If Only in My Dreams Read Online Free Page B

across the river in Jersey with his third wife and their two young sons. Clara just saw them all on Thanksgiving. Dad mentioned something about an upcoming business trip that would take him out of town for most of Hanukkah week. He also said he would be spending Christmas in the Midwest this year, with his in-laws.
    You don’t mind, do you, Clara?
he asked anxiously, and she wondered what he’d do if she said yes, she did mind. That he’s supposed to be here, with her, sleeping on the couch, waiting to see what Santa brought.
    But she didn’t say that. He hasn’t done that in years, and anyway, she gave up on believing in Santa—and her father—ages ago. Somewhere around the time he scheduled one of his honeymoons to coincide with one of her Broadway openings. He told her his tickets were nonrefundable.
    So when he said he was going to Indianapolis for Christmas, Clara told him that it was fine, that she would be spending the holidays with her mother and Stan in West Palm Beach anyway.
    He looked miffed.
    She felt guilty.
    Once a child of divorce, always a child of divorce… even when you’re twenty-nine.
    So, no, she won’t call her father. She’d only get Sharon, and her stepmother is hardly Clara’s trusted confidant. Not due to any particular animosity, but rather because of a general indifference, on both their parts.
    Who, then, if not her parents, can Clara lean on?
    Her longtime therapist, Karen Vinton, of course.
    But of course there’s only so much she can do. There are lines a therapist can’t cross.
    Who, then
, Clara wonders, feeling needier and more alone with every passing second,
is my most trusted
unpaid, nonprofessional
confidant?
    It
was
Jason. For so long that she’s almost tempted to dial his number. But that wouldn’t be fair. She shouldn’t turn to him now, when he still isn’t over their breakup. He might think there’s hope for them, when all she wants to hear from him right now—from
anyone
—is that there’s hope for
her
.
    She runs through a mental list of assorted longtime female friends—her cousins Rebecca and Rachel and her gay sidekicks from her stage and soap days—considering and quickly dismissing each of them. Everyone is terrific when it comes to dishing over margaritas and wedding showers for mutual pals. And she wholly appreciates the impeccable fashion advice and metaphoric applause when her actress ego needs it most.
    But when it comes to a life-and-death situation like this, she isn’t compelled to reach out to any of them.
    When you get right down to it, she’s much closer to some of the people she’s recently met on the movie set. Accelerated friendships are as common a commodity in the entertainmentindustry as they were back in Clara’s summer-camp days. Sharing a rustic cabin or a makeup trailer for a mere couple of months, one can forge unwavering bonds that might take half a lifetime to establish back in the “real world.”
    Clara’s costar, Michael, knows more about what’s going on in her life than her parents do, while she’s privy to more of Michael’s secrets than his soon-to-be-ex-boyfriend is. She and Michael spend a lot of time together on set and off—particularly now that both their publicists are currently encouraging tabloid rumors of romance. After all, Michael’s secret lifestyle requires the occasional smoke screen, and being linked with an A-list star certainly won’t hurt Clara’s new film career.
    So, yes, Michael is a trusted confidant; she can lean on him if she needs to.
    Then there’s Albany Jackson, who plays Sue, Violet’s scripted best friend; Tessa Milks, the stand-in who’s teaching Clara how to knit; and Jesus deJesus, the acerbic makeup artist who keeps her in stitches and in false eyelashes.…
    She’ll tell all of them soon enough. Tomorrow morning, bright and early, at the location shoot up in Westchester, in the real Glenhaven Park.
    But not now.
    She slowly returns the receiver to its cradle, missing