Dream Job Read online

  To my surprise, I’d quickly tired of the loud bars and silly people who spent their nights looking for empty thrills. At first I dove in, full of wild intentions. Almost immediately, though, I found I had no desire to join the thoughtless partying. Instead, I realized I enjoyed my time alone, walking the beach and riding my bike along A1A. The solitude I had endured in Woolcox had become my preferred lifestyle.

  ***

  Another year went by. During that time, I didn’t call or write to Davis. In fact, I can’t be sure, but I doubt I ever thought about him at all. Not until a few weeks before I landed the job at DCI. That’s when the Davis dreams began. That’s when the guy started showing up all the time in my dreams.

  Like I said, Davis was dull but bizarre. He was weird in his isolation, his desperate loneliness, but so was I. In fact, we connected on just that level, two self-exiled young people who could relate to one another’s outsider status. We could have a few laughs and get one another hot. But Davis developed a strangling sort of attachment to me, one that I chose to ignore, then escape from.

  While I was living in Woolcox, he wrote to me every day. After that first five-minute screw, he dropped a note in my mailbox. Then he sent one the next day and the day after that. Every single day, these bizarre little letters. I read them quickly, saved them in a manila envelope. We never discussed them. I really didn’t care enough to wonder why he would write to me. Maybe I should have been more curious, but I wasn’t. Nothing about Davis interested me very much.

  Here are a few examples of the kind of notes—all unsigned—that were waiting for me in my mailbox:

  A time is coming when you will believe everything is over. That will be the beginning.

  Dreams are concentrated significance. Remember your dreams.

  Everybody has a plan but nobody knows that the Dreamer is the planner.

  Isn’t life a series of images that repeat? Ask the man in the comfortable chair.

  It’s all a choice between what you want and what’s expected of you. If you want to return, you must learn how to choose.

  Everyone wants to return to the ultimate state: limitlessness.

  Bizarre, right? I didn’t know what to make of these notes, so I looked at them like they were a crazy person’s poems. I read and saved them, but my mind did not process them. I should have seen them as clues, but I didn’t. I was out of it; self-absorbed, drinking too much, looking for something else while settling for what I could get. Story of my life.

  What I didn’t realize at the time was that Davis felt too much, while I didn’t feel enough. Most likely I felt nothing at all. So I didn’t pick up on the intensity of his emotional connection to me while I lived in Woolcox. I saw. I conquered. I left. I forgot. And that would have been the happy ending for me with Davis. Out of sight, out of mind. Forever.

  But then the dreams began.

  ***

  In the first dream, I was serving coffee in a crowded cafe. I owned the shop, and it was located in what felt like a small town in New England. The lush mountains were turning orange in a blaze of autumn leaves, the air cool and crisp as an apple. I can’t recall all the details, but I do remember that the shop door opened, the bells jingled, and Davis strolled in. I stared, feeling only surprise and nothing more. He looked cocky, more confident than he had in real life. He walked right over to the coffee bar where I stood holding a tray of steaming cups of fresh-brewed java. He grinned and clasped my shoulder. His grip was tight and cold, like a steel hook rather than a hand.

  “Found you. I knew I could do it!” he said.

  I dropped the tray and woke up.

  The dream meant nothing to me. Ho-hum, Davis who? But the next night when I fell asleep, there he was again. This time, I was on a commercial airplane, sipping a cold glass of French champagne, thinking about Descartes. I drink, therefore I am. A shadow loomed over me, and a man sat down in the empty seat beside me. Davis. He turned to me and touched my lips with his long, skinny fingers.

  He said, “You can’t get away from me that easily, Adrianna. I need you, and I’ve found a way to have you again.”

  That’s how it began, and it continued night after night. Wherever I went in my dreams, Davis showed up. Night after night he approached me with a smile and outstretched arms. “Adrianna, there you are!” he would say, looking a little too pleased with himself and pathetically happy to see me.

