i_dreamt_that_i_dreamt_24 crOwl maggie was dreaming haiku-style. blossoms in his hair blood drips from pregnant branches i will remove them given whispered breath a fragile kiss turns to stone all that is of me classical music sounded a gentle, beckoning alarm like a mother's annunciation of her daughter's name. two syllables like the first two notes of a song. a soft haydn piece that seemed to lift her within her continuing dream to a place where she saw herself laying in a sweet summer field of swaying timothy grass, sprinkled with black-eyed susan and butterfly weed. she was on her back with her legs up under a long, madras skirt. under her a mexican blanket. next to her a magazine, and suglasses. she was still dreaming she knew, but one of those velvety dreams that can be guided along by desire. she sat up. she could see a young man walking slowly away from her. he was wearing jeans, but no shirt. his shoulders were brown from long days working under the sun. she could still feel his touch where his hands and lips had been. at her particular angle, she looked wistfully above him to where he was framed by broken clouds of cottonballs pulled into long, delicate pieces thumb-tacked to an azure blue sheet of paper sky. she thought to call out his name and seemed to think it started with the letter g, as if it was the sound of something caught in her throat, like a bone. when she finally woke, she was extremely thirsty and stumbled to sit up against the headboard of her bed, straining against the nightstand to reach an opened bottle of perrier. it tasted stale and flat but immediately removed the strange parched feeling. she blinked away the images, but the name seemed to hang on her tongue like a lone drip from a melting icicle. she tried saying it again. she blinked her eyes and began to remember snippets from the dream. the young man beside her on the blanket. leaning in to kiss him. the sun on her face. the smell of sex. ... and then the nudging sound of a waiting text shook her to an awakened sense of patient responsibility. she set the empty bottle down on the nightstand and reached for her phone. she read: MEET DB@3PM/GLADSTONES/JACK maggie shut the phone and her lips sank into a poutish pucker of indifference. work, she thought. i can definately use the money. she threw back the comforter and blankets and set her bare feet on the varnished wooden floor. her toenail paint was just beginning to peel. she stood up and stretched, singlet rising to expose a flat belly and the rounded curve of her hips. she tried saying the name in her dream again. she bit her lips but she could not grasp it. walking into the bathroom of her tiny l.a apartment, she relieved herself and then stood on the beehive tile in front of the small mirror. her shoulder length straight, raven-black hair was all over the place. she squinted at her image with partially swollen green eyes and sunburnt button nose sneering. she pressed the handfuls of her breasts together and sighed dejectedly. she could smell her breath, slightly sour. she reached for her toothbrush. three hours later, she pulled into the parking lot of gladstones, a malibu restaurant by the sea. cries of scavenging gulls perusing the beachside dumpster greeted her as the valet opened the door of her mini cooper. she looked at him and saw his eyes on her exposed thigh as the simple black dress she was wearing creeped up. she turned away in her seat to exit. she ignored him and let him park her car. walking hurridley through the doors, she neglected to see an orderly row of pelicans hovering just above the surface of the ocean, not one of them getting their belly wet. dennis, already occupying a table for two against a large window looking out to the windswept sea, set his menu down and stood to meet her. he was wearing a striped tie with a white shirt, but his straw-colored hair, greying at the temples, speckling his grisled beard, and licking at his collar was still wet, as if he had hurried to beat her on time. "sorry i'm late," maggie gushed into his cheek. he kissed her on the opposite one and could smell her faint use of lilacs above the distant aroma of grilled fish and simmering chowder. he squeezed her bare upper arms affectionately and then sat back down. the lunch crowd had thinned considerably, which dennis preferred, especially when he was chatting up a plan. "thanks for coming," dennis said, reaching for his glass of pinot grigio. "i'm very excited for you to meet a new friend of mine." "REAlly..?" maggie responded, scooting her chair closer to the table. the waitress came to the table and asked maggie if she wanted a drink. she ordered a bellini. "his name is gavin..." dennis said, sipping. maggie froze. she suddenly remembered her dream. she said the name to herself. her heart thumped rapidly. "what's the matter?" dennis asked, setting his white wine down on the linen tablecloth. he could see she was startled and perplexed. maggie nevously ran her hand through her hair and looked out the window. she watched the white caps of the waves yield to the merciless power of the wind. "oh, it's nothing," maggie said, turning to dennis, but she knew it was way more than she could imagine. 080309 ... unhinged maggie's nervous reaction upset dennis slightly. she was his go to girl when he needed shit done. she seemed to have little to no conscience. usually, she had no problem being his second hand whore. dennis drummed the steering wheel of his car. 'miles.' his voice activated stereo started pumping out some early miles davis recordings. he pushed some buttons on his gps and the directions to gavin and lilly's showed up on the screen. according to the gps, it would take an hour to get there but dennis never drove the speed limit. lilly was washing the dishes when the doorbell rang. she picked up the dish towel and wrung her hands dry. she had splashed water and soap on her chiffon shirt leaving dark oily spots. she looked down and the doorbell rang three more times in impatient succession. 'shit. damn. hold your horses.' she rushed to the front of the house with trane on her heels. she opened the door to dennis peering at his watch, hand on his hip, foot tapping on the cement step. 'why hello lilly.' his fake professional smile narrowed when he noticed coltrane. as lilly backed up to let him in, dennis eyed the dog suspiciously. 