Dev Dreams, Volume One (2 page)

“Hi,” Em said softly. James turned his head
to the door and his face dropped. She had never seen him look so
serious. “What are you doing here?” he said.

She hated that he looked at her and seemed
upset. “I don't know,” she whispered, “I just, I wanted to see
you.”

“Now you see me,” he said and his voice was
frighteningly still.

There was a question on her face that she was
afraid to ask. He answered it anyway, “I live here. You're a PT
student; you have to know that I need care.”

“I didn't think about it.”

“Well, now you know.”

Fear was racing up and down Em's veins and
words were becoming jumbled in her head. She didn't know how to
tell him that it was fine, that it didn't bother her to know that
he lived in a nursing home. This wasn't her familiar James. She
wanted him back.

He wasn't looking at her. Em also looked down
and then she saw his bookshelf. Three small shelves beside his bed,
packed two layers deep with paperback fantasy novels. She rushed
forward and dropped to the floor between the bed and the
wheelchair.

“I have this one,” she said, pressing her
small hands against one of the spines. “And this one. And this one
too.” She pulled one out. “I haven't read this one yet. Do you
think I could borrow it?” She looked up at James, who was straining
to see her from his position on the bed. He smiled and nodded.

Something on the television screen happened
and the old man cheered, startling Em. She stood up and brushed off
her skirt.

“This is my roommate, Gerald. He's 92,” James
said.

“Nintey-two,” Gerald shouted, pointing at
himself.

“Yes,” James said loudly, “I told her.”

Gerald returned to watching the screen. Em
glanced over at Gerald and then looked back at James, feeling a
melting in her chest seeing his ruffled hair. “Will you go to the
garden with me?”

“Now? You're crazy.”

“Please,” Ember said.

“Can you get me onto my chair?”

Em nodded vigorously. “How?” she said.

He directed her to a transfer board,
instructed her how to place it. “Come closer; let me get my arms
over your neck.”

She bent her knees and leaned into him, but
she was still unprepared for the dead weight of his body and he
slid far too quickly to the edge of the wheelchair.

“Oh God,” James said.

“Sorry.”

“It's okay, we made it, we're good,” he said.
“Just give me a little push to the back of the chair.”

“Hurrah!” Gerald cried from across the
room.

James looked relieved to get the back of his
hand against the wheelchair joystick. Em was also relieved for him
to be back in control. She didn't want the responsibility.

Em poked her head around the door and made
sure there was no one in the hall. Jim's wheelchair whirred behind
her as she slipped down the corridor. The sound was very
soothing.

The paths outside were smooth and wide, but
James pulled ahead and directed his chair over the low grass and
behind a group of shadowy trees. Em followed and stood shyly in
front of him until finally she darted forward and kissed his lips.
“Come and sit on my lap,” James said.

Em blushed, but she climbed onto his lap
without a word. She lay her head back against his shoulder and felt
the rough stubble from his jaw against her forehead. She matched
her breath against the rise and fall of his chest behind her. “I've
been wanting to do this for weeks,” James whispered in her ear.

As soon as he said it, Em knew she too had
been wanting to do this almost from the first moment she met him.
Nestled up against him felt so right, like he was a cocoon and she
a caterpillar.

“Help me get down to the ground,” he
said.

She stood up and he leaned against her. She
tried to lower him slowly, but they both tumbled onto the grass.
With the moon as the only light, Em untangled his feet from the
wheelchair's footplate and straightened his body. Then she lay down
beside him and touched the side of his face with the back of her
hand. They were silent for a few minutes, enjoying the night air
and crickets.

“I’m going to get fired for this,” Em
whispered.

“No one has to know,” Jim murmured into her
hair. He kissed her and she gave up protest. His fist was under her
shirt, against her back, and her mouth was on his neck. He tried to
pull her shirt off and she helped him. Then she pulled off his
pajama top and threw it onto the empty wheelchair behind them. She
straddled his body and her bra rested against his thin, bare chest.
Her hands stretched across his shoulders and his neck. His fist ran
down from her neck, between her breasts, over her stomach, and down
one thigh.

