These Dreams of You

~ ~ ~

I’ll bet, she thinks, that he married the very next girl he went out with. So when Bob laughs, “The very next girl I went out with, my brother stole — the girl after that, I married,” she’s startled: Did I say it out loud? she wonders. Turning to her slightly, Bob doesn’t break his stride. “Well, then, mate,” says Reg absently, stopping in the street to look around or maybe just slow the pace, “you needed to nick one back from him. Jaz, is this the way?”

On the corner is a closed Wimpy Bar. “Nearly did once,” says Bob. No, I didn’t say it out loud, thinks Jasmine. “But he wasn’t the sort—”

“She’s the native home-town girl,” Reg nods at Jasmine.

“—who had girls stolen from him.” The park comes into view.

“I’m not a native and yes it’s the way and,” says Jasmine, “there’s the park.” She turns to Reg. “Can we go now?”

“But let’s walk him the rest of it,” says Reg.

“I want to leave.”

“Where are you from?” Bob says to her.

Oh don’t bloody bother. To Reg, “I want to leave.”

“It’s all right,” Bob says to Reg, and points through the trees of the park at a large house lit from the outside, red brick and white columns visible in the lights. “That’s where you’re staying?” says Reg. As the three stand in the street peering at the house, a downpour opens up above and Reg dashes to the Wimpy Bar to take cover under the overhang; Bob follows, though never breaking from his determined stroll. Jasmine remains in the road. “Are you daft?” Reg calls to her. “Get out of there,” but the rain comes down and Jasmine doesn’t move, staring at him, arms folded.

“I’m going home,” she says.

“What?” calls Reg. A few feet away, he can’t hear her for the rain.

“See you at the session,” she says and turns on her heel and walks off, and when Reg calls after her, “Cheers,” she doesn’t answer. When Bob calls, more softly, “Goodbye,” she doesn’t answer that either. Bloody hell, she thinks as she splashes down the road in the rain. The Bloody Impossible Dream. She shakes her head and soon is gone from the men’s sight.