Dev Dreams, Volume One, Page 2

  “What?”

  “Do you trust me?”

  She nodded.

  “You're going to like this, I promise.”

  He was right. The sensation was bigger than anything Em had ever experienced. It was like fireworks going off inside her. She caught her breath and had to remind herself to start breathing again.

  ***

  Em was sweeping the floor. She glanced at Jim occasionally and felt her face turn red whenever she caught his eye. She started sweeping faster. Before he could say a word to her, she rushed out of the room to get her next assignment. Nancy was looking at her. Did she know? No, Em told herself, Nancy always looked at her when she gave her a job.

  Nancy set Em up on the floor, behind the nurses’ station, sorting files. Absently she put folders away in alphabetical order and she wondered what was going to happen now. Em had a boyfriend; she couldn’t ignore that. How could she have cheated on him? She was such a good girl.

  Why did Kyle have to be so dry? And always look past her into the distance when he talked? Em leaned her head back against the wall, flattening her ponytail, and remembered how good last night had felt. A giddy smile on her face, she wasted the last few minutes of her shift day dreaming.

  Rather than go home, Em sat in Jim’s room waiting for him to come back. The room was empty. She saw dirt on the floor around the foot of Gerald's bed and had an urge to grab her broom and sweep it up. But she stayed where she was. The afternoon was drifting off into twilight. Watching the sprinklers on the lawn through the window, Em felt completely content; she finally had a place, she knew what she wanted.

  She heard a noise and looked up. At the end of the room he was moving towards her. His fist pushed against his joystick, moving the wheelchair forward. She remembered the feel of his fingers; his fist like the knob on a door that wouldn’t open. A young nurse was walking beside him and they were talking. But he stopped speaking when he saw Em. Their eyes locked and she thought he seemed afraid of what she was going to say. She stood up as he arrived in front of her and his eyes looked up into hers. The young nurse walked away. Em smiled shyly and said, “I’ve had an idea.”

  “Did you?” he said.

  “I want to go out with you, on a proper date.”

  “You’re not the type for a one-night stand, are you Ember?”

  She crossed her arms protectively in front of her, feeling the soft fabric of her sweater under her fingers. “Is that what you wanted it to be?”

  “No.” The one word came into her ears and flooded out her fear and anxiety. “Let’s go have an evening in the real world.”

  Em picked up his hand and squeezed it briefly, then laid it back down on the armrest. They went to the check-out desk. Nancy was there, flipping through file folders. She leaned forward and looked down at Jim, her eyebrows rising.

  “What’s going on?” she asked Em.

  James answered. “We're going out.”

  “Together?” Nancy said. “I don't think so.”

  “Talk to Sheryl if you have a problem with it.”

  Sheryl was Nancy’s boss, one of the older nurses in the rehab center. Nancy’s mouth stretched into a tight line. She didn’t seem to like having Jim question her authority. But she picked up the phone and paged Sheryl. Em didn’t see how that would help. Going to an older woman who knew more about the rules wouldn’t solve this problem, it seemed to her that Nancy was their best bet for sympathy. But when Sheryl arrived she immediately said it was fine. She smiled at Jim and patted his shoulder as she left.

  Em walked out with Jim beside her. She smiled as she held the front door open and his dark eyes squinted in the sun. “That was easy,” Em commented.

  “Sheryl is a friend of mine,” Jim said. “She was the nurse who was working the emergency room when I was first paralyzed.”

  Em felt she couldn’t help her curiosity, “When was that?” Her face began to get red, she was afraid she was being tactless, but Jim didn’t seem to mind.

  “Twenty years ago.”

  “That’s my whole life. You must have been in the hospital at the same time that I was there being born.”

  Jim changed the subject. “Where are we going?” he asked.

  “Well, in walking distance, there's the mall.”

  “Okay, let's do it.”

  Em walked beside him, holding his left hand while he used his right hand for his wheelchair. She forced her little fingers around his limp hand.

