#ch: rachel o'connor

[motownfiction]

dream

Whenever they take trips – and as a family of eight, it’s not often – Will and his sisters always tell each other what they dreamt about on the first night away from home. It’s something their mom started when Rachel, the sister born right after Will, was about three. She had a hard time adjusting to different environments, and talking about dreams, hearing the silliness, learning new stories … it made her feel better. Will remembers how it made him feel better, too.

Being away from home doesn’t usually bother Will. His room in the basement gets boring, and he likes to find out what other places have in store. So, when Dad announces they all have to drive to some tiny town in Indiana because one of their distant cousins in Indiana is getting married, Will doesn’t hesitate. Maybe it’ll be a weird redneck wedding, but who cares? Mom’s going to take them to see James Dean’s headstone, and if Will gets a good picture, Lucy will love him for it.

The O’Connors stay at a great aunt’s house before the wedding. Sarah complains because she has to sleep on a terribly hard and uncomfortable couch, but at least she doesn’t have to sleep on a weird egg crate foam like Will. He doesn’t do much sleeping, though he does remember his dream. And he can’t wait to share it.

At breakfast, Will nudges Rachel with a piece of bacon.

“Hey, Rach,” he says. “What did you dream about last night?”

Rachel makes a face.

“Are we doing this?” she asks. “I thought we were done with that.”

“Why would we ever be done with it?” Will asks. “Like. Hey, watch this. Hey! Sarah! What did you dream about last night?”

“I dreamt I was forced to marry that kid in your class, the tall redhead,” Sarah says. “What’s his name again?”

“Kevin.”

“Yeah, him. And if you tell that to anyone, I will kill you and bury you next to James Dean. You hear me? James Dean.”

“I don’t think James Dean was the threatening part of that sentence, but OK.”

Will turns back to Rachel.

“See?” he says. “Sarah’s cooler than all of us, and if she can tell us what she dreamt about, you can, too.”

“Yeah, Rachel!” Sophie, who’s eleven, chimes in. “I dreamt about giant grapes.”

“What were the giant grapes doing?” Rachel asks.

“I don’t know, but they did not want me to eat them.”

Sophie laughs at her own words, and Molly, her nine-year-old crony, laughs twice as hard. She flaps her hands in excitement.

“Me next!” Molly says. “I had a dream about Kanga and Roo from Winnie the Pooh. They wanted me to come live with them, but I stayed home.”

“Good call,” Will says.

He fixes his eyes on seven-year-old Claire, who looks more excited than anyone.

“Claire,” Will says. “How about you, kid?”

“I dreamt about Mommy,” Claire says. “But she was wearing a chicken suit and running around, going, ‘Cluck, cluck, cluck!’”

And even though it comes from the mouth of a seven-year-old girl, the whole table of O’Connor siblings bursts out laughing. Even Rachel.

“Are you sure she was just saying cluck?” Sarah asks.

“No, I’m not!”

They laugh even harder. Will turns to Rachel, who’s wiping her eyes a little.

“OK,” he says. “You’re the holdout. Rachel Ann O’Connor. The reason our mother started this tradition in the first place. What did you dream about last night?”

Rachel sighs.

“I dreamt about James Dean,” she says. “Only he wasn’t dead.”

Her face turns about as red as Jim Stark’s Harrington jacket, and Will knows he probably shouldn’t press her anymore.

“What about you, then?” Rachel asks. “The real holdout. What did you dream about last night?”

Will shrugs. It’s easy. There’s a reason he wanted to talk about dreams, after all.

“I dreamt we were all really, really old,” he says. “Even Claire. And I dreamt we were sitting around a table, talking about what we dreamt last night. I don’t know. It was cool.”

He looks at Sarah for approval. Her smile tells him that he’s got it.

“Claire,” Sarah says, “when Mom comes in here, I need you to tell her about that chicken dream. OK?”

“OK!”

Will sits back and watches his sisters laugh with each other, at each other, around each other. He doesn’t know how long it will be like this, but he hopes it’s a very long time. Not every guy in the world gets to spend this much time with this many cool girls. Sisters, friends, anyone. He hopes that never stops – that there are tons of cool girls to come.

That’s the real dream.

[motownfiction]

scorpio

On the first day of first grade, when the students are clumped together according to their astrological signs, Will asks Lucy what it means to be a Pisces. She says it makes him a dreamer. Somebody with a big imagination and a big heart. Somebody emotional. He says he doesn’t think that’s him. Doesn’t want to be emotional. Lucy shrugs at him, but for years, Will never forgets.

He’d divorce himself from being a Pisces if it didn’t seem to mean so much to Sam. They all became friends on account of being Pisces, and if it weren’t for that fact – that very incidental fact – Will wouldn’t have fallen in love with Lucy. It’s nice and all, but Will’s pretty sure he would have found another way to love her. He just doesn’t want to be emotional. Doesn’t want to be anything close to uncool.

Around tenth grade, he and a couple of his sisters get around to talking about their signs. They all had Ms. Cunningham for first grade, too, and she still groups kids together based on astrology. Sarah was in the Libra desk clump in ‘71; Rachel was in the Aries desk clump in ‘75. Will says he’s always resented being a Pisces. Says he doesn’t feel like one. He doesn’t sit around imagining things. He doesn’t know how to paint or play music. He likes watching movies and listening to Bowie and The Who, sure, but it’s not like the rest of them. They’re artists. Will is just the artists’ friend.

Rachel says he ought to check out his rising sign. Will doesn’t know what the hell that means. Rachel is in eighth grade and going through an astrology phase right now, so she says a bunch of words that the rest of the family doesn’t know. As it turns out, a rising sign is supposed to tell you what you’re like in front of other people. Apparently, Rachel is also an Aries rising, which means she’s doubly aggressive, a double warrior (“In what war?” Sarah asks, all in jest, and Rachel ignores her). She goes into her room, takes out some weird-looking chart, and figures out that Will is a scorpio rising.

“That sounds familiar,” Will says. “Feels like something Sam said once.”

Sarah makes a face like she knows something Will doesn’t (and, until college, won’t).

“What’s it mean to be Scorpio rising?” Will asks.

Rachel puts her nose into the weird-looking chart.

“It says you’re mysterious,” she says. “The strong and silent type.”

“Like John Wayne,” Sarah says.

“Or Matt Dillon,” Will says immediately, thinking about what Lucy likes.

“No, he’s an Aquarian,” Rachel says, and Will and Sarah give her a strange look. “What? I read Superteen. It’s important to him.”

Sarah rolls her eyes and encourages Rachel to put down the fan magazines and pick up a Patti Smith record, but Will thinks about being a Scorpio rising. Mysterious. Strong. Silent. All the things he wishes he could be and all the things he’s not.

Because he’s a romantic Piscean. Great big blue eyes and a great big breaking heart.

And he’s going to have to live with that.

(part of @nosebleedclub october challenge -- day xxiii!)