15. Thompson, Motif-Index of Folk-Literature, Type T92.4, Girl mistakenly elopes with the wrong lover.
16. Thompson, Motif-Index of Folk-Literature, Type P427.7.2.1.1, Poets and fools closely allied.
When your cell phone rings in the late afternoon, you know what’s happening before you pick up. You do not believe in psychic powers, but still, you are certain.
“I need to know this is real,” she says when you pick up. “I need to know that you’re in this for real.”
“I am, I am.”
“I just broke up with Val,” she says. “It’s just—it’s just clear from what’s been happening since she moved that this won’t work between us. We’re gonna stay friends, of course, and she adores you. But she’s going to go back to the East Coast.”
You email Val, feeling strange. She writes back: “I hope eventually we can be really good friends. I want to be in your lives for a long time.”
Afterward, you feel happy. Then you feel guilty for feeling happy, then happy again. You’ve won the game. You didn’t know you were playing, but you’ve won the game just the same.
From now on, it will just be you and the woman in the Dream House.15 Just the two of you, together.16