  The mall was as big and bright and overwhelming as she remembered. She hadn’t been here in years. James hit the handicapped symbol beside the door and it slowly swung open to let them in. They wandered down the main corridor, people rushing by on both sides. Em couldn’t help but notice that they all looked at her and James. All action and talking ceased as they went through, then continued behind them. He paid no attention to it, but Em turned her head and stared back at people. Somehow she hadn’t realized James would cause such a stir.

  He cleared his throat and said, “Em, focus on us, okay?”

  “Sorry.”

  “Don’t apologize. I’m just trying to help you deal with it. I know you’ve never been the center of attention before, but this kind of reaction to me is inevitable.”

  “Why?”

  “Who knows? I guess I scare people. They don't like to think about people like me existing.”

  “So it doesn’t bother you?”

  “I was thirteen when I had my accident, so I'm pretty used to it.”

  Em stopped walking and stood in front of him outside The Gap. “When people look at you they don’t see what I see, do they?”

  “Probably not.”

  Tears filled Em’s eyes, but she wasn’t sure why. Jim reached out and she leaned down to hug him. He kissed her cheek and said gently, “Hey, it’s okay. This is what you wanted, right? You said you want to have something real with me, a relationship, this is what it’s going to be like.”

  She turned her head and kissed him directly on the lips. She didn’t stop, though she hated to be so visible. She pushed her tongue into his mouth and he didn’t resist. Em felt her purse fall off her shoulder, but ignored it. Jim moved his tongue with the strength and intensity his body lacked. She climbed onto his lap. One of his hands was touching the skin under her shirt along her waist. Eventually he pulled back and they looked into each other’s eyes for several seconds.

  Then Em saw that her purse had spilled its contents along the corridor beside Jim. She hurriedly bent down and began shoving things back into it. The last thing was a stack of white business cards spread all across the floor. They were Kyle’s. Em hoped James didn’t notice.

  They spent a while in the mall. Em tried on clothes and modeled them for James, she got them pretzels, and they watched the fountain for a long time. Jim finally admitted that he was getting tired and they went back to the hospital. Nancy saw to it that Jim went straight to bed, and she glared at Em until Em waved good-bye and walked home.

  When she got home, Em went straight to her room and collapsed on her bed. While she was staring at the ceiling blankly, Julia peeked around the door.

  “Are you okay, Em?” she said.

  “No,” Em said. “I think I’m in love.”

  “Why so miserable?” Julia came in the room and sat down on the bed by Em’s head.

  “What I mean is I met someone. Someone other than Kyle. Is that terrible?”

  “You have to follow your heart. You have to believe in love above all else,” Julia said with enthusiasm.

  “It’s more complicated than that.”

  “True love conquers all.”

  “Does it?”

  “Em! Of course it does!”

  “I’m going to work on homework, okay?”

  Julia sighed and got up, leaving Em’s room rolling her eyes.

  ***

  When Em woke up the next morning, the phone was ringing. She sighed and sleepily walked into the living room to pick it up.

  “Hello, d
arling. It’s me.”

  “Mom?”

  “I finally catch you! You’re a busy girl these days. I just wanted to see how you were doing—wading through college.”

  “I like college, Mom.” She sat down on a stool and yawned.

  “And Kyle? How is he?”

  “He’s fine.”

  “Just ‘fine’?”

  “He’s the same as always. He’s very predictable.”

  “Oh, and you’re not?” Her mother laughed.

  Em knew why she was predictable; she was terrified to go against expectations.

  “Mom, what would you say if I told you I was going to have a wild romantic fling and run away with a man none of you have ever met?”

  “I’d ask you what you had done with my daughter.”

  “It could never happen?”

  “Don’t live in a fantasy world, Em. I believed in my knight on a white horse too and I ended up divorced.”

  “I wasn’t really picturing him riding a white horse,” Ember interjected, but her mother hadn’t heard her.