  The dreams began to get on my nerves. I was not happy to see Davis every night. I was happy to awaken to my real life, in which he played no part. But every time I fell asleep, Davis appeared, lurking on the edges of my unconscious mind. The dreams upset me. I had no feelings for this man. Why did I have to deal with him every time I fell into a deep sleep? My dream self didn’t like it either. As soon as he appeared, I fled, or I freaked out and woke myself up. I was shunning Davis in my dreams, as I had in real life. Still, he kept coming back for more. He wanted more of me.

  The Davis dreams began only a few weeks before I started working as a copywriter at DCI. Every night Davis leered at or chased me. Then I had my job interview and the sexy dream about my new boss. Now I had another man in my dreams.

  Soon enough, I felt increasingly reluctant to get into bed. My dreams had reached a level of such surrealistic fervor that I was barely able to relax into sleep. The fantastic sexual dreams with my boss repeated themselves, while Davis continued to try to push himself on me in other dreams, night after exhausting night. Fortunately, whenever I dreamed about Hamm, Davis failed to appear. This helped, but not much.

  After a while, I felt like I couldn’t take it anymore. I was disgusted with myself. In my waking life, neither of these men was the least bit interested in me or my pale, freckled body. Davis did not call, write, or e-mail me. I hadn’t heard from him since I’d split Woolcox. And Hamm was completely out of my league. He acted like any boss should, distant and professionally cool at work, the only place we saw one another.

  So I knew my imagination was warped. I figured I needed to get a real 3-D boyfriend and stop dreaming about men who had their own lives to lead.

  ***

  After my first few weeks at DCI, I stopped drinking. I thought maybe the booze could have been causing the dreams, but that was not the case. I’d close my eyes and Davis was there, goofy and pushy as ever. I grew tired of running. Sometimes when I awoke my leg muscles hurt. I lost weight. Once or twice a week, Davis would be replaced by Hamm, an exhilarating substitute. Muscles I didn’t know I had would be sore when I woke up from those dreams.

  One night I fell asleep early while reading in bed. I soon found myself in a long, sensual dream set on a grassy hilltop on a lovely spring day. Hamm and I made love on a bright green blanket under the shade of a huge, fragrant magnolia tree. He unbuttoned my cotton shirt so slowly I thought I would scream. Then he lavished my breasts with gentle licking kisses until I could no longer stand the pleasure. I absolutely had to have him inside me and it was all I could do to control the urge to scream. When he slid inside me, his thick member throbbing with excitement, I groaned and came instantly. Hamm eased himself in and out, rocking me gently, until my throat ached from screaming. He made love to me like we had all the time in the world. Afterward, we lazed about, picnicking on green apples and rye bread, sharp cheese and iced tea. Then we walked hand in hand through a wide field. The air smelled like pine and freshly dug dirt.

  “Have you ever encountered dreamstalkers while working on something at DCI?” I asked Hamm. In the dream I was having, that’s how I thought of Davis, as a dreamstalker.

  Hamm stopped and pulled me close. We were both barefoot, and he had his shirt off. His tanned abs rippled in the sunshine. When I nuzzled his hairless brown chest, I could feel his heart beating against my face, and I wanted to lose myself in his embrace. Instead, I looked up at him.

  “Tell me what you mean,” he said.

  I touched his face. His beard stubble was as auburn as my freckles. I ran my fingers across his wet lips. I knew I was dream
ing, but I didn’t care. It felt good to tell him about Davis.

  “This is a serious problem,” Hamm said when I finished describing the Davis dreams. He tightened his grip on me. “These are dream invasions. This idiot could screw up everything.” Hamm pulled away and grabbed my hand as he started back toward our wicker picnic basket. “This has to end. And I’ll need your help to make that happen.”

  We gathered up the checkered tablecloth, the black china plates, the crystal tumblers. “How am I supposed to help?” I asked, shaking out the crumbs from the linen napkins. Overhead, a deep rumbling announced the thunderclouds moving in.

  “You’ll see,” Hamm said.

  Then I woke up.

