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The yard is filled with six long tables and about fifty folding chairs, a white marquee tent providing a sliver of shade. There are four three-foot-tall black speakers on the porch and the bloody “Congrats” sign hangs from the eaves.
The three chickens peck drunkenly at the remains of the cake splotched over the grass. It’s nearly gone, and soon I think they’ll have gorged themselves into a sugar coma.
The old women have migrated from the shade of the tree and moved to the shade of a porch at a sunset-pink cottage two doors down. The three men sit on the porch steps, drinking from tall, ice-filled glasses. A porch fan spins lazily over their heads.
“Over here,” Robert says, his voice low.
He strides around the cottage, his movements deceptively casual. I frown, glancing back at the closed front door of the house.
Then I shrug and hurry down the steps, sticking to the cooler shade of the eaves, and make my way through the grass. It prickles against my bare feet.
The rooster, seeing me, raises his chest and lets out a long, cake-filled, “Ah uh ah uh oooo.”
I laugh at the glutton as I round the corner of the cottage.
Then Robert grabs my wrist and swings me around into the deep shade of the roof and the tall, wide hedge filled with fuchsia flowers. Their scent is floral and cloying and heavy.
I spin around, stumbling as Robert pulls me further into the deep shade, the grass cool and prickly under my feet.
“Finally,” Robert growls.
Then he thrusts me against the wood of the cottage. My back knocks against the slats and they dig into my spine. The breath whooshes from my lungs as he presses against me, capturing me between him and the cool, sea-weathered wood of the cottage.
“What the hell,” he says, as he bends his head down, eyes hungry on my mouth, “were you doing kissing him?”
Then, before I can respond, before I can shove him away, his mouth crashes to mine in a hot, claiming, possessive kiss.
16
I gaspand swing my arms, shoving and hitting?—
Air.
Bedsheets.
I blink, opening my eyes.
“What ... what ...?”
I blink again and my bedroom sharpens, the furniture and the soft morning light coming into focus. My vision blurs and I scrub at my eyes, trying to adjust to the softer, gentler light of Geneva as compared to the bright, scalding light of my dream.
As I do I take inventory. I dropped the watch when I took a swing at Robert. It glints in the sunlight and winks at me from where it rests in the duvet. It’s 6:30 a.m.— or at least, it was 6:30 when the watch stopped ticking. I glance at the clock on my nightstand. Yes, 6:30 a.m.
So when I wake up the watch stops?
Hmm.
I glance at Mila. Her eyes are squeezed tight, and she’s stretching and burrowing her face in the pillow. She’s always been a slow riser. She’ll need to stretch, squint, and yawn herself awake. It’ll take a few minutes, but then once she’s up she attacks the day with zeal.
I pinch my cheeks, shaking myself out of the dream and trying to shift back into reality. It’s strange. I’ve never had a dream that felt so real. It feels just as real as real life. In fact, I swear I can still taste the robust coffee I was sipping and the smoky sweetness of the banana. My skin feels tight from the salt and the sun, but when I rub my hand across my legs and arms there’s no residue of sand or sea.
There wouldn’t be though. It only feels real. It isn’t actually real.
I’d doubt that fact if I hadn’t woken up. That’s how real it feels. But I did wake up.
I study the watch as Mila lets out a long, noisy yawn.
I think a lot of people would be freaking out right now, wondering how or why this is possible, trying to understand the mystery. Or they’d be so freaked out that they’d shut the watch back in its box and bury it in a deep, deep hole.
