Machine Dreams

holly and red candles on the mantle looked beautiful, and the ceiling was hung with real mistletoe and red and green crepe paper.
    “Well,” Jean said, “I’m glad the crepe isn’t red, white, andblue again. As late as last year, they wouldn’t let us use Christmas colors.”
    “Probably smart.” Reb sighed. “We may be in another war soon, with this Korean thing.”
    “I don’t think so,” Marthella answered. “Everyone is still recovering from the last one.”
    “Cheers to that,” Mitch said.
    The four of them smiled and stepped close to touch glasses.
    They’d danced for hours, changing partners, joking, showing off. Empty bottles stood in a cluster near the Victrola. Mitch was a good, solid dancer, but Reb liked to try tricks and fancy moves. He swung Jean around in a circle; she laughed, and in the midst of her laughter felt totally relaxed with him, familiar. After all, she’d known him, known of him, all her life, and his father had been a presence in her house. Reb was almost a brother. Now he grabbed her hand and spun her back toward him effortlessly. His hands were like his father’s hands, broad and square.
    Jean looked down and the toes of his wingtip shoes were polished so bright she saw the reflection of her own slim ankles. When he snapped his fingers and pulled her smoothly near, he was smiling, his eyes were closed. She smelled his cologne. It was tangy, like candied fruit. Too sweet, meant to cover the smell of something else—hospitals, Jean supposed, or the bourbon he’d had before the party. Jean felt too warm, a little feverish.
    “Reb,” she said, stopping, “I just have to rest. I didn’t realize I’d had so much brandy.”
    “That’s what New Year’s is for,” he said.
    She really had drunk too much. She’d go to the bathroom and pull herself together a little. As she turned toward the hallway, Reb got another partner and Jean saw Mitch and Marthella across the room, their heads inclined. They were holding hands. Jean walked quickly into the hall. Well, what if they were? They were old friends. You had to be mature about these things, and about dreams and apprehensions as well. Dreams didn’t mean so much. Anyway, what sort of dream could she expect, falling asleep in a graveyard? And she’d been thinking about her father; it was true they’d been afraid of him sometimes.
    That was better. Jean shut the bathroom door behind her, relieved. She’d have a headache tomorrow if she wasn’t careful. Cold water would help, and then she’d stop drinking. She stepped to the big sink, lowered the stopper on its chain, and ran the cold water. She held her hands under the tap and chilled her wrists, then bent to splash her face. As the cold water touched her skin, sharp, comforting, she remembered the dream again clearly, and understood. Quiet Glade—she’d dreamed of the murders at Quiet Glade. Jean had been four or five; she remembered, growing up, Gracie’s telling her how whole congregations of churches had driven out to the country after Sunday services one morning to see the bodies exhumed. A man had killed his family, buried them in the cellar, and confessed weeks later. It was the only such happening in anyone’s memory, a sort of myth. Jean reached for the linen hand towel and blotted her wet face, then let the water drain. You could never tell what was in your mind. She was sure she hadn’t really been there that day; her mother surely wouldn’t have taken a tiny child to such a place. Why had she dreamed of it, up there in the snow? She dried her hands, feeling the rough fiber of the towel and recognizing sewn into it Bess Bond’s monogram. Bess had lent her linens for the party. Jean folded the towel carefully, hung it back in place. The fabric was rich and fine and had a sheen; it was probably older than a lot of the girls who were dancing. Jean smoothed her dark hair in the mirror, then stopped primping and looked seriously at her own reflection. She was scared; that’s why she’d had the dream. But why should she be afraid? She and Mitch had a chance. He was a good, responsible man—he’d never hit a woman the way Dad had hit Mother a few times, and the age difference was fifteen years, not almost thirty. Marry an older man, Jean and her girlfriends had told each other, not an
old
man. Jean smiled at their foolishness. She touched her ring, twisting it nervously, and saw how the diamond glinted. It was a small stone, but perfect; Mitch had