Dream Entry #5

I finally got around to cultivating the little 6’ x 10’ patch of ground in front of my apartment building. I’d always had big plans for it: daylilies, amaryllis, peonies, pachysandra. It already had some scraggly tulips and a few other plants I could work with, but on this beautiful, warm, breezy summer day, I happily dug huge furrows for all my plants to have nice, soft soil to settle into.

Ralph Macchio, the “Karate Kid,” was upstairs asleep in my bed. After a great date night, romantic dinner and a movie, we came back to my apartment to talk and make out a little. We realized how late it was and it seemed silly for Ralph to leave when he was too tired to drive, and we slept chastely side-by-side.

In the morning, Ralph still sleeping, I was still high from such a perfect date. My buzz made gardening in the sun feel divine, and the breeze kept me cool while I worked, sweating in the dirt.

As I squatted on the ground digging out the roots of a small, errant walnut tree, Dwayne Johnson, “The Rock,” walked around the corner of my apartment building. He took off his sunglasses and smiled at me, and I looked up at him, happy to see my other date.

“Let’s go out to breakfast,” Dwayne asked me.

I stood up, “I can’t; he’s up there.”

“Did you … ?” Dwayne hinted.

“No, we were just up really late talking and we fell asleep.”

Dwayne was disappointed that Ralph was in my bed: “I don’t want there to be anyone else. I want just you and me.”

“I’d like that,” I smiled at him, pleased. Things weren’t really serious with Ralph anyway, it was just a temporary dating kind of thing, not a relationship, not like the potential I had with Dwayne.

“Tell you what,” I said to Dwayne, “drive around the block a few times so he doesn’t see you, and I’ll get rid of him and get ready to go out. OK?”

He smiled, put his sunglasses back on, and left, grinning.

I ran upstairs to Ralph. “Ralph, Ralph, wake up. Listen, I’m sorry, I have to go out. You can stay here until 10 am, but then I need you to be out, OK? Just pull the door closed behind you and it will lock.”

I got dressed and washed my face, thinking about how I’d break things off with Ralph later.

But I never saw The Rock again. Somehow I ended up in L.A., marrying Alec Baldwin. We were consumingly happy to be together and so in love. We went to a gorgeous open-air chapel that he chose for our wedding rehearsal.

As it turned out, the church was doing several rehearsals in one day. All of the brides-to—be had beautiful swirly dresses that breezed behind them, billowing, as they walked down the aisle, to mimic how their wedding dresses would look in the gentle chapel breeze. I was sad, because I was still wearing the denim mini skirt and black t-shirt I had picked for my breakfast date with Dwayne Johnson; I didn’t know about the breezy dress tradition.

“Here,” a kind, elderly chapel assistant said to me. She could see how sad I was not to participate in the blowing dress parade. “Put this on,” she told me. She held out a glimmering, sheer, black veil with silver stars, and wrapped it around my face like a harem girl’s scarf. Only my eyes showed above the veil, and my sly smile just barely glowed through the thin fabric.

I walked down the aisle, my veil gently pressing into my face in the breeze, and all eyes were on me, the most beautiful bride-to-be of the day. The other women, with their conventional dresses, jealously stared, and their husbands were mesmerized. At the end of the aisle, reaching my groom, Alec Baldwin gleamed at me, “You look perfect,” he whispered into my ear, as he embraced me.