The Last Dreamer (14 page)

In the lobby of the auditorium, Matt assured her that she didn’t have to be sorry. “I don’t care that much about playing,” he said. “And Mr. Finn said he won’t take away the letter grade since I stayed and watched the whole thing.” But Iliana didn’t think she’d ever stop feeling guilty. While her family went to get some cookies, she headed outside. The last thing she saw before she left the building was a team of PTA moms serving refreshments, grimacing from how sticky the juice bottles were. They must have gotten wet when she carried them after the first bottles had broken and splashed juice all over her. Another mess she made.

That night, after Marc and the kids had put the evening behind them and were fast asleep, Iliana tiptoed downstairs. She turned on her computer and began composing a note to the PTA president:

Dear Mrs. Berwich,

This evening, my eighth-grade son, Matthew, was supposed to perform in the orchestra concert, but he didn’t have his violin. I had hoped to drop it off at school, but I wasn’t feeling well and was unable to do so. My understanding was that Mr. Finn has school violins that the children could
borrow, so you can imagine how upset I was when I came to the auditorium and discovered that Matthew had been forbidden to play . . .

Sighing, she stopped typing and sat back in her chair. What was she doing? The concert was finished, there was nothing that could be changed now, and Matt had gotten over the whole incident hours earlier. Still, the memory of him in his tuxedo, sitting in the audience when he should have been performing, haunted her, and she was sure it would continue to haunt her for days. Rubbing her forehead, she closed the email, and her computer screen returned to the school’s website, where she had found the PTA president’s email address. On the home page was a picture of kids in a science lab watching a heated beaker, presumably of water. A lid was on the beaker, and the steam was frantically trying to escape.

Going back to her browser, Iliana searched for Jeff Downs and
Guitar Dreams
and clicked on a link to a YouTube video. Seeing him on TV used to make her feel better; maybe watching now would have the same effect. She waited for the video to load and leaned her chin on her hands to watch. It was an interview the Dreamers did with Jerry Lewis the one time they appeared on the muscular dystrophy telethon:

Jerry: So, what does the future hold? What are you guys gonna do when you’re no longer the biggest stars on TV?

Terry: Sleep!

Peter: Probably go back to my family’s farm. Bruce, here, he’ll be in Hawaii.

Bruce: Right on! Or Fiji. Australia. Anywhere there’s surfing. Chasing the biggest wave of my life.

Jerry: And you, Mr. Quiet? You’re the deep one, that’s what they say. What will you do?

Jeff: I think I’ll be a doctor. Really, you guys, don’t laugh. My mom always thought I’d be a doctor. Maybe I’ll do it for her.

The video ended, and Iliana stared at the screen, feeling tears start to run down her face. She cried for the dreams people had and the way they so often let those dreams die. She cried for parents like her father and Jeff’s mother, who expect their kids to soar, and for parents like her and Marc, who believed that school concerts and volleyball games mattered, when their kids would likely grow up as frustrated and disillusioned as they were. She cried because if Jeff really wanted to be a doctor, then he should have been one, instead of just talking about it. She cried for Jeff, who looked so young and earnest and happy in this video, not realizing that a pretty face was only going to take him so far.

And that was when she realized that she had to go to California. It had nothing to do with getting or not getting the
Times
assignment. She had to give herself a chance to make something amazing happen—a book, Jeff’s comeback,
something
.
Just like Catherine when she went out to California,
she
had to go. There was still a lot of life ahead of her, and it had to begin now. If she didn’t go, she was resigning herself to an existence without surprises, without adventure, without dreams. And she’d continue to be miserable, which would make her family miserable, too. Hadn’t she urged Dara to be confident and try out for the volleyball team? Wasn’t she going to encourage Matt to audition for all-county orchestra in ninth grade, despite his absence from this latest concert? How could she expect them to try for new things if she wasn’t willing to? And okay, there’d be a couple of days of inconvenience with her gone, but Marc could make a few sacrifices, and Jodi would help out. She would ask them to make it work, and she wouldn’t take no for an answer. Because writing this book had become her dream—and she absolutely intended to do whatever she needed to chase it down.

The thing was, she
had
to go, because while taking care of her family—to the exclusion of all else—had been fine when her children were young, it was no longer enough. By traveling to California to write Jeff’s story, she was writing the next chapter of her own story, too. And it needed to be a good one.

Chapter 14

And so it was set. She called Rose the next morning to say that she’d accepted Jeff’s invitation to join him in California, and to get his itinerary. Rose read it to her, and she and realized that the Connors workshop would be no problem. She could fly out to California on Tuesday and stay through Wednesday, then take the red-eye home Wednesday night and make it to the estate in New Jersey for the workshop Thursday morning in plenty of time. And because Jodi would not start her job for another couple of weeks, she’d be available to drive Matt and Dara to school and their activities. Iliana was sure Jodi would be willing, since this was probably the last time she could help Iliana out during the day. All she needed was an explanation, a work-related scenario that both Marc and Jodi could understand and accept.

