Trish Remoth wishes, more than anything, that she had a normal life and family. Surely, that isn’t too much to ask, is it?
Granted, there was a time, before she knew any better, when she found some interest and enjoyment in all of this dream stuff and the attending candle-gazing hocus-pocus. That said, she has never been into any of it to the degree of her parents and her little sister, Melissa.
Trish’s dreams are never vivid, seldom even with a story line.
Certainly, she’s never dreamed anything to cause the excitement of Melissa’s dream of a blue candle and some girl clothed in blue. In fact, Trish’s dreams are so uneventful that even her parents, who had initially insisted she tell them everything about them, became pretty much disinterested, especially as Trish got older.
For awhile, things had almost been normal — if not altogether. Few of Trish’s friends have parents who spend long days and nights out in the field, often dragging their children along, all the while looking at rocks and stones. No way will Trish ever admit to any of her friends that her parents, and her younger sister, often spent virtual hours, like now, sitting around a lit candle and gazing into its flickering flame.
Trish knows she should be part of the present family circle. Actually, she had been part of it for almost an hour. That was before she got truly bored with the whole process — for not the first time. Besides, the candle light always gives her a headache. This time was no exception. She has said so before, and she said so a few minutes ago.
Reluctantly, her parents had let her return to the tent they’d pitched in Dry Wash Gulch. They’d only asked that Trish return to the circle when or if her headache gets better.
Well, her headache is better, but she isn’t going to go back and sit on hard stone and get another headache from candle-flame gazing. Not that she’s all that comfortable where she is, hunkered down in the goose-down-filled sleeping bag.
She wants to go home.
She’s going to miss an important history exam. Her parents lied in their excuse given, too. They said there was a death in the family. What normal parents would purposely have their child miss a test, especially if that child is looking forward to attending a good college and needs to maintain an A grade-point average?
Trish doesn’t even want to think about missing cheer-leading practice. The squad will call in Georgiana Portland to substitute. Although Trish isn’t fond of Georgiana, the girl has her friends who might, given half the chance, connive to substitute Georgiana for Trish in the line up on a permanent basis. “Better to have someone who attends all practices than someone who doesn’t,” Trish can hear Briana James saying to each and every fellow squad member who’ll listen.
And what about Matty? What must he think? Trish’s parents have refused to let Trish call her boyfriend with the lie or the truth. Certainly, they weren’t keen on her telling him the truth. For whatever the reason, they think it important that, this time around, no one knows where they are. Why is that? It’s all just too weird for Trish to bear.
She struggles to fish her cell phone out of her pants pocket; she’s fully clothed in her sleeping bag, for padding and for warmth. So what that her parents asked her to leave her phone at home? So what that she lied and told them she had done as they asked. After all, they lied, too, didn’t they? What kind of an example is that?
She opens her cell phone, genuinely surprised by the magnified intensity of its lone blue light inside the tent. Fearing the illumination shows through the canvas, from the inside-out, and brings her parents on the run, she shuts the phone’s lid. The shutting sounds clearly as a gunshot.
She disappears completely into her bag and reopens her phone there. She pushes a pre-set speed-dial.
Matty doesn’t immediately answer. It’s still early-morning, after all. His phone is under his pillow and set on vibrate, as it always is after official bedtime, so his parents will less likely know he’s getting a call when he should be sleeping.
“Trish?” he says finally, sleepily, from the other end. “Where in the heck are you?”
Copyright 2009 W. MALTESE
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