Chapter 24: Progress

Friday morning; the last day of the first week of school dawned full of hope and promise. Everyone hoped that none of the teachers would assign homework the first weekend. At least Shannon and I had hope; Allison didn't even seem to have that. Sometime during the night she had gotten up and gone back to her own bed for the first time since school had ended. When I asked her about it she said she felt so bad about last night that she didn't feel like she deserved to be in the same house with me, much less the same bed. She felt truly awful about how she had treated Easy, so bad in fact that she vowed to never use the nickname again. That is if Lizzy would ever forgive her; something else she didn't feel she deserved but still hoped for. She made me promise to let her use my phone when I got home so she could try to apologize for her bad behavior. I thought it would be better to wait until we got to bed so she could do it in person but she said that going in person would put Lizzy on the spot to accept her apology and she didn't want to feel like she was pressuring her into it. Either way she had a long day ahead of her. I'll take worrying about homework any day.

As usual my favorite class was my psych class, followed closely by Shannon's. The discussion on body language had led to some interesting experiments. One group was so fascinated by the whole thing they had asked for permission to conduct experiments around campus. The idea had been born out of some of the comments; the one the girls thought was hysterical was the unspoken rules of men's room etiquette. For starters they found the very concept of etiquette in a men's room to be a myth at best. Mr. Shelby actually had to intervene and explain some of the things the guys were talking about. The focal point of men's room etiquette is always the urinals, and little things like how many there are, are they divided, is the room crowded like at halftime during a football game or are you just, say, in a mall or restaurant. He stopped the discussion short at this point and assigned a separate group to put together a presentation on the psychology of men's rooms. Another group was then detailed to do the same with women's rooms. It was going to be a very interesting semester.

Spanish was the only class I actually ended up having homework in over the weekend. Shannon didn't do so well, she had assignments in both math and history as well as being in Bob's group researching the psychology of men's rooms. They had six weeks to come up with a presentation though so she wasn't too concerned about that one.

Allison was practically in tears by the time I got home. She had spent most of the day looking for ways to distract herself from worrying about Lizzy. I did my best to reassure her but when Lizzy didn't answer the phone she burst into tears and spent several minutes crying on my shirt. I knew it was just stress so I carried her outside to the patio and used a cushion from one of our lounge chairs to transform our picnic table into a massage table. I then spent about an hour trying to remember everything I had learned during my time helping Lizzy with Shannon. Eventually she dozed off; I gently finished the massage, and left her there while I went in to get started on dinner. Technically Allison was supposed to be cooking but under the circumstances I thought it might be best to keep her away from open flames, breakables, and sharp objects. Besides, my stroganoff is better anyway. She wandered in about twenty minutes later looking like she needed a couple more hours sleep before she would be ready to face the real world, but she insisted on helping. I let her set the table and was surprised she managed to do it without breaking anything, however she did drop the same fork three times and melted an entire cube of butter trying to defrost it in the microwave. When she burned her hand trying to clean the molten butter out before it had cooled properly, I threw her out and told her to go lie down.

We managed to survive dinner but mom was casting some questioning looks Allison's way before we finished. I thought we were going to make it through the evening until Dad asked her if something was bothering her. Poor guy, he really should have known better; naturally Allison immediately burst into tears. All mom and I could do was roll our eyes as Allison bolted from the room.

"Nice going, Richard," Mom said as she stood up from her chair to follow her daughter.

"What?" Dad said defensively, "she was obviously upset, I asked a simple question."

Mom just shook her head and waved him off as she headed down the hall. Dad of course turned to me for some male sympathy.

Being a guy I of course backed him up, "Don't worry about it, Dad, it's not your fault. She behaved badly last night and really hurt someone's feelings and she's been beating herself up over it all day. She tried to call and apologize but the girl didn't answer. She was probably just busy but ... you just know Allison took it that she didn't want to talk to her ... It's just chick drama, it'll pass. Just not before I put them together in a dream and Allison can cry at her in person. Until then we're stuck with it."

"It must have been pretty bad to upset her like that," He answered. "I don't remember the last time I saw Allison cry like that."

Time for a little guy wisdom; "Well then, maybe she was due?"

He chuckled, "Probably right, but you better not ever let one of them hear you say something like that. That is a one way trip to the doghouse, let me tell you."

I had to smile at that, "Well, just leave a key under the mat for me in case you have company tonight."

He chuckled again, "I'll leave the light on for you. Bring some pretzels; I'll get beer on my way. By the way, don't make plans for Sunday. The Davises have invited us to go to church with them and..."

"Done!" I said without even waiting for him to finish. He looked a little surprised by my reaction. "C'mon dad, God answered all of our prayers for Tom; the least we can do is go to His house and thank Him in person."

He just nodded his head in agreement and about that time Mom came back into the living room. "I don't suppose you want to tell me what that was all about?" she asked. "All I could get out of her was that she hurt someone's feelings and hadn't been able to reach them to apologize."

