with a thundering rumble, and the light of the stars was shadowed by the impending wall of water.

“Clay! Are you real?”

His words were suddenly very clear, as if he were speaking them straight into her mind before they both vanished into dead silence, “I AM real, but so is he!”

Leila turned to the infuriated ocean waters and felt her face contorting into a silent scream. She felt like she would never stop screaming soundlessly, her ears blasted clear out of her head from the impact of the scene before her. There was a face in the water, coming for her with a cavernous, jarring gulf of a mouth, ready to consume her had she not jumped out of her dream in time.