  ***

  My sleep cycle was wildly erratic, and I felt spaced and punchy. I went to work anyway and attempted to quietly cope with my issues. I even saw a therapist I found in the phone book. We discussed my strange dream life and she seemed empathetic. However, she diagnosed me as a guilty ex-Catholic who needed to overcome a loose id and related sexual deviances. I stopped seeing her after that.

  ***

  It was shortly after the picnic dream that I first hit the rooftop pool. I was instructed by my employer to test-drive some software that was being developed at DCI. At the time, I was basically sleepwalking through my days and, really, I was struggling emotionally. I had a silly but intense crush on my boss, my ex was stalking my dreams, and all this unconscious night activity was burning me out. But I wasn’t completely freaked out, yet.

  I’d spent my first few weeks at DCI learning the inventory and organizing new advertising campaigns for some of the medical software Hamm had invented over the fifteen years DCI had been in business. We specialize in software programs used by sleep researchers and neurologists who study altered states of consciousness. We were expanding the market for one of our lines into Europe, Australia, and Canada, so I had a lot on my plate.

  I hadn’t been up to check out the rooftop-testing center yet. My swimming supplies had been tossed into the bottom drawer of my desk, which was fine with me. When I was at work, I was busy and I was awake, and that was the highlight of my day. I sat at my desk from nine to five Monday through Friday, and I liked it. I felt creative and necessary. I came up with the right selling words, quick phrases, and simple sentences I strung together like sparkly necklaces. As far as I knew, DCI was satisfied with my creations. Matta and Bob, the art director, praised my work, and Hamm never complained.

  “Let’s see what you can do with the Health United account,” he might say as he handed me a thick file. Or, “Put your magic touch on this quarterly report for me, please,” his e-mail would read. And I would do what he wanted. I’d polish his words until they shone.

  Every other Friday, Matta handed me my paycheck. Then we’d go out to lunch with Bob. I liked their favorite haunt, Harvey’s, a chic bistro filled with graying men in designer sunglasses and perfected women with plastic-doll faces. I loved to gawk at these strange specimens. The three of us enjoyed people-watching at Harvey’s while we consumed huge salads and organic soft drinks flavored with cinnamon or celery.

  On the Friday I would test-drive the DCI software for the first time, we had lunch at Harvey’s. While we were waiting for our Cobb salads, Bob seemed distracted. He sat across from me, uncharacteristically silent, fiddling with his silverware. Matta was chattering about a French film she had seen the night before when Bob suddenly raised his hand as if he were in a classroom waiting to get called on.

  “Bob?” I said, interrupting Matta. “You need to tell us something, or do you want permission to go to the restroom?”

  Bob didn’t laugh. He rubbed his small hand across his shiny dome. He’s one of those balding middle-aged guys who shaves his head as smooth as a baby’s butt.

  Bob leaned forward, his voice low. “I have to tell you guys something.”

  Despite his straight demeanor, Bob is quite the character. He had been an out-of-control sports gambler. He’d lost his wife and two young kids, a nice house in Weston, and a good job at a high-level investment firm to his addiction. Now he was slowly crawling out of the abyss he’d fallen into, one bet-free day at a time. His job at DCI served as the tether. Bob’s an incredibly talented artist, and our projects allowed him to express that long-dormant side of himself.

  “What’s up?” Matta asked, running her manicured nails through the loops of her hair in a halfhearted attempt to tame some strands.

  Matta was in charge, both at the office and outside of work. A runaway from Wisconsin, Matta fled the family farm, working her way from street kid to topnotch professional secretary. Her mind is razor sharp, and she remembers every word, every detail, of every conversation she hears, article she’s read, or project we’ve worked on.

  “Tell Mama,” she said.

  Matta and I exchanged glances. She’d told me once that Bob was this close to being owned by the Mob. Whatever that translates to if you aren’t a character on The Sopranos, it can’t be healthy.

  “Okay, here goes,” Bob said, looking across the table at us.

  He took a deep breath, then peered over his shoulder. Matta raised her eyebrows at me, mouthing What the hell…?

  Bob exhaled and shook his head. He was being so dramatic. I sipped my ice water.

