sounds silly, to remember something like that. But when I heard it, I thought, That?s the way it should
be. That?s the way a princess gets treated. That?s what she is, a princess. Her father is the king and she
lives in a castle on the ocean and nothing bad ever happens to her. I know that?s not true, though. She
lost Teddy.” She paused and then added, “She lost you.”
“That?s not quite accurate,” I said. “She didn?t lose me.”
“Oh yes,” she said with a nod, “she lost you.”
I didn?t disagree. There wasn?t anything to disagree with. We had different points of view.
“I used to dream of being Doe,” she said. “When we had a picnic, Doe always carried the flag and the
rest of us cleaned up the trash. It?s just the way it was. She never asked to be treated special; nice
things just happened to her. I suppose it?s always that way with the rich.”
She said it almost wistfully and without malice, like it was an undeniable fact of life, and I suppose it
was, until life inevitably caught up with even the rich. For the flash of a second I considered telling
her what really happened to Teddy, but I didn?t want to bust her pretty balloon. She seemed to have
control of her memories. Perhaps that?s why she recalled them with such innocence and without angst.
She had learned the difference between memories and dreams.
She dozed off that way. It felt good there, with her curled up in my lap. I thought I might relax for a
few minutes before going back to the hotel, to make sure she was sleeping soundly. I leaned back and
thought about Tony and DeeDee Lukatis, always on the outside looking in, close enough to savour the
sweet life, but never close enough to taste it. I thought about Tony Lukatis, who tried to make the
dream come true and ended up in jail instead, and DeeDee, harbouring a futile high school dream for
all those years. I fell asleep thinking about them and realizing that in the end, DeeDee, Tony, and I
were not that much different.
I had the same old dream again that night, only this time Tony Lukatis was running on the ridge.
53
NUMBERS GAMES
I awoke to soft sunlight, filtering through gauze drapes, and the smell of fresh coffee. Sometime
during the night DeeDee had slipped a pillow under my head and draped a blanket over me, but! still
felt like I?d been stretched on the rack.
She was wearing a plain black silk dress and her long hair was gathered in a bun at the back of her
head, quite a departure from the previous night. Either way, she was a knockout. She put a tray with
orange juice, toast, and coffee on the table in front of me.
“Thanks,” I said. “What time is it?”
“A little after eight. This should give you enough strength to go back to the hotel and clean up before