But what could it be? She thought briefly about saying she had an actual assignment that required her to go to California, but that would be a difficult story for her to pull off, since she hadn’t mentioned any upcoming assignments to either one of them lately. But then she realized it would make more sense to them if she said she was
hoping
to get an assignment. She could say she was developing an article, or a series of articles, about blankets—no, broader—home furnishings to pitch to some business magazines or maybe some local publications, and she needed to do some West Coast research. It was almost the truth—just minus a few details, which she could fill in later, if things worked out as she and Jeff hoped.

Sitting down at the kitchen table with a hot cup of coffee, she thought the situation through. Jodi, she knew, would be easy to talk to; the hard part would be discussing the trip with Marc. She decided it was best to call him at the office, since she didn’t want to spend the whole day worrying about his reaction. And more important, she knew that he’d be too distracted by problems and colleagues to come up with objections. By the time he came home and was ready to protest, she could say she’d already booked her flight and the trip was a done deal.

Picking up the phone, she silently rehearsed some possibilities. She could do annoyed—
You’re
not going to believe it, I can’t even get a magazine assignment until I do all the research—
in the hope that Marc would try to console her:
It’s worth a shot, you want to put your best foot forward.
Or she could be ho-hum—
Hey, goin’ out to California to do some research, lined up Jodi—
but scheduling a business trip for the first time in nearly fifteen years when she didn’t even have a job wasn’t a ho-hum event, and Marc would definitely be confused. The best approach, she decided, was to be excited—no, thrilled—at the prospect of business traveling, and relieved to be coming home in time for the Connors workshop. If she were strong enough in her conviction to carry out these plans, maybe he wouldn’t see the point in objecting.

“Guess what?” she said when he came to the phone, concentrating on keeping her pitch high and her breathing shallow. “I’ve made a decision, and I hope you’ll think it’s as exciting as I do. I’ve decided I really want to get a magazine assignment from a local magazine about home furnishings. So I’m going to California to do some research. My pitch will really stand out, don’t you think?”

“What are you talking about?” Marc said flatly, as though he had been inoculated against enthusiasm. She could picture him at his desk, his glasses on and his hands still at work on the keyboard.

“I want to write for a magazine, remember? I said that when I told you a few weeks ago about contacting Stuart at my old job. But it’s harder than I thought. I’m never going to get an assignment unless I show some initiative.”

“Okay.”

“And that means going to California.”

“How do you figure—what are you
talking
about?”

“Are you even listening, or are you working while I’m here on the phone?”

“I’m listening. It’s an absurd conversation, but I’m listening.”

“Look, if I go to California to check out some stores, I can write a story about home furnishings trends on the West Coast, which I bet some local magazines would buy.”

“Can’t you find trends on the Internet?”

“Anyone can read stuff online. If I want to stand out, I have to do things firsthand.”

“Who do you want to stand out for?”

“Editors.
Westchester Magazine
,
Journal News
,
Hudson Valley Home
.” She grimaced. The lies were just pouring out of her mouth, and they were making her feel horrible. This was her husband, after all. She had to stop and take a different tack. “Marc, I really want to get my career off the ground. Jodi’s got a job, and I can get one, too—and this could be a start for me.”

“And who would pay for this trip?”

“I would
 . . .
I mean, we would have to pay up front. But if my career gets back on track, I would start making money again.”

“It’s going to cost a thousand dollars.”

“It won’t be that much. I can take a red-eye back, they’re cheaper.”

“And when does this epic journey take place?”

“Very funny. It’s next Tuesday, and I’ll be back on Thursday morning in time to get to Jena Connors’s house.”

“That’s the same week? You’ll never be able to function.”

“I’ll be fine. I used to take night flights sometimes when I was working. And Jodi will do all the driving for the kids. All you have to do is come home at a reasonable time so you can have dinner with them. This barely affects you.”

He paused. “Hang on a minute,” he said, and she heard him put the phone down. She made out the sound of a door closing. “Look, Iliana,” he said stiffly when he returned. “I know things haven’t been so great between us lately, but I don’t know what you’re doing. I don’t know if you’re testing me, I don’t know if you’re mocking me, I don’t know if you’re
trying
to get me angry, but whatever it is, stop, because you sound like a lunatic.”

“Marc—”

“You can’t just drop a thousand dollars and run off on a whim. Look, I understand that you want to do something with your life besides just running the house. You’re no Karen Angers, I get that. But I just think there are better ways than doing something so ludicrous.”

“Marc, it may sound ludicrous to you, and maybe I’d agree if circumstances were different. But for the story and the situation we’re talking about now, I have to take this trip. I guess I’m just asking you to accept this for no other reason than it’s very, very important to me. Can you do that this one time? Because if you had to take a trip and pay for it out of your pocket to help your career, I think I’d go along with it. I really think I would.”

“Kelly, who’s that?” she heard him yell out in the other direction. She had no idea if he had heard what she’d just said. “I gotta take this call,” he told her when he got back on the phone. “We’ll talk later.”

He hung up, and she stared at the kitchen countertop. Suddenly the trip that had been so breathtaking less than an hour ago felt inane, frivolous. Why did Marc always have to be so damn oppositional? This was so typical, she thought, these calm, biting questions—
Can’t you find trends on the Internet? Who would pay for this trip? You can’t drop a thousand dollars and run off on a whim—
that made her feel foolish. What had he asked—was she mocking him, was she testing him? How was he so good at making himself the center of every conversation?

