In Your Dreams Bobby Anderson (7 page)

CHAPTER
15

“Patrick
, I need to meet with you,” Bobby was already heading to the door, tucking his shirt in with one hand and holding his cell phone with the other. He hadn’t given too much thought as to whether Patrick could actually see him, but that didn’t matter.
He
needed to see Patrick.

“Um…sure.” Patrick didn’t sound as
motivated as he usually did when Bobby called. Unbeknownst to Bobby, Patrick had a meeting scheduled in twenty-five minutes with one of his lesser-known actors, but he could juggle it―he
would
juggle it for Bobby.

“Where?”

“I’m coming to your office. Oh, and have some coffee ready, my head is aching.”

Bobby hadn’t wanted to talk to Patrick about
his dreams; but sadly, when he’d gone through his list of friends of who to talk to, he’d come up blank. None of them would understand. How could they? And even though Patrick wouldn’t understand either, of that Bobby was almost sure, he’d at least pretend to.

If only his mother wasn’t
off gallivanting around France he could talk to her. He’d tried her cell, but wherever she was, there was no coverage. He wasn’t exactly worried; she was with a tour group, after all, but her advice would certainly be better than Patrick’s.

“What’s on your mind?” Patrick had a way with his clients. They were always in charge. He assumed nothing. He never asked, “What’s wrong?” He let them decide if something was wrong, even if they made unexpected emergency meetings and it was more than obvious that something was definitely wrong.

Bobby leaned
into Patrick’s desk and looked around the room as if expecting to find spies hiding behind the curtains and under Patrick’s desk. After a moment’s hesitation, he sighed and leaned back into his chair. Asking Patrick for help felt a lot harder than he’d envisioned it would on the way over. In his car he’d simply come out and told Patrick all about Susan, how he just
had
to find her. But he’d forgotten about the introduction. Now he faced telling the whole story: the vision, the paranoia. How would Patrick react? Bobby decided on a different tactic. Not telling the truth seemed like a much better option all of a sudden.

“I
—I have a friend…who wants to make a…movie.”

Patrick sighed and looked at his watch. The pure gesture
of it shocked even him. Normally he would never look at his watch in Bobby’s presence, but a movie? A friend? This meeting wasn’t even about Bobby.

“This friend,
my
friend, had a question about something in his story, and he asked me for help.”

Patrick did no
t react or look at his watch this time, so Bobby continued. “He needs to know how the main character would find this girl he keeps meeting on a beach. He wants to know where she lives so that he can meet her, um,
not
on the beach…”

“Yellow pages?”

“She doesn’t give a last name.”

“Address?”

“She only says, New York City.”

“So, your friend should write more into th
e story. It’s not much to go on.” Patrick wanted to look at his watch again, but he had pushed that button already and self-preservation prevented him from doing it a second time.

“Well, she gives clues. She lives in New York
City, and on Wednesdays someone visits and plays this classical music she hates. She’d prefer to hear Paul Simon.”

“Visits? What do
you mean? If the person visits that means it’s
her
house, so why should there be music she doesn’t like? Why doesn’t she just play what she wants to hear? It’s not a much of a story.”

Bobby frowned. He didn’t know
, and the clue seemed lacking. But he had been so sure of a connection. What was it?

“Your frie
nd needs to re-write his script.” Patrick cracked his knuckles and played a quick finger strum on his desk. “Is that all, Bobby?”

“
Patrick, My friend can’t re-write his script. Please, tell me, how does the girl get found?”

Patrick studied Bobby’s face, a
nd for a fraction of a second he felt fear. Fear that he was losing Bobby Anderson. Thankfully, it was just a fleeting fear soon gone, but Bobby was still there in his office, eyes desperate. What sort of hold did the friend have on him? Bad script or not, Patrick decided to help him. “The clue is obvious.”

“
It is?” Bobby couldn’t see how.

“
She’s in the hospital.”

“Bobby almost reeled backwards.
“Hospital?”

“Sure.
Visitors…it’s obvious.”

“But they meet on the beach.”

“Sorry Bobby, I forgot that part. Maybe she visits them at the hospital when she’s not at the beach.”

“No,” Bobby shook his head. “They visit her.”

Bobby felt a cold chill cover his bones. Susan was in the hospital. Holy smokes
. Susan was in the hospital!

All right, but
now what?
All he had to do was find out which hospital, and save her…from. From what exactly?

