Lydia Netzer - How to Tell Toledo from the Night Sky

But Sally wouldn’t submit to the separation. She insisted on calling Bernice every day from the pay phone in her dorm’s lobby, using quarters and dimes by the handful. She took a class, her freshman year, for a humanities elective called The History of Astrology. Topics covered included ancient gods, the birth of constellations, the overlap of the faith of astrology with the science of astronomy. The teacher, a graduate student, was a professed clairvoyant, an astral projector, a mystic.

“Go to the island,” he would say at the end of every class, his way of signing off on his lecture. “There you will find me.”

It didn’t take long for Sally to stay after class and ask what island he was talking about in central Michigan, and from there it was but a short step to them lying in bed next to each other, his hand on her wrist, taking her pulse, his voice in her ear, coaching her.

“I’m dreaming, I am aware; I’m dreaming, I am aware; I’m dreaming, I am aware,” he said.

She repeated it.

“There is an island in water so blue, it’s like emerald.”

“Emeralds are green,” whispered Sally. “Is it green water?”

“Okay, like a sapphire,” continued Dean, without breaking his tone.

“That’s better,” Sally said, giggling.

“Shhhhh,” Dean urged her. “Let your mind become quiet. Let your mouth become quiet.”

“My mouth has a harder time than my mind,” she whispered.

“You don’t have to whisper; there’s no one else here,” he said in a normal tone.

“I’m sorry,” said Sally. “It’s just … show me again.”

Sally stretched her long body next to his and then really tried to still it and settle down. She was so restless, even in bed. Even after what he’d called tantric sex.

“There is an island in water so blue it’s like a sapphire,” he began again. “The island has palms waving in a light warm breeze, and a sandy beach as white as snow.”

“Or pearl,” Sally whispered. “To continue the gemstone theme.”

“Relax your mouth,” said Dean.

“OK.”

“Relax it so much that words stop coming out of it.”

“Maybe we better tantric again,” said Sally. “I don’t think I’m getting it.”

With Dean, she never did get it. But the idea took root, and she brought it to Bernice.

“I miss you!” she said to Bernice on the phone.

“You don’t have a boyfriend?” asked Bernice.

“Well, I do have a boyfriend.”

“Is he boring and stupid?”

“No,” said Sally. “He’s actually pretty wonderful. As a professor, I mean.”

“Naughty,” said Bernice without inflection. “I suppose that makes it hot.”

“Well, he has all kinds of strange ideas.”

“Like having sex with a nineteen-year-old girl?”

“He’s not that old. He’s twenty-three.”

“So he’s a lecturer, not a professor.”

“He’s my teacher.”

“I see. Glad you went to college so you could learn to sleep with older men.”

“Not that kind of teacher! He’s teaching me the history of astrology. And astral projection. And he does have this thing he does, tantricness, where the guy doesn’t even ejaculate, just goes and goes on and on forever.”

“Forever?”

“He’s had a ten-hour orgasm before,” said Sally. “Because nothing ever comes out, so it’s never really over.”

“You are attending the University of Michigan, are you not? Haven’t transferred to the Edgar Cayce School or the New School for the Education of Nascent Prostitutes without telling me or your parents?”

“Astral projection could mean we could see each other.”

“We’ll see each other at Thanksgiving.”

“No, I mean see each other all the time. Like tonight. In an astral plane.”

Bernice stalled.

“Are you there?”

“Yes,” she said.

“I miss you, my little purple bag. I just want to try this. Come on, I miss you so much. I just want to see you.”

Bernice swallowed. “OK, what do I have to do? Burn incense? Ingest substances?”

“No,” Sally continued joyfully, her laugh booming across the phone lines. “It’s all in your mind! I know we can do this! Listen to how it works.” And she proceeded to relay Dean’s explanation of lucid dreaming word for word, although all her attempts at sharing dreams with Dean had failed.

It didn’t work for them either at first. They spent a whole month falling asleep in their separate states, meditating on their intention to join on a subconscious plane that manifested itself as a basketball court. Dean’s tropical island felt too cliché, and anyway Dean might be there. The basketball court was a place with which they were both familiar—Sally as a player and Bernice as a spectator. Bernice visualized taking her place in the stands, looking up, and seeing Sally practicing free throws from the line. Sally visualized dribbling down the court, turning her head to the left, and seeing Bernice in the bleachers.

It was something they both tried very hard to do, while chanting “I’m dreaming, I’m aware, I’m dreaming, I’m aware.” Sally had them doing other ridiculous things like counting their fingers whenever the clock was on :00 or :20 or :40. The idea was that if finger counting became a habit in waking hours, it would pop up in dreamland, too, and in dreams you never get ten fingers or toes. Observing this weirdness is a way to alert your brain you’re dreaming. Then you’re dreaming and you’re aware.

At Thanksgiving the girls met back in Toledo, fully awake. They laughed about astrology and the stuff they were working on, but Sally had a stack of books on various mystical topics for Bernice to read, checked out from the University of Michigan library and not due back until after winter break. With Bernice’s father traveling, they had Thanksgiving dinner at Sally’s, and then went to bed under Sally’s bright blue sheets in the bed where they’d had so many sleepovers, in a time that now seemed long ago.

Sally had a hard time falling asleep, and kicked her feet around petulantly, trying to get comfortable.

“Quit it,” said Bernice. “You’re going to bounce me out of this thing.”

“Tell me a story,” said Sally. “Make it good. I can’t keep my legs still.”

“OK,” said Bernice. “But you have to close your eyes. And if you kick while I’m telling the story, I’m quitting.”

Sally obediently closed her eyes and crossed her ankles over each other, to keep them quiet.

“Once upon a time,” began Bernice, tracing Sally’s eyebrow with one finger, first the left one, and then the right one, “there was a man. His wife of many years had died and left him and his three sons to fend for themselves in a harsh world of commerce and sport. He was a builder of buildings, and a strong, tall man with curly godlike hair…” Here Bernice let her finger slip along Sally’s hairline, smoothing back the little hairs that curled there, like on a baby’s forehead. “But he was sad because he was all alone.”

Sally let out a great sigh and rolled onto her stomach. Bernice knew this meant she was almost ready to go to sleep.

“Scratch my back,” Sally suggested.

Bernice dragged her fingernails down Sally’s back through the T-shirt. Then she worked her nails back up to her friend’s shoulder in little spirals, then back down the other side.

“Story,” said Sally drowsily.

“Somewhere in another part of town, there was a woman with three beautiful daughters. They all had lovely golden hair. Their father, the woman’s husband, had also died, leaving her lonely and sad as well.”

“Great story,” murmured Sally. “I think I want to kill myself.”

“Well, one day, the lonely woman ran into this lonely guy, this fellow, let’s call him, probably in the supermarket,” Bernice went on, her fingertips contracting and spreading slowly over Sally’s spine, up and down from her neck to the waistband of her shorts. “And they immediately knew that this was much more … than a hunch.”