  “—I wish my mother had warned me earlier that romantic ideals are just for stories, and for a real man you need someone stable with a good steady income.”

  “Kyle.”

  “Exactly, dear. I’m so proud of you, you know, Em. You never let your imagination offer you things real life can’t provide. I love how practical you are. Kyle is everything you could want. I never knew men like him when I was your age. If I had, things might have gone differently...Oh.” She jerked herself out of reverie, “And how is your job?”

  “Fine,” Ember squeaked.

  “I’m glad,” her mother said distantly.

  Ember went to her classes that day, though she spent them scribbling absently in her notebook. That night Kyle called and asked Ember to go out to the new fancy restaurant in town the next day. He said he wanted to talk to her about something important. They didn’t usually talk about important things—just politics and movies. Ember was curious and, of course, she never denied Kyle a date. But as she agreed, Jim’s face was in her mind. Could she get rid of Kyle completely, without James ever finding out?

  The restaurant stood out against the dark night in false gaiety. It was high off the ground with a wide staircase leading up to the bright doors. It looked like the houses set up on stilts at the beach. This house was raised up not to keep out floods, but to separate society from all the people it didn’t want to see. As they climbed up Em counted the steps. Forty.

  At the top, Em asked Kyle to wait for the table. She walked around the outside balcony where people waited at metal tables to be seated inside. The night was dark. The lights in the rooms behind Em were so bright that the stars outside were dim.

  She found the ramp around the back. There was a gate with a handicapped sign on it that would open onto the balcony. Ember tried the latch, but she couldn’t get the gate to open. She pulled on it as hard as she could, tried all different directions, but nothing worked. And then she looked at the path from that gate to the front door. There wasn’t a chance that James's wheelchair would be able to maneuver through all these tables and chairs. She looked down at the parking lot far below her and she felt like a traitor.

  Kyle called for her and Em ran back to him. The main room was huge. Three stairs led down into it and the walls were long and wide. Tall windows along the walls looked out on nothing but darkness. High on the ceiling, crystal chandeliers provided the false brightness. People talked in low, refined voices and looked around themselves haughtily. Kyle held out the chair for Em to sit on. She looked at the menu. Kyle ordered them some wine.

  “Em, put down your menu for a minute,” Kyle said.

  “Yes?” Em said, laying it on the table beside her.

  Across the room a woman’s laugh bubbled over her champagne.

  Kyle took her hand from across the table.

  “Look at me,” he said.

  Em looked at him. There was a deep sincerity in his face that she didn’t see in him very often.

  “I asked you to come here so I could ask you a very important question.” He held her hand tighter and said, “Ember Matthews, will you marry me?”

  Suddenly Kyle had her full attention. “I...” she started, but she couldn’t get out another word. The house on stilts was suddenly swaying.

  Kyle began to talk. He seemed to be giving her reasons why marriage was a practical decision. He probably used sweet words, but Em didn’t hear them. She could almost see James sitting outside in the dark looking up at the gay pretense. None of it was real. It never would be.

  “Well?” Kyle said. “What do you say?”

  “Could I have some time to think about it?” she asked timidly.

  Kyle looked taken aback, but he said, “Of course.”

  “We can meet on Saturday? I can tell you then?”

  “Certainly,” he said.

  The next day Ember stayed home from class and called in sick to work. She couldn’t in good conscience agree to marry Kyle while she was in love with another man. Kyle was just what she needed. Kyle was the only choice. No one could be as perfect for her as Kyle was, except that she felt passion with James. She decided that she had to spend the next few days trying to forget James and teaching herself to live without him. She called in sick for the rest of the week.

  Every day it grew more and more painful, and Em became more and more afraid of that Saturday. Julia asked her what was wrong, but Em wouldn’t tell her anything.

  Saturday morning Em couldn’t stand to be in the apartment waiting around for Kyle to show up that afternoon. She rushed out, not knowing where she was going. She wasn’t thinking anymore. Her mind would not be logical. Her feet led her straight to the hospital. She had to see James.