An
entire week had passed and he’d had no new encounters with Susan. Bobby was ready to pull his beautiful brown hair out, but instead had gone to Harriet, his favorite hairdresser. If he couldn’t pull it out, he’d do the next best thing and buzz cut it. He had four months before his next movie and Bobby wasn’t worried what the producers would think. “My hair will grow back in four months, right?” he’d asked Harriet. “Sure, love. Young man like yourself, it’ll grow back in in no time.”

Bobby hoped
“no time” meant four months.

It took exactly nineteen hours before Bobby saw his
buzz cut in full color on the front page of Hair, Style, Star, TeenSpirit, Bounty Hunter, Trend, Girl’s Fashion, Men’s Fashion, Yes, and Your Fashion.

Almost all
of the magazines had the same picture, taken the moment he walked out of the hairdressers. It must have been a zoom lens, because he hadn’t noticed anyone lurking nearby.

At least he didn’t look
half bad. He’d chosen a simple silk beige and white striped short sleeved buttoned up shirt, partially tucked into his black Levis jeans. His shiny silver Armani buckle had full exposure, and thankfully he’d also chosen to wear his Heritage brown leather Mexican boots that day. Bobby had to admit that he looked good enough for any girl to dream about.

But, for some reason,
Girl’s Fashion only produced the one picture of him in his convertible. It had been taken at a set of traffic lights when Bobby pulled a less than enthusiastic face, biting his lip in agitation for the light to change to green.

Most of the write-ups supported his new look, saying he
wore his short hair well. You, however, suggested a mid-life crisis, and Men’s Fashion listed ten other famous men who had gone in the same direction only to end their careers soon after.

Bobby sucked his teeth. Shoot, he could list twice as many who had gone on to prosper
in their careers after just such a haircut. The fact that he couldn’t think of any names at that moment was beside the point. He wished, for not the first time, that he’d stop reading those useless articles about himself.

He pushed all
the magazines off his sun bed and lay back to soak up the rays. No calls from Patrick. Strange. Usually after any magazine episode Patrick was the first to show up. Maybe Trend was right. Maybe he
was
on his way out.

“Why can’t you help me?”

Susan looked a mixture of angry frustration going sad. The sun sparkled through her red hair and her green eyes rippled. Bobby’s heart stopped. She was so beautiful. The most beautiful creature he’d ever seen. All this time he’d found her many things: cute, sexy, pretty. But now… What? His heart beat hard as he embraced the tropical heat, so unlike the heat of California, which was better described as smuggy, in his opinion. Her T-shirt said “Teen”.

“Y
ou’re just not helping,” Susan burst into tears.

Bobby had been sitting on an old fallen c
oconut trunk, but at the sound of Susan’s sobs he jumped up and put a hand on her shoulder. She was cold. Too cold for a person standing in the tropical sun. “Susan?” Her green eyes pleaded with him through the wet pools. “We don’t need to build a house,” Bobby decided, the thought occurring to him out of nowhere.

“What? But
—”

“We can escape, Susan
. We can get out of here.”

“So, you know how to build a boat?”

“Um, no.”

She
started to turn away, her disappointment pulling heavy on her slender frame.

“B
—but I can figure it out! I’ve seen it done. I’m sure we can do it.”

Susan s
topped turning and waited.

“I’ve seen it done,” Bobby
said again. “All we need is loads of… of coconuts!”

“What?”

“Yeah, coconuts. That’s how Steve McQueen did it in the movie, Papillon. He lashed coconuts together and floated to safety. It’s a true story.”

Susan frowned
, and Bobby continued, “It’s beautiful. This way we don’t need knives and hammers or glue or anything!”

Susan looked skeptical, but at least she
wasn’t crying. In fact, Bobby detected a slight smile. “What about rope, smart boy?” she grinned. “Do you have a magic solution for that?”

“Sure thing. We’ll just use your hair.”

Susan gasped and placed her hands protectively over her head. “You are not touching this hair!”

Bobby laughed, “Just joking. I’d never touch a hair on your head,
literally. I swear.” Bobby was serious, and he hoped she could sense it, could feel how much he wanted to help her, how much he… Loved her?

A
s he gathered his thoughts in attempt to describe his feelings for her, he saw the letters on Susan’s shirt change before his eyes. They spelt “rain”. He was in the habit of looking at her shirt for clues, but ‘rain’ did not seem like much of a clue. The letters faded again, and this time spelt ‘Bobby’.

“I like
your hair,” Susan said.

Bobby felt his spiky top and grinned.

“Is it true?”

“What?”

“That it’s the start to the end of your career?”

“
N—no! “ Bobby stuttered. “It’s just a change.”

“Well, I like it.”

“Mr. Bobby? It’s Tony on the phone.”

“Huh?”

