Free The Sunday List of Dreams by Kris Radish Page A

they both laugh again.
    Connie looks at Mattie, her temporary muse, a modern crusader for the individual rights of a woman, artist to the masses, friend to traveling and confused mothers, and she feels a bizarre sense of security. She slips the business card into the back pocket of her jeans and knows, like a mother would know, that if she called this woman, if she said she needed help or directions or a ride, Mattie would come to rescue her in a second. More communion.
    Before they get off the plane, Mattie cannot help herself. She leans over and pulls what she can of Connie’s hair in some kind of funky new direction, the left side to the right and the right side to the left, and reminds her that she has an appointment for the following evening.
    “I’m serious,” she insists, hugging Connie as they move into the terminal. “If you don’t come I’m going to find you at Diva’s and chase you through Manhattan with scissors and a bottle of dye in my hand.”
    Connie kisses her on the cheek and then stands in place for a few seconds, not just to look around but also because she isn’t sure what she is going to do next. Get a taxi, obviously—but then what? The airport is a whirl of business travelers, men and women walking and talking on cell phones, people sitting in chairs and working on computers, restless children being yanked through the narrow hallways and past stacks of candy bars, potato chips, and magazines. Connie watches it all, a little mesmerized by the hurricane of activity, wondering where everyone is going, who they are when they take off their polyester jackets and, when they land, how exactly do they do it. “How will I do it?” Connie asks herself.
    Fighting the urge to call O’Brien, who might order her right back onto the airplane or encourage her to become a Rockette, Connie follows the signs at La Guardia and wanders to the main floor where the taxi signs point her towards the sidewalk. She stops and fishes out of her pocket the address of Diva’s that she found in Jessica’s files, realizes that if she is going to show up at the store before it closes, she’d better stop hesitating and get moving.
    When it is her turn for the taxi, she gives the address to the driver, a tall African-American who is almost too beautiful to be a man. Connie says, “It’s called Diva’s,” and the driver winks, shakes his hips seductively, and opens the door for her as if he is ushering a goddess into the back seat of his yellow cab.
    “What the hell am I doing?” she asks herself again as the taxi pulls out into the pre–rush hour traffic that is already beginning to snarl and snap to a chorus of beeping horns which make her laugh.
    And so Connie Nixon, nurse to thousands, mother to three, friend to many, murmurs “What the hell,” as her yellow taxi eventually slides to a stop in the long shadow of Diva’s Divine Designs. She sucks in her breath and walks forward as if she knows exactly where she is going.

1. Stop being afraid.
    7. Recapture Jessica. Find Jessica. Hurry, Connie, but start slowly. Find your baby.
    C onnie Nixon wants a cigarette. The craving rises inside of her like an unseen volcano erupting with a surge of unexpected want, pushing against her lungs, riding her like a cowboy in Bozeman, Montana, forcing her to focus as if she is about to commit a crime and needs every ounce of her strength not to do it.
    “Shit,” she whispers as she paces like a nicotine junkie outside of Diva’s. Actually, Connie is just to the left of Diva’s, behind a series of newspaper boxes and a light pole, and under cover of a long umbrella that has cast a shadow large enough to hide every cowboy in Montana, not just the ones in Bozeman, as well as a confused, slightly dazed, and incompetent-feeling mother from Cyprus, Indiana.
    Nurse Nixon is trying to think. She is trying to figure out what to do, how to do it, what to say, when to say it. She hasn’t had a cigarette in 23 years, except on those