"Actually, that's it. I'm planning on putting them together as soon as I can tonight so she can cry in person." I glanced at dad, "and then the other girl will cry, and then she'll hug Allison, and then they'll both cry and before you know it everybody is crying and I'll have to put taller stilts on the cabana because they're raising the ocean level ... then the water temperature goes up from all the tears because they are so much warmer. I tell you what; forget about greenhouse gases, THIS is where global warming comes from." I was up and stalking around the living room in full rant by now. "All this crying and moaning and weeping. It's a disaster I tell you, the icecaps are being melted by warm salt water, the floods are coming ... Dad! You better buy us a boat, make it a big one; we're likely to be on it for a while."

Somewhere in the middle, Allison came back down the hall to see what was going on. I watched as she wiped the last of her tears and then stifled a giggle. Mom was rolling her eyes and dad was all but rolling on the floor. As I reached my peak both Mom and Allison picked up throw pillows off the couch and started pummeling me. In no time I was face down on the couch with my hands over my head to ward them off, laughing hysterically the whole time. Eventually they gave up, Mom went back to her chair, and Allison motioned for me to sit up before flopping down next to me, grabbing my arm and leaning her head on my shoulder.

"Thanks, Jimmy, I really needed that."

I kissed her hair and answered, "You're welcome, glad I could help. I just hope I'm not covered in bruises tomorrow."

She shook my arm and whispered, "I'll make it up to you." And she did.

I had a tentative plan for how to handle what was coming. Shannon and I could handle the night's business until Easy and Allison made up. Funny how in this instance I should think of her as 'Easy' when the rest of the time I thought of her as Lizzy. Except for those special moments when only Elizabeth seemed appropriate. I planned to see Doctor Hendricks first and then go from there. I hoped to fill in a large portion of the chart by morning.

Shannon met us in Allison's glade almost immediately. Allison was practically bouncing with nervous energy. "Where is she?" she asked, anxiety heavy in her voice.

"Come on Allison," Shannon answered. "You know she tends toward later hours. Maybe she had a date. Didn't she mention she had a working date a while back? She could be at a party for all we know."

"Jimmy?" Allison asked. "Could you ... you know ... check on her for me?"

I already knew Shannon was wrong but I looked anyway. Lizzy was asleep, walking along a path in a silent wood. Something about it brought to mind the scene I had stepped into with her the other afternoon. It only took a second to realize what it was -- the dress was the same style, something out of an old movie. She had added a garland of flowers to her hair and the effect took my breath away. As I watched she stopped and looked over her shoulder at me, and smiled. It was a shy sort of smile and yet so intimate at the same time. Somehow I had the feeling that she had been saving that smile for me her whole life.

"It's Allison isn't it?" She asked.

I willed my voice to her, "Yeah, she's been really upset all day about last night. She really wants to see you and apologize."

She nodded. "I know. Could you bring her here, please?"

"Of course, but why here?"

"Well, not here, but I want her in my dream for tonight. When you bring her, bring Shannon along invisibly, I don't want Allison to know she is here, but I want her to see for herself that Allison stays voluntarily."

I had an idea I knew where this was going to go, "You think that's what she wants?"

"Yes, I'm sure. Jimmy, she's not really sure but this is not something you can do half way. When she's here I want you to change her key so she can't leave unless I let her. Set it so she can call you if she wants to but that's all."

"So calling me becomes her safe word?"

"Yes, I don't think she'll use it though. Jimmy, I'm not planning to hurt her, at least not any more than she wants me to, but she does want to be punished. I don't think last night was an accident, not completely anyway."

"I understand, and I suspect you may be right." I shook my head as I continued, "Two weeks ago I never would have believed any of this, but now ... I'll bring her. I won't need to bring Shannon, she's already with us and I'm going to tell Allison what you want and make her tell me she wants to come."

I opened my eyes to find the girls staring at me expectantly. I looked hard into Allison's eyes and said, "Allison, Lizzy has asked me to bring you to her."

"You mean," she actually gulped, "into her dream?"

"Yes, into her dream, and once you are there I am going to change your key so that you cannot leave until she lets you."

Her eyes got big and she swallowed hard. "You mean... ," she let it die without finishing.

"Yes. You will be able to call me if you need to, but that is all until she releases you."

"But..." Shannon began but she stopped when I looked at her.

I turned my attention back to Allison, "Is this what you want?"

She dropped her eyes and for a second I wasn't sure, but then she nodded and softly said, "Yes."

I reached out and raised her chin up so I could see her eyes, she tried to avert her gaze but eventually she had to look at me. As soon as I saw her eyes I knew that this was indeed what she wanted. She might never want it again, but tonight, right this moment, she wanted this very much. She had to know if this was really a part of her.

I leaned in and kissed her cheek, "Then go. We'll see you later." I materialized a garden arch off to one side and without a word or a backward glance, she was gone.

"Wow," Shannon said.

"Yeah," I replied with a sigh.

"So she really meant it all those times."

"No, not really, but lately she's not so sure whether or not she was really joking. She wants to find out the truth. I can think of no one better able to help her learn it."

"That's certainly true. Her gift is perfect for this sort of thing." She took my hand, "So where does that leave us?"

"We've got an appointment with a doctor."

"Ooh, I love playing doctor."

"Do you want to go that way? Start out as a patient, talk to him?"