  “Okay, I hate to be the one to break it to you, but Mr. Charlton Hamm is a phony,” he finally said in a low voice. Matta and I leaned in simultaneously. “He’s a fake. An impostor.” Bob sat back and frowned, then shrugged. The color had drained from his face, and his scalp was less rosy.

  “I kind of bumped into the facts about him when I was fiddling around online last night. If you look up old photos from his college years when he played varsity lacrosse at Yale, you can see what I’m saying. It’s a totally different guy. Not our Hamm, some other tall, blond kid who only looks like him.”

  Bob paused and licked his thick lips.

  “And if you dig for them, you can find photos of him at Mar-a-Lago, some high-fly dinner Trump hosted years ago. The photo caption says Charlton Hamm, but it’s somebody else. I mean, the guy from Yale is standing there in a tux with his arm around a busty blonde dish. The caption says she’s Mrs. Charlton Hamm.”

  “I didn’t know he was married,” I blurted.

  I tried to remain calm, but inside I was shrieking. He doesn’t wear a wedding ring! There are no photos of a wife in his office! Plus, he’s sleeping with me! In my dreams, but still.

  The idea of Hamm being a married man shocked me more than the possibility that he wasn’t who he said he was. I fancied myself an expert at detecting marital status. To me, Hamm conveyed the distinctive aura of a single guy. A bachelor playboy maybe, but certainly not a man with a better half.

  Matta snorted. “What do you care? He’s untouchable either way. Get real.”

  She flicked her curls out of her eyes and turned to Bob.

  “This is fascinating, Bob. What do you think it means?” she asked.

  The waitress interrupted with our oversized salads and a small pink pitcher of organic ranch dressing. Matta pulled out her phone and Googled our boss while we waited for the waitress to leave. When Bob picked up his fork, his hand shook.

  “I don’t have the slightest idea what this means, Matta, and I wouldn’t give a flying crap either, except for the fact that it could mean big problems for me. If he’s some kind of con artist, I’m doomed. I need that paycheck to keep coming in.” He leaned forward and whispered, “The people I owe money to are not going to wait around for me to find another job.”

  Bob bent over his food and Matta handed me her phone. I stared at the screen, squinting to read the captions under the tiny photos. Sure enough, Mr. Charlton Hamm had attended a gala dinner at The Donald’s Palm Beach club. He looked great in a tux. His wife was gorgeous in a sapphire floor-length sheath. Her boobs were fake, perfectly pointed, and several sizes too big for her tiny frame. But this wasn’t jealousy talking; this was real-estate appraisal. Hamm had bought hims
elf a nice piece of real estate, a real Boca babe.

  Bob was right about another thing: the man in the photograph was not our boss.

  I felt bad for Bob. Matta seemed to also.

  “Who cares what his real name is, Bob? Don’t worry. Hamm’s a genius. I’ve been at DCI almost since the start and he’s been there the whole time. Not this other guy. You should be more curious than concerned.”

  She pointed to the photo on her phone, which sat on the table between us.

  “Besides, it may be an unusual name, but who says there can’t be two Charlton Hamms in the world?”

  “Oh, please. What, are you kidding me?”

  Bob snorted, and a chunk of cucumber slid down his chin. “No, our Hamm has been sharing the real Charlton Hamm’s identity. There’s no other explanation. So here’s the question: Where the hell is the real Charlton Hamm?”

  He set his fork down and stared at Matta.

  “If our boss is living the life of Charlton Hamm, what exactly is Mr. Charlton Hamm doing? Hiding out somewhere? Is he dead? Or did the two men agree to trade identities?”

  Matta laughed. “Don’t be absurd, Bob. There must be a simple explanation.”

  She picked up her phone again and resumed searching. Bob dove back into his salad.

  “Do you think our Hamm lives with the blonde, or the real Hamm lives with her?” I asked.

  Matta snickered. “All Adrianna cares about is the man’s marital status.”

  That wasn’t completely true.

  “Give me a break,” I whined, and my friends laughed until I had to smile.

  “Don’t feel too sad, Adrianna,” Matta said.

  She returned her phone to the table and picked at her salad.