Dreams - Kate Hawthorne Page 0,2
the taste of cigarettes still heavy in his mouth.
“What can I get you?” the barista asked.
Jackson looked down at the employee’s nametag.
“Taylor,” he rasped.
“That’s me. What can I get you?”
Jackson pinched himself to make sure he wasn’t dreaming, his entire body awash with the familiarity he recognized from a lifetime of recurring dreams and deja-vu. The man across from him was a stranger, but he didn’t feel like it and he didn’t look like it. Jackson knew that face, knew the soft curve of Taylor’s cheekbone. He knew what it felt like beneath his fingertips.
“A large black drip, please,” he answered, choking back his confusion.
“And a chocolate muffin,” Taylor added.
Jackson cleared his throat. “How…how did you know that?”
“What?” Taylor smiled and pulled an empty white cup off of stack of other empty white cups. He slid it into a corrugated sleeve and filled the cup to the brim before securing a lid on it and pushing it toward Jackson.
“How did you know I wanted a chocolate muffin?”
Taylor’s top lip twitched up into a fleeting smile. “I don’t know. Just had a feeling about it.”
Jackson nodded and Taylor pulled a chocolate muffin out of the pastry case. He held it mid-air. “For here or to go?”
Jackson looked down at his watch.
“Come on,” Taylor coaxed, muffin hovering over a white porcelain plate. “Time is nothing.”
“To-go,” Jackson blurted. Taylor’s echo of his dream too much for him to bear this early in the day.
Taylor squinted at him, familiar-feeling green eyes lingering over the plate for another beat before conceding and dropping the muffin into a bag.
“Five-oh-four,” Taylor told him, punching some keys on the cash register.
Jackson dug his wallet out of his pocket and passed his credit card across the counter. He never carried cash, but often worried he should for small spends like this.
“Can I see your ID?”
Jackson turned his wallet around and showed his ID through the plastic sleeve he kept it in. Taylor handed back his credit card without charging it.
“Consider it a birthday treat,” Taylor said, clearing the total on the register.
“How did you know it was my birthday?” Jackson’s entire body broke out in gooseflesh and he mechanically put his wallet away.
“Your ID,” Taylor told him with a funny smile.
“Oh.” He let out a relived breath. “Right.”
Jackson crumpled the bag around the muffin, taking it into his fist and grabbing the coffee cup with the other, he stepped away from the counter and by the time he realized he’d forgotten to say thank you, Taylor had disappeared into the back.
“Fuck,” he mumbled, setting everything down on a small table on the other side of the pastry case. He had a few minutes before he had to be on campus, so he popped a bite of muffin into his mouth while he waited for Taylor to reappear from the back of the shop.
While he chewed, Jackson thought about his dream again, thought about his mother again. The muffin was delicious and it tasted close enough to her chocolate cake recipe that it brought tears to his eyes.
His phone rang, the screen flashing with the caller ID, Meadows Assisted Living. Jackson wiped chocolate crumbs on his thigh and accepted the call.
“Yes?” he croaked, fearing the worst. He was always the one to call them, to check in with his mother’s doctors, and, on the occasions she was lucid, speak with her.
“Mr. Bishop.”
He recognized that voice, and more than that, he recognized the tone. Even if he’d only heard it in his dreams.
“Yes.”
“I’m very sorry to call you so early Mr. Bishop, but your mother has passed away.”
Chapter 2
The funeral passed in a blur of condolences and casseroles. He’d always enjoyed the advantages of being an only child, more Christmas presents, more birthday cake, the complete focus of his mom whenever he’d wanted it, but now he yearned to have at least one sibling who could help deflect some of these unwelcome well wishes.
“Excuse me,” he apologized to a face he didn’t recognize, and he slipped out of the back door of the funeral home. People were loitering, trying to catch him after the service to make conversation about memories that weren’t his. He had no interest in their stories or their food. He didn’t even know how he was going to get all it home. There was no way he had room in his fridge for all those containers.
On top of that, every dish, every pie, every casserole, was a reminder of his mother and a reminder he should have