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full-time. When the event was less than a week away, I began to get a really bad feeling about it and tried desperately to get her to cancel. Doing so wasn’t practical, as the food had already been ordered, and Cheryl was worried that our reputation would be ruined because the lawyers were so connected. The feeling was so strong that I couldn’t let it rest, and eventually stopped helping her prepare. We fought about it night and day, and by the time the event came around, we weren’t talking to each other and I refused to go.
    On the way back from the event around 3 a.m., Cheryl was driving through the mountains and a drunk driver swerved into her lane and hit her head-on. She was killed instantly.

    Unfortunately, that’s not the dream. That part is real.
    In the dream, Cheryl pulls herself from the wreckage, her face marred with scratches and her arms covered in blood. Her outstretched hands are cupped in an offering while she slowly walks toward me. She tries to give me something, but I won’t allow myself to look at it because whatever she’s carrying absolutely terrifies me. There are other people in the dream watching and waiting for my reaction, including my mother, who’s holding a baby; a policeman; and a girl from high school who had also been killed in a car accident. As soon as Cheryl gets close enough to touch, I turn from her and run away. That’s when I wake up, my heart pounding and the sheets drenched in cold sweat.
    I had dreamt the same exact dream nearly every night since she died. Evidently I was going to be haunted for the rest of my life, which served me right for not going with her that fatal night. I was positive that I could have done something to help her avoid the drunk driver if I hadn’t been so headstrong and had agreed to go. Perhaps she was distracted with the radio and I could have watched the road, or maybe I would have swerved differently if I had been driving . . .

CHAPTER FOUR
    M y new apartment was definitely at the upper end of my budget, and as the days progressed, I began to get nervous about money. I still hadn’t discovered all the potential employers in Ashland, but it looked like the big options were the Shakespeare theater, the university, or restaurants and shops that offered service-type jobs. I didn’t have any qualifications to work at a university or a theater, so I systematically went through the phone book and called all the shops and restaurants. I knew that I wouldn’t make the same money I had in L.A., but I decided that it was better to adjust my lifestyle so I could live in a town I actually liked. However, nearly all the conversations went the same way:
    “Hello, I’m looking for work. May I drop off my résumé?”
    “Sorry, we’re completely staffed at the moment, but you can check back after summer.”
    An exceptionally gregarious woman who worked at the Native American shop explained further, putting my insecurities to rest: “All the college students fill in during the summer, which is perfect for the tourist season. But once school starts in the fall, we’ll be looking for help from people who don’t need a flexible schedule.”
    I had saved enough money to keep me going through the next season, so I decided to look upon this as an opportunity to enjoy the summer without responsibilities and resume my job search in the fall. It would give me enough time to really explore what Ashland was all about and get to know myself again. I’d always spent most of my time working and hadn’t taken a summer off since high school. And although I was still nervous about money, I was secretly excited about what I would discover without the responsibility of a job.
    I began getting strong feelings to meet up with Robert again, and I remembered what he’d said about knowing when the time was right. I wasn’t sure where to find him, but it seemed reasonable to return to the place where we’d originally met. As I approached the Co-op, I barely recognized