Waltz of Her Life

"It's a doll house!" she said. From then on, that was what they called Linda's cozy little residence.

Linda loved studying at the handcrafted desk, also. That fall she delved into the most demanding coursework of her major: the demanding Anatomy, Terminology, and Clinical Studies courses. She loved the solitude. She loved the quiet. At night, when the rhythmic chirp of crickets would lull her to sleep, she hoped she would dream of the majestic ballroom and the glorious gentleman who lovingly held and carried her along the floor, through a waltz.

It was not to be.

At the Dream Lab, they increased her pay to sixty-five dollars weekly. Since she'd been with the program for a full academic year, she helped the new oneironauts through orientation, helping allay their fears and concerns. Many times she heard someone say "I haven't had an occurrence yet and it's been more than a week. They'll fire me, won't they?" and Linda always assured them that breakthroughs were just around the corner.

Most of the time, they were. Not everyone the directors hired was suited to the position, however. One night Linda had been startled out of a deep sleep by a girl's shrieking voice.

It was a new girl, who'd had a lucid nightmare in one of the other rooms down the hall.

"They're going to get me!" she cried, trying to climb the walls. "They're going to get me!" Geraldine and Jay had to work together to calm down the poor girl, as all four of the other oneironauts in the lab that night abandoned their beds to rush into the hallway.

At Christmas the Glienke's gave Linda a small, delicate tabletop Christmas tree with dainty, twinkling lights and tiny, silver and gold ornaments. She loved the iridescent, ethereal glow the lights cast over the walls and ceiling loft at night.

When the fall semester ended and the holidays rolled around, she traveled back to her parent's house to spend them with her mother, father, Bobby and Molly. Business had been good at the rail yard, Molly was excited about her freshman year of high school, and Bobby had found a good job as a welder. Lavish gifts awaited them on Christmas morning. Linda unwrapped a sharp, small color television with gleaming dials. That afternoon she joyfully celebrated with her parents over a turkey dinner. She wondered if it could ever get any better than this. Starting the Spring of 1979, though, things would get much more challenging.

Lauren, Naomi, Marie, and Julie still lived at the Tuileries together. By then they had to buy two extra chests of drawers to put in the living room near the stereo. All their wardrobes had overgrown the drawers and closets upstairs. To keep them separate, they labeled each of the drawers on the downstairs dresser.