  He wasn’t in his room. She checked everywhere she could think of. The wing where his patients were, the break room where they had played scrabble, the window they had cleaned together, and finally the garden.

  She saw the back of his wheelchair. James was looking down at the ground where he and Ember had made love.

  “James,” Ember said.

  His chair struggled around in the confined space and he looked at her.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “I’m okay, I guess,” Ember said.

  “I was worried when they said you called in sick for the whole week.” James's face looked drawn. His cheeks were more sunken than the last time she saw him.

  “Oh, James, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to worry you.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “I, well, it’s just that, um, my mother,” Em struggled to say, “set me up with this guy a while ago. I never told you, but now… now. He asked me to marry him.”

  “You have a boyfriend?” His face was unreadable—flat—he hadn’t moved.

  “I should have told you,” she whispered miserably.

  “Yeah. Yeah, you should have. You know, this meant something to me. What was it for you? Just something to pass the time?”

  “No, no, it wasn’t like that. I didn’t mean for this to happen.”

  He didn’t answer.

  “I’m sorry. I never wanted it to turn out this way. You’re the one I love.”

  “That doesn’t do much good, though, does it? Love is great and all, but it doesn’t fix anything.”

  “How can you be so cynical?”

  “How can I not be?” His voice was hard and tight. “I live in a nursing home, Em.”

  “Assisted living facility,” Em corrected.

  “Nursing home,” James insisted, “Like my life is already over because no one has ever been able to love me enough. My parents abandoned me here. They figure as long as they help pay the bill, that counts as love. How dare you make me care about you? This whole thing doesn’t just affect you. You’ve messed with my life. You should have thought about that. I have feelings too.”

  Em stayed quiet. He was right. She had been terribly selfish. She should never


  have let this happen. Wasn’t love something you couldn’t control? Wasn’t that her excuse? She realized she was crying as she felt hot liquid tickling her chin. She reached out and picked up his hand, holding it against her cheek to catch the tears.

  “I love you,” she said. “I don't know if it's enough, but it consumes me. You are the first person who ever saw me and let me be myself. I want you, I really do, I just don't know how.”

  The door behind her opened and Em dropped his hand, where it landed on his thigh and stayed there. Em spun around, wiping tears off her cheeks with her sleeve. Kyle walked into the garden.

  “There you are,” he said to Ember, ignoring James. “Julia said I could probably find you here.”

  “Yes,” Ember said.

  “Come on, Em, today’s the day you’re going to tell me you want to marry me.”

  Ember looked back at James. He was looking at her steadily. She turned away, looked at Kyle, and swallowed hard.

  She said, “I’m sorry, Kyle, but I’ve met someone else.”

  “What are you talking about? Who?” he demanded. It never occurred to him that the man was sitting directly in front of him.

  Em's voice was caught. She tried to say something, but no sound came out. James saw her floundering. “That would be me, you asshole,” he said, rolling forward.

  “This is a joke,” Kyle said.

  “You wish,” James said. “Now get out of here and leave Ember alone.”

  “You’re making a big mistake, Em,” Kyle said, never looking at James.

  “Just go,” she said.

  “You would pick some limp dick cripple over me? Am I in bizzaro world?”

  “Kyle!” Em knew he had a temper, but she'd never heard him say anything like this. “It's not true,” she added.

  “Oh my God,” Kyle ranted, “You fucked him? That is too disgusting to believe. You make me sick, Em.”

  Something snapped in Ember. Later James would say it was her spark finally catching fire. “I make you sick?” she said. “You with your pompous, arrogant talk and your dismissal of everything that makes me, me? You are pathetic and I'm sorry I ever met you.”

  Two security guards appeared in the doorway, Em didn't know who had called for them. Kyle turned and saw them, looked back at Em, but didn't say anything. He walked away, shrugging off the guards.