Which Mr. Miller, a few hours later, succeeded in shattering.
I admit I returned late from lunch. The people at the auto store had assured me they could install the new seat covers in fifteen minutes, but it actually took them over half an hour. Still, it was the first time in five years I had ever been late, and Mr. Miller’s sarcasm and abuse seemed to me under the circumstances excessive. He carried on for nearly an hour, and in fact continued to make reference to the incident for the next two weeks.
Still, my hurt and outrage at Mr. Miller’s attitude were not so great as they might have been, had I not had that spot of warmth on my wrist to remind me of Delia. I thought of Delia, of her beauty and grace, of my own ease and confidence with her, and I weathered the Miller storm much better than might have been expected.
That night I hardly watched the eleven o’clock news at all. I stayed until it ended only because any change in my habits would have produced a string of irrelevant questions from my mother, but as soon as the newscaster had bid me good night I headed directly for my own bed and sleep.
And Delia. I had been afraid to hope the dream would continue into a third night, but it did, it did, and most delightfully so.
This time, the dream skipped. It jumped over those dull meaningless hours when I was not with Delia, those hours as stale and empty as the real world, and it began tonight with me back at Summit Street promptly at seven, and Delia opening her front door to greet me.
Again the dream was utterly realistic. The white dinner jacket I wore was unlike anything in my waking wardrobe, but otherwise all was lifelike.
In tonight’s dream we went to dinner together at Astoldi’s, an expensive Italian restaurant which I had attended — in daylife — only once, at the testimonial dinner for Mr. Randmunson when he retired from Willis & DeKalb. But tonight I behaved — and felt, which is equally important — as though I dined at Astoldi’s twice a week.
The dream ended as we were leaving the restaurant after dinner, on our way to the theatre.
The next day. and the days that followed, passed in a slow and velvet haze I no longer cared about Mr. Miller’s endless abrasion. I bought a white dinner jacket, though in daylife I had no use for it. Later on, after a dream-segment in which I wore a dark blue ascot, I bought three such ascots and hung them in my closet.
The dream, meanwhile, went on and on without a break, never skipping a night. It omitted all periods of time when I was not with my Delia, but those times spent with her were presented entirely, and chronologically, and with great realism.
There were, of course, small exceptions to the realism. My ease with Delia, for instance. And the fact my car grew steadily younger night by night, and soon stopped pulling to the right.
That first date with Delia was followed by a second, and a third. We went dancing together, we went swimming together, we went for rides on a lake in her cousin’s cabin cruiser and for drives in the mountains in her own Porsche convertible. I kissed her, and her lips were indescribably sweet.
I saw her in all lights and under all conditions. Diving from a tacketa-tacketa long board into a jade green swimming pool, and framed for one heartbeat in silhouette against the pale blue sky. Dancing in a white ball gown, low across her tanned breasts and trailing the floor behind her. Kneeling in the garden behind her house, dressed in shorts and a sleeveless pale green blouse, wearing gardening gloves and holding a trowel, laughing, with dirt smudged on her nose and cheek. Driving her white Porsche, her auburn hair blowing in the wind, her eyes bright with joy and laughter.
The dream, the Dream, became to me much finer than reality, oh, much much finer. And in the Dream there was no haste, no hurry, no fear. Delia and I were in love, we were lovers, though we had not yet actually gone to bed together. I was calm and confident, slow and sure, feeling no frantic need to seduce my Delia now, now. I knew the rime would come, and in our tender moments I could see in her eyes that she also knew, and that she was not afraid.
Slowly we learned one another. We kissed, I held her tight, my arm encircled her slender waist. I touched her breasts and one moonlight night on a deserted beach, I stroked her lovely legs.
How I loved my Delia! And how I needed her, how necessary an antidote she was to the increasing bitterness of my days.
It was Mr. Miller, of course, who disrupted my days thoroughly as Delia soothed and sweetened my nights. Our store was soon unrecognizable, most of the older employees gone, new people and new methods everywhere. I believe I was kept on only because I was such a silent enduring victim for Mr. Miller’s sarcasm, his nasal voice and his twisted smile and his bitter eyes. He was in such a starved hurry for the presidency of the firm, he was so frantic to capture Willis & DeKalb, that it forced him to excesses beyond belief.
But I was, if not totally immune, at least relatively safe from the psychological blows of Mr. Miller’s manner. The joyful calm of the Dream carried me through all but the very worst of the days in the store.
Another development was that I found myself more self-assured with other people in daylife. Woman customers, and even the fashionably attractively newly hired woman employees, were beginning to make it clear that they found me not entirely without interest. It goes without saying that I remained faithful to my Delia, but it was nevertheless pleasurable to realize that a real-world social life was available to me, should I ever want it.
Not that I could visualize myself ever being less than fully satisfied with Delia.
But then it all began to change. Slowly, very very slowly, so that I don’t know for how long the tide had already ebbed before I first became aware. In my Delia’s eyes — I first saw it in her eyes. Where before they had been warm bottomless pools, now they seemed flat and cold and opaque; I no longer saw in them the candor and beauty of before. Also, from time to time I would catch upon her face a pensive frown, a solemn thoughtfulness.
“What is it?” I would ask her. “Tell me. Whatever I can do—”
“It’s nothing,” she would insist. “Really, darling, it’s nothing at all,” and kiss me on the cheek.
In this same period, while matters were unexpectedly worsening in the Dream, a slow improvement had begun in the sore. All the employees who were to be fired were now gone, all the new employees in and used to their jobs, all the new routines worked with and grown accustomed to, Mr. Miller seemed also to be growing accustomed to his new job and the new store. Less and less was he taking out his viciousness and insecurity on me. He had, in fact, taken to avoiding me for days at a time, as though beginning to feel ashamed of his earlier harshness.
Which was fine but irrelevant. What was my waking rime after all but the necessary adjunct to the Dream? It was the Dream that mattered, and the Dream was not going well, not going well at all.
It was, in fact, getting worse. Delia began to break dates with me, and to make excuses when I asked her for dates. The pensive looks, the distracted looks, the buried sense of impatience, all were more frequent now. Entire portions of the Dream were spent with me alone — I was never alone in the early nights! — pacing the floor of my room, waiting for a promised call that never was to come.
What could it be? I asked her and asked, but always she evaded my questions, my eyes, my arms. If I pressed, she would insist it was nothing, nothing, and then for a little while she would be her old self again, gay and beautiful, and I could believe it had only been my imagination after all. But only for a little while, and then the distraction, the evasiveness, the impatience, the excuses, all once more would return.