If Only in My Dreams (Wendy Markham) by Wendy Markham

Author:Wendy Markham
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Published: 2013-10-21T21:00:00+00:00

That Jonathan Kershaw—the right Jonathan Kershaw—is listed in the Manhattan white pages is perhaps the first thing that’s gone smoothly for Clara in the past forty-eight hours.

It would be too much to hope for that her former high school physics teacher might not only be home when she called, but remember her.

Yet he was, and he did.

“Clara! You’re a big movie star now. Do you have any idea how proud I am of you? To hear Sandra Nelson tell it, she’s single-handedly responsible for your success.”

Sandra Nelson was, of course, her high school drama teacher. The one who, when casting the sophomore musical, assigned the plum parts of Dolly Levi and Irene Molloy to two other girls, leaving Clara to giggle her way through a supporting role as frivolous Minnie Fay.

She’s come a long way since Hello, Dolly!, thank goodness.

And a long, long way since she last spoke to Mr. Kershaw.

He seemed surprised to hear from her, and even more surprised when she asked to see him—in person. Today.

But he readily agreed, and now here she is, climbing out of the subway on the southern fringes of the Upper West Side neighborhood where the retired, divorced Mr. Kershaw has been living for decades.

Somehow, since having made the initial contact with him this morning, she’s managed to temporarily clear her head of the unsettling thoughts that have haunted her these past few days. Just knowing she’s going to see him has brought a temporary reprieve—though for all Mr. Kershaw knows, the purpose of her visit is a nostalgic trip down a figurative memory lane, not a scientific inquiry into whether a literal one is remotely possible. And for all she knows, he’s going to confirm that she’s lost her mind.

But right now, she isn’t thinking ahead. Nor is she looking back. She’s just walking up Amsterdam Avenue, content, for a change, to be in the moment.

She’s taken great pleasure in avoiding makeup on her day off and her face feels wonderfully unadulterated, as does her hair, falling loose and squeaky-clean from beneath a red knit hat that covers her bruise.

She’s cozy and comfortable in jeans, sneakers, and a sweatshirt, a red down jacket, and of course the treasured—and mysteriously returned to her—pair of warm red mittens with a white snowflake pattern that exactly match the hat on her head.

“Why do you go around wearing mittens?” Jason frequently asked last winter.

“Because when I wear them, my fingers can keep each other warm.”

That didn’t fly with Jason. Of course he believes that mittens—sentimental value notwithstanding—are impractical, mostly because you can’t wear them while dialing a cell phone or pressing the numbers on the ATM keypad.

“So what? You can’t stash things in your gloves, but you can in your mittens,” Clara would point out to her ex-fiancé. “Like money, your license, credit cards, your keys…”

“Or you can wear gloves and keep those things in your pockets, where they belong,” said Jason the killjoy.

“I don’t always have pockets.”

“Then carry a purse.”

Today, gloriously unencumbered—by purse, or gloves, or Jason—she carries only some cash in her right mitten, her keys in her left.

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