“Have you ever done oral?” he asked.

“Um, no,” Em said. She didn't know what he
was talking about, actually, so it was safe to assume she
hadn't.

“I want you to take off your panties, then
come up here and put your knees on either side of my face.”

“What?”

“Do you trust me?”

She nodded.

“You're going to like this, I promise.”

He was right. The sensation was bigger than
anything Em had ever experienced. It was like fireworks going off
inside her. She caught her breath and had to remind herself to
start breathing again.

***

Em was sweeping the floor. She glanced at Jim
occasionally and felt her face turn red whenever she caught his
eye. She started sweeping faster. Before he could say a word to
her, she rushed out of the room to get her next assignment. Nancy
was looking at her. Did she know? No, Em told herself, Nancy always
looked at her when she gave her a job.

Nancy set Em up on the floor, behind the
nurses’ station, sorting files. Absently she put folders away in
alphabetical order and she wondered what was going to happen now.
Em had a boyfriend; she couldn’t ignore that. How could she have
cheated on him? She was such a good girl.

Why did Kyle have to be so dry? And always
look past her into the distance when he talked? Em leaned her head
back against the wall, flattening her ponytail, and remembered how
good last night had felt. A giddy smile on her face, she wasted the
last few minutes of her shift day dreaming.

Rather than go home, Em sat in Jim’s room
waiting for him to come back. The room was empty. She saw dirt on
the floor around the foot of Gerald's bed and had an urge to grab
her broom and sweep it up. But she stayed where she was. The
afternoon was drifting off into twilight. Watching the sprinklers
on the lawn through the window, Em felt completely content; she
finally had a place, she knew what she wanted.

She heard a noise and looked up. At the end
of the room he was moving towards her. His fist pushed against his
joystick, moving the wheelchair forward. She remembered the feel of
his fingers; his fist like the knob on a door that wouldn’t open. A
young nurse was walking beside him and they were talking. But he
stopped speaking when he saw Em. Their eyes locked and she thought
he seemed afraid of what she was going to say. She stood up as he
arrived in front of her and his eyes looked up into hers. The young
nurse walked away. Em smiled shyly and said, “I’ve had an
idea.”

“Did you?” he said.

“I want to go out with you, on a proper
date.”

“You’re not the type for a one-night stand,
are you Ember?”

She crossed her arms protectively in front of
her, feeling the soft fabric of her sweater under her fingers. “Is
that what you wanted it to be?”

“No.” The one word came into her ears and
flooded out her fear and anxiety. “Let’s go have an evening in the
real world.”

Em picked up his hand and squeezed it
briefly, then laid it back down on the armrest. They went to the
check-out desk. Nancy was there, flipping through file folders. She
leaned forward and looked down at Jim, her eyebrows rising.

“What’s going on?” she asked Em.

James answered. “We're going out.”

“Together?” Nancy said. “I don't think
so.”

“Talk to Sheryl if you have a problem with
it.”

Sheryl was Nancy’s boss, one of the older
nurses in the rehab center. Nancy’s mouth stretched into a tight
line. She didn’t seem to like having Jim question her authority.
But she picked up the phone and paged Sheryl. Em didn’t see how
that would help. Going to an older woman who knew more about the
rules wouldn’t solve this problem, it seemed to her that Nancy was
their best bet for sympathy. But when Sheryl arrived she
immediately said it was fine. She smiled at Jim and patted his
shoulder as she left.

Em walked out with Jim beside her. She smiled
as she held the front door open and his dark eyes squinted in the
sun. “That was easy,” Em commented.

“Sheryl is a friend of mine,” Jim said. “She
was the nurse who was working the emergency room when I was first
paralyzed.”

Em felt she couldn’t help her curiosity,
“When was that?” Her face began to get red, she was afraid she was
being tactless, but Jim didn’t seem to mind.

“Twenty years ago.”

“That’s my whole life. You must have been in
the hospital at the same time that I was there being born.”