Rosa put the house phone on the glass table next to Bobby’s sunbed and walked away, too busy to pause.

“Tony?”

“Hey! Bobby! What’s up?”

“This is bad timing, Tony.” Bobby felt like punching something.

“The guys and I haven’t seen you in a while. Man, you have to let this Lola thing go.”

“What?”

“Yeah, dude. Ever since you two broke up you’ve been like this lost puppy or something. And now your hair… Man! You didn’t even talk to me first. I would have stopped you, that’s for sure.”

The hair! What was it Susan said?
If it was true about his career? She had read it! She’d read the magazines; and when she read the magazines, she thought of him. That was why the dreams happened after a public event.

“Tony, I’m sorry but I have to go.”
Bobby hung up before Tony could say another word, and raced inside. He grabbed the first computer in the living room and he punched in weather updates. Sure enough, and with a sigh of satisfaction, Bobby saw rain and thunderstorms for New York City. Susan was in New York City, right now. This was real time. She was reading the magazine and it was raining,
right now!

He h
ad to find her. He just had to, and now he had a plan. He ran back to the pool and found the abandoned house phone. Punching callback, he soon had Tony at the other end again. “Sorry, Tony, I had an emergency.”

“What kind of emergency?”

“The urgent kind.” Bobby didn’t feel like explaining. He had other things on his mind. “Tony, I need your help.”

* * *

The music blared and thumped in his chest, making it feel as if it would explode. Adrian gave him the thumbs up as they entered the club, a posse of young superstars. Despite their efforts, the four men managed to look exactly the same: same jeans, same T-shirts, same custom made watches.

The on
ly one to really stand out was Rob, the bodyguard. He always stood out, wearing his signature black suit, black T-shirt, black shiny shoes, and black hat—any style of hat could be expected—it was where he expressed himself. Tonight Rob did not wear a hat, but he did surprise the others with a silver ear stud.

“You starting a new fashion?” Tony trie
d to tease. But you couldn’t tease Rob. He had no sense of humor. But the guys still liked him. He made them feel safe, and besides, he was cool. He never picked up a single girl when he worked, but if any of those boys were the opposite sex, each one felt certain they would choose Rob to go home with over any of them, except for Bobby of course―even Bobby knew he was top choice; it was the natural order of things.

“Nice earrin
g,” Adrian said, and succeeded in glimpsing a slight grin. Or was that a menacing smile?

“Thanks Adrian,” Rob said dryly.
One point to Adrian, zero to Tony. But Tony would make his own score later that night, with a brunette from Florida. She was enjoying her first night of clubbing in L.A. so much, she attempted to take off her top and dance on one of the small platforms reserved for the paid dancers. Tony rescued her before they threw her out.

W
hen the bouncer saw that she was with Bobby’s group, he only gave them a stiff warning, like a cop who’s pulled you over for excessive speeding only to discover you’re a beautiful woman. Except, in the club, the bouncer had to yell, and Tony had to yell back, and the girl just laughed and danced while Tony promised she would not be taking her top off again that night—at the bar anyway. Tony seriously hoped she would take it off later for him. And she would too, because Tony kept telling her that he would get her places because he was Bobby’s best friend, and of course, she believed him.

But
back to Bobby. What could he do to cause a scandal? He needed to get himself into the papers as quickly as possible. That was why he’d gone out. He had to get back to Susan somehow. Maybe he could drink and drive. Yes, perfect. He would have to get rid of Rob, though, before the great thug got it into his head that he would have to drive Bobby home himself.

But R
ob actually seemed to be enjoying himself. He was in deep discussion with one of the female paid dancers, a tall black woman with fake eyelashes and glitter all over her body. Maybe Rob was distracted enough not to notice Bobby ordering multiple glasses of Rum and Coke.

Bobby gulped down as much of the alcohol as he could and went to find a spot to sit down.
Adrian and Mike were dancing, but soon joined him. Bobby was never alone for long.

Small talk was quickly
forgotten due to the noise level of the club, which at that moment was a Ke$ha mix; and the three men tried to sit manly while they watched Tony and their body guard chat to women.

It didn’t take more than a couple of seconds for Bobby to attract attention
, though. He always did. Adrian and Mike were like pilot fish following the mighty shark so that they could pick up the leftovers.

Tonight
, two fine socialites had targeted them. The boys knew the girls well: Jessie and Pauline. They were always together, and usually at the same parties that Bobby and his posse ended up at. Bobby had nothing against them, but he wasn’t in the mood for small fussy nowhere talk. He just wanted to get drunk and get back to Susan. She was waiting for him in New York, and she needed him.