'and who's this?' trane's wagging tail was thumping lilly in the leg in a borderline painful fashion. 'oh, you don't have to worry about him mr. browne. his name is coltrane. he's gavin's dog. he doesn't have a taste for italian wool.' she flashed him an imperious smile with one eyebrow raised. 'i could let him out if you prefer.' dennis chuckled and lilly stopped in her tracks. 'call me dennis. actually, i would prefer if you put the dog in the yard. you have a sharp tongue and a sharp eye lilly.' lilly let trane out the back door. he reluctantly followed her command but stayed near the door whimpering. 'he's a big baby at heart dennis. all big dogs are really. my studio is upstairs. follow me.' 'what a nice home you and gavin have. where is gavin?' 'at the beach. he's been getting back into surfing lately.' 'ah, surfing. what a quintessential californian pasttime.' dennis followed lilly into her studio and meandered past the paintings she had displayed for him. his criticism was sharp. 'what are these paintings? the pieces you did for nancy are much more commercial than any of this.' he waved his hand languidly at the modern abstracts. 'the color choice is amateur, straight out of the tube.' he touched the nearest painting gingerly. 'the paint is think bordering on clumpy. there doesn't seem to be much design. except for this one.' he stopped in front of the painting of his own chuckle. lilly tensed. 'well, i've been feeling jackson pollack lately. i'm not sure why. i never liked him much. i wanted to show you some of my work that you haven't seen before.' dennis was leafing through some of the myriad stacks of finished canvases in the room. 'you are quite prolific. and there are many different styles here. i would say modern is not your strongsuit.' he wrinkled his nose before he could stop himself. he picked up a nightmare painting. 'this is captivating in an ugly sort of way.' 'i like to paint my dreams. i have a reoccuring dream of my parents' murder. not all art needs to be 'pretty'. ' 'art as therapy. what a unique concept. i'm not sure how sellable 'ugly' is lilly.' dennis's haughty sarcasm was wearing on lilly's nerve. as he talked, she bit down hard on the inside of her cheek. 'i don't think i would want to sell my nightmares dennis. i'm perfectly aware of the issue of sellability. the last series of fall flowers i painted for nancy's store are right here.' dennis found lilly's stack of oceanscapes. they had an amorphous yet microscopic quality like her flower paintings. 'ah, i see. the stacks are more organized than they first appear. this is exquisite.' he pulled a painting of a sunset from the stack. 'yes, i believe i can find some commissions for you lilly dear. what do you think?' 'what kind of commissions?' 'personal, residential, commercial. any kind you would like.' 080311 ... c r 0 w l the young man's name in the black vehicle that was following gavin to work was reid. he was a man of strong, but scrawny build, slightly bent-over but ruggedly handsome, as if he spent all of his hours outdoors, until he went inside with the darkness. he had worked as an assistant to dennis browne for seven years. actually he was just beginning his year of jubilee, as dennis called it. where in exchange for more responsibility, he also was given greater perks; this year he had a month's vacation and free travel expenses. he flicked up his right turn signal and followed about three car lengths behind gavin on pierpont boulevard. he felt good about what dennis was saying about gavin; how he was good-looking, smart, mellow, inquisitive. how he was sociable, looked people in the eye, and genuinely seemed naturally happy. his smile was killer. however, he had a good thing with lilly, his girlfriend of a few years, a relationship that like a ship, was sailing across a troubled sea to the land of matrimony. dennis browne was the tempest that would capsize them. and he, reid, was the tsunami. he continued to follow him past an elementary school and several perpendicular, sandswept brick streets that led to the sea. he drove past surfer girls holding hands with surfers, who with salt-flecked brows gazed wistfully to the west, feeling in the palm of their hands a sense that they were connected to something they would try to name all their lives. finally, he turned left into the cardiff-by-the-sea lodge. reid parked several spaces away from him under the shade of a massive redgum eucalyptus. it was a stunning speciman of its type and had become gavin's favorite tree. he loved to smell its mentholated air. reid carefully watched with a small pair of zeiss high-powered binoculars as gavin exited his aging saab and walked towards the gardener's quarters at the back of the resort. a woman, dressed in a taiored business suit approached with a clipboard in her hand, stuffed with papers. she was writing on it as gavin stopped to wait for her. she was pointing at words on a page and gavin leaned in close to her for the writing must have been small. he stood up and began talking with her, smiling broadly, and nodding his head with cheerful alacrity. the woman smiled and turned away from him. gavin continued into the gardener's house. reid removed the steel binoculars from his eyes and narrowed his gaze to his swiss army watch. he took the binoculars from around his neck and put them back in their leather case. he prepared his satchelbag and then left his car and walked around the manicured parking lot to the grand front entrance where begonias flourished with impatiens, gazanias, and fragrant lilac, camelias, and lavendar. he walked up the cobblestone path and stopped to admire a finely clipped boxwood hedge shaped into what resembled a flying bird. "can i help you?" gavin had suddenly appeared from a door at the stone basement of the bed and breakfast house. his plans were to dig a small trench in order to move a sprinkler head. he unexpectedly saw reid standing in front of the topiary. his words sounded like the moan of a cello. "yeah," reid said, calmly. he turned slowly away from the shrub and did not gain eye contact with gavin until he spoke the word, "interview." "they'll do your interview in the library, that's where they did mine," gavin said. "i hope you get the job. i can really use the help." 080314 what's it to you? who go blather from