Jim changed the subject. “Where are we
going?” he asked.

“Well, in walking distance, there's the
mall.”

“Okay, let's do it.”

Em walked beside him, holding his left hand
while he used his right hand for his wheelchair. She forced her
little fingers around his limp hand.

The mall was as big and bright and
overwhelming as she remembered. She hadn’t been here in years.
James hit the handicapped symbol beside the door and it slowly
swung open to let them in. They wandered down the main corridor,
people rushing by on both sides. Em couldn’t help but notice that
they all looked at her and James. All action and talking ceased as
they went through, then continued behind them. He paid no attention
to it, but Em turned her head and stared back at people. Somehow
she hadn’t realized James would cause such a stir.

He cleared his throat and said, “Em, focus on
us, okay?”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize. I’m just trying to help you
deal with it. I know you’ve never been the center of attention
before, but this kind of reaction to me is inevitable.”

“Why?”

“Who knows? I guess I scare people. They
don't like to think about people like me existing.”

“So it doesn’t bother you?”

“I was thirteen when I had my accident, so
I'm pretty used to it.”

Em stopped walking and stood in front of him
outside The Gap. “When people look at you they don’t see what I
see, do they?”

“Probably not.”

Tears filled Em’s eyes, but she wasn’t sure
why. Jim reached out and she leaned down to hug him. He kissed her
cheek and said gently, “Hey, it’s okay. This is what you wanted,
right? You said you want to have something real with me, a
relationship, this is what it’s going to be like.”

She turned her head and kissed him directly
on the lips. She didn’t stop, though she hated to be so visible.
She pushed her tongue into his mouth and he didn’t resist. Em felt
her purse fall off her shoulder, but ignored it. Jim moved his
tongue with the strength and intensity his body lacked. She climbed
onto his lap. One of his hands was touching the skin under her
shirt along her waist. Eventually he pulled back and they looked
into each other’s eyes for several seconds.

Then Em saw that her purse had spilled its
contents along the corridor beside Jim. She hurriedly bent down and
began shoving things back into it. The last thing was a stack of
white business cards spread all across the floor. They were Kyle’s.
Em hoped James didn’t notice.

They spent a while in the mall. Em tried on
clothes and modeled them for James, she got them pretzels, and they
watched the fountain for a long time. Jim finally admitted that he
was getting tired and they went back to the hospital. Nancy saw to
it that Jim went straight to bed, and she glared at Em until Em
waved good-bye and walked home.

When she got home, Em went straight to her
room and collapsed on her bed. While she was staring at the ceiling
blankly, Julia peeked around the door.

“Are you okay, Em?” she said.

“No,” Em said. “I think I’m in love.”

“Why so miserable?” Julia came in the room
and sat down on the bed by Em’s head.

“What I mean is I met someone. Someone other
than Kyle. Is that terrible?”

“You have to follow your heart. You have to
believe in love above all else,” Julia said with enthusiasm.

“It’s more complicated than that.”

“True love conquers all.”

“Does it?”

“Em! Of course it does!”

“I’m going to work on homework, okay?”

Julia sighed and got up, leaving Em’s room
rolling her eyes.

***

When Em woke up the next morning, the phone
was ringing. She sighed and sleepily walked into the living room to
pick it up.

“Hello, darling. It’s me.”

“Mom?”

“I finally catch you! You’re a busy girl
these days. I just wanted to see how you were doing—wading through
college.”

“I like college, Mom.” She sat down on a
stool and yawned.

“And Kyle? How is he?”

“He’s fine.”

“Just ‘fine’?”

“He’s the same as always. He’s very
predictable.”

“Oh, and you’re not?” Her mother laughed.

Em knew why she was predictable; she was
terrified to go against expectations.

“Mom, what would you say if I told you I was
going to have a wild romantic fling and run away with a man none of
you have ever met?”

“I’d ask you what you had done with my
daughter.”

“It could never happen?”

“Don’t live in a fantasy world, Em. I
believed in my knight on a white horse too and I ended up
divorced.”