That night I slept sporadically. I flopped around on my bed like a dying snapper in a bed of ice, but I didn’t feel like I was in any bed of ice. Even with the AC roaring away I woke up a few times so drenched with sweat I finally pointed the vents of the air conditioner downwards to hit me on the bed with its full frigid force. When I woke up, I couldn’t remember any of my dreams. I wasn’t sure if I’d seen Zat, but I seriously doubted it. No headache.
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It was dark and rainy all day which fit pretty much with the gloom of my mood. When we drove through the gate that morning, Earl told my dad it was a good thing, we needed the rain. It’s funny because it rained almost every afternoon, but apparently that wasn’t enough. In California, it never rained during the summer and we didn’t seem to need it. It made me think that nature gets greedy, like people. Whatever it gets used to, it always wants more.
The clubhouse was empty most of the day, so Bing took some time off in the morning and left me alone in case someone showed up. Of course, no one did, so I just read, wrote, and checked my email. Mai emailed me a “surprise” in the form of an attachment which I didn’t want to open on the work computer. Her message said something about having a lot of time on her hands at work that day, with no customers coming in because of the rain.
And the real surprise was an email from Perry. He just wanted to know how I was doing and to let me know he was thinking of me. He’d been writing a lot and asked if I was doing the same. I immediately emailed him back, glad to have his friendship again, and hoping that’s what he was really offering.
In the afternoon, only three friends showed up—Alonso, Kiet, and LaShawn. The others probably canceled because of the weather, but these three had their own reasons for showing up in spite of it. For Alonso, it was his mom. For Kiet, it was Mattie Lynn. And for LaShawn . . . well I think LaShawn just hoped he could still go out and play in the pouring rain. He clearly loved tennis, and he was a natural at it.
But the courts were too wet to play, so the mentors without friends went home. The rest of us sat inside, drank cokes, and watched videos of old tennis matches on the clubhouse television. At one point, Alonso fell asleep during the video, his head on the table. LeGrand looked like he was about to join him.
Mattie Lynn was so disgusted with LeGrand’s inattention she threw a tennis ball at him and it bounced off the side of his head and rolled into a corner. It was the first truly spontaneous act I’d ever seen Mattie Lynn commit and it made me smile, although at that point I was identifying more with the nappers. I was right there with them after my sleepless night. The white noise of rain on the roof didn’t help my alertness level either. Everything felt so heavy. The whole day was like that.
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When I got home I went right to my computer to check Mai’s surprise email attachment. I waited for the image to download and then opened the file. A beautiful drawing, which I could tell was Mai’s artwork, filled my entire laptop screen. Unlike some of her other work I’d seen, this one was done in full color. A guy and a girl, their backs to the ocean, heads tilted toward each other with shy love in their eyes.
It didn’t surprise me that Mai caught me so well on paper. She took everything in and was such a talented artist. But the way she drew Zat was what amazed me. I didn’t realize how closely she was listening to the details of my crazy dreams. And I was astounded at how she could take my words and create such an awesome image. It wasn’t just his looks that were exactly right on, it was the whole feel of Zat. She’d captured him perfectly.
But that wasn’t all, even though it would have been enough. Behind the two figures, where you’d expect to see a setting sun, a lizard boy rose from the ocean only visible above his waist. He stretched forward like Neptune across the waves with one twisted hand resting on Zat’s shoulder and the other on mine, as though he was bringing us together and protecting us at the same time. The scaly amber skin and the reptilian features—it was just as I remembered the last time I saw Zat.
Seeing it all in front of me like that brought my dream to life. It made everything real for me. Dreaming about him, thinking about him, even talking about him to Mai, that was one thing. But seeing him with me, that was something else. I sat in front of the image for probably about twenty minutes. I didn’t even know what I could say to Mai. Any words I had would be insignificant compared to the gift she’d given me. When my sleep-heavy eyelids blurred the picture in front of me, I loaded the glossy photo paper into the printer and pressed PRINT.