But then she folded her arms across her chest and lowered herself into a kitchen chair. She was deluding herself. Maybe Marc could be a little harsh sometimes, but his questions weren’t biting, and they weren’t self-centered. They were reasonable. After all, there were plenty of other ways to do research that didn’t involve unreimbursed travel. Even for a book on teen idols, or Jeff’s experience as a teen idol, she could go online and browse videos of Dreamer concerts or episodes of his
Guitar Dreams
on YouTube. She had already found that snippet from the Jerry Lewis telethon with no trouble at all. And she could interview Jeff and the other guys he located by phone or email. She didn’t have to go to California. Marc was right—the plan was ludicrous. She should just forget it, just call Jeff’s office and tell him she couldn’t get away.

She got up to make the call, but paused midway to the kitchen. No, she thought—
no
, she wasn’t going to cave. Wouldn’t that be just like her, like the miserable Iliana she had become over these past several years? Sure, there were other ways to research a book on teen idols. But the truth was, the trip was what felt essential. She had spent years sitting at her dining room table in front of her laptop, researching article ideas and writing up queries, only to watch them fail and then seek to distract herself through an endless parade of chores. What had all that effort gotten her? Disappointment and frustration. She couldn’t keep doing things the same way over and over. It was time to be bold and try something very different. Okay, she liked Jeff Downs. There was no getting around that fact. She liked how charming he was, and she liked the banter between them. She liked how much he seemed to like her. But she wasn’t going out there just to be with him. She didn’t want to have an affair. She loved her husband! What she wanted was to get out of her life for a while, to go back and live out the youthful dreams she once had. It was thrilling to think that she had actually engineered a way to meet the person she had dreamed about when she was young, and that he thought she was smart and talented. Who knew what other dreams she could recapture if she just stayed strong? She wanted to go to LA She wanted so badly to be just that adventurous.

Taking a deep breath, she went to the computer to find the cheapest possible round-trip flight to Los Angeles. Then she called Rose with her flight information.

“I’ve made a reservation for you, Iliana, at the Grand Somerset, where Jeff is staying,” Rose said. “He has some appointments late Tuesday, so he said that if it’s okay with you, he’ll meet you in the lobby at nine on Wednesday morning.”

“Thank you, Rose,” she said. “Thanks for everything.”

With her plans set, she drafted queries to all of the magazines and websites Julius Criss had suggested, and she added a few of the cool women’s websites she had been following recently: BlogHer.com, HerStories.com, and even ScaryMommy.com, which ran quirky personal-experience stories. She hoped that one editor—one was all she needed—would see the value in her ideas and give her an assignment.

Over the weekend, Iliana casually mentioned her trip to Marc a few times—“I’m freezing a lasagna for you, just defrost it in the microwave when you get home,” and “I’ll take your shirts in tomorrow, since I won’t be around on Wednesday”—but Marc only shrugged and nodded in response. She knew he was thinking, or hoping, that if he ignored the trip, it would just go away.

On Sunday evening after dinner, Iliana went upstairs and opened her closet. She knew some working mothers from the kids’ school who traveled on business to the West Coast or even to Europe every month or so and considered it as routine as a trip to the grocery store. She figured that if she were one of these women, she would probably use a quiet night like this to get an early start on packing. She took out her overnight case, which she thought was big enough for what she needed, and was folding her clothes when Marc walked in.

“So you’re really going?” he asked, sitting on the bed.

“Yes, I’m going.” She put in a pair of shoes.

“Which credit card did you use for the flight?”

“Amex.”

“Which card are you going to use when you’re out there?”

“Which do you want me to use?”

“I don’t know.” He stood up. “My commuter ticket goes on the Amex automatically, but the quarterly bill for train station parking goes on the Visa. You don’t pay the bills, Iliana. You don’t have a clue where we stand with our money.”

She turned him. “You’re right, I don’t. I guess I abandoned my role in all that when I stopped working. And that’s absurd, I’m not a child. Let’s talk about it when I get home.”

“That’s not the point—”

“Then let’s not fight about it,” she said. “Marc, the point is that I’m going to California. I know you don’t understand it, but I have to go. And I know you’re mad, but that’s just the way it has to be. I’m not going to change my mind. It’s
that
important. And I’m sorry to be putting you through this. But I hope that when I get back, we can both move on and be happy.”

He shook his head and walked out of the room, but came back in a moment later. “So you’re not happy now, is that it?” he said. “So I’m still ruining your life? Well, let me tell you something, Iliana. Life hasn’t been so great for me either. You know that Cleveland position, the one that Keith Rein got?
I
got the offer first. And if I had just taken that job, I wouldn’t be dealing with this contract mess I’m in now.”

“You were offered that job?” she asked. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because you’d have given me the silent treatment. You’d have made me feel all over again that I was making you miserable. You’d have told me I was making you a second-class citizen, by dragging you to a new city just for my job. I heard you in my head and I quashed the whole thing.”