over. Alicia Jackson had a temper like no one else Dream knew. She was like Jekyll and Hyde. Alicia was a sophisticated black woman who could dazzle you with her wit and intelligence. A person could have the most enlightening conversations with Alicia about science and God and the nature of the universe. But you didn’t want to offend her, because she would not hesitate to use that same intellect as a weapon. She was completely without fear of confrontation. But she was also sensitive enough to know when it was time to back off.
Like now.
She showed Chad one more sneer, investing it with all the considerable disdain she could muster, and returned to her seat. “You’re not even worth crushing under my heel, cockroach.”
Chad chuckled. “Oooh, now you’re just turning me on.”
Alicia looked at Dream and made the universal sign for gagging-a finger pointed into a wide-open mouth. Dream mustered a small smile, but she was unable to control the trembling that caused the expression to twist into a grimace. She had been unprepared for the psychological wallop of Chad’s hateful words. She heard them again in her mind, marveled at the intensity of feeling behind them, and wondered how it was sweet Chad Robbins could have masked that degree of resentment for so long. Which begged the question-just how long had he felt this way about her?
All along, said a quietly insinuating voice that issued from somewhere deep inside her. He’s hated you from the very beginning.
Dream believed this was the voice of paranoia, but she did feel some uncertainty. Her first memories of Chad were of a sweet kid who somehow managed to be at once gawky and serenely at ease with himself. He was just another geek wandering the hallways of Smyrna High School, one of so many, and he likely would never have entered her social circle had happenstance not caused her to be in the vicinity of an impending beating he’d been about to receive at the hands of several large football players.
What a ditz she’d been in those days. Although wildly popular and possessed of the kind of head-turning blond beauty that might have landed her on the covers of fashion magazines had she grown up in a major metropolitan center, Dream had somehow turned out to be that rarity of rarities among popular, good-looking kids-a kind soul. A therapist had once attributed her selflessness and altruism to the absurd moniker her parents had burdened her with at birth, which made as much sense as anything else. A girl named Dream certainly didn’t want to be anybody’s nightmare. Of course, that didn’t explain why Chad had become so important to her almost from the beginning. He wasn’t the first gawky kid she saved from a beating, nor was he the last, but he was the only one she’d truly taken under her wing.
There’d been a sort of sweetness about him back then, and she was a sucker for sweet, shy boys, but there was something else about him that fascinated her, something less tangible than a pleasant disposition. She thought it had something to do with the way he looked her right in the eye when speaking or listening to her. He was never nervous around her, and he didn’t try to impress her by performing feats of astonishing stupidity the way so many other boys did. Maybe it was just that he was the first person of the male persuasion to treat her like a real person instead of an object. It was also of no little significance that he didn’t make fun of her unusual name. Hell, there’d just been a sense of ingrained decency about him, and she’d responded to that.
… maybe I’m tired of being her charity case …
She eventually decided the reason for his apparent lack of physical interest in her was a simple matter of orientation. She wasn’t a snob about her looks, but she was intelligent enough-and self-aware enough-to know she was extremely attractive by just about any standard. Nearly every male she encountered let her know this in some way, either by openly ogling her or-in the case of older men-glancing at certain parts of her anatomy in a surreptitious way. Since Chad didn’t do these things-and since he was never in the company of a girl other than herself or her friends-he had to be homosexual. It was this ill-informed conclusion that brought about one of the most awkward moments of their friendship, that weekend after high school graduation when she’d set him up on a blind date with another boy.
There was just one problem.
Chad was straight.
He didn’t date girls until well into their freshman year at college, and when he did begin dating, the girls he went out with were shy, bookish types. Dream experienced an odd sense of rejection. She obsessed over his lack of interest in her. Oh, she’d never been really attracted to him, not physically, but she was mystified by the notion of a heterosexual boy who didn’t want her. Thinking these things made her feel shallow, but she couldn’t help it. A lifetime as a sex object left a girl with certain expectations. Ten years had gone by and she still didn’t understand it. She experienced moments of deep depression during which it was all she could think about. She would lock herself in her apartment, drink wine, and cry over the only boy who had never tried to fuck her. Who, she would admit to herself when the wine bottle was nearly empty, was the only boy she really wanted.
Which was just insane.
Yes, perhaps insanity, or something very close to it, did play a role. That would help explain the only half- serious suicide attempt of two years ago she had never told him about. At least Alicia had kept her mouth shut about that tonight, thank God. She hadn’t really wanted to die-not then-but the attempt landed her in the emergency room and left her with a legacy of scars. She normally concealed these with bracelets, but there were nights when she would lie alone in bed and stare at the little white lines on her left wrist and remember how it felt to part her own flesh with a blade.
Never again, she usually thought in those moments.
But now she wasn’t so sure.
There was a sudden hiccup from the backseat.
Dream glanced at the rearview mirror and saw Karen Hidecki stir from her vodka-induced slumber. Karen was a third-generation Asian-American who looked a bit like Lucy Liu. She pushed back the cowboy hat, squinted, and looked around at her companions. “Are we home yet?”
Chad snorted. “No, you fucking lush. We’re still a gazillion miles away.”
Karen’s head wobbled as she directed a glassy-eyed glare at Chad. “Don’t talk to me like that, Chad. Not unless you want your ass kicked.”
Chad, who was slightly built and no match for the athletic Karen Hidecki, nonetheless said, “Kick away, vodka girl. I’m not afraid of you.” He grinned. “You’re about twelve steps away from being able to effectively aim your foot at my ass, anyway.”
“So I’ll do it for her,” Shane said. “My aim’s pretty good, chump.”
Dream groaned. “Stop.”
But no one was listening to her. She was speaking so softly no one even heard her anyway. The verbal firefight was spinning out of control, strafing everyone in sight with random insults. No one was safe. Dream was sure a state of critical mass would soon be attained, resulting in a physical altercation while the car was still in motion. She was consumed with a sense of urgency, an overwhelming need to do something to head off such a potentially calamitous event.
But what?
She prayed for a miracle, some divine deliverance from this madness. Her gaze flicked to the right as the Accord’s headlights picked out a green road sign. Her heart fluttered as she listened to new threats emanating from the backseat. The wheels of inspiration started spinning in her head.
Chad was laughing again. Dangerous, almost hysterical laughter. “Hey, Shane, you want to know a secret?”
Shane’s expression radiated contempt. “Hey Chad, you want to know a fact? I can knock most of your teeth down your throat with one punch.”
Karen went rigid between them. “Chad … don’t.”
Chad was still laughing. “That’s pretty scary, Shane. But, you know, you might want to knock someone else’s teeth out in a second.”
Karen ground her teeth. “Don’t,” she hissed.
Alicia shot a puzzled expression at Dream.
What’s this shit all about?
Dream didn’t know, but a sense of dread caused the muscles in her arms to twitch like those of a junkie in the midst of withdrawal. The spite in Chad’s voice was an awful thing to hear. It was like listening to a depraved stranger. She was having difficulty reconciling the malice radiated by this person with her memories of the boy she
