The Color of Heaven - 09 - The Color of Time Read Online Free Page A

pulling me to try it again.

Chapter Eight

    According to what I’d read on the web, there were a number of different strategies a person could employ to bring about a state of lucid dreaming. Some recommendations included keeping a dream journal, exercising specialized methods of meditation, or making a habit of doing repetitive reality checks during the day—checks that would eventually spill over into your dreams. One site recommended staring at the palms of your hands before bed and planning what you were going to dream about.
    I tried that trick before I went to sleep, just to see what would happen. For a full ten minutes, I stared at my palms, then I rested my head on the pillow and closed my eyes. I attempted to begin a new dream by imagining myself back in that memorable summer of my sixteenth year. I thought about what sort of person I was then, and how I had come to know Ethan.
    * * *
    Ethan Foster was not the sort of boy I’d ever imagined I’d end up with. Not because he was trouble. To the contrary, he was the most beautiful person I’d ever laid eyes on—in a masculine way, of course. He was tall and broad shouldered with washboard abs and a perfect tan. His wavy hair was golden brown, his eyes, deep green and long lashed. Jenn, who was thirteen at the time, said he looked like he belonged on a Calvin Klein billboard in Times Square. I couldn’t disagree.
    On top of all that, his parents were filthy rich. His father was a former Wall Street banking executive who became CEO of some high-tech company I can’t remember the name of. His parents were always flying off in a private jet to Switzerland, Hong Kong or Dubai.
    Ethan’s family owned a penthouse apartment in New York City and spent summers at their second home in Cape Elizabeth, just outside Portland. It was a white-painted Palladian style mansion with Greek columns and a gigantic veranda that overlooked the sea that lay beyond a sprawling, sloping green lawn.
    The first time I’d met Ethan, I had no notion of any of that. All I saw was a hot guy in shorts who was arguing with his equally hot girlfriend on a summer afternoon, during a crowded festival downtown. A band was playing on one of the rooftop patios and a street parade had just finished. It was boiling hot and Jenn and I were on our own, wandering in and out of the Exchange Street shops. We’d stopped to buy popsicles from an ice cream truck parked at the intersection and couldn’t help but hear the shouting in the lineup behind us. It was mostly the girl, who seemed very aggressive.
    “I don’t know what your problem is,” she spat. “It’s just a party. Everyone’s going to be there.”
    “I’m not in the mood,” the guy said, directly behind me.
    I glanced over my shoulder to get a look at them in my peripheral vision. The guy was standing unsettlingly close to me. He practically spoke in my ear.
    The girl shoved him and he bumped into me.
    “Sorry,” he said.
    “No problem,” I replied, and shared a playfully scandalized look with Jenn, who appeared more than a little unnerved by the whole situation.
    “You just don’t want to go because Jeff will be there,” the girl said.
    “It has nothing to do with Jeff,” he replied.
    “Yes, it does, and you know it. You can’t stand Jeff because he came on to me that time.”
    Still listening discreetly over my shoulder, I was aware of the guy letting out a resigned sigh. “I really don’t care.”
    “Oh? You don’t care ?” she shouted. “Is that how it is? Then maybe I should give Jeff my phone number tonight. Would you care then ?”
    “Do whatever you want,” the guy replied with a clear note of indifference.
    I shut my eyes and shook my head because I knew he shouldn’t have said that. It was the sort of thing that would set that girl off like a firecracker.
    Sure enough, she shoved him again and he bumped into me. A second time.
    “Geez, relax, Corrine,” he scolded. “You’re making a scene.”
    “I